RIFLE RANGE BOY

Emilia Pérez (2025) Director:  Jacques Audiard mvtimes.com/es/2024/10/29/emilia- perez-film-musical-genre-bender / This musical offering would not have garnered as much airtime if it had not been for an openly transgender individual who won the Best Actress awards at both the Cannes and the Oscars. Interestingly, a female actor (a cis woman) insists on being referred to strictly as an 'actor', not an 'actress'. They are particularly keen on this, demanding to be addressed as 'actors'. I suppose this does not apply to transgender actors. A quick glance at Karla Sofía Gascón's Wikipedia page states her occupation as an actress. For a transgender person, being addressed as female represents the ultimate victory of her transition.  It continues to be one of the most nominated films of the year and the most nominated non-English language film in the Academy's history. When it comes to the basics, this is a gangster film with a twist. The twist is that one can...

Aruvi (Tamil அருவி; 2017) This is a compelling sociopolitical drama which must have surely been written by a card-carrying member of the socialist/communist party. Who else would paint such a bleak picture of modern life and the self-defeating trappings that line every aspect of our lives? Human values take a back seat. A pre-set path is made for us to follow and feel contended. Any deviation from the norm is frowned upon. The whole purpose of life is to promote consumerism, be awed by materialism and to fatten the multinational conglomerates. T his is an absorbing saga of a young girl, Aruvi, who acquired HIV most unconventionally - at the roadside coconut vendor as she savoured a probably contaminated freshly cut coconut! Long story short - she falls seriously ill, is diagnosed, hurled abuses of promiscuity and is chased away by the previously loving family. She wanders around, living with friends and working menial jobs. At every corner, the men in her life misbehaved. They d...

Tangerine 2015 It is Christmas Eve. What do you expect most people to do? Do last-minute shopping, wrap their presents or be on their way to their loved one's place or sit down cosily awaiting Santa Claus to slide down the chimney to sip their milk and chocolate cookie? Unfortunately, not everybody's life is cut out so fine. Many in the essential services have to slog through the festivities. For some, it is just another day, another big expenditure. This film deals with a small section of the population who are kind of cast out from the public eye. They are seen but preferred not to be associated with. The spirit of Yuletide is in the air in the streets of the bad side of Los Angeles. For transexuals, Sin-dee Rella and Alexandra, it is just a day in their dog-eat-dog life. They just live off the street, earning enough to scrape by offering sexual favours. Sin-Dee had just been released after a 28-day stint in jail for soliciting. She is all riled out to discover ...

That is what the world has come to. There is sadly no 'one-answer-fit-all' response. The people who argue against the grain are smart people with intelligence quotients higher than the general public.  Everyone is concerned only of his own self. There is an inner desire to live life to the fullest; enough of living under the pretence that something sacrosanct needed to be protected. If all this while they had cowed to societal pressures and suppressed their inner needs, it was the time that they let their hair down. They do as they please. Over generations, through trials and error, regulations have been put in the system. Each sex had their gender roles. Each gender had their duties and expectations. It was not a perfect arrangement, but there was a semblance of order. The general public accepted it as necessary to continue our existence.  Nothing does not offend anyone any more. This signage in  an Italian B and B with an 'alien' in a coquettish p...

Danish Girl 2015 I know this movie will not make its way to this coast anytime this lifetime. Artworks using LGBT issues are a sure ‘no-no’ for the censorship board. The beholders of morality have no qualms in sweeping matters of corruption and another overt disservice to humanity, issues related to sexuality and sex would alert their antennas and they would go that two extra miles to ensure these productions do not see the living daylights in this country. This film is an attempt to narrate, with artistic licence, as the story is altered to suit the audience’s appetite, the dilemma that a certain Danish painter went through to fulfil her inner needs. Eddie Redmayne (who acted as Prof Stephen Hawking) gives an effeminate depiction of Einar Wegener, an artist who lived in the 1920s who feels that she is a woman trapped in a man’s body. Discovering this when he posed in a female garb when his wife’s, another painter, model turned up late, fights the urge and seeks medical help who...

Transparent (TV miniseries, Season 1; 2014) Living is easy with eyes closed. When you start analysing your existence in life, the purpose of life and start questioning every shred of existentialism, life becomes too complicated. It make living impossible for you and those around you. When you feel discontented and yearn for the perpetual unattainable pleasures in life without appreciating the joy and magic that is around you, life can be a living hell. This, in essence, is the bane of modern living. We are unsure what we actually want in life. We are forever lamenting that life sucks and things could be better. We reach out beyond borders that are accepted as norm only to realise that that is not we were looking in the first place. This new TV show just completed its first season, released for binge consumption by Amazon. The ten 30-minutes episodes narrate the saga of a dysfunctional family. The father, Mort/Maura, is a respected professor, who decide to come out in the open abo...