A post WWII feel good movie!

I got this movie as I thought that it must be a spectacular one since it won 1 Oscar and was nominated for another 8 including Best Picture in 1945. The world is a stage and we (the audience) are the fools taken for a royal ride. It is quite apparent how turns of events of the time determine jury sentiments. It was the end of World War II. A film on the effect of war on the family left behind by the soldiers and how their partners cope with challenges back home just had to win to give a pat to all those who contributed directly and indirectly to success of the War and helped to put USA to the rank of the superpower of the world.
Frankly, there is nothing to shout about in this movie. It just reminded me of those Disney feature length movies where everybody is courteous and apologizes profusely even when he loses his temper for a fraction of a second.
I was quite excited to see Joseph Cotton (who gave sterling performances in many movies in the 40s including Hitchcock's) and Shirley Temple (the child prodigy) cast in lead roles. The effort however, did not really change my overall perception of the movie.
Mrs. Anne Hilton (Claudette Colbert) has to take charge of the Hilton home after his marketing executive husband leave home to serve his country, sacrificing his pay-check and leaving a 17 year old daughter, Jane and a pre-teen daughter, Brig [Jennifer Jones (who eventually married the producer David O. Selznick) and Shirley Temple respectively.] To make end meet, Anne rents out a room to a grumpy old Colonel.

Joseph Cotton is Mr. Hilton's best friend, an unmarried lieutenant who drops in to give moral support. I suspected some hanky-panky to happen there but nothing happened. The Colonel's grandson with whom the old man does not have a good relationship drops in. Jane fall for this boy, Bill, who is a corporal. Bill is Jane's real life husband.  He later is shipped out for war. They acted in an emotional railway station scene which is immortalized in the history of Hollywood. Unfortunately, the rocky marriage that they were trying to smoothen out around the time of the film crumbled and she married the producer.

There is also an ugly looking bulldog who gives a sterling performance as a comic relief. The story progresses with the Hiltons receiving news that the head of the family goes missing in action in war. The corporal also dies in combat, much to devastation of little Jane. The relationship of the Hiltons with the Colonel improves and the film ends with a happy note with Mrs. Hilton joining the workforce to provide for the Army and Mr. Hilton is found!

The film does not head anywhere. Basically, it is a patriotic movie for the masses at that time....

Serviceman laid to rest

Friday February 10, 2012
By ANDREA FILMER
Photos by ASRI ABDUL GHANI

LONG-SERVING soldier William David Dass (pic) was given a fitting farewell at his funeral at the St George’s Church in Penang.
He was acknowledged with military honours at the funeral service where his casket was led by bag-pipers from the 8th Royal Regiment based in the Terendak Army Camp, Malacca.

Solemn affair: The casket of the late William leaving St George's Church in Penang.

The retired Warrant Officer II, who died at the age of 77 on Sunday, was later cremated at Batu Gantong. He had served 29 years with the Malaysian Armed Forces and participated in several high profile military operations.
William, who was also named a Universal Peace Federation ambassador of peace, is survived by his wife Sundari Gopal Iyer, five children and seven grandchildren. His eldest son, Kapt Christopher Ravindran, described his father as an active celebrant of life and a man who was a “true believer in the value of comradeships.”
“Dad lived a soldier’s life and breathed his last like a soldier,” Kapt Christopher said during the eulogy at the packed church yesterday.
He said his father had first put on a uniform at the age of 16 when he joined the Police Volunteer Service in 1950.

We'll miss him: Sundari with her sons, Kapt Christopher (left)
and Kol Dr Alexander leaving the church after the funeral service.

William went on to enlist in the army and was one of the soldiers despatched as security personnel during the Baling Talks in 1955.
Aside from being one of 15 pioneers of the Junior Civil Liaison Officers who played an important part during the Malaysia-Indonesia Emergency period, William was also a member of the Malaysian Armed Forces United Nation’s Peace Mission to Congo in 1962 where he served eight months.
After his retirement in 1980, William lent his services to various organisations including the Penang Veteran’s Association, Malaysian Armed Forces Ex-Services Association and The National Association for the Prevention of Drugs (Pemadam).
He was also an active member of St George’s Church where he married Sundari in 1958.

Grand service: Many joining the procession led by the hearse.

Kapt Christopher said both he and his brother Kol Dr Alexander Amarandran had followed in their father’s footsteps to don the uniform. Kapt Christopher previously served in the Royal Malaysian Navy and is currently with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency while Kol Dr Alexander is an army dental surgeon based in Malacca.

All shook up!

There is a reason why traditionally games started and ended with a handshake between two 'warring' factions who are out for each other's jugular during the games but will be having drinks again afterwards. This is known gentlemanly conduct. What happens on the pitch is left on the pitch!
Times changed. People came out of conquest of war mode and natives gained independence. Man's unquenchable inner desire to kill and dominate is steered towards games which promise equal footing of action and gore. Suddenly, games especially football (soccer) became too big for its own good.
Along came creatures likes publicity and public relations managers who promise the sky and the moon to take the game to dizzying heights who scaled out of thin air. And 'poof' came the vultures in the form telecommunications whiz to bring the players to everybody's living room. And the hyenas of briefcase lawyers who were anything but brief in their circumlocutory lecture about ensuring justice and fair play to players, clubs, everything and everyone involved in this entity, which had started as a pastime for the rich and famous, who had the luxury to flaunt the affluence to the scavengers who were out looking for crumbs in the royal courtyard!
Any news is good news for the development of the game. So when a racial outburst occurred during a multi-million bookie deciding match of the two most famous football teams of the world, it got people interested. With the average modern man's attention span on the decline, misadventures like this was played again and again to arouse interest in the game going on and on.
When a veteran suggested that they should just kiss and make up (not really, end it with a hand shake), his idea was shot down with the fastest ammunition. The powers that be decided that sports must be a beacon of hope to eradicate the fire of racism at its flint. The perpetrator was punished and when he returned to play the same opponent, he was expected to be dandy with him obliging with a handshake.
Now, for all the publicity yearning game had hoped for, the issue remains unsettled and people are still talking about it. Good for the game, any news is good news!!!

Funerals are too emotional

At Kim Jong Il's funeral

When I was small (even now), I just could not understand why Amma made it her divine duty to attend the funeral ceremonies of her relatives and distant ones alike. When I asked her why she did so, she would reply that nobody would come for hers if she did not do so. I would retort that when one is dead, he would not know who came for the funeral anyway.
So when my dear best friend's father was terminally ill recently, I made it a point to visit him when he was still alive and able to converse and say his peace to all friends and relatives. We all had a good chat reminiscing his younger days as a soldier serving in Congo back in 1962.
He took leave soon afterwards.
Attending funerals are a strain to the attendees and recipients alike. There is too much emotion involved. I rather be at the scene after all the dust has settled down. There are always people who take offence on this type of attitude!

P.S. I have seen too many times long lost relatives who never bother to keep in touch, just turning up miraculously at funerals to show their talent in theatrics and ability of self expression that would evoke a tear or two from bystanders.

Real love and reel love!

Intermezzo, A Love Story (1939) 
Normally I do not fancy watching lovey-dovey romantic movies but I just had to watch Intermezzo as in it one of my favourite actress (after Grace Kelly), Ingrid Bergman appeared in her débutante role. Bergman, 23, was already an established actress in her native country, when she was introduced to the American public in this film originally done in Swedish in 1936 and acted be Bergman. The Academy had voted this angelic Nordic goddess with a pearly white pretty smile as the 4th best actress after Katherine Hepburn, Betty Davies and Audrey Hepburn.
In this movie, a married renowned violinist Holgar Brandt (Leslie Howard) falls in love with his daughter's talented piano teacher, Anita Hoffman (Bergman). Holgar leaves his wife and 2 kids to elope with Anita as his accompaniment in his tours. After initially turning down a scholarship offer, driven by guilt, she leaves him. Holgar goes into a self imposed exile due to embarrassment but decides to meet up with his daughter, Mary Anne, whom he missed dearly. As in most families, it takes a tragedy to crush egos. Mary Anne's accident bring peace and sanity is restored in Brandt's household.
In a way, events in this movie mirrors somewhat events that happened in Ms Bergman's life 20 years later when she started an Italian affair.  After a 5 year hiatus and obstracization from the American public for unacceptable behavior after acting in saintly roles like 'Joan of Arc' and 'The Bells of St. Mary's', she returned to earn an academy award.
Things that people do in the name of love! Happy  St. Valentino's Memorial Day.....

For the future of our planet

Somebody rated very highly of this 1968 Charlton Heston starred movie called 'Planet of the Apes'. I remember running home to watch the TV series of its spin-off in RRF on Wednesdays. Of course, it clashed with the Tamil movie segment over TV2 and Sgt. Urko and his team had to be sacrificed on alternate weeks.(Tamil movies were screened on alternate Wednesdays; Hindi on the other; Amma would monopolize the TV then!)
This 1968 movie is slow moving by our present standards with more talking and less action and lack of firebrand. It takes swipe at many of human's daily actions and basically tells us to safeguard our planet for the future generations. Apes are the cultured ones here and men primitive - mute, dirty and incapable of thinking. There are zoo animals!
It is set in 2000 years in the future when Heston and his crew members crash land on a planet (we later discover that it is indeed planet Earth). They are apprehended by apes. Heston is unable to communicate as his neck is damaged and is treated like a man prisoner is supposed to be. Man is inferior and uncultured. He tries to prove his origin but  is ridiculed. His only remaining crew is lobectomised and is unable to speak. Two apes (man behavioural psychologists) defend him in their court filled with farce taking swipes at Darwin's Theory of Evolution and the Good Book itself!.
After many 'action' scenes, Heston rides into the sunset with a vocally challenged female companion after arguing with the apes' high priest that indeed man were more superior to his captors. At the end of the movie, Heston finds the partial statue of Statue of Liberty lying on the beach. He realizes that what the elder apes were talking him all along was true - Man was indeed the lowest of the primates who would kill his brother for land and had single-handedly managed to destroy earth!
Interesting lines ridiculing man were...

• A scene when Heston tries to speak unsuccessfully with his injured vocal cords and ape guard says, "What Man see and Man do!"
• Man behavioural psychologist?
• In a laughable tribunal, the three leaders sit initially as if mocking the proverb 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil'! The prosecutor quotes his scripture '...That God created apes in his own image...". There are many instances of word play ridiculing the law jargon. But do not ask why apes speak English!
• When Heston was clean shaven, an ape and says he looks less intelligent without his facial hair!

It is all about money, honey!

Ra Ra Rasputin

Over the past few days Malaysian netizens had gone aghast with the YouTube clip that went viral over cyberspace of a scene of KFC staff having a tiff with his disgruntled customer when his chicken ran out (the supply, that is, not literally).

From the customer's perspective:
After waiting in hunger in a queue for more than an hour for a piece of the now easily the world's most famous poultry flesh, he was told right on his face that their prized merchandise was finished just when his turn was up. That is it! At least they could be forewarned that their supply was low. When he stated her case, what he got was a rude reply that screamed of need for social etiquette and emphasis in customer service 101. After all, he had his rights, he was a paying customer. Being a multinational company with standard operating procedure manuals, KFC should know how to handle such situations amicably. Shameful!

From the workers' point of view:
Here I am working day in day out for a measly RM4 per hour whilst the cost of living escalates exponentially. And the demands and the volume of the customers just keep on climbing. Just because they are paying and financially superior to us, they think we are their maids or slaves. It is vulgar how they buy chicken like nothing. Their individual purchase is more than what I make in a week, but that is my problem. I should have studied harder and paid more attention in class. What will happen in my future, 20 years from now?

On top of that my girlfriend is pregnant and I am not financially stable to married her yet. The number of staff to man the counter and kitchen hardly increased since its inception. Two of our regular guys have called in sick, and the hay that broke the proverbial camel's back is when this guy abused me for informing him that our chicken stock is finished, so I flipped!

 
And the wise man says....(must be a socialist)
Everybody was born on this world to perform their sacred duties, and they must do it well, whether menial or earth-shattering. It is clearly mentioned in all our scriptures. This case is the classic manifestation of the anger of a member of the economically challenged side of an otherwise prosperous capitalistic economy. The victims at the lower rung of the ladder have much bottled up anger directed at the contentedly flaunting opponents. History has shown repeatedly that this can trigger great human experiments that result in a significant change in man's economy. Disgruntled starving peasants barged into the Bastille in 1789 and guillotined royalties and noblemen. The Russians persecuted the Czar's family and Rasputin. In the present time, a frustrated Libyan graduate self-immolated to ignite the Arab Springs to ouster a seemingly indestructible tyrant. So beware! Capitalism is not perfect, but it is here to stay to satisfy the unsatisfiable satiety of man of wealth and power. Changes have to made to ensure that those who are marginalised are taken care of as well.