Showing 41 - 50 of 50
'Blue' gives us all a glimpse of possibility
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/06/2013
» On the screen, the two women made love with such passionate intensity that the whole cinema was stunned into silence. The rubbing of flesh, the whispering, the discovery of physical longitudes and uncharted territories, went on with a sense of longue duree, so long that the initial giggling from some of the audience was hushed by the realisation that this was an attempt to display love, and not just titillating same-sex sex.
Highlight reel
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/12/2012
» Critics are not saboteurs, though sometimes we can be. I do not dream about movies _ there are more pleasant and sexier subjects _ and I enjoy Brave and The Avengers and The Expendables 2 and The Amazing Spider-man as much the average boy in your next seat. There are only movies I (or you) like and that I (or you) don't like, and if one day, I hope not soon, you put me in the ring at Lumpini Boxing Stadium, gloved, gagged, naked, oiled, and beat me up to pay for my ignorance, then let it be. But at least today in this traditional year-end pondering, please allow me to talk about movies that you mightn't have seen.
Book sex row goes wacky
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/12/2012
» A narrow escape or just stupid miscommunication? For now let's hope we don't welcome plaudits of Bangkok World Book Capital 2013 with the banning of books.
World Film Festival Marches On
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/11/2012
» Now that the Bangkok International Film Festival seems forever doomed, or at least for the foreseeable future, the sole sanctuary for cine-lovers in the city is the World Film Festival, now in its 10th edition. For a decade it has lurched along, showing steadfastness despite limited budget and resources.
Never mind nipples, the law is an ass
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/09/2012
» The debate on free speech is heating up around the world, from the tumult of the anti-Islam video to the US boycott of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's UN speech and the tyranny of extremism laid bare in Salman Rushdie's newly published memoir.
If the TV went a breast too far, then turn it off
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/06/2012
» Ray Bradbury was right: Television destroys culture and makes us dumb. Turn on the blow-torch and burn books, because the mass hypnotism prescribed by TV is the status quo of modern consciousness. Regardless of your race or religion, your colour and your god, your sex or age, everyone has the same altar upon which daily worshipping is proffered, prime-time or otherwise. Every house has the same shrine, flickering, rectangular, sucking the hologrammed gods from space.
Triumph and the Trojan Horse
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/05/2012
» Snap-happy revellers never learn the lesson. Photographic records of sin aren't supposed to be worse than sin itself, but sometimes they are close. The latest incident, quickly dubbed the army scandal, involved a photo showing a group of soldiers in an act that looks like an orgy with a woman. A gang rape, some charged. Mutual consent, others defended. Punishment, however, has been rightly promised by the Army Chief against the participants. To observers, the moral and philosophical debates entail: is such punishment is meted out against the orgy, or against taking pictures of the orgy and posting them online?
Thailand's idiotic mindset
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/02/2012
» The question is so absurd that it could only be real. The multiple choices are so preposterous they could only be presented in germ-free, sanitised Thailand.
Disappointing crop
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/01/2012
» Starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes. Directed by Pedro Almodovar. In Spanish with Thai and English subtitles. At selected cinemas.