Showing 31 - 40 of 375
Spirit of the mountain
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/11/2018
» The rugged village of Gatlang in Nepal is the subject of a documentary film showing at select Major Cineplexes this weekend. Director Pen-ek Ratanaruang and Passakorn Pramunwong seemed to have picked an unexpected topic for their new non-fiction work (after their collaboration in the political history doc Paradoxocrazy in 2013), and Gatlang turns out to be a soothing journey, part diary of a post-earthquake rebuilding and part portrait of the people in a remote corner of the world.
Mariah carries on
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/11/2018
» Mariah Carey came to town as the final stop on her Asian tour, playing the near-capacity crowd at a hall in Bitec Bangna after the supposedly more dramatic setting of Borobudur. "Mariah Carey Live In Concert" last Friday lasted barely 90 minutes, with a set heavy with her 90s R&B hits and a couple of new songs from her latest album, Caution, which comes out this week. No Christmas songs on the set list, though I'm sure quite a few of us sort of half-hoped there would be.
Bismillah, Freddie will not let us go
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/11/2018
» Freddie Mercury, played with an earnest commitment bordering on fetishism by Rami Malek in the biographical film Bohemian Rhapsody, is a rock star the likes of which we hadn't seen before the 1970s and haven't since: An Asian frontman of a British rock outfit, a four-octave opera lover who sang in leotards and thongs, a proud organiser of orgiastic jamborees, and a gay man who endeared himself to the hard-rock audience that, in all likelihood in those pre-diversity days, either failed to realise that their mustachioed rock-god was out-and-out queer or suppressed their suspicion so completely that they didn't feel any cognitive dissonance in their devotion to Queen. Even the name Freddie gave the band laid it all bare.
A baroque nightmare, upgraded
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/11/2018
» The original 1977 Suspiria was a trashy bloodbath, an Italian giallo at its most lurid and disturbing -- a lair of maggots, murderers and witches. The remake, in cinemas this week, is high-trash Euro art house, more bourgeois and hipsterish -- a baroque nightmare whose danse macabre has been upgraded to fit the faces and forms of Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton. The new film has been directed by Italian Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name, A Bigger Splash, I Am Love) and shot by Thai cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, whose 35mm work here is one of the film's high points.
Not the usual fare
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/10/2018
» Two idiosyncratic filmgoing options for fans of Thai cinema — one classic, one contemporary
Keeping it real
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/10/2018
» Boonsong Nakphoo keeps making movies, regardless of the obstacles. A champion of small people and small stories, he has lamented the difficulties of surviving in the movie business for years and yet he keeps churning out film after film, usually on a meagre budget. His latest output is now in cinemas: Nane Kradod Kampaeng (The Wall) recounts his own early struggle to make it as a filmmaker.
The many interpretations of bliss
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 08/10/2018
» With the monsoon comes the art. With the wind and bluster come the artists. Here it is, finally, after a year of fanfare and preparation. The first Bangkok Art Biennale 2018 (BAB 2018) will open on Oct 18 and run until next February in a city-wide surfeit of artistic affairs, from exhibitions to talks, workshops to pool parties (which is, of course, art!). The programme will keep Bangkokians and visitors busy for months starting from next week.
The pastoral romance returns
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/09/2018
» The star-crossed lovers coo. They ride their buffaloes through a verdant field, splash mud, evade spiteful parents, and make a vow at the shrine of the banyan tree. But their romance, like all memorable romances in books and life, is doomed by the circumstances of fate, tragic and scarred, and their destiny is one of the most heartbreaking in the canon of Siamese literature and film.
Ghosts of various stripes
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/09/2018
» Refugees, human-trafficking and a ravenous ghoul show the real and fantastical facets of Thailand in the movies showing this week at the Toronto International Film Festival.
La La Land, Moonlight directors invoke 2016
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/09/2018
» Two years ago it was Damien Chazelle's La La Land vs Barry Jenkins' Moonlight at the Oscars. This year, the race between the same two directors seems to be shaping up again. This week at Toronto International Film Festival, Chazelle returns with his "Moon movie" First Man, and Jenkins with his adaptation of James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk. The award season -- for those who still care -- is gearing up full steam now.