Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening September 24-30, 2015

Everest

The 1996 blizzard that killed eight climbers on the world's highest mountain is recounted in Everest, which in the grand tradition of Hollywood disaster epics boasts an expansive all-star cast.

Josh Brolin portrays adventuresome Texas medical doctor Beck Weathers. Jason Clarke is Rob Hall, the New Zealander leader of one expedition, with Jake Gyllenhaal as Scott Fischer, head of another expedition group.

They are in a fight for survival when a freak blizzard blankets the mountain and leaves the climbers with no way to get down from the deadly heights they've reached. Chances of survival become slimmer and slimmer as oxygen-bottle supplies are depleted.

Others in the cast include John Hawkes, Sam Worthington, Robin Wright and Emily Watson. Keira Knightley is Hall's pregnant wife stuck back home in New Zealand, whom he calls while stranded on the peak. Transcripts of those calls provided the basis for some of the film, as does the work of Outdoors magazine writer Jon Krakauer, whose article about the disaster was adapted into the best-selling book Into Thin Air. He's played in the film by Michael Kelly.

Decades in development by Hollywood, Everest finally comes to the screen under up-and-coming Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur (Two Guns).

Following high-profile premieres at fests in Venice and elsewhere, Everest kicks off the autumn-winter blockbuster season leading up to the Oscars. Critical reception is generally favorable.

In addition to conventional screens, it's also in converted 3D, including IMAX. Rated G

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Also opening

Pawn Sacrifice – Tobey Maguire is positively unhinged as he portrays the eccentric American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer in this biographical drama, which portrays Fischer as a pawn of Cold War superpowers, coming under pressure as he prepared for the 1972 World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, facing the formidable Russian master Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber). Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond, Defiance) directs. Critical reception is generally positive. Rated 15+

Cooties – Tainted school-cafeteria chicken transforms children into zombie-like monsters, forcing a motley band of teachers to work together to survive. Elijah Wood, Alison Pill, Rainn Wilson and Jack McBrayer star in this indie horror comedy, which premiered at Sundance last year. The writers behind it are an odd couple, Leigh Whannell, who came up with the gory Saw and Insidious movies, and Ian Brennan, one of the creators of the TV series Glee. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 15+

The Green Inferno – Tarantino cohort and torture-porn purveyor Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever) pays tribute to the cult Italian horror Cannibal Holocaust with this thriller about idealistic American college students hoping to stop deforestation in the Amazon. Their plane crashes in the territory of natives they hoped to protect – a primitive tribe that still practices cannibalism and ritual dismemberment. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 18+

Mard Payak: The Great Muay Thai Fighter (มาดพยัคฆ์) – Nation Multimedia Group’s Now 26 TV channel breaks into film with this documentary on boxer Samart Payakaroon. Winner of four national weight-class titles and the 1982 World Boxing Council featherweight champ, he was a fearsome fighter who was known as the "Jade Tiger". Made with Samart’s cooperation, the documentary includes dramatized scenes from his upbringing and career, with actors portraying him at various ages. Norachai Kajchapanont directs. You can read more about the film in an article in The Nation. It's at SF Cinemas.

Siam Yuth: The Dawn of the Kingdom (สยามยุทธ) – Two-fisted swordfighting shirtless youngsters fight for honor and country in this historical-action epic. It's been on the books for many months, but has been repeatedly postponed for reasons I'm not privy to. I guess now the time is right for a jingoistic war flick. The story, as far as I can make out, deals with a tight-knit group of friends who take up the fight against a local warlord in ancient Siam. Rated 15+

Boruto: Naruto the Movie – The 11th entry in the manga-based franchise has young Boruto, son of ninja leader Naruto Uzumaki, hoping to surpass his father’s heroic deeds. He engages his father’s friend, Sasuke Uchiha as his trainer. Most of these manga/anime movies are usually only Thai dubbed, but according to information I've been given, it's in Japanese with Thai subtitles at Apex, Paragon, Quartier Cineart, SFC Terminal 21 and SFW CentralWorld. Rated G

Kis Kisko Pyaar Karu – Popular Indian stand-up comedian Kapil Sharma makes his film debut, playing four roles in this romantic farce about a guy who has married three times and is on the lookout for wife number four. It's in Hindi With English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit and Rama III. Opens Friday.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – The club has a private event tonight but the month of directorial debuts wraps up tomorrow with Wes Anderson's quirky comedy Bottle Rocket, which features Anderson's Texas pals the Wilson brothers, Owen (who co-wrote the movie), Luke and Andrew. Saturday, it's Guy Ritchie's turn, with his crime farce Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Wish he still made movies like that. Sunday has one more Douglas Sirk film for the month, with 1955's All That Heaven Allows, starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman. Tuesday has Wes Craven's Scream 2 and the month closes out with one more unusual sci-fi entry, the proto-science-fiction film, 1927's Metropolis. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

Movies on Design – Part of the Bangkok Design Festival, Movies on Design has five documentaries screening at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center this Friday and Saturday and next Friday and Sunday. The selection consists of Microtopia, about tiny houses; The Startup Kids, about the founders of such Web-based initiatives as Vimeo, Dropbox and Soundcloud; Where Architects Live, featuring the living spaces of Zaha Hadid and other famous building designers; Koolhaas Houselife, which looks at the unexpected hassles of living in an architectural masterpiece; and Gamer Age, a study on the evolution of video games. These are ticketed shows. For the schedule and other details, please see the BACC's website.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – In 1947, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdal wanted to prove his theory that Polynesia was settled from the West by indigenous South Americans. To do so, he built a balsa-wood raft, just like the sailors in pre-Columbian times used. The 4,300-mile, 101-day voyage became the subject of an Oscar-winning 1950 documentary by Heyerdal, and it serves as the basis for 2012's Kon-Tiki, an adventure epic that is Norway's most expensive film production yet. A gripping drama, it was a nominee for the Academy Awards and Golden Globes. Gutsy directors Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, who ignored the advice of other filmmakers and actually made their film in the open ocean rather than a studio, have since been tapped to helm the upcoming next Pirates of the Caribbean movie with Johnny Depp. Kon-Tiki screens at 7pm on Monday at the FCCT as part of the club's Contemporary World Film Series. The screening is courtesy of the Royal Norwegian Embassy. Admission is 150 baht for non-members and 100 baht for anyone want the embassy's beer, salmon and other delicacies.

Alliance Française – An paroled thief is coaxed back into the life of crime by old cohorts who want to steal a priceless gem in Le dernier diamant (The Last Diamond). To do so, the thief must get close to a woman who is a gem expert. Eric Barbier directs and Yvan Attal, Bérénice Béjo, Jean-François Stévenin and Antoine Basler star. It screens at 7pm on Wednesday, September 30, at the Alliance.

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Sneak preview

Sicario – Here's another movie that's already attracting a fair bit of awards-season buzz. Emily Blunt stars has a hard-driving FBI agent who is recruited to join a top-secret anti-drugs task force on the U.S.-Mexico border. Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro and Victor Garber also star. It's directed by Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Enemy). Following its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, critical reception is extremely positive. Sicario is in a two-week sneak preview run, with shows from around 8 nightly in most multiplexes. It opens in a wider release on October 8. Rated 15+

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening August 12-21, 2014

Plae Kao (The Scar)

The classic tragic romance of the Bang Kapi countryside in the 1930s, Plae Kao (แผลเก่า, a.k.a. The Scar) is a story best known for its 1977 film version by Cherd Songsri, starring Sorapong Chatri as the farmboy Kwan who is hopelessly in love with the neighbor girl Riam (Nantana Ngaokrachang).

Although their families are bitter rivals in the village, Kwan persistently romances Riam by playing his wooden flute, and accompanies her for swims in the lotus pool and on long rides through the rice fields on the back of a water buffalo. But then Riam is sent away by her social-climbing father to Bangkok, where she is taken in by a wealthy woman. Promised the hand of a rising young politician, she becomes distant from Kwan.

There have been remakes and TV versions of the late Cherd's masterpiece, even though the idea of remaking his film ought to be akin to doing a remake of Citizen Kane – it is unnecessary and should never be attempted. Instead, why not organize frequent, easy-to-access revival screenings of the original Plae Kao and other classics of Thai cinema?

But no. Director ML Bhandevanov "Mom Noi" Devakula, the reigning king of Thai-film remakes, feels the need to put his own weird high-brow stamp on Plae Kao, which is adapted from a novel by Mai Muengderm. A drama coach who has schooled virtually every Thai actor on the screen today, Mom Noi made a string of lavish romantic drama films in the 1980s and '90s and then made his comeback as a film director in 2008 with Chua Fah Din Salai (Eternity), an erotic-novel adaptation that had been filmed before. He followed that up with Umong Pha Muang (a.k.a. The Outrage or At the Gate of the Ghost), a northern Thailand-flavored adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon. Last year, he did a two-part retelling of Jan Dara, another erotically charged piece of Thai literature. It had been made into a film just 10 years before.

With his new Plae Kao, Mom Noi aims to bring the old story to contemporary audiences with help from fresh-faced young half-Thai stars, Chaiyapol Julian Pupart from Jan Dara as Kwan and Davika Hoorne from Pee Mak Phra Khanong as Riam. The supporting cast is filled out by a host of youngsters from the reality-TV talent show The Star and a handful of veterans who've acted in Mom Noi productions before. Rated G.

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Also opening

Joe – Every once in awhile, Nicolas Cage takes a break from the over-the-top performances that make bad movies a little more tolerable, and reminds us he's still a fine actor who is capable of great work in great movies. Joe is one of those. It's directed by David Gordon Green, a director I admire in any genre. Pineapple Express or Eastbound and Down (or The Sitter) anyone? Or are you stuck on George Washington? The indie drama has Cage as an ex-con who becomes the unlikely role model for an abused teenage boy. The kid is played by Tye Sheridan, who previously earned critical raves in another backwoods American thriller, Mud. Winner of two awards at last year's Venice fest, including the Marcello Mastroianni best-actor gong for Sheridan, critical reception is generally favorable. It's at SF cinemas. Opens on Thursday.

22 Jump Street – The tongue-in-cheek big-screen reboot of the 1980s TV series 21 Jump Street barrels on. The premise involved young police officers recruited to do undercover anti-drugs work at a high school. Now they are in college. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill star as the mismatched buddy cops who proved to be a hilariously winning combination with the first film. Critical reception for the sequel is generally positive, with the consensus being it's the once-in-a-blue-moon sequel that improves upon the original. Rated 15+

Singham Returns – Anybody remember the 2011 Bollywood actioner Singham? I don't, but no matter, because he's back. Ajay Devgn stars as a straight-shooting, no-nonsense deputy police commissioner – an honest cop in a corrupt world. Kareena Kapoor also stars. It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit and Rama III. Opens Friday.

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Also showing

Silent Film Festival – There are just two nights left in the first Silent Film Festival in Thailand – The Water Magician at 8 tonight at the Lido and tomorrow's closing-film gala at the Scala with The Lodger. From 1933, Kenji Mizoguchi's The Water Magician centers on a young woman who is water juggler for a travelling theater troupe. A headstrong young woman, she taunts a carriage driver into driving faster and he loses his job. She falls for him and pledges to put him through law school, no matter what. Tickets are 100 baht. Alfred Hitchcock's murder thriller The Lodger, hailed as a masterpiece of the silent era, will feature accompaniment from Bangkok Opera maestros Trisdee Na Patalung and Somtow Sucharitkul. The show is at 8pm at the Scala; tickets are 500 baht. The Nation has stories today on the accompanists and early Hitchcock.

The Friese-Greene Club – Already covered in last week's entry, tomorrow night's question-and-answer session will have David Cluck talking about his experiences working as first assistant director on The Merry Gentleman, a 2008 drama that was the directorial debut of Michael Keaton. This Thursday's Asian horror offering is Confessions by Tetsuya Nakashima, in which a grieving mother plots revenge for her daughter's death. Friday's Alan Parker film has Mickey Rourke squaring off against a shadowy figure (Robert De Niro) in Angel Heart. Gaspar Noe's controversial Enter the Void is Saturday's "head trip", and on film noir Sunday, feast your eyes on one of cinema's greatest long takes (and Charlton Heston as a Mexican) with Orson Welles' Touch of Evil. Next Wednesday is another question-and-answer session, with Bangkok-based production designer Jim Newport sharing his thoughts about working on the 1987 cult-classic thriller The Stepfather. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. There's just nine seats, so book them. Also, check the Facebook page for updates and program changes. Please have a look at that other blog for a new video on the FGC.

As We Can See Here: A Tribute to Harun Farocki – German experimental filmmaker and video artist Harun Farocki died on July 30 in Berlin at age 70, leaving behind more than 100 films, mostly short documentaries that explored contemporary life and its various depredations – war, imprisonment, surveillance and capitalism. In tribute, the Reading Room and Filmvirus will present a selection of his films and host a talk. Here is the schedule:

Saturday, August 16

• 13:00 - As We Can See Here (or As You See), 1986, 72min
• 14:15 - Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory, 1995, 36min
• 14:55 - Still Life, 1997, 58min
• 16:00 - Prison Images, 2000, 60min
• 17:00 - War at a Distance, 2003, 54min
• 18:00 - Nothing Ventured, 2004, 50min

Sunday, August 17

• 13:00 - Images of the World and the Inscriptions of War, 1988, 75min
• 14:15 - How to Live in the German Federal Republic, 1990, 83min
• 15:40 - Respite, 2007, 40min
• 17:00 - Discussion: Keiko Sei and Graiwoot Chulphongsathorn

The venue is The Reading Room, a fourth-floor walk-up art gallery on Silom Soi 19, opposite Central Silom Tower. For more details, please see the Facebook events page.

The Lives of Others – Writers are featured in this Sunday's Filmvirus double bill of biopics at Thammasat University Tha Prachan. With help from producers Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, Taxi Driver and Raging Bull screenwriter Paul Schrader honors Japanese writer Yukio Mishima with Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. That's followed by Hamsun, with Max von Sydow as the Nobel Prize-winning Norwegian author who later was named a traitor for his support of Nazi Germany. The show starts at 12.30 on Sunday in the Pridi Banomyong Library at Thammasat University Tha Prachan, in the Rewat Buddhinan Room, floor U2, the basement. Dress appropriately and inform the desk worker you are there to see a movie. For details, call (02) 613-3529 or (02) 613-3530.

Alliance Française – Selections from last year's My French Film Festival in Bangkok are featured this month. Tomorrow's film, already covered last week is Une bouteille à la mer (A Bottle in the Gaza Sea). Next week, it's La désintégration about Arab boys living in Lille, France, who fall under the influence of a charismatic older Arab. The show is at 7pm on Wednesday, August 20.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – The FCCT's Contemporary World Film Series explores cross-cultural struggles with The Namesake, a 2006 drama by Oscar-nominated director Mira Nair. Irrfan Khan and Tabu star as a Bengali couple who immigrate from Kolkata to New York and have children. Through a series of mishaps, their son is named Gogol, after the father's favorite Russian author. He (Kal Penn of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle) grows up lazy and resentful, but through various struggles, travels and romantic entanglements, he learns to embrace his Indian heritage. Critical reception is generally positive. The show, courtesy of Mirabai Films and the Embassy of India, is at 7pm on Thursday, August 21 at the FCCT. Indian Ambassador Harsh Vardhan Shringla will be on hand with Indian wines and treats from Mrs. Balbir's. Admission for non-members is 150 baht plus 100 baht for the wine and food.

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Sneak preview

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Mired in fanboy controversies that are too tiresome to recount, producer Michael Bay's reboot of the 1980s character-licensing juggernaut recounts the origins of four pizza-chomping outcast brothers who rise up out of the sewers of New York to discover their destiny as crime-fighting superheroes. They join forces with a plucky TV reporter. She's former Transformers star Megan Fox, who made nice with Bay after she compared him to Hitler. They combat the supervillain martial-artist Shredder. Jonathan Liebesman, the South African helmer of Battle: Los Angeles and Wrath of the Titans directs. Critical reception is mixed. In 3D (converted) in some cinemas, it's in nightly sneak previews at most multiplexes until it opens wide on August 21.

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Take note

Except for Joe, most new movies are being released a couple days earlier this week to celebrate today's combined holidays of Her Majesty the Queen's Birthday and Mother's Day. The next update here will likely be on August 21, at which point I hope to have a few details about the 18th Thai Short Film and Video Festival, running from August 28 to September 7 at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening December 19-24, 2013

American Hustle

The FBI's Abscam anti-corruption operation of the 1970s forms the backdrop for American Hustle, a stylish crime romp directed by David O. Russell. It reunites Russell with his Silver Linings Playbook stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, and adds Christian Bale, Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner.

Bale is a brilliant con artist who is partnered up with a seductive Brit (Adams). They are forced to work for an FBI agent (Cooper). Just who is conning who isn't really clear, and the FBI agent seems in over his head. Caught between the two sides is a New Jersey political operator (Renner). And threatening to pull the wall down on the whole scheme is Bale's unpredictable wife (Lawrence).

Bale, who is famous for losing and gaining massive amounts of weight for his roles, packed on 40 pounds to give his character more of a presence.

American Hustle is among the leading nominees for the Golden Globe Awards, has been toasted by critics and has emerged as a possible frontrunner in next year's Oscars. Critical reception is wildly positive. Rated 18+

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Also opening

Last Vegas – The Bucket List meets The Hangover in this comedy about four lifelong friends, all in their 60s, who head to Las Vegas to party and gamble and celebrate the impending marriage of the last single member of their group. Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline star. Jon Turteltaub (National Treasure, The Sorcerer's Apprentice) directs. Critical reception is mixed, leaning unfavorably. Rated 13+

Homefront – Sylvester Stallone penned the screenplay to this drama, with Jason Statham taking the lead role as a widowed former drugs-enforcement agent who seeks a quiet life in a small town, but he runs into conflict with a local meth kingpin (James Franco). Kate Bosworth, Clancy Brown and Winona Ryder also star. Critical reception is mixed, leaning to unfavorable. It's at SF cinemas. Rated 18+

Journey to the Christmas Star – Because it just wouldn't feel like Christmas in Bangkok if there weren't a Christmas movie in cinemas, this Norwegian family film is about a courageous girl who sets out on an adventure to find the Christmas star, free her land from a curse and bring back a long-lost princess. It's in English with Thai subs at Major Cineplex (including EGV, Esplanade, Mega, Paragon, Paradise). Rated G

Dhoom 3 – Abhishek Bachchan and Uday Chopra reprise their roles as Jai Dixit and Ali Akbar in this third installment of the Bollywood action franchise. Aamir Khan and Katrina Kaif also star. This is one of the biggest releases in years for a Bollywood film in Thailand, opening on Friday in six theaters, including EGV Grand Seacon Square, Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Major Rama III and Paragon, as well as Chiang Mai Airport Plaza and Major Cineplex Pattaya.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – The private cinema club's "antidote to holiday cheer" continues with "troubled adult" movies, offering Todd Solondz' controversial 1998 drama Happiness tonight. Tomorrow, it's American Beauty, but it's already fully booked. And Saturday is the quirky Me and You and Everyone We Know by Miranda July. Sunday is the last of the Christmas classics this season, It's a Wonderful Life. The club will then be taking a break for a week or so before returning with new programming sometime next year. The FGC is down an alley next to the Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. With just nine seats, the screening room fills up fast. Also, there are often last-minute changes in the schedule, so please check the website and Facebook page before paying a visit (for example, last week, Carrie ended up being cancelled).

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Sneak preview

Captain Phillips – Tom Hanks' latest high-seas adventure wasn't due to open in Thai cinemas until around New Year's, but here it is before Christmas and it's already in a sneak preview run, playing in most multiplexes from around 8 nightly. Barkhad Abdi also stars, playing the pirate captain. Directed by Paul "Shakycam" Greengrass, it's based on an actual piracy incident. It's among the films frequently tipped for one award or another, and critical reception is mostly positive. Rated 15+

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Take note

House on RCA is closed from Saturday through Christmas Eve. It'll be back open on Christmas day with Blue Is the Warmest Color, and hopefully continuing to show Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy, which is worth seeing, twice even. Next week, other movies will be released a day earlier than usual as well, thanks to the Christmas holiday. Check back then for more details.