Showing 61 - 70 of 98
Cannes' line-up promises a big year
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/01/2015
» As is tradition, it will be helter-skelter in Cannes. The archangels will descend on the red carpet while the critics, all few thousand of them, will practice the old sport of vulturism, eyeing the wrecks and picking up the carcasses, when the the 65th Cannes Film Festival begins tonight (a week later than usual to allow the dust of the French presidential election to settle). There are 22 films in Cannes' Competition _ the most coveted contest in the world, sort of _ and most of them are latest works by brand-name directors who will, like futuristic priests, lead us to a prayer at Our Church of Cinema, godly and satanic. To many, the festival is also an annual rite of self-flagellation. Better bring your own whips.
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.
The dark side of wife
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/10/2014
» In Fight Club (1999), David Fincher dishes out a mockery at male machoism, the sweat-soiled, hyperbole manliness manifest through smug violence and Brad Pitt's swagger. What happened, however, was that Fincher's stylish film somehow became a trophy movie for those he aimed his sarcasm at — the macho type adores the film, which isn't that surprising given how cool it is. Flash forward to what we have this week in cinemas worldwide, Gone Girl, a thriller that's probably replicating that curious logic in pop-culture destiny. The film about the absurdity of married life, a dark warning against the cost of domestic bliss, is perhaps a perfect date movie for happy or unhappy couples, since the film's extreme satire takes cover under the sharp, highly engaging narrative and storytelling heft. It's a film worth showing at every wedding anniversary, for entertainment, yes, and to remind the participants of their parts in their own personal movies.
Memories are the first victim of 'happiness'
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/10/2014
» October is here. Along with the monsoon and beclouded mood, the month has always been marked by the political remembrance whose toxic vapour still leaves a nasty taste in the mouth even of those who didn't live through it.
A hard drug for the eyes
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/08/2014
» This is a tar pit. This is the eternal midnight, the thrash metal nocturne. This is some of the most striking black-and-white imagery, half-baroque, half-graffiti, dripping and saturated with lush shadows. This is also empty. The hollowness of it all is a badge of pride for the filmmakers. With Sin City: A Dame to Kill For — like the first Sin City in 2005 — you can't take your eyes off the hyper-stylised fetishism on-screen (or at least off Eva Green's strategically obscured body parts), but you'll find it difficult to remember anything afterwards. This is instant gratification, a hard drug for the eyes.
A passport to happiness is all you need
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/07/2014
» Like a sinner praying for salvation, I pray that the Ministry of Education will launch the "good deeds passports" project before the next full moon. Kids, parents and disciplinarians are dying to wave it around like a diploma of sanity, or an amulet against ghosts and anarchism. The Education Ministry is so educated that it has tapped into the zeitgeist: moral bookkeeping, and control of the happiness barometer (check out the military carnival at Sanam Luang), will guarantee the bright future of democratic Thailand.
A crack in the foundation
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/06/2014
» The idea that, in horror films, you can smuggle poor storytelling under the cloak of the night is silly, unless you are Dario Argento or Andrzej Zulawski (or recently, Under The Skin’s Jonathan Glazer). More nails are driven into the coffin when that darkened mood, that low-key lighting of the long night, those contrivances for sultry spook, don’t pay off with a few good scares. People go to the movies for three reasons, said The Exorcist director William Friedkin — “to laugh, to cry or to be frightened”. Without those, I add reluctantly, a cinema is a cemetery not worth visiting.
Isan asserts its presence
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/06/2014
» The cinemas in the Northeast didn’t expect a phenomenon last weekend, but they certainly got one. The sensation came not from the behemoth King Naresuan 5, nor the Tom Cruise-starring alien romp Edge Of Tomorrow, but from the low-budget, unmarketed, Northeast-set and northeastern-speaking movie Poo Bao Tai Ban: E-San Indy.
Free speech tied in lese majeste knot
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/04/2014
» It’s great news that The Guardian and the Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize. As citizens of the world, we congratulate the papers, or actually that 21st century Deep Throat Edward Snowden, for exposing the US National Security Agency’s creepy tentacles of unlawful surveillance. It’s great that Mr Snowden gambled it all and it’s great that journalism can still rock, or at least embarrass, an almighty government accustomed to impunity.
Reaping what they Sow
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/01/2014
» Rice is what has raised Thailand, but our staple crop hasn't raised many smiles in the Land of Smiles lately. When Uruphong Raksasad set out to make Pleng Khong Khao (The Songs Of Rice) two years ago, he didn't imagine that his documentary would acquire a timely resonance now that the epic mess of the government's rice-pledging scheme has become an escalating imbroglio and national embarrassment. Rice, the filmmaker believes, is the soul of the country, but the song it sings has unfortunately turned into a sad one.