Showing 1-10 of 1,026 results
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Three's A Treat
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/01/2012
» We open the year with an unusual occurrence in the cinema-going sphere: This month there will be three film festivals slated to satisfy the thirst and curiosity of local audiences. Two of them are taking place in the cultural stronghold of Bangkok, while the other has come up with the strange choice of Hua Hin. Two of them will feature alternative cinema of vastly diverse temperaments, while the other sticks mostly with munchy fares from across Asia. All of them, luckily, are privately funded.
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Be young and shut up
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/01/2012
» A week before Children's Day, we have reason to cherish a bright future for our nation's youth.
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In the mood for Marilyn
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/01/2012
» Marilyn Monroe was a real woman, but through the decades she has also existed as an image _ and an imagination. The later generation, appreciating Monroe in iconic, sex pot poses and perky screen persona, associates a wide gamut of ideas, fantasies and conjectures with her and her era, the '50s. A powerful presence on the screen (her movies lose meaning when she's not in the frame), she's also a blank page on which you supply your own surmises and assumptions, theories and conclusions. It says a lot when, in probably her most famous movie from 1955, The Seven Year Itch, Monroe plays a character with no name: it's enough to know her as The Girl.
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A covering that bares one's faith
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/01/2012
» For years the mosque in my neighbourhood was registered as "Wat Muang Kae Mosque". The Buddhist temple, Wat Muang Kae, is a cat's meow away from the Islamic house of worship, and the mosque's name, so Thai and so un-Arabic, suggests the presence of interfaith amicability even before the term "interfaith" had any political undertones.
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Toying with terror
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/01/2012
» Loners in Roberto Bolano's stories drift from anxiety and obsession into something darker. Like poetry, bibliophilia, murder, madness. The downward spiral is gradual and unstoppable, its path littered with symbols, graveyards and black humour. Very black. And very humorous. You emerge from one of his books _ and so many of them have been released in English in the seven years since his death, aged 50, in 2003 _ soaked in a cold sweat, like one of those amateur detectives in his novels who stray too close to the abyss and limbo.
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Global visions
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/01/2012
» From Southeast Asian indies to Turkish policiers and Chilean dramas, the World Film Festival of Bangkok serves up a hefty cinematic portion that will enliven our theatre-going experience from today until Jan 27. Pushed back from November by the furious flood, the festival opens tonight at Paragon Cineplex with Padang Besar (I Carried You Home) and will offer around 100 titles, both short and feature-length, over the next seven days. All films will be screened at Esplanade Cineplex on Ratchadaphisek (MRT Thailand Cultural Centre), and the closing night will be an outdoor screening at The Nine, on Rama IX Road, which will feature a rare programme by Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki.
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Deserving of top honours
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/01/2012
» On screen and in headlines, Iran the provocateur du jour, is causing a stir. As Israel fumes, as Bibi Netanyahu ponders a pre-emptive strike, as the US watches with hawk-eyed severity over Teheran's nuclear ambition, and as an alleged Iran-backed Hezbollah rabble-rouser was arrested in Bangkok and a spectacular arsenal of bomb materials uncovered - as the quivers in Hormuz Strait are felt throughout Earth, an Iranian film cruised past contenders to win the Golden Globe. Worldwide punters now believe A Separation will become the first Iranian title to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Never mind the sanctions, an Iran-scripted drama has had Hollywood (and Washington) in thrall. So catch it now: A Separation is showing on one screen in Bangkok, at House RCA (I hope it'll stay there for a few more weeks.) It won't give you a crash course on the latest nuclear grumble; the politics of the film is smaller in scope yet larger in humanity, for it concerns class, marriage, religiosity, and the heart-aching struggle to uphold justice in the court of God and by the rule of law. At the centre, the film is about a separation of a couple, called Nader and Simin, but at heart this is a complex drama of moral quandaries that inflict bourgeoise Teheranians and speak of other kinds of seperation, physical and spiritual, visible and clandestine, in a society heaving with pride, prejudice and doubt. In short, it's closer to home than the belligerent rhetoric of the nuclear war.
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Rock-Solid Hollywood star
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/01/2012
» Last year in the hyperkinetic film Fast Five, Dwayne Johnson growled and grumbled playing the role of a federal agent chasing a pack of auto-bandits in Rio de Janeiro. Johnson, also known as The Rock, is a prime cut of beef that glitters in the Brazilian sun; yet the man holds his character with gravity, zipping through the breakneck action with all scowl and no smile.
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Parallel ambitions
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/01/2012
» We wish them the best of luck, and we pray Hua Hin International Film Festival won't turn out to be a lemon. A month ago hardly anybody had heard about this brand-new event, and now those who've heard about it are wondering if they'll take the trouble of making a trip down to the seaside town to watch the films. Our advise is, if the sky is blue and you have nothing else to do (and if you want to forsake the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival that will also happen this weekend) just go for the fun of it. Worst case, you can always decamp to the beach, or one of the seafood joints in Khao Takieb.
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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.
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