Showing 1-10 of 288 results
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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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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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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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Look South, Bangkok
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/02/2012
» It was a racket and near-scuffle. It was fear teleported as anger. The scene at Thammasat University on Thursday was distressing, as anti-Nitirat alumni exalted morality against knowledge, along the way confusing noise with argument and equating what's loud with what's right. It almost turned sinister when a small band of Nitirat supporters showed up, placards ready, and a mini face-off ensued. That was enough to dominate the headlines and consciousness of the public in the ongoing case that is testing the firmness of the ground beneath our feet - a historic test of what Thailand is, or what we want to become.
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Thailand's idiotic mindset
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/02/2012
» The question is so absurd that it could only be real. The multiple choices are so preposterous they could only be presented in germ-free, sanitised Thailand.
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Call off this feud, before it kills us
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 03/03/2012
» "Did you want to kill him, Buck?"
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Davos, Tokyo and clueless Tinglish
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 10/03/2012
» 'In general, every country has the language it deserves." So said Jorge Luis Borges, wordsmith, polyglot, a man fascinated by what letters and languages can do. Goethe, with his proto-Romantic genius, was much less kind when it comes to being monolingual: "Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own."
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Hoping it's not 'The End' for iconic cinema
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/03/2012
» It's hard not to peddle nostalgia when it comes to the Lido and Scala. In an age of plastic multiplexes with their garish neon signs and overpriced tickets - plus the dangerously robotic protocols of their pre-programmed staff - the two cinemas in Siam Square are a reminder of a time when movies had not been hijacked by blood-sucking consumerism. Two of the last stand-alone cinemas in Bangkok, the Lido and Scala, are movie houses, and something more: they're personal museums, the same way that movies are eternally personal. They're memory boxes, living archeological remains of this country's film-going history.
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Chula asks us Lido-lovers to feel the pain
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/03/2012
» Alarmed and despondent, readers have sent feedback to me regarding last week's column on the forthcoming demise of the Lido Theatre. For a second, I thought I had struck my Kony moment, though I'd promised I'd never end up the same way as that video-maker who was caught naked, drunk, and allegedly performing al fresco masturbation just days after his socially-conscious campaign had gone viral. Don't let the urge to save the world short-circuit your head, that's the lowdown.
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Silence, please!
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/03/2012
» Silence has now joined the Bengal tiger on the list of endangered species.
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