Showing 31 - 40 of 41
Superficiality takes aim at Scala
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/06/2016
» There is a mix of rage, gloom and longing as, once again, the fate of the Scala theatre in Siam Square is questioned. To wreck is easy, to save is hard. The jackhammer screeches louder than nostalgia. Will the Scala, that quaint majesty stuck in a prime retail area, that solemn granddaddy in the flashy, messy, heavily commercialised quarter, be next to fall?
All aboard for a scary trip down South
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/04/2016
» The news reads: Hard-line critics of the regime will be sent to take intensive "training courses" in the Deep South. The National Council of Peace and (dis)Order (NCPO) has confirmed the courses in the camps, which will be longer and more rigorous than the regular attitude adjustment series.
In fighting IS, don't mimic its evil ways
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 07/02/2015
» It was a sad week, a week of satanic beheadings, then the barbarous immolation, executed and filmed by that godless bunch as if in mockery of Hollywood war movies. A week of moral anger and global blood lust, from Amman to Tokyo by way of Iraq. A week of sadness that quickly morphed into something like vengeance, as war cries sounded over the medieval fortresses of Jordan and Egypt and echoed to the South China Sea.
Force-fed film belongs deep in dark vaults
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/12/2014
» Strange things have happened at the cinemas. First, Hitler showed up in a Thai short film sponsored by the government (meaning by taxpayers), the radioactive gatecrasher into a party of virtuous citizens. Second, another Thai film featuring, among other things, a joke about the anal cleft — it's funny as long as it's not your anal cleft — is raking in a huge amount of money at the multiplexes, likely surpassing the 100-million-baht mark as you're reading this, which is after just four days of release. Cinema enlightens, even in the dark forest of swastikas and bodily bergschrunds.
Autocratic filmmaking is our forte
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 20/12/2014
» In the week Sony censored itself and shelved the Christmas Day release of The Interview, a comedy about the assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, I'm reminded of this slim book on my desk which I sometimes flip to random pages. One has this: "In the capitalist system of filmmaking the director is called 'director' but, in fact, the right of supervision and control over film production is entirely in the hands of the tycoons of the filmmaking industry who have the money, whereas the directors are nothing but their agents."
A glossary of 2014 Newspeak
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 15/11/2014
» Constitution (noun/slang): A piece of paper torn to shreds every few years by gun-toting soldiers who perform such deeds on national TV. Usually, a new piece of paper is written shortly afterwards, invariably by a clique of handpicked Samaritans, legislative superheroes, heartbroken mavericks and all-purpose sycophants.
When in doubt, gag the dissenters
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/09/2014
» Banning is the oldest trick in the authoritarian playbook, dating back to the pre-Medici, pre-Bolshevik, pre-YouTube era. It's placebo, and yet the illusion of efficiency still works like drugs among jittery leaders and strongmen who fear papers, images, testaments and sometimes truth.
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?
Art helps us see through the fog of war
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/08/2014
» Her mother is Christian. Her father is Muslim. What is she?
Fear of social change a step back
News, Kong Rithdee, Published on 09/08/2014
» Those who live permanently in the past can't see the inevitability of the present. Those who worship the stegosaurus would do something so comical, so anachronistic as banning a computer game that most people have never heard of, prompting nearly everyone to hear about it and wanting to play it — just for kicks, just for a slap to the face, just to prove that techno-terrorism will leave the dinosaurs behind. In the world of bandwidth, in a time when information always slips through the iron fist like water or like pus, in short, in the downloadable, Wiki-leakable 21st century — banning data is the practice of ants trapped in prehistoric amber.