RIFLE RANGE BOY

Annapoorani (Tamil, 2023) Writer-Director: Nilesh Krishna Some flashbacks from my childhood. You go to the Indian barber. He has an opinion on everything. He proudly boasts that everyone bows down at his command, and he has his clientele by the throat. Sure, people do that when they need a haircut or a shave. What he gets is insider information from the horse's mouth. Then you go to your neighbourhood 'teh tarik' joint. Again, the shop owner knew everything. He knew about last night's football results, why Malaysia failed miserably, about inner dark secrets about Malaysian cabinet ministers, you name it. These two people knew everything: how to run the country, how to schedule garbage collection, and even how to win an election. One thing neither can do is what they set up shop for, to cut hairstyles that they claim to be able to do and make a decent tea respectively. A thing well done is worth doing. When my OTT algorithm suggested the above movie for viewing, I gave i...

The Menu (2022) Director: Mark Mylod Back when Master Chef and Gordon Ramsay's 'Hell's Kitchen' were a rage in Malaysia, I used to ask myself what the farce was all about. I could not understand why the chef had had his honours stripped off or what was wrong if the fries were slightly soggy or the meat was overcooked. After all, food is medicine, and we eat to live, not live to eat. Obviously, none of the people at the receiving end of my lament saw any merit in what I was blabbering. To them, culinary skill is an art form. In fact, they thought it was science, a branch of science more delicate than neurosurgery or detonating a time bomb. On top of knowledge of alchemy, art was the essence of luring potential gluttons. An episode of 'Hell's Kitchen', or sometimes 'Master Chef', carried so much toxicity and backstabbing as wannabe cooks scrambled to stir up cuisine in record time. They had to do that with the provided ingredients in the most creative ...