Showing 1 - 10 of 141
A Thai actor takes the stage at Cannes
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/05/2024
» In a dreary rural town in Taiwan, illegal Southeast Asian workers live a precarious existence toiling away in farms or homes while enduring tough bosses and prying authorities. Most of them are from the Philippines or Indonesia, but there are also a large number from Myanmar and Thailand.
Coppola's Megalopolis leaves Cannes scratching its head
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/05/2024
» Every year the Cannes Film Festival has its hottest gig -- a film so breathlessly anticipated and a justification of the festival's raison d'être. This year, that honour belongs to Megalopolis. Or, to be completely faithful according to the plaque flashed up on the screen, Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis: A Fable.
Cannes asks: Cinema anyone?
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/05/2024
» To remind us that we're here because of cinema, the 77th Cannes Film Festival did an uncanny double bill on its first day. The festival opened on Tuesday and will run until May 25. On the first afternoon, before the ritzy kerfuffle of the opening red carpet, Cannes screened the first part of the restored 1927 silent film Napoleon, an audacious epic of the French Revolution by Abel Gance, who 97 years ago tested the limits of what cinema could do with exhilarating results (the entire film runs for seven hours; we were treated to the first four here).
Cannes 2024 highlights
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/05/2024
» From Francis Ford Coppola's new epic to a Taiwanese drama starring a Thai actor and a Pol Pot drama, we pick hot titles from the French film festival that kicks off today.
Ripley strikes quite exquisitely, again
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/04/2024
» Just when you thought the original book was bled dry, its last drop of smouldering homoerotic blood squeezed and sucked by multilple movie adaptations, from Rene Clement (French) and Anthony Minghella (American) to Liliana Cavani (Italian), here comes Steven Zaillian's seven-episode Netflix series bluntly titled Ripley. Dusky and exquisitely coldblooded, the latest reworking proves that the Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel The Talented Mr. Ripley is a living gift that continues giving after 69 years.
Asean Film Festival is finally here
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/03/2024
» Despite the odd, unexplained double postponement -- the first when it was moved from early December 2023 to late January 2024, and then from January to March -- the Bangkok Asean Film Festival finally gets under way, from today until Sunday at SF CentralWorld. Despite the adjournment, the line-up looks decent, with the best Southeast Asian titles culled from the past year -- Tiger Stripes, Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell, Abang Adik, Dreaming And Dying, Oasis Of Now, Nowhere Near, Morrison, Thai classics The Adventure Of Sudsakorn and The Adulterer, and a short film competition.
Poor Barbie... Oppenheimer's the bomb
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/03/2024
» The annual guessing game to read the minds of inscrutable Oscars voters is here.
Coldplay across the universe
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/02/2024
» The latest Coldplay concert in Bangkok was a feat of photogenic spectacles designed to bedazzle, complete with light-blinking wristbands, sci-fi-warped animation on spherical screens, balloons in the shape of planets and exploding fireworks above the roof of Rajamangala National Stadium ("The football field not often used to play football on," as a Thai national squad member noted.)
Marina's soul searching in Bangkok
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/10/2023
» Like Dante guided by Virgil, Marina Abramovic drifts through the purgatory that is Bangkok chaperoned by the little monkey prince. After praying at shrines and temples of assorted spiritual inclinations, she is taken to the Monkey King (Pichet Klunchun), whose rhymed, melodic prophecy finally guides Abramovic to the prayer hall of Wat Pho where her salvation awaits clad in a saffron robe.
The afterlife of Mitr Chaibancha
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/10/2023
» In an abrupt moment of life's brutal script, Mitr Chaibancha fell to his death from a helicopter ladder on Oct 8, 1970. He was filming Insee Thong (Golden Eagle), playing an anti-communist masked hero, when he slipped from the rung and plunged to the ground in Pattaya. That same evening, his body was transported to Wat Kae Nang Loeng. Thousands of people, unable to believe that Thailand's most famous actor was really, tragically dead, amassed impromptu at the temple and demanded that his corpse be raised from the coffin and shown to the public.