Showing 31 - 40 of 78
Will the best films win the Oscars?
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/02/2016
» The Oscar night is also the Oscar-bashing night. It was always the night (or morning, in our time zone) of constant bemoaning and condescension, because the Academy voters, like most voters, always get it wrong, at least to million others around the world who believe, in our collective delirium, that we have a stake in this pageant taking place somewhere in Los Angeles. Things have taken a turn for the worse with the snap judgement made possible by social media; now the outrage and disbelief are so raw since they're aired in real time, on Facebook and Twitter, like I did last year when I was convinced that it was against every law of nature that Birdman, a well-crafted display of pretension and self-obsession, won over the more delicate Boyhood.
Cinema under the stars
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/02/2016
» When was the last time you attended an outdoor cinema? To be more precise, do you remember seeing a movie under the sky at Lumpini Park?
Thai movies ride the Euro circuit
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/01/2016
» The new year starts with a slate of new Thai films -- and some older ones -- which are already making rounds at the European film festival circuit which began this week.
Off to a quiet start
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/01/2016
» For its first two days, the 68th Cannes Film Festival hasn't managed to turn up the real heat. The world's most famous tapis rouge — or red carpet — of the Grande Theatre Lumiere might be set ablaze by the stars of the furiously hellish Mad Max: Fury Road, showing Out of Competition, but talking points early in this cine-circus include Catherine Deneuve's caricature on the cover of Charlie Hebdo and Salma Hayek gnawing at a sea dragon's heart cooked by a virgin. Otherwise, café punditry keeps up the Cannes tradition of guessing the Palme d'Or winner without anyone having seen all the contestants. Elsewhere on the Boulevard de la Croisette, things remained pretty underwhelming.
Foreign film contenders
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/12/2015
» Star Wars is colonising your waking life, so let me warp you to the neighbouring galaxy. The Oscar season is brewing, and one of the categories we're always interested in -- at least because it's the only category that is about the world and not just about Hollywood -- is the foreign language film. This year 81 countries submitted their films to the Academy. The long list will be announced in January, and the five finalists later in the month.
Journey of the guitar king
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/12/2015
» A small documentary film opens in limited cinemas this week. Revisiting a chapter in the Thai music history that many people may have forgotten, The Guitar King tells the story of Lam Morrison, a Thai rock musician and the country's first guitar star in the late 1960s. A long-haired man in his 70s now, Lam honed his guitar skills playing in GI camps in Udon Thani during the Vietnam War, before playing at bars in Bangkok and even toured Germany and Norway.
Thai history on film
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/10/2015
» Last Sunday, the Thai Film Archive and Ministry of Culture announced 25 films that have been registered as National Heritage, the fifth year that such a list has been compiled in order to enshrine important audio-visual records.
Kaleidoscopic whirlpool of colour
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/08/2015
» You can easily miss the turn into H Gallery Chiang Mai. A small road forks off the highway at Mae Rim, skirting along an irrigation canal, and a patchwork of verdant paddies, glistening in the July drizzle, opens up like a vision. At a curve as the road takes a slight dip downhill, there is a building covered with hanging vines and bursting flowers. A gallery snuck away in the middle of northern rice fields is not an anomaly but a continuation of Chiang Mai's vast possibility. There you go, a trip to the venue is already an attraction in itself.
In search of the next hit
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/06/2015
» A string of box-office failures, an absence of hits, an onslaught of Hollywood blockbusters, an economic slump, the vacillating, unpredictable taste of audiences — all of this has plunged the Thai film industry into a gloom in the first half of 2015. Home-grown cinema can barely compete with the American juggernauts, but the past six months have been particularly wounding. Usually, Thai films take around 25% of the ticket sales, with Hollywood gobbling up the rest (the total box office value was around 4.5 billion in last year). This year, so far, local movies took a paltry 10%, according to industry analysts.
Bocelli delivers
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/04/2015
» Andrea Bocelli, the blind Italian tenor who always hits the top notes with effortless grace, put a spell on a glamorous Bangkok crowd in a concert at Paragon Hall on Sunday night.