RIFLE RANGE BOY

Society of the Snow (La sociedad de la nieve, Spanish; 2023) Director: J.A. Bayona We have discussed this movie before. Check here . This is yet another version depicting one of the greatest human stories about survival. On October 13, 1972, Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 flew over the Andes from Uruguay to Chile. It was carrying 45 passengers on board, mostly Uruguayan rugby players. It crashed into the most inaccessible part of the mountain. Presumed to be dead by the authorities after failing to find them in their search-and-rescue, the 29 initial survivors were left to fend for themselves. A few died due to their injury, and some in an avalanche that ensued. Exposed to the element and having no food to eat, they had to use the last of their survival skills, teamwork, and spiritual faith to hang on to their dear lives. When food became non-existent, somebody suggested that they eat the remains of the dead. Initially, the passengers thought a rescue mission would ensue. After seeing ...

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...

There Mohammad was all up cheery in the morning. One more week, and he will be off back to his hometown. His sister was to get married, and he needed to earn extra cash to spend with his childhood friends back home. Off he went answering the requests as the e-hailing app requested. The Klang Valley sun was getting hotter as the day went on. By 2 p.m., he thought he had enough. He would do one last delivery and call it a day. For his latest job, he had to ride to Shah Alam to deliver some foodstuff. “Waze sends me through Elmina to reach, okay!” He told himself. “After that, I can call a day! After all, it’s his childhood friend Amin’s birthday.” He was just reminiscing all his times from kindie to adulthood. After losing Amin to the many gruelling challenges in life, they rekindled their friendship through a mutual friend. They just did not have enough of each other. Stories of so many years cannot be completed in a single session. Tonight they plan to continue where they had stopped. ...

Downfall: The Case Against Boeing (2022) Netflix documentary Whenever I see the tagline at a particular private medical centre that reads "We Care", I cringe. I tell myself that it should be reading "We Care, right! - Only for your money!" Somehow when a business entity says such a thing, it sounds ingenuine. More and more, we notice these foolhardy manoeuvres hiding behind informed consent and pages of indecipherable agreement terms. Multinational companies move in with their big budgets and high-rolling executives to portray an image of purity and magnanimity, teaching smaller firms how to practise fair trade. In reality, they are no more than fly-by-night snake oil salesmen who would disappear at the crack of dawn. Over the past few years, the shenanigans of Boeing, the mega-conglomerate which made more than half of the world's planes, has come to light. First, in late 2018, a brand new Boeing 737 Max belonging to Lion Air of Indonesia went plunging down into...