Showing 1 - 7 of 7
Our best films of the year
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/12/2016
» As usual we have two lists, for titles released in local cinemas and the wider universe of world films shown elsewhere (and hopefully coming to our screens soon).
The non-Hollywood contenders
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/12/2016
» Thailand has submitted the monk drama Arpatti to compete with 84 other countries in the Oscar race for best foreign-language film. Here we look at some highlights from around the world before the nominations are announced on Jan 24.
A trip to the other world
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/11/2016
» A quick lowdown on Thai love motels: trashy lighting, soap-smelling beds, bad pillows, cheap porn on the TV and a trove of hush-hush secrets guarded by naked walls. Outside, the thick tarp curtains separate the public from the personal, the exposed from the invisible, the respectable from the randy. Inside, it is another world, a fantasy world, an alien world.
Off to a quiet start
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/01/2016
» For its first two days, the 68th Cannes Film Festival hasn't managed to turn up the real heat. The world's most famous tapis rouge — or red carpet — of the Grande Theatre Lumiere might be set ablaze by the stars of the furiously hellish Mad Max: Fury Road, showing Out of Competition, but talking points early in this cine-circus include Catherine Deneuve's caricature on the cover of Charlie Hebdo and Salma Hayek gnawing at a sea dragon's heart cooked by a virgin. Otherwise, café punditry keeps up the Cannes tradition of guessing the Palme d'Or winner without anyone having seen all the contestants. Elsewhere on the Boulevard de la Croisette, things remained pretty underwhelming.
Terminator Genisys does not compute
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 03/07/2015
» Hollywood's lusty obsession with reboots, retools, reloads, recasts and regeneration falls with a loud thud in Terminator Genisys, a clunky, messy, analogue-minded science fiction thriller that's hardly scientific or thrilling. If this is what the post-millennia Gen-Z audience have in terms of pop-cultural marquee, those above 35 can revel in the nostalgic romp of James Cameron's 1984 original, a far more intelligent and terrifying film about our fear of technology, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his star-making role, elevating robotic poker-face into a kind of acting scholarship.
Juvenile wizardry fails to dazzle
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/11/2013
» Like a trifling distraction before the arrival of the next instalment of The Hunger Games, the adolescent-in-distress Ender's Game shows innocent kids being made into instruments to feed the paranoia and war-mongering lust of adults _ except that Ender Wiggin's anti-heroism feels slight compared to Katniss Everdeen's baptism of fire (which we'll be seeing in two weeks' time).
Think global, act local
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/10/2013
» Walt Disney created Mickey Mouse in 1928. After years of toiling in Hollywood, the animator joined the vanguard of the talking-picture revolution when he produced Steamboat Willie, a cartoon that synchronised sound and animation featuring the good-humoured rodent that would become iconic (and maybe immortal). Two years later, Walt and his brother Roy licensed Mickey-related merchandise. And from the humble birth of Mickey Mouse 85 years ago, the Walt Disney Company has grown into a massive global business empire with a catalogue of nearly a thousand characters, complete with movies, animation, television, music, games and consumer product divisions. The acquisitions of Pixar, Marvel and LucasFilm have expanded the Disney universe and pop-cultural influence, especially among young audiences.