Showing 31 - 40 of 42
'The Act' shows us hate is the ugliest crime
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/10/2013
» What was it like to kill? Dispatching people violently by the hundreds - neighbours, strangers, acquaintances, friends - one by one, by beating or strangling, by knife or by gun, with threats and smiles, all with the tacit consent of the army? How do they feel, after all these years?
Power for the people isn't a matter of class
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/09/2013
» Even the man-eating tigers that have prowled the forest for centuries would become victims if the project isn't scrapped or reconsidered. "No sane person in the world would agree to this project", says an engineer on the environmental committee. To demonstrate their staunch objection, "protesters are making a 400km march in a bid to draw greater attention to what's at stake", reported Time magazine this week.
We can teach China a few cyber cop tricks
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/08/2013
» Send me gifts of Line stickers. Brown, Cony, Mickey, Monsters University, Kerokerokeroppi, whatever - faster, before the tech-savvy Thai police spoil the party and shut the chat down.
Radiohead redux
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/07/2013
» Every day Amnarj Sonimsart wakes up at 3am. "That's normal for an 80-year-old," he chuckles. The first thing he does is flick on the TV to catch BBC and CNN; then he checks the stock and oil prices, noting down important fluctuations for later use. At 4.20am _ he states the time with the casual precision of someone who's been following the same schedule without fail for a long time _ his driver takes him from his house in Pattanakarn to the radio station in Lumpini Park ("my daughter forbids me from driving"). At 5.10, Amnarj begins sipping a cup of Ovaltine while scouring the Thai-language newspapers laid out for him, lighting on items of interest and quickly digesting their contents. On the dot of 5.50am, he prepares for a task he's performed for 46 years straight: leaning slightly forward, he gets ready to switch on his mic and go on air.
'Blue' gives us all a glimpse of possibility
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/06/2013
» On the screen, the two women made love with such passionate intensity that the whole cinema was stunned into silence. The rubbing of flesh, the whispering, the discovery of physical longitudes and uncharted territories, went on with a sense of longue duree, so long that the initial giggling from some of the audience was hushed by the realisation that this was an attempt to display love, and not just titillating same-sex sex.
Some like it hot, but we'd prefer to chill
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/11/2012
» The Israelis like it hot. Hamas likes it hot. The "BB" lovebirds Boonchai and Bongkot, naturally, like it hot. The southern insurgents, painfully, like it hot. The 3G bidders like it hot. The British tabloids, fantasising about Barack Obama's flirtatious eyeing of our LOL prime minister, like it - or wish it - hot. The anti-Yingluck Facebook brigade, taking their cue from the tabloids and elevating the initial fantasy into a sexist smear campaign, like it hot. Marilyn Monroe, who liked it very hot way back in 1959, would be turning in her grave.
China boards the laureate gravy train
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/10/2012
» So fans didn't get to dance on the street. The two moons of Haruki Murakami were eclipsed when he didn't win the Nobel Prize in literature, as the Japanese man seemed the only writer on the speculated shortlist capable of inspiring global adulation from admirers, including in Thailand, had Stockholm given him the call on Thursday.
Stone brings out the Savages
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/09/2012
» Oliver Stone's Savages is cheerfully cynical, ingloriously basked in the Malibu sunshine and fired up by threesome sex, super-bred cannabis and bong-water bravado. It's lurid, sexy, funny, chaotic, cluttered, and if the grisly violence turns you off then Blake Lively _ playing a very dumb blonde _ and her two beaus (plus John Travolta, pudgy and hilariously nervous) will also chip in laugh-out-loud moments, all the while with the director winking off-scene.
Finding Freedom
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/06/2012
» Eighty years ago, on June 24, 1932, the People's Party seized power and transformed Siam from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional democracy. A film crew recorded the historic revolution of that day on 35mm film, and the "movie" went on tour around Bangkok cinemas.
Southeast Asian Round-UP
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/06/2012
» From a new film festival in Kuala Lumpur to Myanmar movies on General Aung San