Showing 1 - 10 of 17
The Year of Great Reckoning
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/12/2020
» For filmgoers, it was a year of mortal dread. The screen went dark, like a coffin nailed shut, and is still like that in many places. Faith in cinema as we've known it was rattled, challenged, and endangered with a Biblical overtone; it's a plague we're dealing with, after all. It was a year unlike any other we had seen before in the 125 years since cinema was invented. And while that sounds dispiriting, 2020 has also been a "Year of Great Reckoning" during which the equilibrium was recalibrated and the idea of moving images continues, as it should, to evolve.
Who is our Oscars Favourite?
B Magazine, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/02/2019
» The most important of all unimportant things, the Oscars arrive on Monday morning, Thailand time. In a year that seems more muted than usual, Hollywood's biggest jamboree has striven to stay relevant with the inclusion of blockbuster titles such as Black Panther and Bohemian Rhapsody, besides the more edgy and less popular films that have claimed much of the headlines, such as Roma and Green Book. While there are many cinematic awards around the world, the Oscars still seem to matter the most, and the ritual of predicting the winners is at once a frivolous parlour game and an annual survey of the vital signs of mainstream cinema. Don't bet on it, but we offer our takes here.
Dream, murder and reality
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/05/2018
» The 11-day Cannes Film Festival will close tomorrow, and as the race for the Palme d'Or is the most breathtaking in years, we look at some of the highlights of the second week of the world's largest movie festival
Paper-thin alibi for kids' day gun play
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/01/2018
» The irony must have been lost on him and on everyone around him. This Children's Day -- the day of machine guns, tanks and rocket launchers -- Thai kids will also get to take pictures with our cardboard prime minister, 10 standees in fact, in various poses and costumes deployed around Government House as special attractions.
PM trumped by president's sales pitch
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/10/2017
» A match made in heaven, or in Purgatory, or at least in the White House. Two men known for belligerent rhetoric and rambling speech sat side by side, one elected, one a pretender, both famous for throwing tantrums, their respective wives kept out of the frame (of course). It was a press conference at the White House between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on the occasion of the latter's trip of a lifetime.
Rousing history from its slumber
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/01/2017
» In the documentary Angkor Awakens, director Robert H. Lieberman condenses the past and present of Cambodia into 90 minutes. From the ruins of Angkor Wat to the Khmer Rouge horror and present-day testimonies, the film highlights the key episodes in the country's cultural and political development. And while the broad sweep may seem a little too broad at times, the film pulls a rabbit out of the hat with its extensive interview with strongman Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose reflections on the state of his country as well as his memory of the Khmer Rouge era become a centrepiece of the story.
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.
Awaken to the dark side in our Star Wars
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/12/2015
» No Star Wars spoiler ahead.The evil Empire has morphed into the First Order, equally evil and prone to intergalactic massacres. The rebels have become the Resistance, which sounds better. Darth Vader has found his ideological protégé in a black-masked, breathy-voiced acolyte. The Stormtroopers turn out to be space Janisseries, plucked from their homes and trained to be guards and marauders. The politics of Star Wars is sketchy, childlike and classical: the light against the dark, the oppressed against the dictator, blue against red, democracy against fascism. The Force, dormant or awakened, is the supreme power that holds the galaxy together. The ultimate battle is to stop the dark side from monopolising that force and reigning in space through violence and terror.
Blind love of nation is the blindest of all
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/11/2015
» Feel the force of Thai jingoism. Feel it online and at the US embassy, as they march forward like sandmen with sticks to battle the evil Darth Vader. How dare the meddling imperialist. How rude, how hypocritical!, shout the vanguards, waving bamboo spears. This is because on Thursday the new US ambassador Glyn T Davies said something that rattled the patriots — something sensible — about how people who peacefully voice their opinion shouldn’t be put in jail, referring to the excessive punishment of the lese majeste law. As expected, just hours later the nationalists banged their kettledrums.
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.