Showing 1 - 10 of 66
Strange brew
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/03/2018
» He went down to the crossroads, fell down on his knees, asked the Lord for mercy -- and somehow got it. In this biopic documentary, Eric Clapton -- his place in the pantheon of guitar god-dom guaranteed -- is a tragic genius denounced by his own mother and nurturing a desperate crush on his best friend's wife, which kept his guitar wailing and weeping. Here's a 60s-70s blues-rock maverick who sold his soul to heroin, cocaine, cognac, whatever, and when he emerged from the pit and things began to feel wonderful tonight, he lost his son in a terrible, terrible accident. That a new documentary about his life to date is allowed to end happily is proof that rock'n'roll (and life itself) can cheat the claws of fate and go on for longer than 12 bars.
Wild tales
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/11/2015
» 'Morning now dawned and Shahrazad broke off from what she had allowed to say…" -- so begins the story on each night of Tales Of 1,001 Nights, the fantastic yarns of peasants, kings, slaves, lovers, viziers, angels, sex, human anatomy (Night 449), devils in the bottle (Night 567), glory, injustice, pleasure, and all the mundane and the magical in the world. It is the collection of some of the greatest tales ever told. But then, what, exactly, is Arabian Nights all about?
Imagining Krabi
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/03/2020
» There's an archaeology of narrative in Krabi, 2562, a film by Anocha Suwichakornpong and Ben Rivers currently showing in select Bangkok cinemas. Layer upon layer, stratum upon stratum, dust on dust, it gives us a glimpse of how history, legend and biography is constructed. Like playful excavators, the two filmmakers peel off the palimpsest of a place and its people, real and imagined.
Rhapsody in black and white
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/12/2018
» This is plain simple: Roma must be seen on the big screen.
All that glitters
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/08/2018
» The director as a priest, the camera a confessional box, and the idols worthy of worship become teary girls choked by emotion.
Thai idols fall in line with orthodoxy
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/09/2018
» Poor coup-makers, no one wants to see them on TV. At 6pm sharp when the theme song begins, there's a rush of hands to the remote control. Not that you can escape them. The true mark of dictatorship is audiovisual dictatorship: They beam their images on every TV and radio channel, monopolising your sensory reception, like a sci-fi movie, or like a spoiled child demanding your full attention. At 6pm every day for the past four years, the hands clutching the remote have reached for the only possible button. Off.
Asean films receive special showcase
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/07/2018
» The riches of Southeast Asian stories and images are celebrated at the 4th Bangkok Asean Film Festival, which opens tonight at SF CentralWorld and runs until Sunday. Hosted by the Thai Ministry of Culture, this year's edition marks the 51st anniversary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the regional body whose primary mission is economics and which increasingly pays more heed to cultural promotion.
Really, who gets to walk the red carpet?
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/05/2018
» This is the question I've been asked several times -- not because I'm a veteran of the fabled Cannes red carpet (it's long, intimidating and tedious, plus I'll never invest in a tuxedo that would make me look like a waiter anyway), but because I've been a ringside witness to the said red carpet in the past 16 years of my visiting the festival. All the thousands of photographs of stars, models, actors -- beautiful people of planet Earth, or planet Cinema -- preening down the tapis rouge at Cannes have become even more famous, more recognisable, more awe-inspiring than most of the films shown here. The aura of glamour, fame and radiance actually makes a lot of people think of Cannes as the red carpet, and not the films it shows or its coveted top prize, the Palme d'Or.
The French Connection
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/05/2018
» In the opening episode of Ten Years Thailand, a group of soldiers arrives at an art gallery to inspect a potentially subversive artwork. What constitutes a kernel of subversion, however, is hard to lay a finger on. So the story shifts: one of the soldiers begins to chat up a pretty maid, and as the Sun is setting the two of them look out from the gallery to the horizon full of shadows. Maybe of hope.
Tony Jaa strikes back
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/01/2017
» The last time we saw him, Tony Jaa brawled with the late Paul Walker in Fast And Furious 7, a blood-rushing tumble of masculine masses on a moving mega-truck. This week Jaa -- the Thai martial arts star whose real name is Tachakorn Yeerum -- is back in the cinema in xXx: Return Of Xander Cage, an action thriller starring Vin Diesel in the leading role.