Showing 661 - 667 of 667
The gaul of it
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 24/02/2012
» Come Monday morning, the winter rite of the Oscars will be executed in all its blazing, self-congratulatory aura, and after three hours of pompous live broadcast and in-jokes we'll return to our graves happily thinking about other fine movies the world has to offer. In the global peddling of moving images, we're forced to be fixated with Tinseltown's annual polling, an extensive survey of American taste and preferences, in which 6,000 people cast their precious votes to determine the worldwide conversation about the value of good movies.
Global visions
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/01/2012
» From Southeast Asian indies to Turkish policiers and Chilean dramas, the World Film Festival of Bangkok serves up a hefty cinematic portion that will enliven our theatre-going experience from today until Jan 27. Pushed back from November by the furious flood, the festival opens tonight at Paragon Cineplex with Padang Besar (I Carried You Home) and will offer around 100 titles, both short and feature-length, over the next seven days. All films will be screened at Esplanade Cineplex on Ratchadaphisek (MRT Thailand Cultural Centre), and the closing night will be an outdoor screening at The Nine, on Rama IX Road, which will feature a rare programme by Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki.
Film festival needs direction
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/02/2012
» If the Red Carpet works, the film festival works. That seems to be the motto of the hype machine behind last weekend's Hua Hin International Film Festival, which proudly paraded stars down the sandy, horse-free beach of the InterContinental while the cinemas were haunted by ghosts. Nothing's wrong with using a movie festival to support tourism, as long as some attention is paid to what it's all about: film, and the film-going experience.
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.
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.
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.
Embracing anonymity
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/02/2012
» Over the years it's become something of a cliche: Isabelle Huppert is a small woman who's built up an illustrious career by playing emotionally powerful roles _ roles so big in attitude that we tend to forget the size of the actress playing them. She's played Madame Bovary; she's played the amoral mother in a film based on a George Bataille novel; and she's probably best known to Thai audiences as the intensely masochistic Erika Kohut in The Piano Teacher.