RIFLE RANGE BOY

The Stranger (Miniseries, S1,E1-8; 2020) A cleric politician in the Malaysian Parliament once called for the ruling country to impose stricter control on what children can access on their digital devices. He said that he currently kept on receiving X-rated messages on his phone and went on to rant about how easy it is to access porn online. He went on to say he shuddered to think what the inquisitive minds be up to. Another politician from the opposite side saw this as a low-hanging fruit and decided to capitalise on it for brownie points. He seized the moment. The second politician tried to educate the first one that what appears on our digital devices is determined by our usage. The algorithm suggests what we should watch based on our previous consumption. In other words, the first politician must be an avid consumer of smut to be inundated with so many invitations to adult sites. That is it. We think we know everything about the person sitting beside us or under the same roof. Wait ...

C U Soon (Malayalam; 2020) The human imagination has no boundaries. Even at a time when all of the movie-making industry has come to a grinding halt, storytellers still managed to squeeze out a full-length feature film. Who cares if there is a lockdown or a need for social distancing? There are smartphones and all the drama online in social media. Why look far? Necessity is the mother of all inventions and desperate times spur innovations. This Malayalam offering was made utilising the i-phone and screens of the computer. The whole film was shot in two rooms and with minimal human contact. The storytelling involves a lot of reading off WhatsApp messages, Facebook posts and emails as well as eavesdropping on video calls. Kudos to the director who managed to keep the attention of the audience. At the same time, they maintained the suspense of the story. Jimmy, a bank executive in Dubai, hooks with Anu on Tinder. They get along quite well and even contemplate marriage in such a...

Irumbu Thirai (இரும்புத்திரை, Iron Curtain, Tamil; 2018) Every now and then, one can get a fresh new idea popping up in Tamil movies and this is one. As usual, most often the filmmakers, in their best wisdom, would decide that the storyline should be so frivolous that the whole film will end up making not much for an impact, especially to those outside the purview of Kollywood fans.  This film acts more like a PSA (public service announcement) highlighting the general public the dangers of freely divulging personal particular and private data to social media and to people of authority.  The gist of the story is how loans supposedly released for purchases end up with third parties via interception at a digital level. In the greater scheme of things, these wastages are mere paper losses. To the poor debtors, it is a question of life or death; of loss of livelihood. As far the bank is concerned, the transaction is done and the borrower has to pay, no matter what....

The Web of Debt (The Shocking Truth About Our Money System And We Can Break Free) Ellen Hodgson Brown, JD. I grew up confused. On one hand, I was told to live within my means, to balance my income to my expenditure and to ensure that there is always something for savings. Being in debt was frowned upon. On the other hand, on the other side of my family, living on credit was a way of life. Nothing wrong to borrow, they would say. Even nations take huge loans. In the modern world, it seems that one is deemed to be rich by his assets but the properties are leveraged by debts. In other words, he is only as rich as much as he can pay the interest on his debt. Money begets money and the poor get poorer. The divide between the haves and the have nots becomes more apparent as the days go by. One small hiccup in this set-up and the house of cards comes down crumbling.  Nations that have secured high amounts of loans apparently have a higher credit rating on their credib...