RIFLE RANGE BOY

Leave the World Behind (2023) Director: Sam Esmail (based on the novel by Rumaan Alam) A Tamil proverb goes like this. 'Never live in a town without a temple'.   The main structure of a Hindu temple, specifically those from Southern India, which is placed above the central area, the sanctum santorum, is a gopuram. On top of the gopuram is a golden vessel containing nine types of grain.   Besides being a lightning conductor, the gopuram is a storage area for various grains for use as a starter pack in the event of  a major catastrophe, like massive flooding when seeds are destroyed or even a nuclear meltdown. These reserves are said to be good to use for 12 years, after which they have to be replaced. In temple nomenclature, the act of replenishing new seeds is a kumbabishegam . With everyone in their comfort zone, having the illusion of being in control of it all, they built certain biases around them. They confirm their biases by reading materials reinforcing these preco...

Knock in the Cabin Director: M. Night Shyamalan Interestingly, the throb of the world's end and a man riding a white horse is a recurring theme in most eschatological studies. We all know of a leader with 666 tattooed on his forehead who would be the proverbial anti-Christ who would ride on a white horse. Then there are the four Horsemen who would be riding in to right the wrong of a decadent world on the brink of extinction. In Kalki Puranam, the end of kali-yuga will be marked with events signifying the loss of piety and goodness the world over. It will be climaxed with the total annihilation of Earth. The Big Bang would have reached the point of entropy. The reset button would be initiated for time to restart. Lord Vishnu would assume his last avatar, Kalki, to expedite this process by slaying the terrorising asuras. Again, Kalki would be marching in on a white horse. Kali-yuga will be replaced with Satya-yuga. Graham Hancock's research suggests that time is cyclical. One m...

Don't Look Up (2021) Director: Adam McKay That is the problem with the modern world, is it not? Nothing gets moving. Everything gets hijacked along the way by self-interests, personal agendas and public image. Trivialities are rewarded, and no one gives credence to knowledge and intelligence. Social media just gives an illusory comfort to the Joe Public that he is in control of everything. This becomes a fertile ground for conspiracy theorists and fringe movements that are hellbent that there is a higher plot to annihilate our civilisation as we know it. It seems that movie stars and singers are prerequisites to get public services messages across. Slowly, these things are unravelled in how the world deals with the Wuhan pandemic. It seems that for every innovation that the scientific community comes up with, there is an equally opposite move to convince the public on the contrary. Science, which had saved mankind from major catastrophes many times before, is no longer held in high...

The Eternals (2021) Director: Chloe Zhao The story is actually an amalgamation of many stories, folklore mainly. After all, most world mythologies have almost a similar theme. See how often babies are left to float in a vessel by a river to escape persecution. Moses survived Pharoah's persecution and was adopted by the Pharoah's daughter in a twist of fate. Karna was left off by his unwed mother in Mahabharata to escape humiliation, only to be adopted as a charioteer to fight his younger brothers later! And see how everything comes to an end, in Armageddon, or when Kalki descends from his horse at the end Kaliyuga. Gilgamesh So, how did Judea-Christian mythology get intertwined with Hindu mythology? Simple. After destroying the First Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, Jews were taken as slaves and brought to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar and subsequent Persian conquerors. They spend 48 years in Babylon imbibing the Indus culture into their, hence, the cross-overs. King Cyrus freed them fr...

The Story of God (Documentary, Seasons 1 - 2; 2016-17) Hosted by Morgan Freeman I do not think nobody will think differently after watching this documentary which was released by National Geographic. Everybody is too entrenched in his belief system to be swayed away just seeing the singular purpose of all religions as seen here. Perhaps, cognitive dissonance would come in the way. I think the moderator took a very unbiased and non-condescending approach when it came to extracting knowledge from various other non-dominant world religions. Kudos. He goes discussing many life questions that have no answers. Topics on death, the end of the world, the beginning of all, the mysterious God, the creations, the genesis of evil, divine miracle, the concept of God's chosen representatives, the notion of heaven and hell as well as proof of God comprise the nine episodes in two seasons. The fear of death must have given the fear of death in humankind. Even with the available advances...

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) When a virus enters a body, the body core temperature increases to kill off the invading offender. In that tussle, either the host or the virus dies. So when the world becomes over-populated, Mother nature tries to maintain equilibrium. She causes global warming and significant catastrophes. In that manner, people are killed, and homeostasis is preserved. That is the basis of a mad internet billionaire developing a SIM card which he distributes free to everyone. He preselects a set of people for his new world, and he then activates the SIM card for the rest of the world to whack the living daylight out of each other and virtually self destruct each other. In the end, the mad man plans to start a human civilisation all over again. The storyline sounds outlandish. Well, it is cartoonish too. It reminds you of the 1996 flop 'Mars Attack!' Kingsman is a brand of a custom-made man clothing line which also has a band of suave secret agents w...

Noah (2014) The forbidden fruit always taste sweeter, they say. This film is banned in many Muslim countries as it is not acceptable for a human being to portray a prophet. From a production viewpoint, I think the film is of high quality with complex computerised graphic imaging. The main character, i.e. Noah, is made to appear very human and complexed. Even prophets do not know why they were sent to Earth for and which is the best path that they should take to be the correct path. There is no direct guide but decisions have to be made on hunches and signs which they would like to think as a nod from the Creator. I remember hearing about Noah during my days in Sunday School. Of course it was very simplistic and was not layered or convoluted. Noah had a dream, God told him to build an Ark through a dream, get all the animals, people around him laughed at him, it rained 40 days and 40 nights and the bad people perished. Then we would all break into a song... "The wise built his ...

One Summer of Happiness (Hon Dansade En Sommar;1951, Swedish) I do not know how I landed viewing this film, but this is one of those films that earned Sweden the reputation of being very liberal in their outlook. Its release met many resistance and controversies because of a scene of skinny dipping and exposure of the mammary gland. As controversy also courts publicity, it was feted with a few international accolades. A tearful young man arrives at a funeral where the pastor admonishes the seducer of the dead lady to be tied a millstone around his neck and cast into the sea. The tearful man runs into fields and reminisces the last summer that ended. Not your typical farm girl with rotten teeth and stinking like a cow as described by the protagonist's city friends! Goran, a university student, a town boy, returns to his uncle's farm for summer to spend some time there. He befriends Kerstin, a 17-year-old girl at the farm. Goran gets close to the youths in the countryside and ...