RIFLE RANGE BOY

Woman in the Window (2021) Woman in the Window (1944) After watching the 2021 version, which was entirely predictable, with a lot of screaming and display of feminine gusto, I also decided to view the 1944 one. I knew in the mind of minds that the older one, which has the classic black-and-white collection of nuances of acting and beautiful dialogue, will be a head-turner. I was not wrong. There have been many rip-offs of Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 'Rear Window'. If Steven Spielberg was taken to court for making 2007 'Disturbia', I wonder what they say about this. If in 1954, James Stewart was homebound after picking up a fracture while photographing, here in 2021, a psychologist, Dr Anna Fox  (Amy Adams), is confined to the four walls of her apartment complex due to a bad case of agoraphobia.  We later learn that she had lost her daughter and husband in a nasty car accident during a winter retreat. She is the lone survivor, testing out a new medicine that may give sid...

I always wondered what is it that maintains order in our lives. What ensures total silence in the cinema when the movie is starting? What is it that assures that the viewers in an art gallery do not go around touching their exhibits with their dirty stubby fingers? What forces a patient to pay at a clinic after a consultation and the customer settle his bill after enjoying (or hating) his meal? They can jolly well just scoot off, now that their mission is accomplished.  Well, it can happen with the occasional client who refuses to pay, but that is not the norm. Perhaps he is dissatisfied with the service or just because he can. Rather than creating a scene and draw unwanted publicity, the service provider would probably write it off as miscellaneous loss of doing business. To the rest, they know the long arm of the law would get them. They know that as the majority support orderly running of life transactions, they would not garner support against a sea of law-abiding supporters no...

Jallikattu (Malayalam, 2019) Director: Lijo Jose Pellissery A simple story of a raging buffalo which escapes the slaughterhouse forms the basis of this film. Many in the village are dependent on the buffalo - for the butcher, it is money that it can fetch; for the rival group, it is free meat for their taking; for gangsters, it is a time to show their machoism; for the father whose daughter is getting engaged, he needs to feed his guests; for the ex-convict, it is time to settle a score with the butcher, and the pastor needs to feed his congregation. Jallikattu is primarily a Tamil tradition, where brave youngsters in a celebratory mood try to tame a raging bull to clutch on to the bag of coins tied to its horn. Hence the name; Jalli @ Salli meaning coin and kattu is a tie-bag. This practice was started as a form of finding the best bull to improve the stock of cows in ancient times. Unfortunately, over the years, it has become a blood sport of sort. Bulls were drugged, and their eyes ...