Showing 1-10 of 42 results
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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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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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Film festival needs direction
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/02/2012
» If the Red Carpet works, the film festival works. That seems to be the motto of the hype machine behind last weekend's Hua Hin International Film Festival, which proudly paraded stars down the sandy, horse-free beach of the InterContinental while the cinemas were haunted by ghosts. Nothing's wrong with using a movie festival to support tourism, as long as some attention is paid to what it's all about: film, and the film-going experience.
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In rocks we trust
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/03/2012
» Our boat cut through the dark water in search of light. Salt-sprayed, wind-whipped and guided by shadows, we finally found it: in the lagoon of Kudu Island, a screen had been erected and projector installed. Gently bobbing before it was a floating lounge, a deconstructible auditorium for the castaways who imbibed cinema, hoping (or dreaming) that it were elixir. Soon a beam of light from the projecting tower pierced the darkness and illuminated the white canvas: it was indeed a cinema, and a unique cinematic experience. Hardly men had gone before to such length to enjoy movies. And of course, this is Thailand.
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Southeast Asian Round-UP
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/06/2012
» From a new film festival in Kuala Lumpur to Myanmar movies on General Aung San
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Mars landing, Olympics give us inspiration
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/08/2012
» I was startled when a radio host said the most stupid thing of the week. It was the morning after Curiosity had landed on Gale Crater, Mars, and beamed its first images back to Earth - those grainy, low-res black-and-white pictures that looked, at first glance, like ultrasound images of a womb, which, in a way, is what Mars probably is. The Nasa scientists cheered, just like they did in 1996 when they discovered the possibility of fossilised bacteria in a meteorite believed to be from the Red Planet. As we watched and wondered, as we pondered humanity's effort to make ours a less lonely planet, as we read about the unmanned explorer doing cosmic services for man - the Thai radio host spit into his microphone: "Are those pictures even real?" Then, "Well, why are they doing this? Why did they go to Mars?"
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Stone brings out the Savages
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/09/2012
» Oliver Stone's Savages is cheerfully cynical, ingloriously basked in the Malibu sunshine and fired up by threesome sex, super-bred cannabis and bong-water bravado. It's lurid, sexy, funny, chaotic, cluttered, and if the grisly violence turns you off then Blake Lively _ playing a very dumb blonde _ and her two beaus (plus John Travolta, pudgy and hilariously nervous) will also chip in laugh-out-loud moments, all the while with the director winking off-scene.
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Paradise lost as evil rears its ugly head
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 05/01/2013
» In my heyday, I was at the fabled Koh Phangan's full moon parties - three times - where I practised English, Swedish, Spanish, German and Hebrew, then walked the moonlit, vomit-strewn beach, enjoyed (meaning eating) local mushrooms, lit a bonfire of international camaraderie and watched the psychochemical clouds drift like memories into the dark Gulf of Thailand.
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Asia's alter ego
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/03/2013
» Two upcoming film showcases explore the many faces of Asean and offer a close look at Thailand.
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God forgives, Bangkok doesn't
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/07/2013
» Handcuffed to Ryan Gosling in the nightmare that's my home city, let me walk you through the checklist.
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