Showing 21 - 30 of 38
Lights, cameras and Pixels
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 31/08/2016
» The rain came down just before the scheduled kick-off, a scatter of teasing drops at first then a roof-rattling downpour. The well-dressed guests at "MahaNakhon: Bangkok Rising, The Night Of Lights", an outdoor bash to launch Thailand's new tallest building, found cover in the most civil manner. Beer, wine and finger food were whisked out on trays in Dean & Deluca, a bistro in the adjacent building owned by the same developer, Pace Development. Some wondered aloud: Where's Pharrell Williams? Where's Jose Carreras? Outside, onlookers who had filled BTS Chong Nonsi station and the surrounding footpaths, waiting for the light show, fled, scattered, or just held their position dauntlessly.
Journey to Middle Earth
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/06/2016
» It's the Earth not the Moon, I think. We are walking the path that skirts the pool of geothermal geysers at the Whakarewarewa site in the town of Rotorua, New Zealand. The moon-grey rocks are smothered in mud and pungent smoke, with sporadic hissing that suggests the chemical fury underneath. The scene is alien. The air is calm, a kind of nervous calm because we know there will be an outburst. Once every 40 minutes or so, the subterranean pressure pushes the heated, underground water through the crack and shoots up a jet of spray up to 30m, drawing cheers from fortunate visitors who happen to be present at the moment of thermal activity.
Superficiality takes aim at Scala
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/06/2016
» There is a mix of rage, gloom and longing as, once again, the fate of the Scala theatre in Siam Square is questioned. To wreck is easy, to save is hard. The jackhammer screeches louder than nostalgia. Will the Scala, that quaint majesty stuck in a prime retail area, that solemn granddaddy in the flashy, messy, heavily commercialised quarter, be next to fall?
Documenting a murderous time
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/02/2016
» Against all odds, this strange, chilling and powerful film is opening in Bangkok and Chiang Mai cinemas today.
The Lobster is a love story like no other
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/11/2015
» The strangest movie of the year opens this week in Bangkok. The Lobster imagines a future world where single people are ostracised, then shipped off to "The Hotel", a clinically, sinisterly beautiful resort where they have to find a romantic partner within the deadline of 45 days. If they fail to find a "compatible" mate from among the singles herded there, they will be transformed into an animal of their choice and banished into the wild. Colin Farrell, glum and potbellied, plays David, who states that he wishes to become a lobster when his time comes.
Arpat uproar points to censorship flaws
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/10/2015
» The hullabaloo around the Thai film Arpat, which features a misbehaving young monk, is the latest example of problems caused by what some people in the film industry perceive as flaws in the Film and Video Act 2008.
Hear youthful outrage amid a silent sit-in
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/05/2015
» They were not martyrs, heroes, or Jesuses nailed at the crosses as the crows picked out their eyes. They were just students who wanted to express their disagreement, which was the least anybody could do in a world where disagreement has not yet been outlawed (really?) and at a time when everybody else has been lulled into fake silence. The scene outside Bangkok Art and Culture Centre on May 22 was ugly, not as ugly as Tiananmen Square in 1989, or Gwangju in 1980, or Thammasat in 1976, but ugly enough to let us glimpse the flames beneath the volcano.
Cannes, mon amour
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/01/2015
» Love and other nightmares filled the first half of the 65th Cannes Film Festival. There's post-Revolution love from Egypt, and the love that finds its final destiny, as love should, in death. There are the usual sidekicks of love, such as loneliness and the desire to be recognised, in the heart and in the flesh, in one's own territory and in others. It's both helpful and futile to try to find a common theme in the competition titles at the most frenzied and influential movie festival on Earth, but please allow me to indulge in the activity as a cure to the unusually wet weather that has rendered the mood rather gloomy in this war zone of film criticism.
Into the sublime
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/11/2014
» Swami Yoganand twists his rubbery legs and crosses them behind his neck in a geometric composition. Boneless? Shape-shifter? Of course not, it’s just that his lithe, 106-year-old body — the centenarian yogi is a vegetarian and his food is always uncooked — has reached the level of physical suppleness that most of us stiff-jointed urbanites can’t even imagine. The swami, an honorific for a religious teacher, has taught yoga for 86 years, and he’s still doing it almost every morning at a school in Rishikesh, a northern Indian town by the Ganges.
Picture predictions
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/02/2014
» The last time the Los Angeles Times checked, the nearly 6,000 Oscar voters were 94% white, 77% male, almost 100% American, with the average age of 62. So much for movies as democracy, so much for art as majoritarianism, because to guess the Oscar winners — the time-honoured and completely useless activity practised around the world — is to guess the taste and preference of these faceless voters.