Controversial conspiracy

JFK 1991
Director: Oliver Stone

This film is on the list of most controversial movies ever made for the silver screen. For a lover of conspiracy theories like me, it is God sent. Bring it on, I say!

Even after the secret documents related to Kennedy's assassination is declassified in 2029, the conspiracy is not going die off. This 3hours 20mins story requires a lot of patience, and keen ears for dialogue as that is where the action lies. Forget about special effects and daredevil stunts.

It starts with the aftermath of JFK's assassination. As we know on the fateful day of November 22nd, 1963 in downtown Dallas, his motorcade was shot at. JFK perished, Lee Oswald was apprehended, he was shot dead by a Jack Ruby, a nightclub owner and that is it. No trials. The Warren's Commission put a lid on further speculation after its investigation concluded that Oswald acted unilaterally.

This film is actually the point of view of a particular DA from New Orleans, Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner),who was cocksure about his assumption that there was more to it than a lone man shooter theory and was out to prove against all the odds that there was a concerted effort by CIA to assassinate the President.

The actual story starts 3 years later when a Senator tells Garrison that there is more to it to the JFK killing. Re-reading the volumes of the Warren report showed more discrepancy. He and his team initiate a sensitive investigation which would involve male prostitution, homosexuals, anti-Castro movement, Free Cuba movements, Communisms, Kennedy haters, planned lax security during the President's Dallas, Vietnam War pull withdrawal and much more. Interesting information that he found during the investigation was the publication of Oswald's guilt and confession in New Zealand papers 4 hours before he was formally charged. That smelt of CIA cover-up.

After undergoing many turmoils in pursuit of proving his theory, Garrison had to endure many challenges to his life, job and family life. In the end, his case was brought to the grand jury. Clay Shaw was charged conspiring with CIA in JFK shooting. He managed to obtain footage of the event and proposed the theory multiple shooters based on the entry and exit wounds sustained by the victims. Oswald was just a decoy who did not even shoot a single bullet. Oswald was American agent who learnt the Russian language, denounced his American citizenship, defected to Kremlin, married a Russian wife and miraculously returned to America and led a normal interrupted American life. His whole submission, however, did not convince the jury. Clay was pronounced not guilty.

It is a gripping film with an array of superstars appearing and disappearing in many minor roles - Jack Lemmon (private investigator), Edward Asner (private investigator, ex-CIA, anti-communist), Walter Matthau (Senator on plane), Kevin Bacon (a gigolo), Joe Pesci, Donald Sutherland and even Jim Garrison appeared as a Judge! Tommy Lee Jones acted as Clay and Gary Oldman as Oswald.

Only in America you can fight the authority, accuse them of cheating full-scale, write books about it, make royalty from the screenplay and get away without being blown to smithereens....but then innocent school children will be shot for no apparent reason!

In Rome, a cow in a pig sty still moos...

In the typical fashion of how we would curse at our DNA and our ancestors (but conveniently like to omit the good traits and maybe wealth passed down to us), my son blames me for his need for braces.

You see, I had to deal with mal-alignment of my dental structure and all the sneering associated with it from a tender, impressionable age. From the resourceful network that Amma engaged with her gossiping housewives friends, I managed to seek treatment from the dental nursing school in Penang. The treatment was painstakingly slow, taking many years to complete involving many teeth extractions. The end result is much to be desired (but functional, not that I was seeking a career in the movies or to be a poster boy) leaving the jaw slightly deviated from midline giving a slight snarl to my speech. Things meant to be serious are taken by listeners in a light mood. It is easier though to crack a joke. The drawback, however, is when I indeed blow my top. It leaves an everlasting emotional impression on the recipients. That is why they say that comedians make superb villains in the movies.

My son and I were already 45 minutes past our appointment at a dentist's office. The crowd at the waiting room was getting hot under their collar, but they laboured on. Suddenly, a Caucasian client/patient/customer barged (not in the Viking fashion) to the reception counter. "Tell your doctor I am leaving now. My appointment was 1 hour ago. If I wait any longer, I would have to invoice you for my time. Good day!"

Like a sponge, my son observed the incident and on the way back home, decided to make his point to be heard.

He thought that the man was extremely rude for acting the way he did and venting his anger on the girl at the counter and continued telling his peace about how visitors should behave in a country they are welcomed into. If Malaysians are okay with our way of life of not keeping to time, he should too.
I tried his side of the argument but was compelled to say a word or two too.
I do not know how much of my rationalisation actually sank into him. Hopefully one day it would resurface from the crypt of his grey cells.

When we are incapable of taking care of our own backyard and need others to help us out, we also have to take in the baggage, the idiosyncrasies and the social problems that come with it. Coming from a society where a 2-minute delay in the train services is unacceptable and a big deal, care is needed when dealing with delays which may be acceptable as a fact of life here. Some things can change for the better!

It comes in a whole package....

Hitchcock's Most Memorable Scenes

http://entertainment.time.com/2012/11/19/spellbinder-hitchcocks-10-most-memorable-scenes/slide/all/#ixzz2Crh0cLv8

• The Crop Duster in North by Northwest

• Robert Donat’s Nonsense Speech in The 39 Steps

• Judy Becomes Madeleine in Vertigo

• Crows on a Jungle Gym in The Birds

• The Killing of Gromek in Torn Curtain

• Joseph Cotten’s Dinner Monologue in Shadow of a Doubt

• Raymond Burr Looks Into James Stewart’s Camera in Rear Window

• Grace Kelly Attacked in Dial M for Murder

• The Wine Cellar in Notorious

• The Shower Scene in Psycho

The world we live in

I am Fishead (Documentary, 2011)
This documentary is currently being shown in Kuala Lumpur as part of their EU film festival. The surprising thing about this entry is that even though being a Czech offering, it was short mainly in US and is narrated in English. It tries to find a simple explanation and solution that we are in right now - financial turmoil.
Following the Chinese saying that the fish rots from the head, they are suggesting that the people in power or who control us are psychopaths who manipulate us into submission.
The first half of this documentary film dwells on characteristics of psychopathics. It explains that psychopaths are not necessarily the typical ones depicted to us by Hollywood film but very much around us, throughout history, promising us wealth, power and false sense of security. They also introduce the concept of corporate psychopaths who do the same in the corporate world with their own agenda and no remorse.
Hitler, Mussolini, Bernard Madoff and even Bush Jr is included in this list. Sociopaths infiltrate into the society with their self fulfilling agendas.
The second contributor to our woes is the introduction of 'happy pills' which is consumed by 30% of Western society. What started as Valium has now graduated to Prozac as the panacea to all our perceived problems (which are not problems in the first place). Grieving during loss of a loved ones is a normal response. Anxiety of meeting a new challenge is accepted. these do not need treatment indiscriminately!
It numbs our emotional response which would otherwise be present in us, which is good to react to situations.
Our society which is becoming a consumer society which is essentially an unsatisfied society. It can be blamed on our egocentric upbringing, one taught to care for himself alone.
The writer proposes that each of us influence at least three others in our branch of tree of social interactive networking (not internet type). A good deed by us may influence another and a third who does not even know us (but our friend). Like that it spread the cheer and will eventually the goodness will come back to us. This is the same aspect preached on morality and good conduct.
They interviewed many psychiatrists, psychologists and also the former President of Czech Republic and playwright Vaclav Havel for this film. Havel through his work was instrumental in the regime change in Czechoslovakia in the 80s.
One should not look up to celebrities and leaders for inspiration but rather look sideways and try to influence the base of the pyramid so that the goodness would also spread upwards.

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." Albert Einstein

Film noir in Malaya

The letter 1940

After hearing about Betty Davis and her eyes in Kim Carnes' song since the 80s, I finally got the chance to see a full length feature film with Davis as the leading star. The movie is set in a pre-Independence Singapore where the colonial masters were calling the shots and the humble natives were just humble servants. Well, the servants had the last say at the end of movie.
From the outset, we can make out that the whole setting is staged. There were not anywhere near the Far East but all the coconut trees did the trick.
It was a bright moonlight lit night at a time when the weary bodied natives were resting after a long day's work on their hammocks in the compound of the Crosbies' bungalow when the sound of multiple gun shots pierced the tranquility of the night.
A man stumbles out of the main door of the bungalow, obviously after being shot at and falls over the stairs. A lady follows him and empties the contents of her gun repeatedly till it runs out of bullets. The head butler recognizes the as Mr Hammond.

The shooter, Leslie Crosbie (Betty Davis), summons him to contact her husband, Robert, who was working in another plantation. In the next scene, Robert, a British police inspector and Stacey, a family friend and an attorney sympathetically try to obtain the history of the chain of events that transpired.

Bette Davis

Leslie coolly narrates how an old friend of the family, Hammond, made an unannounced surprise visit at night after a few drinks and started passing ungentlemanly remarks. When he forced himself upon her, she shot him to protect herself.

The closely knitted British community there are all sympathetic to her plight and are out to support her. Stacey acts as her defense lawyer. In the course of preparation of her case, Stacey's assistant, a local native, who has made big as a attorney himself, approaches him with a discriminating letter. The letter allegedly was written by Leslie inviting Hammond to come over as her husband was out of post. In reply, Leslie confided that she did write to him to help her buy a gun as a birthday present for her husband.
As the evidence could incriminate Leslie, the letter which was now in Hammond's wife's (a hateful evil looking native girl), is retrieved for a token of $10,000.
The case goes on and Leslie is acquitted and everybody is happy. That is when the real drama starts. Robert thinks that he had enough of Singapore and wants to start life new in a new plantation in Sumatra. When he realizes that his life savings had been used for the purpose of the letter, Leslie finally tells him the whole truth. Leslie, a bored housewife, who was always left to herself by her busy plantation manager husband, started a love affair with Hammond. It had gone on for some time till she heard news of his marriage to a local girl. During the last rendezvous, he wanted to end the affair but she was too deeply rooted to let go, ended his life instead.
The Crosbies initially decide to forgive and forget but then realized that the past kept on haunting them. on one tropical night, Leslie walks out of her safe haven and is fatally stabbed by the scornful widow of Hammond conspired by the head butler. The end.
Another film noir, this time set in the pre-Independent Malaya. Just like John Garfield and Robert Mitchum whose appearance makes them perfectly cut for film noir, Betty Davies with her expressive eyes and eyelids makes her the perfect female counterpart for this role.An interesting thing that I noted in the movie is that only one sentence was uttered in Malay (apa buat uncle?). During the rest of the film, the natives were speaking Cantonese (not native to Singapore) and murmurs of a incomprehensible gibberish language.

And we all live happily together!

First comes the need for food, then need for warmth and concealing of modesty then protection from nature. Man, being man is not satisfied with his basic needs. With affluence, food is replaced with cuisine, clothing with haute couture and hut(home) with palatial house. Also trickling in would the appreciation of performing arts.

Arts help to influence a society to make them think how they should think. Indian freedom fighters and Nazi propaganda machinery shrewdly used this for their advantage - to parcel off British from Bharat Desh and to fuel hatred for Abraham's God's chosen people respectively.With the freedom of availability of information and both sides of the story, the boldness, the exposure, the education opportunities and the vociferous vocalness of people of late, performing arts in Malaysia have never been the same.On a Tuesday night, I decided to give myself a go at a PJ Live Arts stand up comedy show. It is a potpourri of and coming comedians trying to give a shot at 15 minutes of fame.

Kavin Jay

Catering to an mature and broad minded audience, there were no holds barred in the types of jokes that the performers belted out. By and large, the barrage of stereotypical racial was the highlight of the night led by the masters of ceremony, a well endowed confident Kavin Jay. The performers were from various ethnicity and were basically laughing at various races in the family, at themselves and their neighbours. (Rizal van Geyzel, Pravin, Srikanth, Kaptain Khalid from Nigeria).
If you thought, there was no representation from our Eastern part of Malaysia, Shamin from Sabah was out to make us laugh at the ignorance of the Peninsularites and their confusion of cultures from Sabah and Sarawak. They even had a Singaporean (Fuzz) act to rekindle the old love-hate flame between the two neighbours.
The leaders of the country and even the official religion of the country were the butt of their jokes.
a good 2 hours of fun and laugh. Sadly, there were no comediennes in the list of performers. Probably, we have to give the fairer sex some time before they learn the art of invoking laughter. As expected, Indians, the big talkers (all talk only, no action) stole the limelight.
Many of us are yet to be exposed to the plethora of talents amongst us.
A good night well spent.

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer - Mark Twain

You work your whole life for what?

Death of a Salesman 1985

This multiple award winning film was actually a play written in 1949 by Arthur Miller. The film was also made like in a setting of a play. It is a highly emotional tragic drama of a travelling salesman who worked his whole life trying to make things good for his two sons and wife. This low earning man is low on the strata of society who helps to stimulate business but on his part has to work his whole life to be able to own his own house.

Willy Loman (Dustin Hoffman) is an elderly salesman who had seen great times and was a fantastic salesman in his younger days is now a burden for his firm. His bosses are trying to retire him much to his resistance. Willy feels that he has much to contribute but his biggest worry is that his two 30 something sons have not been able to stand on their own two feet yet. The sons, especially the elder one, Biff (John Malkovich), had such a promising start in college but never went to university because of something that happened in his life. His second son, Happy, who lived in the shadow of Biff, also turned out doing nothing!
The film tells of a time when both sons came to visit their parents.

Willy has been involved in a series of accidents of late and people had reason to suspect that he may have been intentionally trying to crash in a suicide attempt. Other tell-tale signs in the house around the house were there to this effect. The sons feel that he had become emotionally labile with his frequent burst of emotions. The mother, Linda, tries to be the pacifier, sometimes being the aim of abuses being hurled from both sides.

Willy, in this story, reminisce the old days when the kids were obedient and worshipped him. He would also sometime communicate with his dead elder brother, Ben, whom he admired for striking rich with diamond exploration at a young age. He would also communicate with his neighbour Charlie whose son used to be Biff's friend has now turned out to be a high flying lawyer whilst Biff still drags along with his life.

Cannot make well of their life but one thing they are

full of - pride, anger and hot air!

In the story, the three guys try to re-live the old times, persuade Biff to get a job and try to resolve their differences. They fail on all account.
The viewers also discover that the event that changed Biff's life was when he caught his father in a hotel room with another woman during one of his travelling salesman job. After that incident, Biff's zest for life had fizzled.

In the last scene, we discover that Willy had indeed committed suicide in car crash hoping that his insurance money would be used by the sons to start a business. Biff with anger still buried himself towards his father, decides that he wants to explore other things in life while Happy starts in his father's line of work.

An entertaining flick for those looking for depth of character in its stars and the varied emotions involved in the plot. A good discussion point for students of drama and psychology. After watching this drama, one realises that life is not so white or black. The shades of grey that accompany each individual differentiates us from animals and plants. For a plant, give ample sunshine, air, water and nutrients, they would bear fruit. For humans, however, you think you have provided the best that money can buy, the product, however, may not be as desired. There is this other factor that lurks in the deep crevices of the deep part of the higher centres of the brain!

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