RIFLE RANGE BOY

Mindhunter (Miniseries, S1-2, 19 episodes) Director: David Flincher et al. Growing up, being exposed to all those Hollywood movies and T.V. crime dramas, I used to wonder why was it that they were so many serial killers in America. Fast forward to the present, not necessarily much wiser; I think this type of crime is evenly distributed worldwide. As people become aware of such psychologically-related killings, more get exposed. It used to be that crimes and murders happened because of money, women, power and anger. Now we have another component to feed, our unexplainable inner desire to inflict pain, destroy and gloat in the joy of executing, planning, reminiscing, reliving the moment and being in the limelight dodging it.  One reason why serial killer murders can be extensively investigated in the USA and Europe is the availability of funds and manpower. Even years after the cases have turned 'cold', there is a push from society to continue investigating these cases. The State...

Shutter Island (2010) Director: Martin Scorsese Back when India was a newly independent nation, its Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, was officiating the opening of a psychiatric hospital in New Delhi. As part of his visit, he did a walkabout. All its inmates were excited to have a PM visiting them. All of them were standing smiling, waiting for Nehru to speak with them, except one. He was sitting in a corner, looking away, staring into space. Nehru approached him.   "Hello, how are you?" told Nehru. "I am the Prime Minister of India. How do you find this hospital?" The man slowly turned around, lifted his head to look at the Premier, and replied, "Yeah, that is what I thought when I first arrived, too. Don't worry, they will give you medicine, and you will be alright!" That is how it is. There is a thin line between reality and insanity, which is detachment from reality. It is all about perspective. Imagine telling the world that someone is wat...

Old Boy (Korean; 2003) Director: Park Chan-wook It looks like we are walking around like hypnotised beings, doing what is taught to us. We were coached to hold specific values close to our hearts because that seems the only correct way to live our lives. Again and again, we are drilled with these ideas to give a sacrosanct feel to it. In a way, we are all zombies walking around doing things expected of us. The funny thing is that nobody knows what is expected from our existence. We are told that, unlike other creations, humans are given that unique sense called consciousness that puts us apart from animals. Hence, there is a need to follow specific rules. Living life by preset man-made rules must be difficult. Failure to conform carries a baggage load of guilt, and the results may not be most welcoming. Anger toward one's own self may cause malady of the mind. Anger towards others will invoke the very primitive primal desires that we kept suppressed as we become more 'civilised...

Drive My Car (Japanese; 2021) Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi Based on Short Story by Haruki Murakami I have not read any of Murakami's works; I guess I should. His body of work is said to reflect the deep, dark corners of human consciousness. After watching this highly engaging movie, I think I should engage time to appreciate his writings. As in all good movies, the viewers are clueless for a good one hour into the film. I was wondering where the story was going. Why was the protagonist, Kafuku, a theatre actor, who was acting in 'Waiting for Godot', keeps driving around? Why did he not react when he caught his wife, Oto, sleeping with another man? What is this about Oto and telling stories? Then there is the history of a dead child. And then the wife dies too. Two years on, Kafuku is on a directing stint in Hiroshima. The company insists that they hire a chauffeur for him to drive his 1987 Saab Turbo. The chauffeur, Misaki, a young 20 something woman, seems to carry a massiv...

100 humans (Netflix, 2020) This could be one of the series which one can  skim  as he undergoes house arrest during these trying times of combating Covid-19. Even though the show brags of trying to answer all of life's questions on humans and their behaviours through its social experiments, it is, by no means, cerebral.  The Guardian labels it as one of the most worthless reality-experiment-pseudoscience show in history. Perhaps, it is a bit unkind to label it such, but some of the experiments that the show do are quite outlandish and their conclusions simplistic.  Some of the life questions that the show asks include 'What makes Us Attractive', 'Best Age to be Alive', 'about the Battle of the Sexes', 'Biasness of Society', 'Happiness', 'Pain versus Pleasure' and 'Distrusting our Senses'. One of the bizarre assumptions here is that the ability of a male to dance is indicative of attractiveness, hence, potentiall...

We were told to surrender to the care of the shepherd. We should trust him unconditionally, for he has your best interest at heart. He is selfless and would not call it a day until the last sheep is accounted for. He would not harm his flock. Every member of the herd, small or big, meaty or skinny, young or old, is equally important to him. He will not rest his head until every member is safe and sound. So we were told. And it made perfect sense then. Pack your worries, fold it and give it for safekeeping with the shepherd. He would guide us through, and we would be safe. We will be saved. Now that we have crossed the hurdles, we become conceited. We think all these successes are our efforts, ours alone.  When we are told of the good shepherd and their noble intentions, we ask them to think of the true nature of his plan. He has no altruistic purpose. His sole aim to fatten his pack. Every sheep lost is lost revenue. His seemingly caring attitude is merely to fatten us to pr...

Sometimes (Sila Samayanggil, Tamil, சில சமயங்கில்; 2018) Netflix We consider ourselves one step better than a stranger standing beside us. We gaze at them through our rose-tinted glasses when they are unaware and draw our own conclusions on their moral standards and codify them either 'good' or 'bad'. All these changes immediately the moment there is an imminent danger or a potentially life-consuming event in the near future. Imagine a group of passengers in a cruise who are stranded in a terrible storm, have lost all radio contacts and just waiting for time to sink if help does not arrive in time. In that scenario, everybody put their prejudices aside, treat each other as equal and try to face the common enemy. This is the scenario that the filmmakers are trying to create. Seven patients are waiting anxiously in a sparsely populated lobby for their HIV results. Each patient has their own story that brought them to get their blood tested - an ex-girlfriend dying...

Derren Brown: Netflix special (2018) Push, Sacrifice Darren Brown calls himself a psychological illusionist. He devises elaborate scams with his team of actors, engineers, stuntmen and others to influence his subjects to willingly perform heinous crimes or sometimes unthinkable sacrifices. He does all these with just suggestions as if the subjects are doing it at their own free will.  In an episode named 'Push', four people are shortlisted from a pool of applicants to help out in a charity event. He used the famous test where applicants stand up at the ring of a bell without any rhyme or reason to pick his choice. This is a classical experiment done by psychologists to illustrate that humans are mere unthinking conformists. To cut the long story short, three out of the four candidates that Brown selected could be coaxed to push a man off the edge of the roof at the order of a person in authority. This result is comparable to the Milgram Experiment in 1963 to illustrate o...

That is the danger of self-teaching oneself of philosophy. One tends to garble everything up and develop his own 'brand' of philosophy. It cannot be such a wrong thing, on the contrary, since no two philosophers can completely agree with each other. Whatsmore, even students and masters have parted ways upon minor disagreements. Think Plato and Aristotle, Freud and Jung, you know what I am talking about. Even with time, a particular interpretation can morph, perhaps as an afterthought or in keeping with the flavour of the era. The scope of the field of philosophy itself has evolved over time. If before it used to encompass everything under the sun and beyond, mathematics, grammar and sciences included, it is now agreed that it covers knowledge, life and existence. Since the journey of life does not come with a preset map, I guess that it could be sailed anyway we like as long as we live and let live. Let everybody navigate his own route.  I always thought Plato ...