Showing 31 - 40 of 98
Exactly who is funnier, us or The Donald?
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 12/11/2016
» Licking lips with schadenfreude, our pro-military camp now have a real case to gloat at the bigshot USA. The Donald Duck has won! The diabolical evangelist who panders to the poor and the "uneducated", the gluttonous billionaire who thinks he can run a country like a tycoon running a company, the mad CEO/prophet who promises glory but who'll bring the country to ruin.
Indonesia's torchbearers
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/11/2016
» A woman who rises above the trauma of polygamy in Sulawesi; a Muslim girl and her transvestite father, who works the street of Jakarta; three sisters in a courtship game; a war veteran confronting the harsh aftermath of newly independent Indonesia. At the Tokyo International Film Festival this year, Indonesia is the focus of the Crosscut Asia section, a programme that telescopes national cinema for social and aesthetic angles.
Memories of my mother
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/10/2016
» Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Psycho, a subject of cinephilic and scholastic scrutiny for 40 years, is showing this Sunday at Scala. When the film was first released in the US, Hitchcock strictly instructed that latecomers would not be admitted into the screening, because it is "required that you see Psycho from the very beginning!". The Bangkok showing will follow that rule (strictly or not we can't be certain), and it's always nice and wise to be on time.
Ditch this witch
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/09/2016
» What an unnecessary movie. Seventeen years after The Blair Witch Project stormed Sundance and gave birth to the found-footage horror sub-genre -- in which we watch grainy video purportedly filmed by victims of horrifying phenomena -- this reboot comes late at the tail-end of our visual epoch flooded by smartphone clips, with handheld amateur images so abundant in our stream of perception that we no longer see the novelty or excitement in shaky pictures that supposedly contain gruesome scandals. It's awful, but aren't we seeing that almost every day online or in the news?
Ground reality
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/09/2016
» In The Road To Mandalay, young Myanmar migrants hide in the cargo of a truck trundling past the borders into Thailand. In Bangkok, they look for jobs with the dream that every Myanmar worker dreams: to save money and return home, or better, to go somewhere else where life is kinder. They both find work in a textile factory in the outskirts, the female weaving yarns and the male lifting machines. To them, Thailand is a land of hope, though they'll soon find out, like many Myanmar workers do, that it's also a limbo, a perpetual transit, a non-place where hope can be dashed in seconds and desire can turn into tragedy.
Desolation row
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/08/2016
» Ripping through lonesome plains and highway desolation, two Texan brothers set out to rob banks that, technically, have been robbing their family for years. Tanner and Toby (Ben Foster and Chris Pine) are siblings at different ends of the spectrum: the first a wild coyote, a jittery flask of criminal energy; the second a melancholic fox, handsome, sad and serious.
Big Bad Wolf comes to town
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/08/2016
» The true country of readers is the library. If not, then a book shop. If not, then a bookselling event.
Chuga-Chug! Here come the zombies!
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/08/2016
» Zombies overrunning a high-speed train, what more could you ask for.
Blonde, bruised and stalked by shark
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/07/2016
» They're hyping this one as "the best shark film since Jaws". Seriously? The muddy psychological waters of the 1970s -- the collective fear and anxiety lurking in the Vietnam War years channelled into a shark -- has given way to the lone, existentialist despair of the iPhone generation of the 2010s. In the Steven Spielberg film, we're swept into the hunters' dark obsession, the exorcism of the demon within and without; in The Shallows we have something much less complicated: survival. And it helps that the person struggling to survive despite being stranded just 200 hundred yards from shore is played by Blake Lively -- blond, bruised, brave, sun-tanned and bikini-clad.
Clowning around is no joke anymore
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/04/2016
» When humour is outlawed, what's left? When humorists, satirists and clowns are not safe from dictatorial fury, who is? Mockers jailed, jokers scolded, caricaturists threatened, sometimes by words, sometimes by pre-dawn commando raids, without warrants, as if they were hunting armed terrorists. That's how 10 people were carried off by uniformed officers on Wednesday, a few of them guilty of running a satirical Facebook page spoofing the PM. Yesterday, the military court denied them bail.