RIFLE RANGE BOY

Suzhal 2: The Vortex Season 2, 8 episodes https://www.indiatoday.in/entertainment/ott/story/ suzhal-the-vortex-season-2-trailer-kathir-takes-on- gripping-murder-mystery-with-aishwarya-rajesh- 2682271-2025-02-19 This is not a continuation of the previous season, even though the main characters resume their roles, but with a new mystery to solve. While the accused remains behind bars awaiting trial, her defence lawyer, a vocal activist, is shot in the head. While the police are investigating along the lines of suicide, new evidence emerges indicating that the lawyer must be part of a paedophile ring racket. Just then, eight young teenage college girls turn up at various police stations, admitting to having killed the lawyer. In the background is a month-long local temple celebration honouring eight local deities. At the temple, the activist lawyer, a devout believer, had stopped some toes when running the temple celebrations.  Further investigations suggest that a well-executed kidn...

Adolescence (2025) Miniseries (4 episodes) https://kinocheck.com/show/s23/adolescence This miniseries has everyone buzzing. It is likely regarded as the most surreal creation to grace screens since 16-year-old Linda Blair portrayed Regan MacNeil in the 1973 film, The Exorcist. This is Netflix's latest blockbuster offering. The subject matter is undeniably dark, involving a 13-year-old student murdering a fellow female student as a result of cyberbullying.  The miniseries features the filming of each episode in a single shot. While it may feel sluggish at times, this approach enhances the story's immersion as the case unfolds. The essence of the story begins with a police raid to apprehend a teenager suspected of murdering another teenager. From that moment, it evolves into a police procedural drama as the legal system processes the accused. It showcases the overwhelming emotions experienced by everyone involved: the police officers, the supportive staff, the lawyer, the social ...

Squid Games 2 (Korean; 2024) Miniseries, E1-E7. Continuing with  Season 1 ,  Squid Game (SqG) moves into a new set of games featuring a fresh group of players. Admittedly, SqG 2 is not as captivating as its predecessor. The storyline is predictable, and viewers can easily discern who will survive and which characters will likely be eliminated.   Nevertheless, while engrossed in the miniseries, I noticed that the entire storyline symbolises the challenges Malaysia's thinking voters face regarding democratic governance under their duly elected government. To provide context, the games in SqG2, much like those in SqG1, involve teamwork and lethal consequences for the losers. An amendment was made to the clause allowing players to vote on whether to proceed to the next game. After each match, the accumulated betting money increases. If the players, by majority, choose to discontinue, the funds would be divided equally, and the games would be halted. Humans, being inherently h...

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez (2024) Netflix miniseries I learned a new word today: parricide. It is the act of killing one's parents, sometimes as a universal term to include murdering relatives. It is not peculiar to our modern times by no stretch of the imagination. All through human civilisation, children have been killing the hands that fed them, directly or indirectly. Ancient Indian scriptures have numerous accounts of patricide. The Greeks, Babylonians and the Norse were not far behind. Even though the Mughal emperors had to kill to grasp the throne, the most they did was kill their siblings, like how Aurangzeb, the militarily savvy son of Shah Jahan, is said to have masterminded the brutal killing of his brother, Dara Shukoh, the tolerant one liked by the subjects. Aurangzeb did not kill Shah Jahan. He merely dethroned him and kept him in prison till he died. King Asoka, who advocated the Middle Path of Buddhism, did not follow the path of passivity. He had to kill ...

Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare (Documentary; 2024) Director: Lyttanya Shannon This is an unbelievable case of catfishing that went on for ten years. It was initiated by a close relative for no apparent reason. For those out of the loop, catfishing is a new way to deceive the unwary by creating a fake online profile and building a relationship. The profile will use fake pictures, and the final modus operandi is to swindle people of their money. No money was transacted to add more perplexity to the situation narrated in this documentary.  Kirat Assi invested her ten youthful years in a long-distance relationship with a social media character whom she thought was an acquaintance with whom she had one casual face-to-face contact. The guy, Bobby Junda, was the brother of her second cousin's boyfriend.  All the people in the story are from the small Kenyan Indian Punjabi community in the UK. Kiran had a fallout with her childhood boyfriend when she was about 30. She had her life ...

IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack (Hindi, miniseries. Ep1-6) Director: Abhinav Sinha It was the last Christmas season of the 20th century. The airports had not yet begun instructing passengers to remove belts and shoes before check-in, as the Twin Towers had not yet fallen. A simple hand wave would suffice to get one to the boarding area. That was the situation at Kathmandu airport on Christmas Eve 1999, when Indian Airlines flight IC841 departed for Delhi at around 4 p.m.  Forty minutes into the flight, as they were entering Indian airspace, a masked passenger entered the cockpit (yes, it was not a security zone then). Just as a steward entered to serve drinks, the masked passenger put a knife to the steward's throat and announced that the plane had been hijacked. Indian air traffic control was informed; however, the information did not filter down through the chain of command appropriately. Bureaucracy and apathy were to blame. After all, India had just fought a war in Kargil a few mon...

Lady in the Lake (Miniseries) Season 1, Episodes 1-7. An intriguing miniseries set at a time when Black Americans had an understanding with Jewish Americans. Even though Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation to declare all slaves to be free, in reality, the Blacks still received the short of the stick. In so many instances, they were discriminated against. The law was not in their favour either. The Blacks had to prosper by themselves despite the restrictions. Some beat the systems and joined the mainstream, while others prospered through an alternative economic system. The evidence of their successes includes the Harlem Cultural Renaissance in the 1920s and the numerous legislative gains through the efforts of the NAACP (North America Association of Colored People). Many of the African-American associations worked in tandem with many Jewish bodies. The Jews also felt the discriminatory vibes of the predominantly Anglo-Saxon majority of America. The earlier interactions between ...