RIFLE RANGE BOY

Bitter Lake (2015) Written and Directed: Adam Curtis The latest offering by Adam Curtis puts in perspective the genesis of the present-day firebrand fundamentalistic Islam that seem to rock the world and give other law-abiding Muslims a bad name. The author sets the blame squarely on the Saudi rulers for their efforts to spread Wahhabism. After World War 2, King Abdul Aziz of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) met FD Roosevelt aboard a ship on Bitter Lake in Suez Canal to strike a deal. The Americans were free to bring in money and technology to have their oil as long as the royal family was free to spread Wahhabism to the world. Splurge with oil money, KSA built many madrasahs in many countries, from Africa to the Indian subcontinent all the way to Indonesia. Hence started the nidus for the yearning for the practice of a primitive non-progressive 10th-century type of religion and total rejection imperialism, which is construed as corrupting Islam. Meeting at Bitter Lak...

It Felt Like a Kiss (2009) Screenplay & Direction: Adam Curtis At one look, it reminded you of Billy Idol's music video 'We didn't start the fire!' It is a collection of certain events from our past accompanied by songs from that era. Narration which is the lynch pin of any documentary is glaringly absent. It appears like a series of videos narrating a story and can be described as an experimental film. The film starts in the autumn of 1958 with a scene of a man getting up in his motel to open the window shades to the crooning of a song of that era. The camera shows him lighting a cigarette, feel unwell, perhaps with a hangover or even suffering from melancholy! The snippets continues with inter-playing of various significant events to mankind. In essence, it shows changes in people life style, pop music, America's interference in other country's affairs and the spread of HIV. The theme of the flick is to show how America set about to remake the world...

Mayfair Set (Documentary, 1999) Produced, Written, Directed by Adam Curtis #4 Twilight of Dogs 1987 was a good year for Britain and Mrs Thatcher. Her idea of a free market stimulating the economy seem to be working. So they thought, until Black Monday showed up, wiping out 20 percent of its capital. This final episode tells us how the unhealthy mix of businessmen and politicians produced a ruling system that was corrupt and powerless to the power of the market forces. The bankers became the play makers and could dictate terms. In 1971, the Heath's Labour Government started pumping money into the economy, trying to recreate the Renaissance of British businesses. In 1973, however, they were embroiled into a crash which was worse than the 1929 crash. The leaders then realized that they cannot control the economy. In 1979, during Thatcher's administration, the economy was not controlled and the markets had a free rein. Exchange control was deregulated making money move easily ...

Mayfair Set (Documentary, 1999) Produced, Written, Directed by Adam Curtis #3 Destroy the Technostructure This episode showcases how vulture like businessmen squandered money and power from the Government and established big corporations and transferred them to the stock market. In the process, in the name of enriching the stockholders, they also fattened their profits quite handsomely. After acquiring companies through hostile takeovers, they would sell off their assets, downsize their staff and just destroy the business altogether. That was their modus operandi. 1976 was not just the hottest summer in the UK, it also saw the fall from grace of the original Clairmont club members. James Goldsmith almost became bankrupt trying to sue a newspaper and subsequently left to the US. James Goldsmith He moved in to US at a time when the economy, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, was opening the markets. Power was transferred to the markets. This was a move away from FDR...

Mayfair Set (Documentary, 1999) Produced, Written, Directed by Adam Curtis #2 Entrepreneur Spelt S.P.I.V. ( spiv -  A flashy, slick operator who makes a living more from speculation or profiteering than from actual work. The kind of guy who wears a shiny medallion, goes bankrupt from a dodgy swampland development scheme, but still has a big house in his wife's name .) Jim Slater Is yet another angle of looking at how businessmen and gamblers gambled away the British economy. The 1950s saw the rise of Captain's of Industry who were owners of big family businesses that spearheaded the industrialization of the nation. These captains worked with politician to prosper the nations. Jim Slater, a newspaper columnist who wrote under the nom de plume of The Capitalist thought he had found the perfect system to analyse the market. The boom of the economy in full scale in the late 50s and he was making loads of money. He realised that the family businesses were not really ow...