Showing 1 - 4 of 4
A wind from the Northeast
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/03/2017
» Last month the cinemas saw a sleeper hit -- and don't be surprised if your cultural radar didn't beep. The homemade Isan film Thi Baan The Series attracted huge crowds not to Bangkok cineplexes, or not at first, but to theatres in Si Sa Ket, Khon Kaen, Maha Sarakham and elsewhere across the Northeast. Scoring big with regional tastes, the small, Isan-speaking film, made by a group of friends for 3 million baht, has now made over 20 million in box office -- 70% of it on its home turf, the rest in the capital.
Overhauling our Newspeak vocabulary
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/03/2016
» Since we’ll be stuck with the regime for another 20 months or so (a conservative guesstimate) it’s time to update our glossary of post-coup Newspeak. From “mafia” to “public broadcaster” and “Patriotic pop culture”, almost every day we see an exciting addition to the dictionary of surreal meanings in our life under the marvellous junta.
In the land where time stands still
Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/06/2015
» The past, as they say, is not even past. Just look around, scan the headlines, or smell the Cretaceous swamps that haven’t been pumped for ages. It feels strange watching the view outside the train window become a blur of movement, only to realise, with horror or apathy, that it’s not us who’re moving and leaving a trail of hazy landscape behind. It’s the outside world that’s speeding ahead while we’re stuck on the interminable platform.
Being Brody
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/01/2013
» On Christmas Day last year, Adrien Brody was in Angkor Wat _ on his own. "I had a backpack on, a hat, a beard, I don't walk with the security detail," he gestures at the staff looming near where we're talking.