RIFLE RANGE BOY

  Sound of Freedom (2022)  Director: Alejandro Monteverde This movie drew a lot of flak from either side of the spectrum. People over the subject matter put forward in the movie cry foul over the lack of publicity about this movie. On the other end, those who stand by the belief that the whole talk of the existence of secret pedophilic prostitution is bunkum are up in arms. They cannot believe that Tinseltown is pandering to conspiracy theorists. It does not help that it is the third highest-grossing film in the US after Barbie and Oppenheimer.  On one end, big studios had malaise, like Fox and later Disney, which bought Fox to get off the ground. It had to be purchased by a small independent studio funded by crowdsourcing and the excellent work of Mel Gibson and the movie star Jim Caviezel, who played the protagonist Tom Ballard. For a long time, during Trump's tenure, a strong lobbyist swore to the presence of an entity called QAnon. Nobody could pinpoint who QAnon actu...

Fundamentally Happy (Singapore; 2015) Director: Yuan Bin Lei & Bee Thiam Tan Writers: Haresh Sharma &Alvin Tan I would have not given this film a second look if not for the fact that somebody mentioned that this Singapore film got the boot from the Film Censorship Board (LPF). It was initially done as a play and was staged in Kuala Lumpur without much fanfare, but as a film, a no-no. So, when someone mentioned that it was screened on  Mubi , I grabbed the chance. The censors gave for prohibiting screening because the film contains "elements that may be sensitive to the feelings of Malaysian Malays and may be interpreted by Malaysian Malays as an attempt to reflect the community's attitude towards those who abuse the weak to fulfil their desires". This ridiculous statement given by the powers given the cloud what the general public can be exposed is as absurd as what a retired Malaysian judge had said in a public address, that a particular Muslim cannot be charged ...

Cuties (Mignonnes, French; 2020) Back in secondary school, my friend AK, and I were engaged in an in-depth discussion on the topic of American situational comedies which later became to be  abbreviated as sitcoms. AK was adamant that the depictions of teenagers, then in family dramas, were detrimental to the behaviours of people. The fighting back, the rudeness, the promiscuity of teenagers, the docile nature of parents were bound to have change on the local society. This would happen even though the storyline would indicate poetic justice at the end. Even though good virtues would prevail over bad, viewers tend to remember the bank heist rather than how the robbers suffered for their feat - their unsettling life whilst being on the run and the incarceration later on. The same thing happened in this film. Even though the movie's storyline is genuine in highlighting the current societal obsession in adultification of preteens, the cinematography and wardrobe departm...