RIFLE RANGE BOY

Pistol ( Disney +, miniseries; 2022) Director: Danny Boyle Thanks to my English language in Form 1, my friends and I were exposed to this British punk band. That, I think, is the role of a teacher - to expose the young minds to the real world, not just what is in the syllabus. Most teachers just wanted to finish their teaching plan and ensure that students were prepared for the public exams; KSG (Kiss Some Girls, he boasts) went that extra mile. He would tell us quickly excitable 13 and 14-year-old pubescents about the birds and bees. Somewhere along the way came the story of 'The Sex Pistols'. That was my first exposure to the Pistols, but only in name. The fact it was banned by the British Broadcasting Corporation made it even more fascinating. The jester of class JL used to croak out 'God save the Queen' with an obvious sexual connotation, much to the annoyance of KSG. At that juncture, I wonder if KSG thought that he should have stuck on to the syllabus. To this and...

Cruella (2021) We were introduced to Cruella de Vil in Disney's '101 Dalmations' (1996). At that time, it appeared as a comedy a weirdo lady with a funny  flamboyant sense  of dressing and two fumbling henchmen with their disastrous attempt at dognapping dalmations for their skin. This 2021 offering is a prequel of sorts, tracing Cruella (as her previous alter-ego Estella) to her birth, her subsequent loss of her mother and growing up in the streets of London as a petty thief. Estella was born with a half depigmented scalp of hair. Brought up by her single mother, he harboured ambitions of being a fashion designer. Fate had other plans. Her mother died while meeting someone in a big mansion, and Estella had to run for her life.  The story then goes on to show how Estella starts off as a cleaning lady in a high-end boutique, impressing a particular cranky fashionista Baroness von Hellman and being employed as her assistant in typical rags to riches story. After discovering...

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) It may be a thrilling experience for a diehard MCU fan. For an average viewer, however, it may just be another a superhero movie of a young boy with too much raw power in his hands. How many times have we been confronted with a superhero with the dilemma of doing the correct thing with the unique ability that he had been conferred? And in how many outings have we seen Spidey's wooing of his beau, Mary Jane? This time around, the story writers had taken us to a time when Peter Parker was still in school before his stint as a part-time journalist with the Daily Bugle and his daily tiff with his editor J. Jonah Jameson.  In keeping with the sensitivities of the times, MJ is no more the blue-eyed, high cheek-boned orthodontist-treated wannabe blonde actress  but a fellow classmate of the member of the minority group. For good measure, the producers had resorted to race-swapping to pacify all quarter. A hijab-clad fellow student and an Oriental...