Showing 61-70 of 100 results
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The holy voice, the beautiful sound
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/03/2017
» In January, Hasan Samoh became the first Thai to win first place at a major Koran recital competition, taking place in the capital of Sudan where he outscored 85 other contestants from around the world. Living in Pattani, young Hasan became a celebrity in the predominantly Muslim South and, upon his return, was welcomed at Government House by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, who pledged to support the 19-year-old in future competitions.
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Rocker running for a cause
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 29/11/2016
» Live fast, die young. Rock stars and good health aren't historically compatible -- that's how popular belief goes. Not really, that's just a myth that sticks; just ask Artiwara Kongmalai. Known to millions as Toon, the frontman of Thailand's perennially stadium-packing rock group Bodyslam confesses to his twin passions: music (of course) and running. He can't even decide which comes out on top. "I'll take both. Can't I?" he implores.
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Of military, monks and an unholy mess
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/02/2016
» It was a match made in heaven, if heaven had a wrestling match. A few hundred monks from the Sangha Buddhist Alliance faced off with 150 soldiers on Monday at Phutthamonthon park, saffron vs green, tonsured vs crew-cut, as a mini brawl broke out between the two sides over the contested supreme patriarch nomination. Choice photos show a monk head-lock a soldier, jujitsu-style, while soldiers were blocking the angry brethren from entering the park. It was an unholy mess. I thought we were watching news from Myanmar, only that Myanmar seems peaceful these days.
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Our blood runs cold in a burning sun
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 14/11/2015
» In Truman Capote’s true-crime book, In Cold Blood, a rural town in Kansas was rattled by brutal murders. Four people killed in their own home, late at night, three shot point-blank in the face, the other had his throat slit, then shot in the head. It was a robbery turned massacre. The morning after committing the crime, the book reports, one of the two killers, Dick Hickock, went back to his house and had toast for breakfast with his family, laughing, unperturbed, as if nothing so inhuman had happened just hours before.
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Web warriors unite for an F5 rebellion
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 03/10/2015
» This past week ultra-royalists converged at the US Embassy while ultra-malcontents converged on the F5 button. How the world has changed, and how sad that some people are still stuck in a medieval fortress, trying to fend off invaders with hot oil and poisoned arrows?
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A tale of two cinemas
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 28/07/2015
» The benefits of reviving a century-old movie house are more than just monetary
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Turning pop culture into propaganda
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/06/2015
» So the prime minister has watched Game of Thrones. The PM, speaking about the series in his interview with Al Jazeera, didn’t actually adopt Tyrion Lannister’s eloquence, though his enthusiasm for the kind of primeval justice practised in Westeros is clear. Also, he recently said that he liked Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln, a respectable film about a respectable politician who moved his nation forward through strategy, wit and poise. He also knew that his weekly address on TV upset the masses who were addicted to the spectacle of foul-mouthed E-Yam in the soap Sud Kaen San Rak. I’m very happy to know that we have a leader who’s well-versed in the language of popular culture, apart from his initiative of "12 Values" short films (that no one saw).
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Spare Nepal our black arts, crass barbs
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 02/05/2015
» The Kathmandu earthquakes shocked us all. Once again, we are reminded that while some disasters are unnatural, it's natural disasters that wake us from our slumber with such frightening impact. After every quake, after every aftershock, after watching television feeds and looking at pictures on Facebook, we're nudged to reflect on the insecurity of life, even the fragility of civilisation.
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Cannes, mon amour
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/01/2015
» Love and other nightmares filled the first half of the 65th Cannes Film Festival. There's post-Revolution love from Egypt, and the love that finds its final destiny, as love should, in death. There are the usual sidekicks of love, such as loneliness and the desire to be recognised, in the heart and in the flesh, in one's own territory and in others. It's both helpful and futile to try to find a common theme in the competition titles at the most frenzied and influential movie festival on Earth, but please allow me to indulge in the activity as a cure to the unusually wet weather that has rendered the mood rather gloomy in this war zone of film criticism.
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Count to 12 and you'll be brainwashed
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/10/2014
» Friends often ask me, what movies are you looking forward to seeing? The vagaries of taste and fluctuations of mood always make this simple question difficult to answer. Gone Girl? Sure, for the perfect blend of satire and marital horror. Interstellar? Yes, for what looks like a nebula-warped cosmic philosophising. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay? Definitely, for what looks like an inadvertent allegory of our Golden Axe misadventure as the Capitol crumbles under the weight of the three-fingered salute. King Naresuan Part 6 and maybe 7 or why not 8 then please-bring-it-on 9? Yep, bless my soul with the whole shebang, for what looks like the umpteenth elephant circus and post-Koh Tao Myanmar bashing.
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