RIFLE RANGE BOY

K.G.F. Kolar Gold Fields, Chapter 1 (Kannada, 2018) It is touted as the highest-grossing Kannada film, the fourth highest-earning Hindi-dubbed film after the Bahuubali movies and 2.0, an international success and was feted at the National Film Awards. It was dubbed to Hindi, Telegu, Tamil and Malayalam almost immediately after its Kannada release with much success. And Chapter 2 is in the making. Am I missing something here that everyone else seems to enjoy? And, to say that this is one of the films that give people a reason to watch movies coming from the South, as quoted in a blog and recommended to me, is just too much. Just how many times have we seen a child wronged at childhood to grow up with vengeance against the rich and the powerful as mighty as Sri Rama himself to be a Robin Hood to the poor? How many times have we seen unknowns infiltrating into gangs just to disintegrate the whole setup from within? Think Nayagan, Thalapathi and the umpteen Bollywood and Kollywood pro...

The Web of Debt (The Shocking Truth About Our Money System And We Can Break Free) Ellen Hodgson Brown, JD. I grew up confused. On one hand, I was told to live within my means, to balance my income to my expenditure and to ensure that there is always something for savings. Being in debt was frowned upon. On the other hand, on the other side of my family, living on credit was a way of life. Nothing wrong to borrow, they would say. Even nations take huge loans. In the modern world, it seems that one is deemed to be rich by his assets but the properties are leveraged by debts. In other words, he is only as rich as much as he can pay the interest on his debt. Money begets money and the poor get poorer. The divide between the haves and the have nots becomes more apparent as the days go by. One small hiccup in this set-up and the house of cards comes down crumbling.  Nations that have secured high amounts of loans apparently have a higher credit rating on their credib...

Bombshell: The Story of Hedy Lamarr (2017, Documentary) “Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.”  Hedy Lamarr.  I bet you did not know that the image of Snow White that we have in our minds, thanks to Disney's classic cartoons, is based on the features of the then dubbed as the most beautiful woman of the world, Hedy Lamarr. Even Catwoman's representation is of hers. There was a time when every actress wanted to spot her similar hairstyle, centre-parted dark hair. Beneath the beauty that she possessed, there remained an inventive scientific mind waiting to create something new. This Viennese daughter of a Jewish banker, Hedy Kiesler, was a free-spirited lass when at the spur of the moment acted in a dirty German film, 'Ektase' which bewildered her the rest of her adult and professional life. She married an arms merchant (to the Nazis and Mousillini) soon after her fame at Austrian movie set later. Things took a turn afte...

My father used to buy the lottery tickets and 4D numbers religiously without fail in the hope that one day the Goddess of Prosperity, sitting on a golden lotus would one day shower her petals of wealth in abundance on him. As far as I know, he had never won anything big or small in these gambles! Being as secretive as he is, maybe, he did but he never told anyone of us! Just the other day, there was a feature article on Mamak restaurants in the Sunday papers. It narrated how the Mamaks have literally landscaped how, when and what Malaysians eat. They kowtow to all the whims and fancies of their customers, poor or rich, as long as you have money no matter how small your purchase is. All they want is your money (don’t everybody?) and the cheap immigrant workers are there to dance to the tune of the customers all day long (and night as some are 24-hour restaurants) to receive abuses from customers whilst the fat bosses buy more gold for their wives and prosper them. In their zes...