RIFLE RANGE BOY

After frying my fat cells in my cranium with five 13-episode seasons of Mad Men, the only deduction I can make is that what they are showing in the series is what is happening in 50 years later in Malaysia. In other words, some a sociological viewpoint, we are 50 years behind them, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a spontaneous evolution of any society where one seeming more 'advanced' society set a precedence and a yardstick for any younger ones to follow suit. In order to how what is in store for our future generation, see 'The new Beverly Hills 90210'! Revolutionary changes happening over the 5 seasons were ladies creeping into decision making posts not mere making coffee and cleaning up, interracial unions, ladies smoking and drinking freely, extra marital and premarital flings with no qualms about its guilt and the effort of psychological disturbances in daily lives. Gone is the era where people were more conformist to the norms set by the majority. F...

When I first started viewing this series after somebody's recommendation, I thought it would be about the people in the dog eat dog world of advertising. True the setting is in the office of a famous advertising firm in New York City set in the end 50s era. From the office, the series moves into the executives' bedrooms and their private lives. Actually, it takes a nostalgic look at the bygone era when men were kings and the fairer sex were second class citizens. Cigarette smoking was a socially acceptable norm, done by men and women - pregnant or otherwise. Every frame and every room is filled with someone smoking and is hazy with cigarette fumes.  The general public is still u nconvinced that smoking is detrimental to health and practically everybody is a chain smoker. Men are held up on a pedestal as the hardworking head of the family who brings the bacon whilst the women finds great joy and self imposed themselves the divine duty of staying pretty at home and cooking fre...

The more and more we look into the mass murder of Dato Susilawati Lawiya and gang, more and more we discover that it has the making of a mini-series that is ever so popular with the public. My liaison with these serials ended long ago with Radaan's production of 'Annamalai' when I discovered that it was one craving that I should give a miss. This series were so popular when it was around that even an academician like Prof Khoo Kay Kim could not resist but gave cold shoulder treatment to his guests when they visited him during its screening time! If one were to browse the channels on TV (be it terrestrial, cable or satellite), especially during 'non-peak' times when everyone was at work, you would  be lost for choices on the number of tele-dramas to choose from. Tele-dramas, tele-novelas, tele-serials, mini-series, soap operas, the names are varied and have evolved over time but they all refer to the same melodramatic stories filled with romance (sometimes illic...