RIFLE RANGE BOY

Recently, I caught an obituary announcement on social media. An old working senior had passed on. Even though my interaction with that person was short, it left an unpleasant aftertaste. From his demeanour, I learnt how not to disrespect my subordinates. This person was so vile in his comments during high-level meetings that my boss would ask me or one of my colleagues to accompany him for moral support. His scoldings were so personal that they bordered on testing my department's competence and even intelligence. Everyone let out an air of relief when he was transferred for a promotion. Why a person of such arrogance should be rewarded was the million-dollar question. But then, we were glad that our problem was somebody else's. That was the last I heard of him until the fateful announcement. There it was, the photograph of him with a toothful smile on his face, innocence oozing down his face, and religious symbols below it. It was his obituary announcement. Under that, a long l...

Daddio (2024) Director & Screenplay: Christy Hall This movie would not have hit my radar if Qantas had not apologised to its passengers on a flight to Tokyo for a mistaken screening. A glitch in the system made only this movie being screened in all in-flight entertainment for a whole hour. Qantas specifically apologised to the children for the mistake. The apology must have been because it must have been boring as hell for them. And also perhaps because of two ‘unholy’ sexting images of an erect phallus and a full display of a pair of mammary glands in their full glory.  Not that I am complaining. It is a well-made drama that discusses a very mature subject- what either gender expects in a relationship. This conversation occurs during a cab journey from JFK airport to Manhattan between a twice-married cab driver and his passenger, a 30-something confident lady who is a mistress to a married man with kids. That is it. It starts with the lady (Dakota Johnson) entering Sean Penn's...

Salakab (Fish Trap, Tagalog; 2023) Director: Roman Perez Jr. Do we help others because it is just the most human thing to do? Or do we do it because we may need their help someday? Just because somebody had helped us at one point in time, are we duty-bound to return the favour as and when our help is needed? Should this be done even if it means it would crush our plans to succeed? When we are in a slightly comfortable zone, are we considered ungrateful when we do not reciprocate their request? Do we deserve all the curses hurled at us for being an unappreciative dog? Society has many names for these types of 'traitors'. On the side of the one who helps others, do all the great deeds performed become a fixed deposit that can be broken on a rainy day? Do parents care for their young in anticipation of care in their twilight years? Is the spouse (partner) duty-bound to pay back for services? The film asks the same question in a graphically explicit, eye-pleasing presentation that ...

Love Today (Tamil; 2022) Writer, Director, Actor: Pradeep Ranganathan It is said that the amount of data carried by a mobile phone is equivalent to the amount needed to launch the spaceship Apollo 11. Having that much data, like an appendage attached to our body, cannot be without liabilities. People store way too much muck in there that, at any time, anyone can use it to paint an individual how they want him to be painted. With the same brush, they can be either portrayed as a saint or a devil re-incarnated from the raw data. People, like salivating dogs to a bone, will volunteer their personal information to be used and misused at the sight of dangling freebies. All the promise of privacy is a fallacy. With a few tweaks here and there, the digital trail is at your disposal. This innovative movie highlights this exact problem. Two lovebirds fall helplessly in love with each other. When the boy approaches her father for her hand, the father, a strict disciplinarian, puts the couple to ...

The War of the Roses(1989) Directed by: Danny DeVito Watching this movie again after 30 years gives a different perspective to this movie altogether. In the first viewing, the message I remember taking back was that divorces are nasty affairs. Period. Now, it opens a different perspective of what is going through the minds of each of the involved parties as they execute each move to prosecute and subsequently persecute their significant other.  For those in the dark about this movie, it came about at a time when the trio of Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito was riding high after their super-duper blockbusters' Romancing the Stone' and its sequel' Jewel of the Nile'. The original 'War of the Roses' refers to the feud between factions of English Nobel houses which were eyeing the English throne in the Middle Ages. In this film, however, the war is between the Man and Wife of the Rose family. It starts with a law student, Oliver, meeting Barbara, a ...

Ramprasad Ki Tehrvi (Ramprasad's Final Rites, Hindi; 2019) Written and Directed by Seema Pahwa All families will have their own internal politics. Over property, money or ego, family members may squabble and refuse to descend from their high horses. They refuse to see common ground. Nature sometimes play games to remind everybody of how fragile each of us is and tries to put us in our respective place. The easiest way Nature does this is to invoke death within the family.  The scurrying of family members gives an opportune time to meant fences. The warring factions may rescind, albeit for a short time, only to return to their old ways once the mourning period is over.  Human relationships are so fragile. More often than not, we do not say what we mean and mean what we say. Everything is sugarcoated to maintain harmony on the surface, but beneath it all, resentment brews. Everyone is concerned with their own survival. Family dynamics have evolved over the generations, and the e...

As part of the ritual after marriage, newlywed Brahmin couples are told to search for Arundathi-Vasishta pair of stars (Alcor-Mizar). These double stars make part of the Great Bear constellation and named after a great sage, Vasishta, and his philosopher wife, Arundathi. They were an exemplary couple that complemented each other, without one dominating over the other.  Unlike most double stars where one star would be revolving around the other, the Arundathi-Vaisishta pair orbits around each other. The Hindu traditions believe that that is how a husband-wife pair should be - the couple should work together; not one exerting dominance over the other! Varaha It is beyond comprehension how ancient Indians knew so much about astronomy. These traditions have a long history that predates Corpenicus and Gallilee. At a time when the world was arguing about flat Earth and imprisonment of scientists whose discoveries clashed with the Church, the Indians knew that Earth was a sphere. Varaha, ...

Breathe ( Amazon Prime, Hindi; 2019) Miniseries (8 episodes) Humankind is quick to determine what is right and what is not for its kind. All rules and regulations are cast in stone for others to religiously adhere to and live by. Most of these 'prophecies' had been self-thought when Man was at an altered state of consciousness. To lay credence to these rules, the name of God was invoked. To go against this grain would incur the wrath of the Divine Forces, they would say.  This sort of arrangement would work just alright most of the time when the general populace is ignorant and obliging. Trouble starts when people start thinking, or the ones in power believe that the laws do not apply to them.   Many external factors make people assume that the rules should not apply to them. The selfish gene, in wanting to care for its progeny and to maintain continuity of species, tries in whatever way to protect its offspring. If the law states that it is criminal to murder som...

Did you forget to reflect? shuttershock.com Living in the fast lane is not for the faint-hearted. After the recent Weinstein-type of exposé in a hospital in Malaysia, my thoughts were drawn to an event that happened more than some 30 years ago.  As the Weinstein effect goes on hyperdrive, one cannot help but wonder whether how the perpetrators did what they did. It baffles how they got away with it. Did they not realise that it was morally wrong what they were doing? Are they too engrossed into it that they find it difficult to untangle? Was it an addiction? Was the power trip too compelling? Did they think that it was mutually agreed upon; hence it was entirely legitimate? I remember a varsity friend, who, with his new found freedom away from the prying eyes of his parents and having almost securing himself of a degree, wanted to live to savour the forbidden fruits of life. With his self-perceived appreciation of his physique, he ventured into the business of swinging. Ju...