Showing 71 - 80 of 464
Tales to bewitch, Enchant and bemuse
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 21/12/2012
» Ang Lee gives us a phosphorescent whale, blue-neon jellyfish, carnivorous seaweed and a sublime tiger as manifestations of fear, flesh, Vishnu, spirituality, the will to survive, etc. Visually, especially in the oceanic voyage of the boy Pi and his hungry Bengal tiger, this is a gorgeous film (in 3D) as Lee, adapting the Yann Martel book, pushes the tale beyond the realm of teen adventure into existential parable.
New year sneak peek: movies
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 31/12/2012
» Seven films we look foward to in 2013.
Being Brody
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 11/01/2013
» On Christmas Day last year, Adrien Brody was in Angkor Wat _ on his own. "I had a backpack on, a hat, a beard, I don't walk with the security detail," he gestures at the staff looming near where we're talking.
Stealing a script from across the ocean
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/01/2013
» It's as tricky to rule if Samsung actually imitates the curvy frame of Apple as it is to judge if The Thieves, the highest-grossing film in the history of South Korea, is an unofficial remake of Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's 11. Only that it's 10 instead of 11 thieves, the casino is in Macau and not Vegas, and the female safe-crackers are hotter though the film itself is not. The Koreans, you see, are just amazing, the way they borrow a seed and grow something out of it _ the way they originalise, or try to originalise, something that belongs elsewhere in the pop-cultural ancestry and, to borrow burglary argot, make off with a massive haul.
Softly does it
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 18/01/2013
» The oddball killers and garrulous crime bosses in Killing Them Softly remind us of Quentin Tarantino's back catalogue, with less sharp-edge conviction and self-conscious giggling. Those drawn to the film only because it has Brad Pitt splashed on the poster (see page 4) will have head-scratching moments _ and not all of them unpleasant.
Rohingya cast out of fire, into the frying pan
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/01/2013
» When Hussein cooks, the whole community rubs its stomach and rejoices. The Rohingya's kitchen repertoire of Burmese, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and northern Indian hybrids - it's hard to classify the origin of his menu of dry-fried ribs, complexly spiced curries, mutton biryani and other marvels - is a feast at Islamic functions and wedding ceremonies in a Bang Rak soi.
Screen queen
Muse, Kong Rithdee, Published on 19/01/2013
» Firing off queries about beauty secrets is not what a male reporter, batting an eyelid, would normally do to a female subject. But since fact-checking is part of the job, let's get this done right from the beginning.
Dross, debris and da Bone
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 23/01/2013
» Canadian photographer Liam Morgan invites us to contemplate the consequences of being forsaken. Rust, dirt, moss, dust, flakes of forgotten concrete, muck-caked walls, floors and ceilings, the extraterrestrial landscape of abandonment; in all, the cadavers of construction, without life and yet only half undead. In his first solo exhibition, "Abandon And Decay", currently on display at Kathmandu Gallery, the Bangkok-based Morgan attempts an exploration into the nature of decay and finds abstract fascination in the discarded and the leftover. You look _ and something compels you to move closer for a better view.
Illuminating The Night
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/01/2013
» Sa wakes up in a daze to find that the man she's shared the bed with has bolted with all her money. Alone she hitches a ride back from the seaside to Bangkok, gets changed, puts on her make-up, and heads straight to work at a florid, neon-swamped karaoke bar, where she sits outside the door below the twinkling signs waiting for male customers who're looking for drinking _ and singing and talking _ company.
Osama, where art thou!
Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 01/02/2013
» Poor Maya. The waking life of the pretty CIA agent played by Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty is spent obsessing over one thing and nothing else: hunting down that bearded piece of work dubbed by military-speak as "UBL". Usama Bin Laden is Maya's Holy Grail, her lifetime achievement, her addiction, her soulmate. If Maya were an actress, the terrorist would be her Oscar. And given that we all know what happened 20 months ago in that house in Pakistan _ the UBL assassination is re-enacted here with the thrilling, goggle-eyed, sometimes first-person video-game aesthetics _ history and headlines have already put on the spoiler alert for the world audience: Maya wins, big time. She's got her metaphorical Oscar, and fittingly, she's shocked and awed and even breaks down after the trophy (the corpse) has been brought to her.