Showing 1-10 of 50 results
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Pedro Almodovar celebrates life in all its messy turns
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/11/2021
» Pedro Almodovar's films turn camp into art, or art into camp. Or even better, he isn't bothered all that much whether the candy-coloured hijinks, the sexual anything-goes, the carnal perfidy and maternal heartbreak in his movies are a form of art or a celebration of camp. And we, the audience, shouldn't either. Almodovar, the internationally best-known Spanish filmmaker, thrives on something much simpler, I think. Freedom.
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Nang Nak at 20
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 26/07/2019
» Thai cinema saw a new horizon open 20 years ago up this month. On July 23, 1999, a little film called Nang Nak opened in cinemas. An adaptation of the country's most popular ghost tale about a wife who died in childbirth but stuck around as a spirit waiting for her husband to return from war, the film arrived carrying high hopes -- and exceeded all of them. Nang Nak, directed by Nonzee Nimibutr and written by Wisit Sasanatieng, unleashed an unprecedented momentum of enthusiasm and became the first Thai movie to blaze past the 100-million-baht mark at the box office.
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A conversation with Prabda
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/08/2018
» A woman returns to her condo room after a morning walk. A young man lies injured outside her door. She helps him inside, but something unexpected happens: He claims that the room is, in fact, his, and the woman is trespassing. She refuses to accept such nonsense. The man refuses to budge and demands her to leave.
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Old boyz n the Charoen Krung hood
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/08/2018
» The boys once ruled Charoen Krung Road -- the boyz from the hood, sons of Chinese merchants and Muslim roti-makers, rough-around-the-edges teen bred and drilled in the network of sois, who leapt into the Chao Phraya every evening and caught catfish when the river swelled every November, who roamed Bang Rak market when it was still sludgy with vegetable scraps and sneaked into the Prince Rama Theatre when it was still showing, err, adult movies.
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Deep trouble
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/06/2018
» He got up close with a 13m whale shark near the Galapagos and swam with a curious hunchback whale in Tonga. "She was larger than a bus," he said, "the largest animal I've ever seen." At Burma Banks in the Indian Ocean, he drifted with sharks and at Similan Islands he realised that the coral reefs in the Thai seas were among the most beautiful in the world.
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Knives are out in death penalty row
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/06/2018
» To execute or not to execute, the question weighed on Thai society in the past week with the force of righteous anger. It is a tough question, one that lays bare the complex intersection of morality, law, religion, belief, value, and even the position of the country on the spectrum along which the international norm is moving.
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Cinema lies, football doesn't
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/06/2018
» 'Cinema lies, sport doesn't."
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Truth and lies
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/05/2018
» By some description, this is one of the most political editions of Cannes Film Festival in recent memory, both on screen and off. After three days, the brouhaha over #MeToo (the festival has a dedicated hotline for sexual harassment report, which begs the question: why here and now?), the comment by Jury President Cate Blanchett on the small percentage of female filmmakers in the programme, and the fact that two of the directors whose films are in the competition are under house arrest in their respective countries (Iran and Russia) -- all of this cast a mixed shadow over the 71st edition of the world's largest film festival that still boasts influence and glamour while struggling to maintain its relevance.
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Familiar faces or rogues gallery?
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/02/2018
» The entire wall is covered with faces -- a zoo of faces, if you will, each of them caged by a square frame. Naturally, upon entering Artist+Run Gallery visitors engage in a guess-who game: these are familiar faces of politicians, celebrities, athletes, monks and coupmakers, and yet some of them aren't instantly identifiable. Is that the government spokesman? From which coup? Who's that pretty face? Is that reddish thing Thaksin Shinawatra? That's easy -- it's Aung San Suu Kyi.
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Wandering narrative
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/02/2018
» There's a good film somewhere inside Sad Beauty, though I'm unable to locate its exact spot. It feels like something is on the verge of taking shape out of smoke and mirrors, something that could mean something. But it never is.
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