SEARCH

Showing 1-10 of 688 results

  • LIFE

    Three's A Treat

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 04/01/2012

    » We open the year with an unusual occurrence in the cinema-going sphere: This month there will be three film festivals slated to satisfy the thirst and curiosity of local audiences. Two of them are taking place in the cultural stronghold of Bangkok, while the other has come up with the strange choice of Hua Hin. Two of them will feature alternative cinema of vastly diverse temperaments, while the other sticks mostly with munchy fares from across Asia. All of them, luckily, are privately funded.

  • LIFE

    In the mood for Marilyn

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 13/01/2012

    » Marilyn Monroe was a real woman, but through the decades she has also existed as an image _ and an imagination. The later generation, appreciating Monroe in iconic, sex pot poses and perky screen persona, associates a wide gamut of ideas, fantasies and conjectures with her and her era, the '50s. A powerful presence on the screen (her movies lose meaning when she's not in the frame), she's also a blank page on which you supply your own surmises and assumptions, theories and conclusions. It says a lot when, in probably her most famous movie from 1955, The Seven Year Itch, Monroe plays a character with no name: it's enough to know her as The Girl.

  • LIFE

    Toying with terror

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 16/01/2012

    » Loners in Roberto Bolano's stories drift from anxiety and obsession into something darker. Like poetry, bibliophilia, murder, madness. The downward spiral is gradual and unstoppable, its path littered with symbols, graveyards and black humour. Very black. And very humorous. You emerge from one of his books _ and so many of them have been released in English in the seven years since his death, aged 50, in 2003 _ soaked in a cold sweat, like one of those amateur detectives in his novels who stray too close to the abyss and limbo.

  • LIFE

    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.

  • LIFE

    Rock-Solid Hollywood star

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/01/2012

    » Last year in the hyperkinetic film Fast Five, Dwayne Johnson growled and grumbled playing the role of a federal agent chasing a pack of auto-bandits in Rio de Janeiro. Johnson, also known as The Rock, is a prime cut of beef that glitters in the Brazilian sun; yet the man holds his character with gravity, zipping through the breakneck action with all scowl and no smile.

  • LIFE

    Parallel ambitions

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 25/01/2012

    » We wish them the best of luck, and we pray Hua Hin International Film Festival won't turn out to be a lemon. A month ago hardly anybody had heard about this brand-new event, and now those who've heard about it are wondering if they'll take the trouble of making a trip down to the seaside town to watch the films. Our advise is, if the sky is blue and you have nothing else to do (and if you want to forsake the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival that will also happen this weekend) just go for the fun of it. Worst case, you can always decamp to the beach, or one of the seafood joints in Khao Takieb.

  • LIFE

    Disappointing crop

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 27/01/2012

    » Starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes. Directed by Pedro Almodovar. In Spanish with Thai and English subtitles. At selected cinemas.

  • LIFE

    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.

  • LIFE

    Three flavours

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 03/02/2012

    » Baseball geeks will revel in the chance to cheer along with the underdog that makes it, the league-stinker that stuns the big-spender, with the help of digital tinkering. But even if you're illiterate in the great American game, this sport drama has enough of a broad sweep to hook you along with Billy Beane, the real-life manager of Oakland Athletics who, in 2001, gambled with the then-unthinkable strategy of computer analysis and took his team on a 20-match winning streak. That Beane is played by Brad Pitt _ boyish, beaming and bright-eyed _ is, if not exactly a grand slam, a pretty swooping homerun.

  • LIFE

    Feminine perspectives

    Life, Kong Rithdee, Published on 10/02/2012

    » In her smoky evocation of lost love, vintage romance and bewitching cello music, Madonna, at the helm of W.E., channelled Wong Kar-wai of the early millennium, doing that visual serenade of beautiful, distressing women who're in the mood for love. Wong sculpted melancholia out of gorgeous haze; Madonna's swirl of luxury and grainy jump-cuts merely drift, and then land somewhat in emptiness. Re-telling the story of "the greatest romance of the century" _ the one between Prince Edward and Wallis Simpson _ the Material Girl also gives us a story of a wife who's in the desperate mood for pregnancy. So much so that the effort crosses over from beautiful and tender to obsessive and self-sabotaging.

Your recent history

  • Recently searched

    • Recently viewed links

      Did you find what you were looking for? Have you got some comments for us?