Showing 581-590 of 689 results
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White-collar rules
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/12/2012
» This much is clear: having a character complain about the sin of making money doesn't constitute a criticism of capitalism. It's doubly laughable when that character is, apparently, rich _ no, her parents are rich, maybe super rich. Evidence abounds in the sometimes funny, mostly shallow Thai film Yod Manut Ngoen Duen (Super Salary Man), released this week with a clear-eyed target of salaried earners who're awaiting the news of year-end bonus with a throbbing heart. In fact the film, disguised as a rebuke of the robotised mindset of white-collar existence, is a love ode to corporate mentality. Capitalism is bad, oh yeah, long live capitalism.
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Learning from Laos
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/12/2012
» I was in Luang Prabang last weekend _ for a film festival, of all things. A giant screen was put up in the main square near the Handicraft Market, and for five nights people _ mostly local, with a fair sprinkling of tourists _ turned up in the hundreds to watch movies under the black night. Luang Prabang, with its functional archaeology of ancient, glorious buildings, has no cinemas. That's even better, we could say, for the effort to boost the appetite for moving images and the idea of movies as a collective experience.
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When wizardry Dwarfs reality
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/12/2012
» So we're back in the Middle-earth, green and gnarly, volcanic, folkloric, heroic, mystically Germanic, mythically Norse, and obviously New Zealand. In short, a familiar neighbourhood from The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, last inhabited and winning 11 Oscars in 2003. Populated by murderous ogres, phosphorescent elves, salivating goblins and digitally ageless Cate Blanchett and Ian McKellen, the narrative is strictly another quest of a little hairy-footed being who'll have to prove his worth, conquer his fear, and slay the dragon (the latter will come in the second episode, or maybe the third, stick around). Gollum also returns _ no, in the Tolkien universe the creature has lived in that grotto long before LOTR _ only that he's now even more life-like, more hideous, more sad. Should I also add: more real?
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Reels to remember
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/12/2012
» The whirlwind season of awards, top-10 picks and year-end pontifications on the present state of cinema is upon us again. Below we've reprinted a few lists recently published by established film organisations/magazines.
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Real monkey business
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/12/2012
» This is a lovely little kiosk run by lovely little women, and sometimes frequented by lovely little people with an after-school sweet-toothed craving. ChimpChimp Crepes & Co, on the ground level of Le Chateau Mansion in Soi Ekamai 12 next to Ekamai International School, is an enchanting elfin cabin (it would've been perfect were it set by the woods, but alas...) serving warm crepes, silky gelato, crunchy waffles, homemade ice-cream and hot and cold drinks, smoothies and coffee, all in a snug open-air corner of sofas and benches.
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Illuminating The Night
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/01/2013
» Sa wakes up in a daze to find that the man she's shared the bed with has bolted with all her money. Alone she hitches a ride back from the seaside to Bangkok, gets changed, puts on her make-up, and heads straight to work at a florid, neon-swamped karaoke bar, where she sits outside the door below the twinkling signs waiting for male customers who're looking for drinking _ and singing and talking _ company.
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Highlight reel
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/12/2012
» Critics are not saboteurs, though sometimes we can be. I do not dream about movies _ there are more pleasant and sexier subjects _ and I enjoy Brave and The Avengers and The Expendables 2 and The Amazing Spider-man as much the average boy in your next seat. There are only movies I (or you) like and that I (or you) don't like, and if one day, I hope not soon, you put me in the ring at Lumpini Boxing Stadium, gloved, gagged, naked, oiled, and beat me up to pay for my ignorance, then let it be. But at least today in this traditional year-end pondering, please allow me to talk about movies that you mightn't have seen.
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Celebration of juvenile subversiveness
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/01/2013
» Starring Mei Gwei-lun, Rhydian Vaughan and Chang Hsiao-chuan. Directed by Yang Ye-che. At House RCA.
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Golden oldies make it a night to remember
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/01/2013
» It was an entirely delightful night of vintage cinema and deep nostalgia (sometimes very deep) last Thursday at Thailand Cultural Centre. Featuring 28 movie soundtracks sung by an illustrious parade of crooners, from an 83-year-old national artist to an indie rocker in tooth-achingly red pants, the concert Nang Thai Nai Siang Pleng, or "Thai Films In Music", hosted by Thai Film Archive, was a charming showcase that proved that the evocative power of cinema is never a complete experience without the songs that brought back a flood of yesteryear memories _ and something like forgotten happiness.
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Stealing a script from across the ocean
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/01/2013
» It's as tricky to rule if Samsung actually imitates the curvy frame of Apple as it is to judge if The Thieves, the highest-grossing film in the history of South Korea, is an unofficial remake of Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's 11. Only that it's 10 instead of 11 thieves, the casino is in Macau and not Vegas, and the female safe-crackers are hotter though the film itself is not. The Koreans, you see, are just amazing, the way they borrow a seed and grow something out of it _ the way they originalise, or try to originalise, something that belongs elsewhere in the pop-cultural ancestry and, to borrow burglary argot, make off with a massive haul.
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