Showing 31 - 40 of 50
The Darkest Hours
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/08/2015
» A psychosexual Thai gay film is a rare treat -- actually it's almost unprecedented. Anucha Boonyawatana's Onthakarn (The Blue Hour) arrives at SF cinemas this week with a strong tail wind after its premiere in Berlin in February. Nightmarish, oblique and deliberately disjointed, the film is in part ambient horror and in part a brooding drama about family violence centred around a gay teenager. We savour its chilly mood, its haunting wasteland of disaffected youth, though we sometimes wince at the stilted dialogue. What we see is also a confident switch between what's real and what's not, which is to say The Blue Hour is not something for the impatient and the literal-minded.
Nippon through film
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/01/2015
» From the emotional quicksand of Hokkaido men to a display of high school angst and quirks, the Japanese Film Festival 2015 brings the taste of cinematic Japan to town. The 10-day festival begins tonight and continues until Feb 8 at Paragon Cineplex. The selection is rich, and as new Japanese movies have rarely gotten regular releases in Thai cineplex these days, the festival is a mini goldmine for audiences.
Rejuvenated cine-fest makes comeback
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/01/2015
» After a two-year absence, the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) has returned with renewed commitment. It has been a lively, substantial week of films, talks, workshops, masterclasses and star presence, as Ken Kwek's black comedy Unlucky Plaza opened the cine-fest on Dec 4, before John Woo and Zhang Ziyi breezed into town with their new film, the World War II epic The Crossing. Then Juliette Binoche, all smiling despite the tropical heat, showed up to present Clouds Of Sils Maria, a touching drama about an ageing actress. Meanwhile, Egyptian director Ahmed Abdulla was around from the beginning as the festival's "Filmmaker in Focus".
With Grace, Cannes Film Festival opens tonight
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/01/2015
» From the woes of Princess Grace to weird limo sex, from a Saint Laurent biopic to a 3D envelope-pusher, the 67th Cannes Film Festival rolls out its enviably red carpet tonight in an annual cinema bash that sees the world’s brand-name directors unveiling their latest offerings. The Nicole Kidman-starring Grace Of Monaco, by director Olivier Dahan (La Vie En Rose), will open the 10-day festival to the usual surfeit of glitz, before the gladiatorial ring of European-heavy filmmakers take turns to gauge the pulse of cinema art through their fine (and not so fine) movies.
Scary swim
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/08/2014
» Love hurts. Young love hurts even more and pregnancy, the unwanted kind, hurts (and haunts) the most. Hear me puppy lovers: without self-restraint, at least carry condoms. Without condoms, well, wear a strong amulet or else the demon will follow you like an interminable bloodhound — at least when abortion is still illegal and immoral in this society.
Novel ideas to feed a hungry dissenter
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/06/2014
» If nothing else, please permit metaphors. Please allow room for symbols, gestures, analogies, allusions, literature, metonymy, for one-, two-, three-, four and five-fingered salutes, because they’re defiant yet desperate, hopeful yet powerless. They ruffle, but they can’t and won’t change anything, not in the short run at least.
Brawn, bosom and blood
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/03/2014
» In the absence of Gerard Butler, we thankfully have Eva Green. Hissing rather than acting, uncoiling like a Persian rattlesnake, she is a bitch-babe naval commander lusting for blood and revenge. Her costume is that of a warrior as clothed (or imagined) by John Galliano, a fetishised wardrobe of buxom leather, metal spines and cultish accessories. It’s chic brutality. And with those burning coals in her eyes she stares down the muscled generals on her own side and the topless Greeks, greasy torsos and all, on the other. More than any other character in 300: Rise Of An Empire, her Artemisia knows this film is just one notch above camp and one below a high-budget death metal music video. Green’s vampish theatricality is the best part of this narcissistic, violent almost-cartoon.
The Wolf's spectacular folly
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 31/01/2014
» Propelled by manic energy, Martin Scorsese's The Wolf Of Wall Street zips through a dollar-fuelled bacchanalia and raunchy pool parties (there are so many pool parties) with train-wrecking velocity. It's as if the filmmakers and their cast are popping speed pills or knocking back a succession of Red Bulls. You watch the film with exhilaration and dread, a dread that the entire narrative accelerating, over the top and almost unstoppable is going to veer over the precipice and crash, leaving Leonardo DiCaprio smiling goofily in the rubble. But it's not; this is tightly controlled filmmaking in the guise of something running amok, and it's actually that sense of dread, risk and danger that fires us up and keeps us on edge. Scorsese is 72 and yet, hats off to him, this film feels like a young man plunging into an all-night orgy while managing to somehow stay sober amidst the threat of overkill.
Vacant homes and empty heads
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/09/2013
» Meet the Spring-break revellers from hell. Sometimes clad in Pussy Riot-style balaclavas, but most of the time in fluorescent bikinis, Faith (Selena Gomez), Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Brit (Ashley Benson) and Cotty (Rachel Korine) orchestrate the year's most hallucinatory orgy to date, a candy-coloured bacchanalia of robbery, bong parties, contraband firearms, murders and a C-cup binge; all of this lubricated by endlessly flowing booze and a riotous beachside cacophony. Bored kids looking for gratifying oblivion, pushing and pushing and pushing the limit of fun. Spring Breakers is driven by the anxiety of excess, visually and psychologically, showing us how an American-style pursuit of happiness can edge pursuers over the cliff and into the sunshine of hell, where they feel right at home and become even more happy.
God forgives, Bangkok doesn't
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/07/2013
» Handcuffed to Ryan Gosling in the nightmare that's my home city, let me walk you through the checklist.