RIFLE RANGE BOY

Baby Reindeer (Miniseries, E1-7; 2024) Director:  Weronika Tofilska & Josephine Bornebusch (Based on the autobiography of Richard Ladd)  I learned a new term today: main character syndrome. In a world where only I, me and myself, which people really care about, it is logical for people to think that they are indeed at the centre of the Universe. The sun and all the planets revolve around them. They naturally become the main characters in a story they narrate. Even though the story is their point of view, it looks like the other characters are just there to fill up space without giving any substance to the story. This is what the other characters in this true story are saying. This story is about a shy Scottish lad, Donny, who wants to be a comedian. It is an autobiography, actually. To sustain himself, he works as a bartender. In the course of his work, he meets a friendly lawyer whom he finds interesting. He is not much of a comedian, really. He is not funny. Nobody ...

©Elanour Tomlinson We are often advised to say only the nice things about the recently departed. Somehow, all the ill feelings and the wrong paths crossed are temporarily swept under the proverbial carpet. Everyone, including the ones who tend to benefit from the deceased's passing, is expected to carry a sombre outward appearance - wear a sad face, dress down and avoid merriment.  After the so-called mourning period, it will be pretty much no-holds-barred, I guess.  But now, even before the dead are laid to rest, the wokies are already at it. I am referring to the recent demise of one of the longest reigning monarchs of the once most enormous Empire of the world, where the sun never set. True, she inherited a bounty of loot from the world over. At one time, pirates scaling the Atlantic high seas were free to pilfer gold from Spanish vessels legitimately under the auspices of the British Crown as long as they paid their dues to the monarch. True, they went out with their impe...

The Lady of Heaven (2021) Directed by Eli King (pseudonym) When a controversial figure like Sheikh Yasser Al-Habib writes the script of a movie, one can be pretty sure that it will kick up some dirt. Just for the record, Al-Habib, a Kuwaiti Shia cleric, was imprisoned in Kuwait for 35 years when he insulted the companions of the Prophet back in the early 2000s. After obtaining a royal pardon from the Emir of Kuwait, he resided in the UK. He lost his Kuwaiti citizenship in 2004 when he stated in his speeches that the Prophet died not because of an ailment but after being poisoned by His wives! Al-Habib apparently has made a hobby out of insulting Sunnis. In the UK, he continues his controversial stance and has been accused of being a divisive figure and one-minded in creating a rift between the Shia and Sunni denominations of Islam. As a head of the Shia community, he regularly appears in the media for all the wrong reasons accentuating the Shia-Sunni divide. This movie is pregnant with...

This weekend would see meaningless parties and stupifying merrymaking in the name of a monarch who is synonymous with opulence and redundancy. There cannot be a worse time to glorify a family when the rest of the world looks at entitlement as a bad word. The idea of a person, by his birth, being feted up to high heavens despite all the scandals that have linked with the royal family does not make any sense. It is worse when the ruling monarch takes the helm as the head of the Church of England. Nothing looks pretty when we talk about their predecessors' curriculum vitae or past glory. Her laurels include legitimisation of robbing non-British merchant ships of their gold and silver, giving a royal seal to pirates to loot the Spanish royal armada of their wealth,  allowing famine deaths in their subjects (just because they are brown) to feed their soldiers and brutally murdering millions in the name of civilising the natives. Yes, the Platinum Jubilee of the longest-reigning British ...

Des (TV Mini-series; 3 episodes, 2020) This dramatisation of a 1983 real case from the police files of a seemingly boring man who carried out gruesome murders of equally unimpressive men in a most deliberate manner. He is credited to have killed at least 12 men. An ex-army cook with a short stint as a policeman and a civil servant invites young men to his apartment, makes them inebriated, kills them in various manners, and disposes of them in equally grisly ways. His activities came to light when a drain was blocked. Police were called in when human remains were discovered. The suspect, Dennis Nilson, is quite nonchalant about all his pursuits. He boasts about his crimes and even speaks to an author in the hope of publicising his feats.  The murders and the investigations were later described in a best-seller titled 'Killing for Company'. The TV series shows how all the police investigations and this case, in particular, left a bitter after-taste in his mouth in the chief inves...

Years and Years (BBC, Miniseries; 2019) Season 1, Ep 1-6. It started with the  £1 Tshirts in the mid-1990s. Everyone knew it was ridiculously cheap, but nobody saw the need to create a ruckus about it. The businessmen took the lion's share of the profit while the poor workers who put it together took home a few pennies. The buyers did not complain as it was a bargain. The workers did not either. They were thankful that they had a job to go to. After many years, they were able to see some money. That was the beginning of the divide - the divergence between the haves and the have nots. It went on to create obnoxiously rich conglomerates. With the spread of the world wide web to all corners of the world, global netizens were hooked. They were lulled with the dopamine of social media influence and the lure of aimless spending. People were cooped in the comfort of their echo chamber, looking into the eyes of the fellow humans but into the abyss of their monitors. Perched in their ...

My Generation (Documentary; 2017) This documentary is mainly about the rise and demise of the British Invasion generation. It was the time after World War 2. Euphoria was everywhere. Clement Attlee and his Labour Party gave a shot in the arm for the working class people. NHS made medical services accessible to the average Joe. Education became free. The divide between the aristocrat and the common man soon became blurred. The class demarcation became a thing of the past. Everyone has the opportunity to prosper. Clothing became democratised. The normal sombre tone of the garments became strikingly loud and short. Dressing-up was no longer to cover the bare essentials and to keep warm but became a statement of anti-establishment. As it became to generations to come, the generation before thought that the society was heading to a path of decadence and Armageddon was nay. Music became an annoyance to the elders. Rock and roll music could not be contained by the powers that be. The young...

I Hired a Contract Killer (1990) Screenplay, Production, Direction: Aki Kaurismäki When does a person consider himself a failure? Does it happen when he loses his job and is unable to sustain his existence? Or it happens when he realises that there is no future for him, nothing for him to live for? The path in front of him is just an abyss of nothingness with nothing to call his own. His life is hollow, and his interaction with others is just superficial acquaintances which end at the end of working hours or the break of dawn. Is he a loser when he is unable to provide for his loved ones? Does he lose it when the curtain draws on him and the Maker prematurely call him in? Set in the gloomy, dull days of the 70s in the United Kingdom when economic malaise was the order of the day and financial market was in the doldrums, it depicts the story of the Royal Water Works Board clerk who was retrenched. The Board is being privatised and the protagonist, Henri (...