RIFLE RANGE BOY

Unsolved Mysteries (Documentary, Season 15; 2020) Netflix (12 episodes) People always pacify the grieving party to be strong. The truth is out there, and it will eventually surface, they say. That truth will prevail, and the perpetrator will be caught sooner or later. To keep mourning quiet, to give closure, we tell them that justice will be meted eventually; that the long arm of the law will catch up. Nah, these are all stop-gap measures to coo a wailing baby. Some things remain unanswered forever. The parties featured in this series will be a testimony to that. Many of the tragedies that happened to them occurred long ago, but nothing has come their way to put an end to the many questions that have plagued minds. The family members and friends involved in the few cases depicted in the 12 episodes would probably carry their sorrow to their graves, hoping that they would know everything when they reach the Otherside. Disappointed they would be if there nothing on the other realm- just ...

Wind telephone in Otsuchi, Japan Photo credit: atlasobscura.com We, the rational ones, the ones relatively free of turmoil, of sound minds and souls, and of satisfied mouth and bodies, just would not take things at face value. We want proof. We want a rational and scientific explanation for everything before we commit to anything. But, life is not so simple. There are some things beyond our comprehension. Sometimes it is better to be thick, to be nimble-minded and to be ignorant as ignorance is bliss. The eyes do not seek what the mind does not know. After Itaru Sasaki lost his cousin in 2010, he decided to build a glass-panelled phone booth in his hilltop garden with a disconnected rotary phone inside for communicating with his lost relative, to help him deal with his grief. The phone line was not connected to anywhere. The view outside was of the widespread of the Pacific Ocean. A year later when Japanese were grieving the loss of their loved ones in the tsunami and F...

Lo Imposible (The Impossible, 2012) Leave it to the film-makers to re-enact even the most difficult of nature's catastrophe, so much so that the survivors re-live and suffer the stresses of the trauma of the event all over again. Like what a 'learned' leader once said, "If Hollywood can make 'Avatar', the powers that control Hollywood can make us believe through all their stories that they wants us to believe! - Holocaust, Osama and all.." In this way, the excellent cinematography made us believe that they actually re-created a tsunami when everything was shot in a giant swimming pool and generous help from computer graphic imaging! This Naomi Watts-Ewan McGregor disaster flick is based on a certain Maria Belon's Christmas family vacation to an exotic tropical paradise location in an island in Thailand. After a peaceful bliss of a Christmas day and family bonding time, tragedy struck the family with 3 young boys on Boxing day of 2004. The lull b...

No, your eyesight is not playing tricks on you. No, the word PDA is not misspelt. No, this is not about the dinosaur of a gizmo called PDA (personal digital assistant). Who needs PDA when you can BlackBerry, Blue Berry or even Strawberries? And it is not about p ublic d isplay of a ffections (Y-generation lingo). No, PDA is not patent ductus arteriosus, either! PDE denotes public display of emotions - an abbreviation I coined just to make heads turn. Whilst browsing through the channels of TV (it is a guy's thing that ladies would not comprehend, what would we do without remote controls?), I come across many cable news channels showing the rescue efforts at full force in Japan at an orderly and 'cultured' manner. People are struggling with thirst and hunger but have so much trust and confidence in authorities that they just do as they are told. Some of them have their houses swept away by the wave of a tsunami and some with missing relatives whose whereabouts are unkno...

Our hearts feel for the Japanese victims of the tsunami in Fukushima. May tranquillity be restored in the shortest possible time. I am not here to tell them 'serves you right for the atrocities you created in Nanking and Malaya in the 30s and WW2. That is another time and at another generation. Let bygones be bygones. What I am mainly perplexed is that when the news of the 8.9 Richter scale quake was announced by our radio, within the same breath, in the next sentence, the newscaster mentioned that all Malaysian students in Japan. Then over the next few days, slowly like the peeling of the onion skin, one by one all the problems unveil. After being hit by the earthquake, tsunami and now fear of radiation exposure, the issues unfold. It has revealed that 2,100 Government-sponsored students in Japan are uncounted for. Interesting. This seems to a standard answer of officials for any malady. During the Egypt debacle, he heard the same. This was also echoed during the haze ep...

Now that Penang had been instrumental in the turn of events during the 2008 political tsunami, Penangites should also listen to what a TVB documentary made in Hong Kong has to say about LGE. It is an old production when Pak Lah was still PM. Beware, the world is watching! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HA5HRSlYcY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmNwjX9TnGE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaAvEFRQkqM&feature=related