RIFLE RANGE BOY

3 Body Problem (Miniseries; Season 1, 8 episodes ) Adapted from the Hugo Award-winning novel by Liu Cixin There is an episode in the original Twilight Zone series titled "Where is Everybody?" in which a person wanders around a township with no soul in sight. Enveloped in 'The Great Silence,' he runs around like a headless chicken, looking for any sign of life. That must surely be a veiled reference to Fermi's paradox. With so much wasted space around us and after so many years of searching, why can't we contact any lifeform elsewhere in this widespread Universe? With time, the possibility of the presence of more and more solar systems is being suggested. Surely, someone somewhere must have picked up our radio signals by now. What if they are advanced enough to pick up gestures of friendship. Or maybe they have already made visitations before if one believes the ideas mooted by Erich von Däniken about ancient aliens. Conversely, if a civilisation is indeed more...

After Yang (2022) Written & Directio n:  Kogonada When we show our respect to elders and the departed, we are not offering to revere the physical body or the 'soul'. We are showing reverence for the memory of their lives. Besides reenacting the good times we had spent together, we give due recognition to the memories they imbibed through their time on Earth. At the end of the day, that is all we have or bring back, the data of events. It is assumed that we humans learn our lessons from situations. By showing our salutations, we hope some of these lessons will be transferred to us at a metaphysical level. Everybody's learnt experience is different, and we respect that. We are in no position to judge what was done or should have been done. This seems to be the message at the end of this sombre and sedate sci-fi drama. It is set sometime in the future when humanoids do domestic help and nannying. The cloning of humans has entered the mainstream. The job of providing domest...

The 10th Victim (La Decima Vittima, Italian; 1965) Director: Elio Petri Riding high on her fame as Honey Ryder, 1962 Dr No's Bond Girl, as the Ultimate Bikini Goddess, Ursula Andress continued making movies banking on her sex symbol status. She also appeared in the 1967 Bond spoof 'Casino Royale' as Vesper Lynd, whose grave we saw in 'No Time to Die'. In between, this Swiss vixen also found time to act in this B-grade Italian movie.  'The 10th Victim' is a futuristic movie set in the 21st century, where the world enjoys peace as society has managed to put a stop to wars. Man's predilection for violence is curbed by having society-sanctioned killing. Each person has the opportunity to kill ten people in a computer-drawn programme named 'The Big Hunt'. In five of the hunts, the selected play hunter and the other five, he plays the hunted. The hunter is given all information about his target but not the hunted. The hunted is clueless about who the a...

Star Trek: Picard (2020) Miniseries, Season 1, E1-10. I did not grow up appreciating the original Star Trek TV series. Hence, I do not qualify to identify myself as a Trekkie. I, however, managed to catch up Star Trek: The Next Generation when it made its way to the terrestrial TV channels. I remember the series not as much of an action-packed series but more of a cerebral one discussing life issues. I never did follow the ensuing Trek series or the silver screen productions. So, to me, Picard is only Starfleet Captain that I know. More than a decade after his last mission and his unceremonious departure from USS Enterprise, Admiral Picard has to go to back to space. He does this clandestinely against the orders of the authorities, with a ragtag assembly of crew and space ship. In his previous mission, Data had caused the destruction of Mars. Because of that, androids, or synthetics as they were known in 2399, were banned. Picard had resigned in protest. Enjoying his retirement...

Ex Machino (2014) When the upright apes started exploring the savanna and heading out of Africa, little did they realise that they were leading to extinction. Not only the descendants of these apes would quickly destroy their own kind and reflect, 'I am become death, the destroyer of the worlds', they would also create machines that one day possibly annihilate them. This is the premise of this and many other apocalyptical sci-fi movies. The one that makes this film different is the inclusion of artificial consciousness as compared to artificial intelligence what most scientists test. The Turing test, when humans are unable to differentiate an interaction with a machine from that of with a human may be the benchmark of AI excellence, but it only measures intelligence, not consciousness. It tests the adaptability of the machine to its environment. In the case of a conscious machine, it processes external information, transforms it with its subjective ju...

Pulsagari (North Korean; 1985) Director: Shin Sang-ok Although we have hardly heard of North Korea (NK)'s indulgement in the celluloid industry, The Supreme Leaders of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-Un and Kim Jong-Il before him, are movie buffs. The elder was so desperate to bring his country's movies to the international arena (and to make propaganda films) that Jong-Il kidnapped South Korea's famous film icons of the 60s, Shin Sang-ok and his ex-wife Choi Eun-hee for this purpose. In 1979, Choi went missing in Hong Kong. Shin was the prime suspect in her disappearance. In trying to investigate her vanishing, he was kidnapped by Kim's men and whisked off to NK. Here, Shin found Choi safe and sound. After series of torture and rehabilitation exercise, Shin decided that the best way to escape was to play ball. Both Choi and Shin soon became a feature in NK high society. He was coaxed to make about 7 movies, of which Pulsagari is one. A ...