RIFLE RANGE BOY

Indrani Mukerjea: Buried Truth (2024) Docu-series, 4 episodes. From the land of the Veda and the Arthashashtra comes an intriguing case of a missing person, which has remained unresolved to date. In the land that believes that every nasty action has a compelling reaction with the belief that no evil deed will not go unpunished in this birth or next, perhaps punishment could only be meted out in the next life. In 2008, The Wall Street Journal hailed Indrani Mukerjea as one of the 50 ladies to watch, and India conferred her with the award 'Uttar Ratna' for her outstanding work in the art, media, and broadcasting sector. By 2015, she had her hands full fending off money laundering charges and fighting a murder charge. Her past is blurry for a start. Born Pori Dora, her actual birthdate is queried. In her early teenage years in Guwahati, Assam, she accused her father of sexually molesting her. She went off to Shillong, Meghalaya, for studies, where she met her first husband, Siddh...

Auto Focus (2002) Director: Paul Schrader Hogan's Heroes used to be a regular feature on RTM's slot for late-night comedy. It did not leave much of an impression on our minds as it dwelled with something quite uninspiring, in our minds at least. It was about a wise-cracking American General and his staff who were imprisoned in a German POW camp during WW2. They tried to outwit their captors, spy upon them and sabotage their every move. It went on for six seasons.  The main character, Robert Crane, or rather his death, appeared in one of the crime podcasts. Initially a family man and a church-going Catholic, he got the acquaintance of John Henry Carpenter. Carpenter was an electronic techie who introduced Crane to the then-nascent home videos in the 1965s or so. As the film puts it, both developed a symbiotic relationship. Crane, through his good looks and contact with showbiz, got in contact with girls, and Carpenter would set the recording devices to record their sexual acts. ...

MH 370: The Plane that Disappeared(2023, Netflix) 3-part Documentary "Good night, Malaysia 370!" Those were the last words before Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah disappeared with his Boeing 777, 227 passengers from 14 nations and 12 crew members  into thin air in the early hours of 8th March 2014 en route to Beijing. Nine years later, the world is still clueless about how an aircraft as big as a building could disappear without evidence. In an era when we may be at the cusp of discovery of the Higgs boson (God) particle, and we can convict a politician with denatured DNA from semen deposited three days previously, we are still unable to make head or tail to a Boeing plane's whereabouts. All the satellites and tracking devices that monitor our every move simply failed to comprehend its fate after it went off the radar after 0130hrs. External communications and transponder signals simultaneously disappeared after entering the Vietnamese air space. This documentary series has yet...

Agatha Christie's Poirot (S13E05) Curtain: Poirot's Last Case (Final Episode, 2013) This must easily be the saddest of all of Hercule Poirot's episodes. Throughout this episode, the tone set is sombre, and a tinge of melancholy hung around every scene. Times have changed. Poirot is quite ill, arthritic and is wheelchair-bound. He is physically challenged, but his mind is not. His sidekick, Captain Arthur Hastings, is aged, recently widowed and has an adult daughter.  Hastings is invited to the Styles, the place they had solved their first case together. Poirot needs Hastings to be his ears, eyes and legs to complement his razor-sharp 'grey cell' to 'prevent' an imminent murder. The identity of the murderer is only known to Poirot but is kept away from a frustrated Hastings. David Suchet Many deaths still happen during their stay, and together the identity is known only much later, after Poirot's demise! Yes, this is the last case of Poirot, and the fict...

Drishyam 2, The Resumption (Malayalam; 2021) Movie buffs would generally agree that sequels of hit movies rarely do well in the box office, more so with Indian movies—the sequels of 'Koi Mil Gaye', 'Dhoom' and 'Munna Bhai'comes to mind. Somehow, the magic of the original film is lost.  Six years previously, Drishyam , a murder thriller, was released. It was then something of a revolutionary in storytelling where all the loopholes which are usually overlooked were patched and viewed had a chance to appreciate expert movie making at its best. Poetic justice was served when a peeping Tom, son of a high ranking police officer, meets his end at the hands of an outraged mother. The crime is concealed, and the victim was never found, leaving the deceased's parents with no closure. Georgekutty, then, had buried the victim in the place least suspected by the police - under a newly constructed police station! Meanwhile, Georgekutty is now an owner of a movie theatre a...

Unsolved Mysteries (Documentary, Season 15; 2020) Netflix (12 episodes) People always pacify the grieving party to be strong. The truth is out there, and it will eventually surface, they say. That truth will prevail, and the perpetrator will be caught sooner or later. To keep mourning quiet, to give closure, we tell them that justice will be meted eventually; that the long arm of the law will catch up. Nah, these are all stop-gap measures to coo a wailing baby. Some things remain unanswered forever. The parties featured in this series will be a testimony to that. Many of the tragedies that happened to them occurred long ago, but nothing has come their way to put an end to the many questions that have plagued minds. The family members and friends involved in the few cases depicted in the 12 episodes would probably carry their sorrow to their graves, hoping that they would know everything when they reach the Otherside. Disappointed they would be if there nothing on the other realm- just ...

Malaysian Murders and Mysteries  (A Century of Shocking Cases that gripped  the Nation) Authors: Martin Vengadesan and Andrew Sagayam; 2019 This country has its many murders mysteries that could be a basis of many novels or even movies. Sadly, they just even up as conversation pieces at parties or as we group up for our daily fixes of sweetened aerated tea ( teh tarik) at the Mamak's. As most journalists in Malaysia are expected to be not too inquisitive but to act as mere scribes, we are intrigued when crime-reporters with their treasure trove of inside information decide to write a book about murders and mysteries. These stories hogged the newspaper headlines not too long ago. As the dailies were the only portal of information those days, most of us had to make a composite picture of crimes as it is reported or as court cases proceeded at a snail's pace. Besides that, there were tall stories told by individuals who seem to know everything about everybody and e...

Murder at Orient Express (2017) What was supposed to be an Agatha Christie's whodunnit turned out to be highly philosophical one. Sure, we all, by now must be quite familiar with the quirky Inspector Hercule Poirot and his peculiar ways of solving crimes. Here Mon. Poirot carries with him a baggage of a melancholic past and tries to make sense of the actions of mankind; his penchant for criminal activities, his failure to follow the path acceptable as the correct one should be. A single action has many repercussions. A single turn of event that goes against our desires strains our relationships, changes our perspective of the future, increases anxiety, induces phobia, shatters confidence, brings psychosomatic maladies, destroys families literally and metaphorically as well as destroys the whole community in more ways than we realise. All after all the generations of our existence, we still succumb to our primal desires to be blinded by anger and emotions. At the cr...

And Then There Were None (1945) After watching S. Balachander's Nadavu Iravil , the 1965 Tamil movie based on Agatha Christie's story (And Then There Were None, Ten Little Niggers, Ten Little Indians), I decided to go for the Real McCoy. For a movie made in older times, it was quite well paced. Even though they were many characters, all ten of them, all appeared different - all with different traits and idiosyncrasies. They could hold the suspense despite the dearth of colour, gore and loud, frightening musical score. The story starts with eight visitors reaching a secluded island bungalow for the weekend in the middle of nowhere at the invitation of a certain Mr and Mrs U N Owen. The peculiar thing is that the hosts do not show up. Two temporary servants serve them. These ten people are left with the company of each other and communication to the mainland was cut off. All ten visitors, at one time of their lives, were privy or responsible for somebody's death. A jud...

Mulholland Drive (2001) Story and Direction: David Lynch I remember my school teacher telling the class a story about art and artists. A painter once smeared paint over his toddler's bare buttock. He then made him sit a white sheet of paper. What resulted was the silhouette of a perfectly shaped apple. He went on to exhibit his masterpiece which spurred rave reviews and stimulated great literary discourses. What he was trying to say was that behind a masterpiece, there is a story and that sometimes people are fooled by artists! I watched this David Lynch's film with the same thought. This movie was initially intended to be a pilot for a TV series. Unfortunately, it was rejected by the TV company, but they decided to make out a feature film out of it. I think that is why there are many unrelated gaps and seemingly unrelated characters infused into the story. Or am I missing something? Still, these are very reasons this film attracts many interests, spurned multiple viewing...

http://m.historyextra.com/feature/weird-and-wonderful/mysterious-disappearance-agatha-christie?utm_source=Facebook+referral&utm_medium=Facebook.com&utm_campaign=Bitly The mysterious disappearance of Agatha Christie The Guinness Book of World Records lists her as the best-selling novelist of all time, and according to her estate she is outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. But what Agatha Christie is perhaps best remembered for is her mysterious disappearance in December 1926. Submitted by: Emma Mason At shortly after 9.30 p.m. on Friday 3 December 1926, Agatha Christie got up from her armchair and climbed the stairs of her Berkshire home. She kissed her sleeping daughter Rosalind, aged seven, goodnight and made her way back downstairs again. Then she climbed into her Morris Cowley and drove off into the night. She would not be seen again for eleven days. Her disappearance would spark one of the largest manhunts ever mounted. Agatha Christie was already...