RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Apprentice (2024) Director: Ali Abbasi youtube clip There used to be something called decorum, a set of behaviours that everyone agreed upon, accepted as social mores and considered good manners. For example, one does not speak loudly in a library or crack a joke at a funeral.  Now, it seems that all of this is a relic of a distant past. Nothing is taboo anymore.   That was what went through my mind as I sat down to watch this film about the early rise of the current two-time President of the USA, Donald Trump. Narrating anyone's biopic inevitably includes some unsavoury details. With so much information available, much of it questionable in authenticity, how are we truly going to tell someone's story, warts and all, without hurting the sentiments of the person occupying the august seat, or at the very least, without tainting the highest office in the land?   Here we have a film released about the early life of the very person who eventually won the elections to ...

During Trump's second inauguration as US President, a bishop made a direct appeal to the President to have mercy on the LGBTQ+ community and undocumented migrant workers. Trump, in his campaign speeches, promised to go hard on illegal immigration once he took office. Previously, the Biden administration had a lax stance on immigration. Trump also declared that there are only two genders in the USA: male and female, unlike the spectrum of over 68 gender expressions advocated by liberal thinkers.  The decree would automatically make millions of immigrants to the US illegal, and the woke generation is fearful that there would be a witch hunt against the LGBTQ+ community. This issue regarding immigrants coming to America is not new, as far as the world's biggest economy is concerned. It has been ongoing since the Cold War. America has itself to blame for its predicament. America, being the self-proclaimed leader of the free world, took it upon itself to curb the spread of communism...

A Case of Exploding Mangoes Author: Mohammed Hanif On 17th August 1988, President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan was killed in an aircraft crash. Perishing together with him on the Hercules C-130 military aircraft were the President’s close assistant Akhtar Abdur Rehman, American diplomat Arnold Lewis Raphel and 27 others. In the rest of the world, a country owns an army. In Pakistan, however, its Army own the country. In 1976, Prime Minister Bhutto elevated ul-Haq to a full general. One year later, he deposed Bhutto and declared martial law. Bhutto was hanged for treason. Ul-Haq’s 11-year tenure as the Supremo saw him announce Pakistan as a nuclear nation, aided Afghanistan to fight the Soviets and secured himself as a prominent Islamist leader. In a way, he was instrumental in making Pakistan a theocratic country and the rise of global Islamic terrorism. The crash was extensively investigated by many quarters, but nothing was conclusive. The possible theories range from aircraft...

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: 2020 Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Yes, that is the final name to Borat's 2006 follow-up mockumentary. The title went through many name changes; the previous ones were equally ridiculous and ridiculously long. It also has the dubious reputation of incurring the wrath of many Americans (and Kazhaks) and attracting many legal suits. The Kazaks were just as pissed for depicting them as a bunch of village fools ruled by a despotic regime. If one is looking for a Wodehousian type of humour in this offering, look elsewhere. It is a lowbrow comedy through and through with toilet humour, genitals, menstruation and all. It was strategically released before the US Presidential elections and contains some not so savoury depiction of Trump's lawyer and former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, in a hotel room kerfuffle with a young journalist. It is all a prank, and the film is full of it. Borat holds a mirror to th...

That a look at these two Presidential debates, the first one was in 1960 between JFK and Nixon, whilst the second one happened recently in the year 2020. See the vibes surrounding the two debates. Without a shadow of a doubt, there is much professionalism and decency in the former whereas in the latter we only see crass behaviour and lack of common decency. In our formative years, we were taught that to listen and to let another to speak are common decencies. Only the immature and ill-mannered interferes one's conversation we were told. We also trained to fight facts with facts, to argue it out like gentlemen in decorum, without being personal or hitting below the belt. Somewhere along the way, while we were napping, a lot of things changed. The '90s brought in the internet culture and work ethics of the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Workers were expected to dress down to work. Work time needs to be flexible, they said. Jobs is famously known to walk around bare feet and ...

Vice (2018) Violence has always been justified to attain specific agendas. Naturam Godse justified the assassination of Gandhi by invoking the Gita. He substantiated his claim by highlighting Krishna's teachings to the cold-feet warrior in Arjuna to basically carry out the duties that he was born to the world. Unfortunately, not everybody knows the reason for their existence. Some births seem so wasted that one often wonders whether it was Nature's accident. The Universe has had a lousy track record. Violence and destruction have been the mainstay, periodically jostling creations to another jumpstart. Just like how a white lie is not considered wrong, violence for a bigger narrative seems totally justified. In the Crusade Wars, brutal killings of brothers defended as a necessary evil to uphold a divine decree. In the name of race and religion, Man continues to ponder and kill, making excuses as they go. This Oscar-nominated film tells about the life and times of Dick...

They say the silent majority has spoken. They say this is democracy in its full glory. That a single swallow would not make a whole summer. The loud and verbose cannot hoodwink the masses with their rhetorics and statistics. After all, they, the elitists and the deep-pocketed, only make a small portion of the general public. The 99% do not share the same sentiment as the top 1%. They do not care what the foreign policy is or who does what to whom in the name of justice or freedom. They are interested only in bread and butter issues. They want their continued way of life, their style of doing things and their rights. And they saw through the media bulldozing of intelligentsia agenda and meaningless smokescreen. Did they really? Do they not expect some decorum of their leaders, some politeness in speech and inclusiveness in leadership? Are they persuaded by his media presence, his fast talk, his ability to go down to their level to speak their lingo? Some say that people are stupid,...

Welcome to New York (French-English; 2014) I cannot fathom why the doyen, Gérard Depardieu, the name who is synonymous with modern contemporary French cinema would stoop so low as to appear in a meaningless movie like this one. It is no secret that it is a thinly veiled saga of the defamed ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn. There are too many similarities between the two to deny. If one were to think that the film was made to highlight how he was framed, or show another version of how it have happened or how the whole fracas affected his career or his nomination of Presidency, you are in for a surprise. It depicts none of those. As you are aware, this high flying big gun with a soft spot for the fairer sex was to go for Presidency of France. The fact that the the accusation of rape by a chamber-maid in a New York so near before the win event screamed to high heavens of conspiracy theories. However, the film depicted none of the above. In short it was a pure meaningless gr...