As you like it....

Breaking Bad (Seasons 1-5; 2008-2013)

“I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And I was… really… I was alive.”

At the end of 68 episodes and 50 over hours later, Walter White realised that his transformation from a bored high school teacher to a methamphetamine cooking drug lord, Heisenberg, was not, after all, to leave a legacy of bottomless supply of wealth for the family after he was diagnosed to have terminal lung cancer but for himself. After losing many opportunities in life and teaching a group of uninterested students, and leading a simple life, he thought of leaving something behind for the family to lead a comfortable life. But, after meeting many resistances in his shortcut to luxury, he persevered all in the name of providing for the family.

In the end, he died an unhappy man. Hated by his wife, humiliated by his son, who was ashamed of his father's background, his earnings refused by the family, dying on the run as a criminal, having his beloved brother-in-law dead were not his idea leaving the family in a serene environment. But, in the end, Walter realised that he did what he did because he was good, liked it and was appreciated for it.
Indeed this is a funny place to learn about the more delicate things in life amongst killers and drug peddlers. But, interestingly, there are many subtle things that the mind wonders as you watch this addictive saga which ended its seasons in September 2013.

We don't dress our women!

Just the other day, I was watching a Youtube clip by the world's most famous atheist, Professor Richard Dawkins called 'The God Delusion'.

I was particularly fascinated by one scene in this man's crusade to convince his audience that the institution of religious actually brings more disharmony to mankind. In that scene, Dawkins was interviewing an American secular Jewish man who got his divine calling and had embraced an ultra-conservative form of Islam. He was residing in Gaza. Upon being the state of affairs of world today, he went ballistic. He blamed the evil of the world on the Western civilization. 

"You dress your women like whores and send them to the streets, you expect the world to be a better place!" To which, Dawkins coolly told him, "We don't dress them, they dress themselves!"
I think that statement says a lot of things. You set a certain set of rules for people and say that some are more than equal than others and expect people to follow them forever and ever till the end of time. Unfortunately, suppression and repression has a threshold. After a certain point, it loses its elasticity and reaches a point of no-return!

Frustrations will be aplenty but can violence be justified
or can this primal reflex ever be leashed? (S'pore, 8/12/13)

Social experiments in animals have shown them reacting violently when one is given preferential feeding over the other. Recent outpour of emotions over the demise of a fellow worker in unrelated bus accident is also testimony of a group of unhappy workers who felt short changed in the flow of development and the sea of economic prosperity. It is not enough to tell them this is what you deserve as Man, being Man, will always strive to be at higher place and is forever searching for that freedom, happiness, liberty, truth, nirvana, moksha, whatever you call it....

Will never learn

Dr. Strangelove - or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Director: Stanley Kubrik

A satirical look at the world superpowers who seem more interested in annihilating each other rather than policing the world and living in harmony. The seed of destruction seem to have planted from the time we, Man, either as Adam and Eve or as primordial ancestors started walking this Earth.
This British-American black comedy showcasing the ever versatile Peter Sellers in 3 roles - a bumbling Army officer, a handicapped ex-Nazi German scientist and as the President.

Peter Sellers

The special effects seen here are a pale comparison to what Hollywood and other studios have to offer these days, nevertheless, the film is quite entertaining if you are looking for a different brand of clean dark humour.

Every life comes with a sentence but...

Karpal Singh, The Tiger of Jelutong (Tim Donoghue, 2013)

The story of Karpal Singh is the story of any typical Malaysian born and bred in this land called home. Even though the ruling coalition would like to deny the contributions of all of its citizen and try to rewrite the history of the country as they please, this is reality, the reality of a country which raised from the ashes toiling through good times and bad ones. Any country in this world cannot live alone and cannot progress without the help of the little people. After some time, these people will not stay as little people. They too would aspire to come up in life and be somebody. With education, the offspring of the little people would not be taking things lying down but instead demand their rights. After all, they contributed to the only country that they call home. It is ludicrous to forever keep them as second class citizen and be swept under the carpet, seen but not heard.
Karpal's early recollection of childhood must be accompanied by the whirring sounds of American warplanes. The attack orchestrated by a man on wheelchair (FDR) in the mid 40s on Penang at the twilight months of WW2 had tremendous impact on a man who would eventually be on a wheelchair himself! The seemingly unstoppable tiger who had endured pain, torture, incarceration would not stop roaring even though wheel chair bound - down but not out!
The book narrates the childhood of a lawyer from humble beginnings and how this fiery looking for a good argument man builds up his law practice and political career. Many newspaper headline grabbing cases that had eluded most Malaysian people's memory is discussed in detail here.
Many death row inmates owe their lives to Karpal for escaping the gallows through his hard work. Many politicians rather not confront him anywhere especially in political arena. As the fighter swims through his eight decade of life, there is work aplenty to be done for the people which he has paved his offsprings to continue...

In the interest of science, they say!

Radio Bikini (1988, Documentary)

In the interest of science they say....

The above is a trailer of a series nuclear bomb blasts (2 of them) in Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1946. I saw the full version of it over the Sundance channel recently. And it left a bad after taste. 

After the success of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US and its allies decided that there was a dire need to learn more about this deadly weapon, hence was born Operation Crossroads to test the catastrophic effects of the A-bomb.

The film starts with the actual footage of transmission of propaganda radio from Bikini Atoll. it paints a very cheery picture of the army and the locals gaily enjoying the sea, sun and the outdoors. The visitors managed to convince the Bikinian leader, Kilon Bauno, to coax his people to uproot themselves from their homeland to the Marshall Islands for the purpose of the experiment. The inhabitants never ever returned home to their homeland as it was finally deemed worthless for cultivation and potentially harmless for human inhabitants later. The events of the operations were narrated through the experience of a former American serviceman, John Smitherman who was very sick during time of the documentary shooting and succumbed shortly afterwards due to cancer.
The days leading to the blast off was met with opposition by the American public and the Soviet Union. With the touch of American diplomacy and propaganda, everything proceeded as planned.

Man checked for
radioactivity hours
after an atomic blast
at Bikini

5 war ships with various animals and experiment materials were strategically around the intended site of blasts. Tonnes of film rolls were shipped in to immortalize the event. The navy crew viewed the whole event from a distance wearing only protective goggles; no protective suits or shoes!
The footage shown after the mushroom cloud was not a pleasant one.
The steel war ships were riddled with hole and the metal aboard were twisted around like coil wire. The sheep on board were roasted, some miraculously were still alive but very very sick. The technicians were seen aboard were the clucking Geiger-Mueller counters. The soldier attire and even their bodies tested positive in the counter. They were still seen swimming and washing using the sea water.
The later part of the film suggested, but did not admit, that atomic power should only be used for peace on Earth, not to destroy Earth.

The soul searching trip

The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
Director: Wes Anderson
Not everyone would fancy this brand of quirky comedy. It is not really your situational comedy, neither it is a slapstick comedy! It will not make you roll on the floor laughing but make you think, albeit a bit.
As expected, as the film is mainly set in India, the picture perfect landscape of the Indian country side is generously used to paint the movie's background. Many of musical scores were done by The Kinks and some were Satyajit Ray and Pandit Ravi Shankar's compositions in Ray's movies. It is a sort of tribute to this giant of movie maker. Irrfan Khan makes a brief appearance here.
Three brothers meet up a year after their father's demise in India, enroute to visit their mother who had renounced normal life to work in a nunnery. They (Owen Wilson, Adrian Brody, Jason Schwarzman) board the luxury train, The Darjeeling Limited to meet their mother who is actually not too keen to meet them. The control freak eldest brother, Francis (Wilson), survivor of a near fatal car crash arranges the trip. The other two siblings who themselves are embroiled in their own personal dilemmas and do not see eye to eye with Francis reluctantly follow suit.
After being thrown out of the train for misconduct, the trio continue the journey on foot. On the way, they rescue three young drowning brothers. One succumbs to injuries. They follow the kids to partake in their traditional  funeral. Events around the ceremony help them look at life differently.
The trio eventually reach the mother's convent. After realising that they were not welcomed there - the mother, who did not even attend their father's funeral, absconded from the convent a day after their arrival!- they leave for home. The brothers return more united than ever before.
India, as usual, has been depicted here as the haven for wounded souls and for lost souls to discover the real meaning of life, its purpose and the reason for our being here!

Stop! In the name of love...

Ram-Leela a.k.a. Goliyon Ki Raasleela (Play of Bullets, Hindi; 2013)

In my book of review and Rotten Tomatoes, this film would fall somewhere between decaying fly-infested flavanoids lost tomato and a maggot-infested putrefying one.

A century ago, when the sub-continent was experimenting with the silver screen, it chose 'Raja Harishchandra' from its vast reservoir of traditional folklore. In time, the story of love took many turns and U-turns to depict love in innumerable possibilities. Occasionally, new formulas would produce many copy cat follow-ups with the same storyline but different settings. Mostly, the films would end depicting poetic justice, satisfying society's beliefs, traditions, and fragile society structures.
Maybe I am a sucker for a good storyline and unexpected twists. Hence, when the credits rolled in to announce that the story was based on 'Romeo and Juliet', I was tad disappointed.

In a flash, the whole story flashed in front of me. We all know the story of Shakespeare's momento of undying love which ended in tragedy. So, it was... the story of two promiscuous teens dancing around the streets in the fashion of a musical in various degrees of dressing and undressing, finding 'love at first sight' type of forbidden love, in tumultuous times, with 'over-my-dead-body' type of opposition from either party ending with untimely death with the love-struck couple leaving the world to live happily on the other side.

Exposing a sculptured body is Indian Culture.
Bodybuilding started here.

The movie's saving grace would be the well-choreographed dances set against the picturesque backdrop of Rajasthan with the kaleidoscopic gaudy crimson and dark green combination clothing with rhythmic, repetitive gyration of body parts. Suppose you think Tamil movies over glorify violence where the most the petite of beau brandishes a samurai sword (e.g. Trisha in Tirupachi). In that case, their counterparts dance jubilantly emptying the contents of their Kalashnikov assault rifles in the air as they danced in the name of the Gods and Indian culture! 

People who decide to tour Rajasthan after viewing this film hoping to find pretty oversexed deep cleavaged abdomen revealing ever dancing lasses with faces like Deepika Padukone in the deserts of Rajasthan may be in for a shock. Maybe not the protective patriarchal guardians who have no reservations about honour killing!