RIFLE RANGE BOY

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 ...

12th Fail (2023) Directed by: Vidhu Vinod Chopra I remember my parents, more expressively my mother, going through the same emotions as the elders in this family. They believed unabashedly that education was the only weapon they could use to break the shackles of poverty and hopelessness. Towards this end, they sacrificed their luxuries, comforts in life, and pride to show off to their peers what they had that their parents did not have. I remember seeing the same expressions in my mother's eyes every time her plans were derailed by inevitable mistakes or inactions. She soldiered on, thinking everything would be solved once her children graduated. Rightly or wrongly, in her mind, a sound education was her panacea to all difficulties in life. With that single-minded determination, no mountain was too high to scale, and no river was too deep to sail. To the economically challenged, education is a more assured and level playing field way to prosper. This biopic is based on an un...

Saltburn (2023) Written & Directed: Emerald Fennel Growing up, we were engrained into our psyche as if being rich was sinful. The bedtime stories and the fables that were fed to us always put the rich guys as the bad ones. The poor guy will always come out tops with their ‘good virtues’. Stories will invariably end with the rich guys repenting or giving all their wealth to charity, which will put them on a pedestal. The miser is a villain. The King who gives all his wealth is good, and the one who is a spendthrift is bad. The vagabond who gets thrashed around will have a good life. The underdog will prevail in the end. We were taught that being poor is favourable and being ambitious is not favourable. We should have a humble and simple life. Wealth is meant to be divided. An individual should not keep too much wealth. Hey, does this not smell of communism? Now, in its own quite bizarre way, this film is telling us what we were taught is all bunkum. Of course, we knew it all the whi...

Sila ay Akin (They are Mine, Tagalog; 2023) Director: McArthur C. Alejandre Amongst the members of the lowest heap of the pecking order, it is said that the community self-regulates itself. These guidelines, called social mores or morality, are allegedly laid down to steer the community to a virtuous way of living. This would appease the Gods as it is the correct thing to do. Its payback can be experienced in the afterlife or the next birth. Paradoxically, the masters' perceptions of good and evil are different. In the eyes of the slaves, their aim in life was to usurp as much wealth as possible and immerse themselves in hedonistic activities. The slaves scorn their master's attitude towards acquiring wealth and their aissez-faire outlook to morality but justify their own fastidiousness as a decree from the divine forces. The unabashed desire for wealth is ostracised as greed. To yearn for the sumptuous spread of delicacies is labelled gluttony, and unsanctioned wanting of sexu...

More than enough people are quick to sneer at India after Vikram's successful soft landing at the Southern Pole of the Moon. On one end, people were quick to say that the whole exercise was a hoax. It is an illusion. Then, others blurted that a country that cannot provide toilets to its citizens and whose population mostly live below the poverty line should not be sending rockets to the Moon (and playing with nuclear bombs). One even threatened to stop monetary 'aid' to India, conveniently forgetting any discussion on repatriation monies after years of looting from India.  Firstly, everyone knows there is no way for everybody to prosper in sync before society moves up one notch higher. Things happen in tandem. There will be people who will have to do catching up, and there will be those who will lose out in the race for prosperity anyway. The only people who believe that the world needs equity are communists. Again and again, it has been proven that human greed surpasses an...

The 4th Beatle? Paul is dead? 🐕 A successful Bollywood star was once interviewed for a podcast. The star had apparently struggled to climb the ladder of success without any connections or dynastic lineage to boost. He delved deep into his humble beginnings as he cosied up to the interviewer. Soon the whole conversation became up, close and personal. The Tinseltown star started reminiscing the times he grew up pathetically poor. The family lived on the poorer side of town. Five family members, parents and three siblings squeezed into a tiny bedroom. A slight cough, hiccup or even sigh would alert the others to inquire whether things are alright. Besides pacifying each other, they would prepare some kind of concoction. Whether the home remedy worked or not, the love shared obviously did the trick. They were closely knit. Jackie Shroff Lady luck dropped in, and stars sparked brightly. With fame and fortune came a big mansion. Each family member had a private bedroom and attached fittings...

Kakka Muttai (Crow's Egg, 2015) Story, Direction: M. Manikandan.  Thanks to JT for the recommendation. All they wanted was to eat pizza. All the advertisements convinced them that it indeed tasted heavenly. It must be valid since even their favourite movie star endorsed it. All the graphic images of fillings of the pizza and sticky cheesy must be an experience to behold, they thought. And they made it their once-a-lifetime achievement to savour one of those. For these two boys from the Chennai slums, paying ₹ 299 for a box of pizza is abominable. After all, for these slum boys, whose father is in jail and mother is at wit's end trying to get him out, it is just a flitting dream. The boys, nicknamed Kakka Muttai, cannot afford to go to school and scrap a living selling coal that drops off a moving train. On a good day, they manage to earn ₹15.  They see their favourite playing ground slowly being cordoned off and transforming into a shop lot and a happening pizza parlour. They ...