Billions

I am no where far into the series to develop an in-depth opinion of the shoe but I think that I like what I see so far. 

I did a search a few months ago on some must watch shows for those who want to understand 2008, 1989 and the 1930s Great Depression. The shows below made an appearance. 

Most of my thinking about movies and learning comes from a time I spent as part of the comms team for a mental health NGO in Uganda and part of our assignment was to review films that explored the subject of mental health and offered some insights into the same. I supposed as a result of that experience I have consequently developed a love for film and its capacity to shed light on different complex subjects. 

Billions therefore falls in this category of must watch series. It is a story about a wealthy young man who is and has made a healthy chunk of change from the. Markets and who is as things seem likely to continue making a lot more at least as long as he can wiggle his way around an attorney who is bent on bringing him down. 

The attorney has a story of his own and does his smart and kinky wife. This reminds me of another show that deals with the incredibly valuable and talented people in our lives who have strange sexual habits but who on the surface function at a rather effective level. 

Just two episodes into the show and there are a few scenes worth mentioning. The first is a relationship with the past. The show makes great effort to help us understand just how Important and sentimental wealthy people are and how these old relationships inform how they invest. There is a pizza shop that is about to close but the protagonist will have nothing of it. It has the best pizza in his city. Besides the owner of the shop was nice to him when he was a nosy kid struggling to find a safe place in the city. 

The second is an experience he had with a man and family for which he was a caddy during a rough patch in his life. The family for which he served fires him in an unfair incident and this experience stays with him. As fate would have it, he comes into a part of the city where a building bears the name of the infamous man that fired him from his low paying golf job. He decides to change the name replacing it with his own. It will cost the desperate family but instead of offering the full amount he offers them the same figure that he was paid…except of course a much lower offer than initially agreed. Then there is a lesson about why you should not mess with the wives of influential men. I think this part mirrors an episode of House of Cards in which the Vice President’s Wife, herself a tour de force takes on a staff member who decides to take her to court. In Billions though, it is an issue of respect and a threat that the Billionaire’s wife makes quite publicly to the hitherto clueless former friend. She find herself expelled from all her clubs and humiliated and her son barred from getting into an Ivy League university. 

The rest of the show is a conversation or a back and forth between the two major players as they eat away at their enemies one close friend at a time, often getting personal and involving unfaithful fathers. 

Omusajja agwana mukalegga.

This one feels much more like it would have flourished as a series. It has the largest cast I have seen in a single movie. The story is done well and has quite a number of twists and turns. It is effectively about a guy who gets the girl...but gets a ton more than what he bargains for. 

This is a film about duality. A presentation of two practitioners of traditional. The real (one guy who seems to deliver) and the fake (another who simply uses his networks and technology). it also has two women. One content while the other not. It has two men one rich and one seeking to be rich. It is done by Ramon Productions. They have made a name for themselves for being the go to group for Action Sequences. Some have even described the director of these as the Ugandan Quentin Tarantino. 

His films are headquartered in Wakaliga which has become known as Wakaliwood. This crew gave us Who Killed Captain Alex, they also gave us Ani Mulalu (who is really crazy) which went far beyond the usual NGO funded projects about saving the lives of children and awareness raising to an effective local action packed hit. Maybe the film was slightly negative in its portrayal of rich people as kid snatchers but these are the ideas that have filtered through the press. His most recent one talks of collaboration with Dolph Londgren. Another one that Is out is called Million  Dollar Child-about a wiz kid who has developed a tool that helps him control people. It is also described as the Uganda's version of the Expendables (operations kakongolilo).*

*Kakongolilo is a maize cob. 

Nantaba-The devil within

This one is a collaborative effort by a host of talented actors many of whom work with family members in drama groups that have dominated the screen and production houses for years. The most popular of these is probably Theatre La Bonita and VCR Studios. Others Were created and merged much later. In the sixties and seventies the themes that dominated the stage were mainly political and cultural. The drama groups were as important as they would have been in other centers of power. Functioning to keep the royal house laughing and communicating tough subjects. Many production houses have sprung up from these groups and after years of performance many have become household names. 

Nantaba is about a goddess who rules an Island. She is served by men and will not tolerate the presence of women. 

We expect quite a clash when a stranger uses a groups of women (innocently plying their street trade) into his house where he manages to capture them. Will they escape his grasp. Will the culturally frightening host accept these new guests? What will happen to the adherents of her faith when confronted with these issues. 

In two parts this one should also be fun to watch. The graphics work is impressive as is the choice of sets for production. This film gives you an insiders view in the hidden world of traditional religion and uses current events to question ideas that abound about faith and practice and tradition.