RIFLE RANGE BOY

Kadaram Kondan (கடாரம் கொண்டான், Tamil, Conqueror of Kadaram; 2019)) Young Malaysian adults of the 1980s must be quite familiar with the umpteen times concerts by foreign artistes that were initially launched with much pomp and splendour only to be cancelled later by the powers that be. The storyline would be the same. The youth wings of some political party would oppose to performer's lifestyle or decry that the performance would spiral down the society into a web of decadence. Just so as quickly as the excitement started, it would just fizzle out until another organiser risks a similar venture and burns his fingers. Our loss would be our neighbours' gain. The performers would quickly change their venue, and the deep-pocketed would have no qualms to catch their icons there. The list includes Chicago in 1990s for their long hair, Megadeth in 2001 for the negative image of their mascot, Beyonce in 2007 for her short dress, Inul Darashista in 2008 for her tradem...

Alex in Wonderland (Tamil-English, Tanglish, Prime; 2019) At the turn of the last century, the culture of standing on the stage, at the mic and making fun of people spread from Tinseltown to the East. The likes of Seinfield and Rodney Dangerfield must be the source of this culture. The idea of standing on a stage and rambling must have found a new place amongst yuppies after a perceived long days' work at the office. Standup comedy has found a special place amongst who by nature, especially those from the Indian subcontinent, are thought to have the gift of the gab and the dubious reputation of being able to sell ice to Eskimos. Many stand-up acts have come from India. I particularly like the self-deprecating Praveen Kumar and the Oxford-trained MBA product Papa CJ who insulted the British in a show in London for colonising India! Alexander Babu is another entertaining artiste from Tamil Nadu. His shows are not the typical comedies, but this engineer by training who gave up h...

Unbelievable (Miniseries, Season 1. Netflix, 2019) The epilogue in a Twilight Zone episode in its first season titled 'The Monsters are Due in Maple Street' goes like this... The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices – to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill – and suspicion can destroy – and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own – for the children – and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is – that these things cannot be confined – to the Twilight Zone. It tells of a Martian experiment where a junior alien officer explains a scheme to create chaos on Earth to his superior. He suggests planting the seed of doubt to weaken and win over Earthlings. Planting a seed of doubt is a dangerous thing. This uncertainty breeds suspicion of conspiracy. Putting two and two unrelated events suddenl...

Sometimes (Sila Samayanggil, Tamil, சில சமயங்கில்; 2018) Netflix We consider ourselves one step better than a stranger standing beside us. We gaze at them through our rose-tinted glasses when they are unaware and draw our own conclusions on their moral standards and codify them either 'good' or 'bad'. All these changes immediately the moment there is an imminent danger or a potentially life-consuming event in the near future. Imagine a group of passengers in a cruise who are stranded in a terrible storm, have lost all radio contacts and just waiting for time to sink if help does not arrive in time. In that scenario, everybody put their prejudices aside, treat each other as equal and try to face the common enemy. This is the scenario that the filmmakers are trying to create. Seven patients are waiting anxiously in a sparsely populated lobby for their HIV results. Each patient has their own story that brought them to get their blood tested - an ex-girlfriend dying...

Nadigaiyar Thilakam (2018) People do a lot of things under the guise of love. They justify wrongdoings and rationalise breaking of sacred bonds with the same excuse. They sanitise guilt by saying that love conquers all. They give love such a status as if it is the one that maintains human civilisation and makes the world go around. In short, love moves mountains. Love is Grace. Love is God. Perhaps love has been over-glorified. If we were to dissect love into subsets, maybe then the true intentions may manifest. A rose in any language may smell the same, but its thorns hurt, nevertheless. To be fascinated, to admire, to have passion, to desire, to have devotion, to like, to lust, to obsess, all denote different degrees of love. The end results in the pursuit of these ambitions may not always be a happy ending.  This film is a biopic drama of the darling of the early 1960s' Tamil silver screen, Mrs Savithri Ganesan. Savithri landed in Kollywood in the 1950s as a starry-eyed y...

The Erotic Engine:  How Pornography Has Powered Mass Communication from Gutenberg to Google (2011) Author: Patchen Barss Pornography has always been frowned upon as the destroyer of civilised societies. It has been put in the same decadent basket of other vices of man including cheating and gambling. On the contrary, the idea of voyeurism goes back as far as our cavemen ancestors. They had been so fascinated with human anatomy, like excited schoolboys and toilet graffiti, that they decided to draw what they saw during the day on the wall of their dwellings. The early human civilisations were quite liberal with sexuality and nudity. Ancient sculptures of couples in various stages of undress and in acts of copulation are general knowledge. The Indian book of Kamasutra is the living proof of this. Even as late as the European Renaissance, the human body was immortalised in paintings. Science and technology propelled the human race forward to meet various challenges. It helps ...

Super Deluxe (2019) Story and Direction: Thiagarajan Kumaraja Gone are the days when Tamil movie stories were rather two-dimensional. It used to be that there was a bright, distinct demarcation between characters. Everything was black or white; they were either good people or bad. And poetic justice would prevail at the end of the film, proving once again that the dharmic principles of life would be upheld. If you are one of those who is looking for a break from making daily-altering life questions to see gyrating bodies to soothing melodies nowadays, look elsewhere. I just happened to bump into this movie by chance as I was scrolling down the Netflix menu and saw one of my favourite actors, Ramya Krishnan in a leading role. I got hooked from the first scene itself. A young wife calls her ex-boyfriend college mate over for some hokey-pokey for old times' sake as her husband out on errands. Soon after passionate lovemaking, the lady discovers her lover stiff hard, out cold a...