Crookery at Crockett Island!

Midnight Mass (Netflix miniseries; 2021)
Creator, Director: Mike Flanagan

This miniseries is specifically relevant to the many unthinking keyboard warriors who spew venom freely over social media with their ill-thought seventh-century ideologies to spread ridiculous so-called divine decrees. Just because outsourcing labour is a legitimate way to ease physical burdens, it does mean it applies to rational thinking. 

As the joke goes, the top students in the class will become scientists who will change the course of mankind. The following best will be professionals, doctors, architects, engineers, etc. The professionals will control the scientists. The truant skivers will become lawyers who will take charge of the first two groups. The playful mavericks who frequently dodge their assignments will end up as politicians and will dictate terms at the end. But it is the boys sitting at the back of the class who fail all exams who will end up as holy men who would eventually control everybody else, from politicians all through to the scientists. 

This is precisely what is happening here in Malaysia today. Sixty years of lulled intellectual development and lack of competitive edge to excel have elevated the godmen clan to such a level that defies logic. Every little day-to-day problem demands men of theology to have the final say, not science or intellectual discourse. Whilst the country is let wayward by corrupt politicians and left to rot as its neighbours reach for newer frontier, the masses are left inebriated in the opium of religion.

The uncertainty of the purpose of life and the fear of the unknown draws more inhabitants of a small remote island, Crockett Island, to flock to its only Church, a Catholic Church. It revolves around many of its inhabitants. A disillusioned young man returns home to the island after serving time for drunk driving and killing a pedestrian. He is trying to fit into his disappointed family and judging community. The Sheriff, a Muslim widower, finds it hard to fit into the exclusively Christian society. After losing his wife to cancer, his duty as a father to a teenage boy is challenging as the son seems curious about Christianity. 

Then, the resident Preacher, who is supposed to return from the mainland, fails to turn up. In his place is a young pastor turns up. He seems more dynamic and draws the crowd to the parish. The congregation at the Church grows phenomenally more significant as a miracle takes place on its premises. A wheelchair girl starts walking!

Slowly, people go missing. The last straw comes when an ultrasound-proven pregnancy goes missing. Meanwhile, there is a kind of caretaker lady of the Church who has a firm hold on running the house of worship. She indeed has planned for the Easter weekend, as the islanders stay vigil for Easter Sunday!

This miniseries, Midnight Mass, is a set-piece that discusses how faith can be contagious and fuel cruelty and violence. It justifies people's actions and inactions. The name of the Divine is invoked to absolve them of the moral culpabilities of their acts. A divine decree, however bitter, needs to be enforced. Organised religion seems to give a sense of superiority as if they have complete knowledge of the secrets of the Universe and a feeling of exclusivity, giving titles like heathens, pagans, kuffars and non-believers to others.

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Air sick...

It was a necessary trip, not a pleasure cruise. It needed to be done. 

Just as the restrictions that kept us within our borders were eased, I made a dash for it. I thought everyone would be excited to fly free as a bird all over again - the passengers would be thrilled to meet with their loved ones overseas, and the flight crew with the licence to serve in the airspace, ecstatic to scale the skies.

How wrong I was! 

The powers that be probably decided to take an excellent last squeeze on travellers one more time, one for the road, before the scare of Covid dwindled away. Out of the blue (not mentioned in any pre-travel requisites), recipients of Sinovac vaccines needed to provide a negative report of their nasal swab for virus detection (PCR-Ag). New directives, it seems. When travellers expressed their dissatisfaction, the staff reassured them that they just happened to have a state-of-the-art laboratory at the airport, by the way, and results could be obtained within two hours, just in time for them to board their flights. How convenient! But the catch was that it cost RM500 when it was done for RM200 outside. Hey, if you could afford a flight ticket...

In my eyes, the flight crew did not display much enthusiasm for their newfound freedom. Maybe it was because they were scheduled on a 'graveyard route' - a route allocated to newbies, as a punishment or demotion, a trip to the Gulag. The flight (KUL-DEL) with the most number of unsettled passengers who are never satisfied and undeservedly feel flight attendants are like slaves on Captain Morgan's pirate ship, fit to be abused. To an outsider, the scene looked like a group of primary school teachers controlling many boisterous students - teachers running away, appearing busy and school whining, asking for this and that.

I remember my first international flight on MAS. Their tagline, service with a smile, was complemented with the secret to capturing a man's heart. I was puffed with a full meal, periodic snacks and free-flowing beverages. No thanks to the democratisation of air travel with the invasion of budget airlines, the flight menu on this regular flight too had been 'plebeianised'! Passing off shrivelled dehydrated chicken pieces for rendang is criminal. And a cake piece which looked like one obtained from a bread vendor? 

The return trip was no better. Two hours of delay in flight take-off but a single breath of apology, but instead, the pilot gave a lethargic description of his flight path and altitude… 33,000 ft above Visakapatnam etc. No one word remotely resembling sorry, delay or beyond control in his wasteful banter. No one was bothered that the passengers may miss their connecting flights or other pressing engagement. Oh, what the heck? They are performing a charity mission...

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So much of a role model!

 King Richard (2021)

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green

By now, everybody would have heard about the movie 'King Richard', not because the leading actor, Will Smith, won the Oscar but the slapping of the host, Chris Rock. Many are arguing whether the showdown was staged. Will Smith, walking up to the stage to smack Rock for cracking an off-colour joke about her alopecia, was really uncalled for. Behavioural specialists and body language experts have been working overtime to analyse, frame by frame, the demeanour of Smith, his wife Jeda and Rock to surmise that it was not staged. 

This movie is a biopic about the untiring efforts of Richard Williams to make world-class tennis stars out of Venus and Serena. Richard, a pushy father, steamrolled himself to get trainers for his daughter. A slave driver, he did not want his daughters another statistic in the sea of black children with social issues. He abhorred violence and was bullied by the local hoodlum.

It is ironic that Will Smith, who won his role as Richard, behaves in such a non-acceptable way. His action does not augur well with his status as an advocate of 'Black Lives Matter'. It just reinforces the stereotyping that blacks are violent people. Verbal abuse can be reflected with wit.

It is said that, in the early 1900s, Swami Vivekanda was in a canteen in the UK. He went to sit at a bench where his Professor, a white man, was seated. Seeing the Indian man about to share his bench, he rebuked, "You know a pig and a bird cannot sit together!". Almost instantaneously, Swami Vivekananda replied, "it is quite alright, I can fly away!" and went away before the Professor knew what hit him.

How people look at us is in how we make them look at us. This Singaporean driver used a jack to tilt the car so that it could fill more petrol, to stretch his Singapore dollar at a filling station across the border in Johore Bahru. This action just reinforces the public (non-Singaporeans) the perception that they (Singaporeans) are more like country bumpkins - thrifty, penny-wise and just uncouth. One cannot blame Johoreans if they form a poor opinion about their southern neighbours if this is what they see week over week.

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The emphasis on family unit.

CODA (2021)
Director: Sian Heder

Now we know they are two meanings to the word 'coda'. As we have come to know it, the first word refers in music to the closing passage in a music piece. As the root word in Latin suggests, Coda is Italian refers to the tail (e.g. cauda equina is the sack of nerve fibres that fan out like a horsetail at the posterior end). The word's second meaning is actually an abbreviation for 'Child of Deaf Adult'. In essence, it refers to the child who grew up with non-hearing parents.

This film is about a CODA, a high school girl, Ruby, who grows up with both mute parents and an elder brother who is also mute. This tightly-knitted family of four live by the coast. Father is a fisherman helped by his son, who dropped out of school early due to disability. Ruby juggles between school and helping her father on a fishing boat. The understanding is that Ruby is to help out in the family business after high school.

By chance, after joining the school choir club, when Ruby sees an attractive boy enter the club, she is discovered by her teacher to have hidden talents. Long story short, she is in a position to go to Berklee Music School. In the background, the fishing community is fighting the middle men's menace who impinge on their earnings. As the rest of the community is not well versed in sign language, Ruby is a valuable asset who can correctly voice out her father's great ideas. Ruby's absence also lands the father and son team in trouble due to their hearing impairment.

Marilee Martin, an Oscar winner, is said to be
instrumental in ensuring the right cast

Ruby's dilemma now is this. Even though Ruby loves singing and has a bright future ahead of her, she loves her family more. Leaving for Berkelee would mean the family has to fend for themselves in an environment that is already fighting for its own survival.

Themes like these are not ground shattering. We have had this type of self-sacrificial coming-of-age story before. What makes this different is that, in keeping with frequent cries against cultural misappropriation, the filmmakers ensured real-life hearing-impaired actors. That itself is a recipe for an Academy Award nomination. Added with the emphasis on the family unit strength gives its contenders a run for its money.

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Politics is strange...

The Kingmaker (2019)
Director: Lauren Greenfield

An eerie resemblance exists between the Marcuses' story and that of Najib Razak's. Ferdinand Marcos was democratically elected as the President of the Philippines in 1965. The beginning of his tenure saw massive development and prosperity aided by foreign funds. By his second term, the economy was in the doldrums, prompting citizen uprising. In 1972, martial law was introduced. The opposition and media were silenced.

True, in the early stage, progress was apparent, and everyone was happy. Slowly, sycophants and rent-seekers moved in. The Marcoses soon became megalomaniacs. Beyond their collection of handbags, shoes and paintings, the symbol of their opulence is the Safari Park in Calauit Island. Imelda Marcus had had exotic animals uprooted from their natural habitats in Kenya to create a wildlife sanctuary in their own backyard. To make place for these wild animals from the other side of the world, the Government had to displace the island's indigenous people who lived there for generations.

Like that Najib won the 2018 elections, albeit with accusations of gerrymandering and money politics, he reinforced his position as PM. That is when the putrefying scandals of corporate foolhardy came to light. People rose to the occasion to oust what they thought was the ruling party in GE14.

Like that, after witnessing their opposition leader, Aguino, gunned down in the cold upon return from the USA, the Filipina People Power rose to the occasion to send the First Family reeling off to Hawaii from Malacanang Palace.

The long arm of the law then dragged itself to retrieve the vast people's wealth parked the world over. Slowly the dust settled. Ferdinand Marcos died in exile.

Calauit Safari Park

The initial euphoria of the People Power dwindled as the economy slowed down, and the divide between the haves and have-nots widened. Crime and drugs menaced the country. Half of the nation had to find employment overseas. The people now reminisce the good old times of the Marcoses when life was better. The public heart mellowed. The Marcoses' plea to return was granted. The former President's body was allowed to be buried in Filipina soil.

They saw hope in Duterte as their next President to put things in order. Imelda slowly shows her mettle. Her son Bongbong Marcus also appears in the scene to stand for the post of Vice President. The people then realise that Duterte had his election campaign financed by none other than Marcos' daughter, Imee. It all fell into place. The Marcoses are back, and the system is twigged for their purpose. Rodrigo Duterte drops another bombshell. His father was a cabinet minister in Ferdinand Marcos' first Government. There we see the connection - Duterte's link to the Marcoses!

The same thing happened in Malaysia. After the initial thrill of changing the Government without bloodshed, Malaysians soon discovered that change was not easy. The nonagenarian, whom they thought had turned over a new leaf, had all the while plotted a twisted Machiavellian move to sabotage his own Government.

Fast forward to the year 2022, like a scene from Mission Impossible where Nathan Hunt removes his disguise over disguise, we see the same clowns that we abhorred re-appearing stronger than before in identical ridiculous suits.

They say love is strange, politics is stranger!

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Beyond doing the right things!

I'll meet you there (2021)
Story, Direction: Iram Parveen Bilal

The movie's title has its origin from one of Rumi's sayings. Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there. 

It sounds about right. It is easy for a third person to look at our every action and pass judgement, just as easy for us to judge others. There must be a justification for everyone's actions. He must have given a lot of thought before embarking on its execution. If the measures are just by their intentions, pure at heart and are sure to accept the consequences, who are we to pass comments?

This movie created a buzz on my antenna when it was reported to be banned in Pakistan. Its Central Board of Film Censors (CBFC) found the film unsuitable for public exhibition as it did not reflect true Pakistani culture, portrayed a negative image of Muslims, and was against Pakistan's social and cultural values.

All the film did was depict brown people and Muslims in a non-stereotypical fashion, often not shown in Hollywood and Tinseltown. It narrates the tale of an American-Pakistani police officer, Majeed, in Chicago. He has a heavy cloud hanging over him. His wife, a Kathak dancer, had to give up her passion (and her life) due to pressures from her father in law. Now he leads a quiet life with his daughter, Dua, a college-going student. Like her mother, she is passionate about dancing, especially Kathak, a traditional Indian dance. Dua is nicely snuggled into the American way of carefree life until her grandfather, i.e. Majeed's father, arrives unannounced at their doorstep after 12 long years. 

That is when Dua and Majeed's lives hit stormy waters.

Dua's unrestricted American lifestyle is scorned upon. Her involvement in an unIslamic artform is criticised, and Dua is pushed to stick to tenets of the religion. Meanwhile, Majeed is compelled to investigate the local mosque for possible funding of terrorist activities. During an FBI raid in that Majeed acted as an informant, his father was apprehended.

In essence, the movie deals with how members of three generations keep religion in their daily lives. With the challenge of exposure to newer communities and the demand of different environments, the newer generation amalgamates religion into their lives as and how they feel appropriate. Pressures from the elders and to need to conform to society put them in a difficult place.

An entertaining watch.

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So much about being civilised!

Donbass (Russian/Ukrainian; 2018)
Written/Direction: Sergei Loznitsa

The other day, a day after Putin's army invaded Ukraine, posts on many Malaysians' social media posts read, 'Pray for Ukraine'. One should not have sleepless nights thinking of 'writings on the walls' like this, as it has become almost like a knee-jerk reaction to any world event. Nobody wants to ask why should we pray to an omnipotent God who was in a position not to let it happen at all in the first place. But yet, they convince themselves by alleging that great things are willed by Him, but the follies are only ours. His Grace will save us.

Hey, don't the Malaysians have a bone to pick with the Ukrainians? After all, it is above their airspace that our national carrier MH17 went down in 2014? Ukrainian pro-Russian freedom fighters allegedly shot the MAS plane with Russian firepower as determined by the multinational Joint Investigative Tribunal. So Ukrainians are not all at fault but Putin and the Russians? To date, nothing has happened. Putin denies everything. Family members have sued the airline for taking that war-torn route, but nobody can touch Russia.

MH17: What was left of it!

The recent Ukraine invasion has taught us that everybody in Russia is convinced that their reason for war is just. They bring in the pride of patriotism defending one's nationalistic spirit, ideology, free spirit or religion. They forget that, like what Lao Tsu had said, 'Nobody wins in a war!' This message is specially targetted to the layman in the street.s The leaders who stir the false sentiment can quickly flee from the country for political asylum. The public dies as martyrs to be immortalised as national treasures in monuments for crows to lay their excrements.

The current situation is more complicated than meets the eye. The world media paints a very one-dimensional narrative of the whole conflict - the badass communist infiltrating a young country newly escaped from the evil clutches of communism trying to be spread love in the free world! It is more complicated than that. 

The history of Ukraine goes way back before that of Russia. Whilst the Russian wasteland was roamed by nomadic tribes and barbaric horsemen, Ukraine already had a semblance of civilisational living which the Christian invader later labelled as pagan. Empires over empires split up this region over the centuries till it was usurped by the winning Red Soviet. The Reds wanting to maintain their hegemony started russifying the area. The Eastern part of Ukraine ended up with a large population who associated themselves with Mother Russia.

Wars bring out the best and worst of humanity!

After losing its communist mettle, Putin and his henchmen try to influence Ukrainian leaders with carrots. The citizens, still reeling from the tail-end days of communism, are reasonably contented with capitalism and the free spirit it had to offer. 

Now, the region is left with a zombie-like Neonazi faction of Ukrainian and Wagner's group of mercenary soldiers who do Putin's dirty work. 

Ukraine is now in the same position as a child caught between two divorcing parents. On one side, the West enticed them with business and bio-weapon laboratories. The Russian oligarchs brought in the mollah, but they centred it around Dondass and the eastern part of the country. The Western part ended up as rent-seekers depending on the Eastern industrialists. Now the helpers from both sides have washed their hands. To add salt on the wound, Ukraine, in the name of saving humanity from annihilation from a nuclear mushroom, have given up their nuclear facilities. Now they have to depend on the world's goodwill to stay afloat. 

This documentary was made in 2014 amid a civil war when Russians supported rebel groups that wanted to take the country. It is a kind of cruel caricature of war does, not to powers that be in the ivory tower, but to average Joe Public. Disruption of daily routine, loss of basic amenities, basic decency and lack of basic needs of life are not felt by the generals but by the man on the street. In the name of patriotism and wanting to defend a piece of cloth, they thump their chest to protect their land and send their offspring to the slaughter.

Love and marriage go on still!

It was a time when Russia annexed Crimea that a separatist group from the Donbas region tried to redeem autonomy from Ukraine with the help of the Russian army.

From time immemorial, people from this region have been fighting. From the time of the Kievan Rus to the Cossack to the reign of Catherine the Great to the Habsburg Empire, then to the World Wars and Soviet era, it has been just wars over wars. And the Caucasians have the audacity to consider themselves as higher beings ordained by God to civilise the coloured natives of their dark and demonic civilisations. 

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