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  • News & article

    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.

  • News & article

    Through the prism of history

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/10/2019

    » The book's title is printed on its spine: Prism Of Photography: Dispersion Of Knowledge And Memories Of The 6 October Massacre. Thereafter, from the first page on, we have only photographs with no captions.

  • News & article

    Paper-thin alibi for kids' day gun play

    News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/01/2018

    » The irony must have been lost on him and on everyone around him. This Children's Day -- the day of machine guns, tanks and rocket launchers -- Thai kids will also get to take pictures with our cardboard prime minister, 10 standees in fact, in various poses and costumes deployed around Government House as special attractions.

  • News & article

    Armed to the teeth, with no battle to fight

    News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/07/2017

    » When everyone else is dead, the arms dealers will sip champagne and cuddle Playboy bunnies. Why? "Because everyone else will be busy killing each other," said Yuri Orlov, the arms dealer in Lord of War as portrayed by Nicolas Cage. When his client orders him a shipment of machine guns used in Rambo, Mr Orlov, an award-winning salesperson, asks, "Rambo part 1, 2 or 3?"

  • News & article

    In the dark places

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/11/2018

    » It rains incessantly in Zhang Yimou's Shadow, a monochromatic palace-intrigue-and-martial-arts high rhapsody set in a perpetual monsoon. Everything is grey, brown, black and white, a solemn palette befitting a solemn story interspersed with a blur of sword-fighting where warriors wield blades and umbrellas as if they were painting calligraphy.

  • News & article

    For a ghost of a chance, use your talisman

    News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/10/2016

    » On Wednesday Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha talked for 135 minutes at the Bangkok Post Forum, more than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on Monday combined. And this isn't even an election campaign. A good soldier, he's unfazed by the presence of enemies and microphone. From the podium, arms outstretched, the PM touched on a lot of topics: Thai education, the economy, Section 44, Thailand as a "developed" country, the 20-year prophecy, etc. But what struck me like a hammer was when the general mentioned ghosts.

  • News & article

    Humanity!

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/01/2017

    » Mankind is doomed. We're hard-wired to be selfish, paranoid, prone to violence. We like war, among us humans or with the alien. What may redeem us, however, is compassion, generosity, language, love, grace, and so on -- all those teary-eyed emotions that is sometimes called "lyrical" in a movie. Or simpler, what may save us is a last-act manipulation of time and plot points, a wily trick nonetheless pulled off smoothly through the moving performance by Amy Adams.

  • News & article

    Tony Jaa strikes back

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/01/2017

    » The last time we saw him, Tony Jaa brawled with the late Paul Walker in Fast And Furious 7, a blood-rushing tumble of masculine masses on a moving mega-truck. This week Jaa -- the Thai martial arts star whose real name is Tachakorn Yeerum -- is back in the cinema in xXx: Return Of Xander Cage, an action thriller starring Vin Diesel in the leading role.

  • News & article

    8 of the best

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/01/2016

    » The 40th Toronto International Film Festival wrapped last Sunday. Although a non-competitive event -- meaning there were no juries -- the festival did have a People's Choice Award voted for by viewers, which this year went to Lenny Abrahamson's abduction drama Room (last year it was The Imitation Game, which went on to earn several Oscar nominations).

  • News & article

    Bond's countdown clock still ticks

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 06/11/2015

    » The first shot in Spectre begins above a carnivalesque party during Mexico's Day of the Dead; the camera then comes down to the ground, weaves among the masked revellers dressed as skeletons, glides into a hotel door, up the elevator, out of the elevator, slips into a bedroom where Her Majesty's secret agent kisses a woman, then follows him out of the window -- "I won't be long", he tells her -- then it goes up again to see Bond sneak across the roofs to a spot where he performs his first assassination in this 24th James Bond movie.

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