The US economy can look forward to higher prices with the Trump protectionist and isolationist agenda. Trump seeks to protect US manufacturing jobs ‘America First’ and dismiss US trade partners as outlined in his recent speech at the World Economic… Continue reading →

The USP of India’s first airstrike forms the basis of the film. But what makes it stand out is the moving drama that follows. The rest of this review contains spoilers. Early on in Sky Force, in a scene set in 1971, Wing Commander Om Ahuja (Akshay Kumar) gets a call about the capture of […]

The film begins with the discovery of a skeleton, but finds its footing once the focus shifts from who the victim is to what their life and dreams were like. Asif Ali and Anaswara Rajan give beautiful performances in this thriller that transcends its genre. The rest of this review contains spoilers. When we first […]

Both NCEA and CIE courses cover purchasing power parity (PPP). This is when an amount of money in one country can be exchanged for a quantity of foreign currency, and the two amounts will buy identical baskets of products in… Continue reading →

Guru Somasundaram, Sanchana Natarajan, and John Vijay give fantastic performances in this sobering story about how difficult it is to give up a habit. The rest of this review contains spoilers. One of the pleasures of cinema-watching is seeing that genuinely good actors like Guru Somasundaram have come into their own, to the extent of […]

The December edition of ‘The Atlantic’ magazine had a piece on Walmart suggesting that it actually makes people poorer even with their famous lower prices. For many years Walmart has marketed itself as the company that saves lower income groups… Continue reading →

By abishekspeare And no, I’m not talking about my best films. This is not about the overall film holistically working (although I did love all the films in this list). This is about the director/writer mining gold from a scene, which in the hands of someone else would have just been any other scene To […]

The film is about the desperations of a middle-class man. And while comedy is definitely welcome in a serious premise, the screenplay keeps turning to jokes as a crutch, and this affects the story being told. The rest of this review contains spoilers. In Kudumbasthan, Manikandan plays a middle-class man named Naveen. He is married […]

I didn’t know what to expect from the Gautham-Mammootty combination. But they’ve given us a movie where the characterisation of the protagonist is so good that the rest of it goes down easily, even the minor flaws. The rest of this review contains spoilers. By this time, we don’t need to say what a good […]

Investment in R&D = increases in productivity? This is what you would think. However in the US there has been rising investments in R&D but not the corresponding increases in productivity growth. Although total R&D spending has grown from 2.2%… Continue reading →

You might have seen in the news of a pizza restaurant in the UK charging £100 (NZ$218) for a Hawaiian pizza. Lupa Pizza in Norwich charged £100 for the delivery of a Hawaiian Pizza because they don’t approve of the… Continue reading →

In case you want to talk about crime / personal safety at large…

Much news of late on the fall in value of the NZ dollar against the Greenback (US dollar) – the NZ dollar has shed more than 5% since the RBNZ’s November meeting – see mindmap for impact of a fall… Continue reading →