Showing 1-10 of 17 results
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It's really best when you say nothing at all
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/09/2014
» Dear diary, it is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt, as Mark Twain said. How charming my mouth has been in the past week. If it had been Yingluck Shinawatra saying those things, I'm sure a riot would've broken out and the sound of a million whistles would've shattered your eardrums. But it's me, so it's different. It's not the action but the man. How could those pettifogging critics interpret my speech as avuncular nonsense, when in fact they're pieces of wisdom worthy of being chronicled in the national archives and inscribed onto monuments?
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Pandemonium
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 30/09/2022
» The first shot of Athena will be discussed in every writing about the film. A bravura choreography of movement that begins with an intimate close-up of a face and ends, after 10 blood-rushing minutes, with an explosion of revolutionary rage -- a la Les Miserables and Do You Hear The People Sing? transported to a predominantly-Muslim Paris suburb -- that opening shot is so hypnotising and immersive in its non-stop kineticism that we're led to forgive that it's also an earnest show-off, a proud enshrinement of style and attitude over everything else. Romain Gavras, a filmmaker known for making music videos for Jay Z and M.I.A, will cement that approach with many similar shots throughout the film -- long, seemingly uninterrupted shots with parkour camerawork full of angry bodies -- more than enough for aspiring filmmakers of the world to slobber over.
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The next step in evolution
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/05/2022
» The maestro is teasing us, with his favourite instrument: the scalpel. Mechanical, electrified scalpels that split open the flesh -- often, the belly -- like a bulging purse being unzipped. This time, what comes out of the belly is a menagerie of grotesque organs -- organs with neither names nor functions, grown inside the body primed for involuntary evolution.
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Les Miserables: The simmering rage of Paris
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 17/05/2019
» Cannes Day 2 witnesses the rage of Paris -- not the yellow wrath of gilets jaunes, but the brown-and-black anger of rundown suburbs that makes up the complex social structure of modern France.
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Dead cool
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/11/2015
» Javanese vampires, an undead tribe of immortal warlocks, a hard-boiled detective and an assortment of beautiful demons -- all of which stalk the twilight of Jakarta looking for blood, thrills and power in HBO Asia's original series Halfworlds. Premiering on Sunday at 9pm on HBO, the eight-episode show mixes Southeast Asian folklore with anime-cool and noir cinema, and it shows promise of a regional TV production that carries a dose of international appeal.
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Horror film does double duty as social satire
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/04/2017
» Hot on the trail of the Oscar-winning Moonlight and half-a-century after Katherine Hepburn gasped at her daughter's black fiancée in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?, here comes Get Out, a "social thriller" about a black man trapped in a white horror. These weird white folk voted for President Obama -- they keep repeating that to assure themselves and others -- but their exaggerated civility is more creepy and menacing than ever in Trump-ruled America.
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Learning to love shooting from the hip
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/08/2015
» Maybe some Thais dig PM Prayut Chan-o-cha the same way some Americans dig Donald Trump.
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To see the forest for the trees
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/01/2015
» Into The Woods is a delightful riot, a maddening mash-up of fairy tales, magic, farce and camp, with a healthy dose of Freudian mockery of macho princes. But the reason this film by Rob Marshall feels refreshing and subversive (it was adapted from the Broadway musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine) is its wry, dark spirit — it continues to smile and wink while simultaneously picking the bones of the carcasses of those fluffy Disney tales, acknowledging the eerie undercurrents of the original Brothers Grimm stories.
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Believe it when you see it? Not so fast
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 22/02/2014
» Thailand in the 21st century is replete with two things: images and firearms. There are more pictures of people in this country than actual people, thanks to selfies, whether at protest sites or elsewhere. Meanwhile guns, M79s and hand grenades are so ubiquitous that even peaceful protesters do not have to look far for one when they’re in need. That the police should carry so many live rounds despite Chalerm Yubumrung’s instruction not to is, unfortunately, no surprise, since Mr Chalerm couldn’t even keep his own son away from guns.
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Lego builds a blockbuster
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/03/2014
» This is pretty clever. The plastic brickwork of The Lego Movie gives us quaintly jolly entertainment that comes from parody, riotous cuteness and a throwback to 1980s stoners’ anti-chic. The Lego Movie is the proud and clumsy combination of Wreck It Ralph crossed with the headlong quest narrative of Toy Story, and while kids will dig the gabby characters — from Lego’s bricklaying stars to Batman as well as cameos by pretty much everyone else in the galaxy, including Han Solo and Gandalf — adults should find wild intelligence along this zany rollercoaster.
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