RIFLE RANGE BOY

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) Director: Jon Watts I was under the impression that the Universe moves along and things happen along its path. Whether events occur by pre-determined means or just by chance, for example, by a mere flutter of the butterfly wings, is anybody's guess. Everything goes on with a pre-set sequence despite all the randomness and the chaotic soup it portrays.  The question is whether everything is pre-determined or it can be changed willfully. If events were pre-determined, nothing we can do changes Nature's course. So why bother to pray and hope that God will change things. A minor change in the complex order would just cause everything to crumble like dominos. If something can be altered at will, then the next course of events should be intelligence, not prayers. One is reminded of the battleship dilemma here. A sea battle needs battleships. Tomorrow, there will not be a battle if the Admiral does not send a battleship. So, the question of whether a sea...

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) It may be a thrilling experience for a diehard MCU fan. For an average viewer, however, it may just be another a superhero movie of a young boy with too much raw power in his hands. How many times have we been confronted with a superhero with the dilemma of doing the correct thing with the unique ability that he had been conferred? And in how many outings have we seen Spidey's wooing of his beau, Mary Jane? This time around, the story writers had taken us to a time when Peter Parker was still in school before his stint as a part-time journalist with the Daily Bugle and his daily tiff with his editor J. Jonah Jameson.  In keeping with the sensitivities of the times, MJ is no more the blue-eyed, high cheek-boned orthodontist-treated wannabe blonde actress  but a fellow classmate of the member of the minority group. For good measure, the producers had resorted to race-swapping to pacify all quarter. A hijab-clad fellow student and an Oriental...