Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening April 21-27, 2016

Patong Girl

A German teen on holiday in Thailand with his dysfunctional family falls head over heels for a local lass in Patong Girl (สาวป่าตอง), an indie drama that recently won a Grimme Prize in Germany.

It's directed by Susanna Salonen, a veteran cinematographer whose credits include second unit work on Run Lola Run, making her feature directorial debut. She was inspired to make Patong Girl by her experience during the 1990s as a diving instructor on Phuket.

The film follows the Schroeder family as they embark for one last holiday together before their youngest son Felix goes off to college. Locked into what turns out to be a dodgy holiday package, the family spends their nights boozing in a red-light district, where Felix comes to the rescue of a damsel named Fai and ends up running off with her without really knowing who she is. The mother, meanwhile, is becoming dissatisfied with her husband and she runs off too, ostensibly to find the son. She ends up finding herself.

In addition to the strong performances by Max Mauff as Felix and Victoria Trauttmansdorff as the mother, there's a break-out role for (spoiler alert) transgender actress Aisawanya Areyawattana.

Interestingly, the film was actually made around Pattaya, with Bangkok-based production services company De Warrenne Pictures and co-producer Tom Waller, helping set the stage.

The limited theatrical release follows appearances in the German Open Air Cinema season and German Film Week. It's at SF World at CentralWorld as well as SF cinemas at Pattaya Beach, Jungceylon Phuket (Patong) and Maya Chiang Mai.

For details, check the Facebook page. There's also a Vimeo trailer and an article in The Nation. Rated 15+

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Also opening

Green Room – Patrick Stewart, the refined stage and screen actor best known for his roles as Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and as Professor Xavier in the X-Men movies, takes a villainous turn as a white supremacist criminal kingpin in Green Room. The thriller is about members of a rock band who are locked in a fight for survival with skinhead gangsters after they witness a murder. Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Alia Shawkat and Joe Cole also star. Critical reception is generally positive. Seems this is only playing in a small number of venues, so good luck finding it at a cinema near you. Rated 18+

Hardcore Henry – Taking inspiration from first-person-shooter video games and other point-of-view (POV) media, this Russian indie action feature is being touted as the first full-length film to be shot entirely from the first-person perspective. Basically the movie Crank, if it were made from a camera planted in Jason Statham's brain, it follows the adventure of a secret agent who wakes up in a lab and then goes through all kinds of violent situations to rescue his scientist wife, who has been abducted by a superpowered warlord. Sharlto Copley, Tim Roth and Haley Bennett are among the stars, but the real stand-out performers are the various stunt actors who donned a GoPro camera helmet to shoot, stab and punch their way through the film. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 18+

Race – Track-and-field star Jesse Owens faced a dilemma when he was chosen to represent the USA in the 1936 Berlin Olympic games. There were folks who urged him to not take part, thus denying Adolf Hitler and the Nazis a propaganda opportunity. Others pleaded with him to go to Berlin, because he most certainly would win and disprove assertions that black people were somehow "inferior". Stephan James stars in this historical sports drama, with former Saturday Night Live cast member Jason Sudeikis taking a dramatic turn as Owens' coach. Other stars include Jeremy Irons, William Hurt and Carice van Houten from Game of Thrones. Critical reception is mixed. Like Green Room, this is another limited release, with just a few venues listed. Rated G

Colonia – Emma Watson (Hermoine from the Harry Potter movies) is a young woman caught up in the unrest of 1973 in Chile. After her husband (Daniel Brühl) is kidnapped by Pinochet's secret police, she tracks him into the jungle to a torture center run by a Christian sect led by a former Nazi (Michael Nyqvist). She joins the cult in hopes she'll be able to rescue her husband. Critical reception is mixed. This opened last week in sneak previews and now moves to general release. Rated 13+

The Wave – The Norwegian film industry flexes its special-effects muscles with this Hollywood-style disaster thriller. It's set in an isolated village threatened by a tsunami, created when an unstable mountain slid off into a nearby fjord. Human drama ensues as residents scramble for higher ground. Critical reception has been mostly favorable. Rated 13+

Before I Wake – A young couple (Kate Bosworth and Thomas Jane) take in a foster child, a boy who is plagued by dreams and nightmares that come to terrifying life as he slumbers. As the dreams become increasingly dangerous, the kid tries to stay awake in a bid to save his new family. He is portrayed by Jacob Trembley, the child actor who won widespread accolades for his performance in the much-acclaimed Room. The writer-director is Mike Flanagan, who previously did the Blumhouse horrors Oculus and Hush. The buzz on this seems to be positive, even as critical reception is just starting to jump. Rated 15+

Detective Chinatown – This is not the long-awaited sequel to the Chinatown sequel The Two Jakes. No, Detective Chinatown is a Chinese action-comedy about a wannabe police officer who comes to Bangkok and gets mixed up in a murder case. Aspiring to be the next Chinese made-in-Thailand mega-hit like Lost in Thailand, Detective Chinatown was actually shot in Bangkok. It was a hit in China and got a fun review by Maggie Lee of Variety. Thai-dubbed only. Rated 15+

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Also showing

Bangkok Asean Film Festival – Movies from all the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will be featured in the second edition of this freebie festival, which is open to the public from tomorrow until Tuesday at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld. It is put on by the Culture Ministry in a bid to promote Bangkok as a cultural and cinematic hub for the region. There are noteworthy films from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. In addition to 10 recent titles, there are three "Asean Classics", including the 1975 social drama Manila in the Claws of Light by Lino Brocka and 1954's After the Curfew from Indonesia. The fest is covered at length in an entry posted on Tuesday, just moments after the schedule was finally revealed. I mostly want to see Bitcoins Heist from Vietnam. Tickets are free and handed out 30 minutes before the shows to punters who queue up at a special table there at CentralWorld.

The Friese-Greene Club – Chow Yun-fat is at his best tonight in The Killer, John Woo's seminal slice of 1980s Hong Kong action and thrills. Tomorrow, it's the "quirky '80s" with the Coen Bros.' debut Blood Simple, which pretty much set the template for everything they've done since. The club is booked for a private event on Saturday but is back open on Sunday for Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Next Tuesday, there is a special screening, of the Cambodian documentary I Am Chut Wutty, which covers the killing of an environmental activist. With a venue in Phnom Penh threatened with "strong action" if it showed the film, director Fran Lambrick granted permission for the FGC to show it. It is a case similar to Bradley Cox's banned-in-Cambodia documentary Who Killed Chea Vichea? about a slain Cambodian labor organizer. Find out more at the Facebook events page. And next Wednesday it's Carol Reed's film-noir spy tale Our Man in Havana, starring Alec Guinness. Shows are at 8pm (except for Seven Samurai, which starts at 7). 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.

Alliance Française – A strict judge is in an awkward situation in the comedy Nine-Month Stretch (9 mois ferme), which screens at 7pm on Friday in French with Thai subtitles. Next Wednesday's English-subbed offering is Heat Wave (Coup de chaud), a murder mystery that's set during a heat wave in a small African town. Admission is 100 baht for the general public.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – Films by Asian female directors living in the West have been the focus of the FCCT's Contemporary World Film Series of late, with Indo-Canadian Deepa Mehta's Earth screening on Tuesday. Next up, at 7pm on Monday, April 25, will be Dukhtar, which New York-based Pakistani Afia Nathaniel made to widespread acclaim. It follows the adventure of a determined mother who takes her daughter away to break the cycle of arranged marriage in the Pashtun tribe. It was Pakistan's official submission to the Academy Awards. Admission is 150 baht for non-members.

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Take note

After the long Songkran break, movie distributors and multiplex chains are back in furious action this week getting eight or so smaller titles off their shelves ahead of the next big Hollywood comic-book tentpole, Captain America: Civil War, which actually hits cinemas next Wednesday along with a handful of other movies the following day. I'll aim for an update on the usual day. So see you next Thursday.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening September 25-October 1, 2014

Fin Sugoi

Showing her arty side on Bangkok big screens in the indie drama Concrete Clouds released last week, actress "Saipan" Apinya Sakuljaroensuk goes commercial in Fin Sugoi (ฟินสุโค่ย), heading the cast of young Thai heartthrobs in this release by Sahamongkol Film International.

In the romantic comedy, directed the popular indie helmer "Golf" Tanwarin Sukkhapisit, Saipan is a groupie of a Japanese idol rocker (Makota Koshinaka), and over the objections of her jealous judo-practicing boyfriend (Tao Settapong), she keeps trying to get close to the singer, with help from her friends Moo Ham (Tina Suppanart) and Kai Tong (Guy Nawapol). Rated 15+

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Also opening

God Help the Girl – Born out of an album by Stuart Murdoch of the Scottish indie-pop group Belle and Sebastian, this musical follows a girl who escapes from a mental facility and heads to Glasgow in hopes of making it big in the city's music scene. Emily Browning, Olly Alexander, Hannah Murray and Pierre Boulanger star. A hit at Sundance this year, critical reception is generally positive. Rated G

Premature – The time-loop absurdities of Groundhog Day meets the teen-sex raunch of American Pie in this coming-of-age comedy about a high-school kid who has to relive the loss of his virginity over and over again until he gets it right. John Karna, Craig Roberts, Katie Findlay and Alan Tudyk star. Directed by Dan Beers, the indie comedy premiered at the South by Southwest Festival. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 15+

A Walk Among the Tombstones – Liam Neeson brings his particular set of skills to an adaptation of a 1992 crime novel by Lawrence Block. The Taken and Non-Stop star is a private investigator, recovering alcoholic and former New York City cop who reluctantly takes a case from a heroin trafficker to find the man's wife's killer. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 18+

The Purge: Anarchy – A new batch of hapless ordinary citizens struggle to survive the annual night of mayhem and lawlessness. Frank Grillo heads the cast as a vigilante former lawman who comes to the rescue of a kidnapped waitress and her daughter. Meanwhile, a couple who survives a carjacking try to hitch a ride. Critical reception is mixed, leaning to favorable. This opened in sneak previews last week and now moves to a wide release. Rated 18+

Viy – Jason Flemying (Snatch, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) stars in this Russian-made supernatural thriller, which is loosely based on a story by Nikolai Gogol. Flemyng is a cartographer mapping out the wilderness of Eastern Europe who gets lost and turns up in a Transylvanian town that is beset by demons. It's at SF cinemas. Rated 13+

Mystic Blade – Bangkok's merry band of hard-working foreigner stuntmen teamed up to make this martial-arts thriller. Don Ferguson stars as a former member of the Shadow Syndicate, a group of hitmen. Having turned his back on his old ways, fallen in love and started a family, he finds he can't escape his past. He forges a supernaturally endowed blade and sets off on a path of vengeance. Conan Stevens, Jawed El Berni, Tim Man and Julaluck Ismalone also star along with David "Mad Dog" Ismalone, who also directs. For more, check out the trailer. It's at Major Cineplex, and unfortunately, it is apparently Thai-dubbed only. Rated 15+

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Tonight, family dysfunction freezes over in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm. Tomorrow, British writer-director Chris Morris skewers jihadists in Four Lions, a comedy about bumbling suicide bombers. Saturday's "so bad it's good" entry is 1959's A Bucket of Blood, which set the template for infamous low-budget producer-director Roger Corman. And Sunday's tribute is Lauren Bacall is How to Marry a Millionaire, also starring Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. 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.

Wildtype Masterclass 001: Fuck Alligator – Chulayarnnon Siriphol is a perennial award winner at the Thai Short Film and Video Festival, where his films, usually satiric views on Thai society, are a highlight. They include documentaries, spoof documentaries and experimental films. This Saturday, Filmvirus and the Reading Room offer a chance to see a bunch of them all at once. The selection goes back as far as 2005 with Golden Sand House, and includes his 2008 winning student film Danger (Director's Cut), 2011's award winners Mrs. Nuan Who Can Recall Her Past Lives and A Brief History of Memory and this year's award-winner Myth of Modernity. There are two programs, at 1 and 3.30pm, followed at 6 by a masterclass and talk by Chulayarnnon. The venue is the Reading Room, a fourth-floor walk-up gallery on Silom Soi 19, opposite Silom Center.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – The Contemporary World Film Series heads to Denmark for The Hunt. The critically acclaimed drama stars Mads Mikkelsen, winner of the Cannes Best Actor Award for his portrayal of a former schoolteacher who has been forced to start over after a tough divorce and the loss of his job. Just as things start to go his way, an untruthful rumor throws his life into disarray. Thomas Vinterberg directs. Screening, at 7pm on Monday, is presented by the Embassy of Denmark, which will serve Carlsberg beer and Danish snacks. Admission for non-members is 150 baht and 100 baht for the food and drink.

Alliance Française – Classic French films are on offer in October with the theme of "eternal thrillers". The series kicks off with 1963's Les tontons flingueurs, in which a dying mobster makes a deathbed plea to former cohort (Lino Ventura) to look after his soon-to-be-married daughter. It's in French with English subtitles at 7pm on Wednesday, October 1.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening July 31-August 6, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy

The Marvel Cinematic Universe embraces the weird with its new franchise, Guardians of the Galaxy, in which a disparate band of desperados have to learn to work together in order to save us all.

Chris Pratt (Parks and Recreation, The Lego Movie) stars as Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord, a spacefaring adventurer who was abducted from Missouri as a boy and raised by criminals. He steals a valuable orb and is pursued by a bizarre group of bounty hunters – the green-skinned warrior woman Gamora (Zoe Saldana), the hulking Drax the Destroyer (WWE wrestler Dave Bautista), gun-toting raccoon Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Rocket's sidekick, the humanoid tree Groot, who only says "I am Groot." He's voiced by Vin Diesel.

The cast, absolutely overstuffed with talent, also includes John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, Michael Rooker, Lee Pace, Djimon Hounsou and Josh Brolin. Benicio Del Toro is "the Collector", described as an "outer-space Liberace".

The director is James Gunn, an inventive, cult-favorite figure who directed the low-budget genre hits Slither and Super.

Boosted by the recent San Diego Comic-Con, where a sequel for 2017 and an animated TV series was announced, anticipation is high. It's in 3D (converted) in some cinemas, including IMAX. Rated G

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Also opening

Rosewood Lane – After the death of her father, a talk-radio psychologist returns to her childhood home. There, a game of cat-and-mouse ensues as she gets into a conflict with a sociopath paperboy. Rose McGowan, Lauren Vélez, Lesley-Anne Down and Ray Wise star. Victor Salva, the controversial maker of the Jeepers Creepers series, directs. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 15+

The Unreasonable Man (ไม่รู้.มันคืออะไร.แต่ชอบ) – Infamous "badboy" actor "Tao" Somchai Kemglad co-directs and stars in this indie project that was completed over the course of several years. He's a brooding Luddite barber who is given a cellphone and is mystified about how to use it. Supharat Boonamayam also directs, and Pramote Sangsorn co-stars. At 6 nightly at the Lido.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – A pair of thrillers close out July, with Guillermo del Toro's strange fantasy Pan's Labyrinth tonight and George Romero's original trapped-in-a-mall-by-zombies tale Dawn of the Dead. August brings a new program, with question-and-answer sessions on Wednesdays, Asian horror on Thursdays, Alan Parker on Fridays, "films that mess with your head" on Saturdays and classic film noir on Sundays. Saturday's head trip is Adrian Lynne's Vietnam veteran acid flashback Jacob's Ladder. Sunday, it's The Third Man, a moody mystery set in post-war Vienna starring Joseph Cotten, the zither and that cuckoo clock speech. Next Wednesday is the first in a series of question-and-answer sessions, with journalist and director Bradley Cox present to talk about Who Killed Chea Vichea? Banned in Cambodia, Cox's Peabody Award-winning documentary is a searing portrait of injustice under the Hun Sen regime. 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.

Elle Fashion Film Festival – Tonight's opening film is the brand-new French biopic Yves Saint Laurent, followed by My Way, chronicling the life of singer Claude François, writer of the hit song that would eventually become the signature tune of Frank Sinatra. Saturday's highlights include the romantic comedy Populaire, in which a French secretary becomes the world's fast typist, and Wes Anderson's much-anticipated The Grand Budapest Hotel, which almost didn't land a big-screen spot in Bangkok. Sunday includes another fine comedy from the winning duo of actor Steve Coogan and director Michael Winterbottom, The Look of Love. The fest is at SFX the Emporium. Tickets are 200 baht and may be purchased in advance at the box office. For more details, please see my earlier blog post or the SF Cinema website.

The Lives of Others – Parts one and two of celebrated Russian director Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible comprise this Sunday's Film Virus double bill of biographical films at Thammasat University Tha Prachan. Made in 1944 with approval from Joseph Stalin, part one aimed to rally the wartorn Soviet Union by presenting the Tsar of all the Russias as a nationalist hero. The second part was completed in 1946 but was held up by state censorship until 1958, 10 years after Eisenstein died. Notably, the score is by the great composer Sergei Prokofiev. 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 are featured throughout August, starting with Sport de filles, a 2011 drama in which a gifted professional horseback rider has her steed taken out from under her and has to start over. Patricia Mazuy directs; Josiane Balasko, Marina Hands and Bruno Ganz star. John Cale, yes that John Cale, composed the score. It's in French with English subtitles at 7pm on Wednesday, August 6.

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Take note

The schedule is up for the First Silent Film Festival in Thailand, set for August 7 to 13 at the Apex cinemas in Siam Square. Organized by the British Council and the Thai Film Archive, it will feature restored prints of early Alfred Hitchcock works, his debut The Pleasure Garden, The Ring and The Lodger, and four other silents, all with live musical accompaniment. Most of the fest takes place at the Lido, where tickets are 100 baht and can be booked at the box office. However, the closing night gala, the only screening of The Lodger, is at the Scala, and it's 500 baht. I'll detail more about the fest in the next day or two.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening November 1-7, 2012

Skyfall

The James Bond movie franchise marks 50 years this year with the release of Skyfall, the 23th picture officially authorized by the rightsholder, EON Productions and the Broccoli family.

Daniel Craig returns for this third outing as 007. He's a grittier and grumpier Bond than the old smoothies who've played him previously, and he's been credited for rescuing the franchise from decades of creaky self-parody. Most pundits are now ranking Craig as probably the second-best Bond since Sean Connery, above Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, George Lazenby and Roger Moore.

Here, Bond's latest assignment has gone horribly wrong and the covers are blown for secret agents around the world.

MI6 has been attacked, forcing the spy agency's chief, M, again portrayed by Judi Dench, to go underground. Meanwhile, she finds her authority being challenged by Lord Voldemort himself – Ralph Fiennes, portraying the new chairman of the intelligence and security committee.

So M is left with just one person she can trust – Bond, an agent who was thought to be dead. Aided by the plucky Miss Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), now a field agent instead of a secretary, Bond follows a trail around the world that leads him to another great cinematic villain, Anton Chighur – Javier Bardem, with another weird hairdo as the mysterious Raoul Silva, a former MI6 agent turned cyberterrorist.

Sam Mendes directs, with French actress Bérénice Marlohe joining the ranks of the "Bond girls" and Ben Whishaw as Bond's geeky new young gadgets guy Q.

Critical reception, so far, is mostly positive. It's in 2D only in regular cinemas as well as IMAX and IMAX Digital. Rated 13+.

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Also opening

The Taste of Money – Im Sang-soo follows up his 2010 remake of The Housemaid with another erotic tale of family dysfunction. Here, he centers on a family owned conglomerate and a young man (Kim Kang-woo) who works as a private secretary to the company president (Baek Yoon-sik). He becomes entangled in an affair with the president's wife (Yoon Yeo-jeong) after she discovers her husband having an affair with a Filipina housemaid (Maui Taylor). Further complications arise when he develops feelings for his employer's divorced daughter (Kim Hyo-jin). The Taste of Money premiered at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and reception has been mixed. It's In Korean with English and Thai subtitles at House and SFW CentralWorld. Rated 20-.

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Also showing

Russian Film Week – In collaboration with the Russian Embassy, SF World Cinema at Central World will screen five recent mainstream Russian films from November 1 to 9. Show times are at 8 nightly. The line-up is as follows:

• Lucky Trouble is a romantic comedy starring Ukrainian-born Hollywood starlet Milla Jovovich. She's the love interest for a small-town schoolteacher (Russia's most prominent actor Konstantin Khabenskiy from Night Watch). Complications ensue as they prepare to get married, even though she's already engaged to another man.
• Mamy (Mothers) is a compilation of segments by eight directors as a tribute to mothers in honor of the March 8 International Women's Day.
• Moscow , I Love You! is another omnibus film, similar to Paris, I Love You and New York, I Love You. It consists of 18 segments about life and love in the Russian capital.
• My Boyfriend-Angel is a romantic comedy about an angel who falls in love with a skeptical young woman.
• The Brest Fortress, a.k.a. Fortress of War recounts the 1941 German invasion and a Soviet fortress that's besieged taken by surprise.

Tickets for Russian Film Week are free, and will be handed out 30 minutes before show time. The movies are screening on Blu-ray with English and Thai subtitles. For the schedule, please check the SF Cinema website.

Sita Sings the Blues – Animator and cartoonist Nina Paley chronicles the break-up with her boyfriend in this fanciful retelling of a story from the Ramayana, which is explained by a hilarious "Greek chorus" trio of shadow puppets. Singer Annette Hanshaw provides the "voice" of the broken-hearted Sita, through her 1920s recordings of jazz and blues. Sita was a labor of love for the animator, who put it together using many styles of animation almost single-handedly on her computer at home. It won numerous awards but its release was hampered by Paley's not obtaining a rights clearance from the publisher of the Hanshaw songs. She eventually did reach a settlement, taking out a personal loan to cover the copyright fee. Then, in a bid to make her film a test case for free sharing under the use of the Creative Commons license, she has made it available for downloads and streaming. It's showing at 8 tonight at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand. Admission for non-members is 150 baht.

Dutch Film Festival in Thailand – A dozen or so Dutch features, documentaries and shorts from the past 10 years will be screened during the monthlong Dutch Film Festival. It's being held at various venues, at the Goethe Institut from November 5 to 8, at the Esplanade Cineplex Ratchada as part of the 10th World Film Festival of Bangkok from November 16 to 25 (see below for more details) and at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center from November 21 to 23. Highlights include Meet the Fokkens, a documentary on the elderly heavyset twin sisters who have worked for decades as prostitutes in Amsterdam, and Win/Win, a drama about a low-level investment-bank employee who becomes a successful trader overnight. Download the festival schedule (PDF) for more details.

Mindfulness and Murder – Ananda, a former policeman who's left behind crimefighting to become a Buddhist monk, is back on the beat when a boy is founded murdered at a Bangkok Buddhist temple. The police aren't keen to pursue the case, so the temple's abbot asks Ananda to solve the crime. Methodically, he tracks down clues and uncovers a conspiracy within the temple itself. The debut feature by veteran producer Tom Waller, Mindfulness and Murder was nominated for several awards by the National Federation of Film Associations of Thailand, including best screenplay and best director, and actor Wannasuk Sirilar won the best supporting actor prize. It's based on one of the "Father Ananda" mystery novels by expat writer Nick Wilgus. Vithaya Pansringarm stars as Ananda. He and director Tom Waller will be present for the November 6 screening at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand. The show time is 8pm. Admission for non-members is 150 baht and 100 baht for anyone wanting to drink the wine.

Puisque nous sommes nés – A month of documentary films begins at the Alliance Française Bangkok with Jean-Pierre Duret and Andréa Santana's 2009 look at homeless drifter children in Brazil. It's in French with English subtitles at 7.30pm on Wednesday, November 7 at the Alliance Française.

Student of the Year – Karan Johar directs this Bollywood drama about high-school students from different ends of the social spectrum in competition to win the Student of the Year trophy. Abhimanyu Singh (Sidharth Malhotra), who comes from a middle-class family, hopes to win the trophy to rise up in prosperity while Rohan Nanda (Varun Dhawan), the son of a business tycoon, hopes to finally prove himself to his father. It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit and Central Rama III.

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Take note

The 10th World Film Festival of Bangkok opens on November 16 with Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Mekong Hotel. Other highlights include Holy Motors, which was one of the most buzzworthy titles at this year's Cannes Film Festival. The film's director, Leos Carax, will be present to receive this year's Lotus Award for lifetime achievement, and the festival will screen a couple other of his films, The Lovers on the Bridge and Mauvais Sang. Also worth mentioning is Aki Kaurismaki's Le Havre, which was an award-winner at last year's Cannes fest and was the French submission to the Oscars. This year's festival also joins hands with the Dutch Film Festival (see above), which brings in a line-up of recent acclaimed documentaries and dramas. The fest runs until November 25 at the Esplanade Cineplex Ratchada. Keep an eye on festival website for more details about the schedule.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening June 30-July 6, 2011

Transformers: Dark of the Moon


NASA's 1969 moon landing was in fact a secret mission to inspect the wreckage of a crashed alien spacecraft, which it turns out was from the machine planet of Cybertron – a fact the US military kept secret from the benevolent Autobots.

Now the race is one between the Autobots and their evil counterparts, the Decepticons, to recover that wreckage.

Part of the action takes place in Chicago, where Decepticon weapons snake around a skyscraper, strangle it and make it topple to the ground, creating much destruction.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the third movie in the franchise, aims to be even more epic than the previous two.

For this one, director Michael Bay turns to 3D, joining the film industry's revolution after first resisting it. However, Avatar director James Cameron convinced Bay that 3D was the way to go.

Back for Transformers 3 is the everyman hero Sam Witwicky, played by Shia LaBeouf.

Others returning include Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as American soldiers and airmen who are allied with the Autobots. John Turturro also returns as a former member of a shadowy government agency.

New to the series is Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, a Victoria's Secret model. She plays Carly, the new love interest for Sam. She replaces sultry actress Megan Fox, whose mouth got her fired from the franchise when she compared Bay to Hitler, a joke that executive producer Steven Spielberg did not find funny.

Others new to the Transformers franchise include Ken Jeong from The Hangover movies, Patrick Dempsey, the racecar-driver boss of Carly, Frances McDormand, playing the secretary of defense, and John Malkovich, Sam's boss.

Critical reception mixed, though perhaps a bit more positive than the previous entries in the series. It's in 3D, including Imax.

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Also showing


The Star (Zvezda) – During World War II, a team of Russian scouts is sent behind enemy lines to find the location of the German armor. Directed by Nikolai Lebedev, this 2002 Russian war drama is based on a short story of the same name by Emmanuil Kazakevich and is a remake of a 1949 Soviet film. It screens at 8 tonight (Thursday, June 30) at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand. Entry for non-members is 150 baht and 150 baht for anyone wanting to sample the vodka, wine and snacks being laid on by Russian Ambassador Alexander G Mariyasov.


Double Dhamaal – Four good-for-nothing jokers, Riteish Deshmukh, Jaaved Jaafery, Arshad Warsi and Ashish Chowdhry, are dreaming of the high life, where they have everything by doing nothing. A chance encounter with their old archenemy, a corrupt ex-cop (Sanjay Dutt), gives them the idea to hatch a blackmail plot. Kangna Ranaut also stars, as does Mallika Sherawat, who had a bikini scene that was chopped. This is a sequel to Dhamaal, a hit 2007 comedy. Indra Kumar directs. It's at SFW CentralWorld on Sunday at 4. Call 0894882620 or 022257500 or visit www.BollywoodThai.com.

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Take note

Only one movie is opening in Bangkok cinemas this week, with the multiplexes and distributors clearing the decks to make way for the behemoth that is Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

If you want to watch something else, head over to the Lido cinemas in Siam Square or House on RCA.

Cinephiles can look forward to July 7's scheduled release of the much-acclaimed new movie from auteur Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life, which will be at Apex Siam Square, SF World and Paragon. There's also Bioscope magazine's Indy Spirit Project, which will screen the pan-Asian indie female-directors short-film compilation Breakfast Lunch Dinner and the Thai boxing documentary Lumpinee at CentralWorld.

The week after that, July 14, it will be another summer blockbuster, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II, which marks the final chapter of that franchise.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening February 3-9, 2011

The King's Speech


The King's Speech has the rare distinction of being a crowd-pleaser as well as the seriously artistic kind of weighty costume melodrama that earns high critical praise and wins awards.

It's really more of a comedy than a drama, and I was surprised how much the audience laughed.

There are excellent performances all around by a strong cast, headed by Colin Firth with support from Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush.

Firth portrays Prince Albert, Duke of York, the younger son of King George V. The film opens with him trying to make a speech at Wembley Stadium, but he can't get the words out of his mouth. The crowd grows noticeably restless. The solutions offered by royal experts aren't helping.

So the duke's supportive and forward-thinking wife Elizabeth – wonderfully portrayed by Bonham Carter – finds a speech therapist working out of a basement office.

This is the unconventional Lionel Logue, an Australian Shakesperian actor and war veteran who's set up a practice to treat speech disorders. Perfectly cast, Rush is priceless as Logue, who insists he be treated as an equal to the duke and that they be on first-name basis, much to the duke's chagrin, because only close family members call him "Bertie". Logue's radical techniques and disdain for royal protocols are off-putting to Albert and the duke irritably walks away from the sessions.

The fine supporting cast runs deep, with Guy Pearce as the rakish older brother and heir-apparent Prince Edward, stately Michael Gambon as King George V, Derek Jacobi as the unctuous Archbishop of Canterbury and Timothy Spall in a hilarious caricature of Winston Churchill.

After George V dies, the drama is heightened by constitutional issues stemming from Edward's intention to marry the American socialite divorcee Wallis Simpson (Eve Best), which puts pressure on Albert. Meanwhile, Hitler is growing stronger, and war will certainly come to Britain. The country needs an indomitable king with a strong voice.

Albert is a man full of conflict. On one hand, he is a loving and patient father to his daughters Elizabeth and Margaret, but he has a temper that he struggles to control. Anger and frustration lead to explosive outbursts. The well-meaning troublemaker Logue sometimes only seems to bring out the worst in him.

Directed by Tom Hooper with a screenplay by David Seidler, the magic of this moving and entertaining comedy-drama is how those conflicts are overcome and a lifelong friendship begins.

The movie is widely acclaimed. Firth won a Golden Globe Award for his role, and The King's Speech is the leading nominee for the Academy Awards and Britain's BAFTAs. Critical reception is almost universally favorable, with the consensus being that Firth "gives a masterful performance in ... a predictable but stylishly produced and rousing period drama."

It's not without controversy, which is a result of the unconventional treatment employed by Logue, who is depicted as having the king spout off a stream of obscenities ("Ffff ... fornication?") in order to keep his verbal flow going. The repeated F-bombs have gotten The King's Speech slapped with the highly restrictive R rating in the U.S., leading producer Harvey Weinstein to voice the desire to edit the film so it can be seen by younger audiences and he can make more money. Director Hooper is against the move. It's only rated 12A in the U.K.

It's playing at the Scala in Siam Square and at SF World Cinema, CentralWorld. Rated 15+.

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The Green Hornet


A radio series in the 1930s and comic book in the 1940s, The Green Hornet follows the exploits of newspaper publisher Britt Reid and his faithful Chinese valet Kato who don masks and fight crime with the help of their technologically advanced car, the "Black Beauty".

A TV series in the 1960s starred the rather bland Van Williams, who was easily outshone by Bruce Lee as Kato. The show featured Chrysler's top-of-the-line Imperial Crown sedan as the Black Beauty. The show's opening theme, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee", played on trumpet by Al Hirt, is a cultural icon.

The movie adaptation has languished in development hell for years.

In a revived push the make the film, comic actor Seth Rogen was signed as the star and executive producer. Hong Kong actor-director Stephen Chow – a massive Bruce Lee fan – was to play Kato and direct, but that deal fell through when the producers weren't willing to give Chow the control he wanted.

So Michel Gondry was brought in to direct. Chow initially was to remain as Kato but scheduling difficulties prevented that. Ultimately, Taiwanese singer-actor Jay Chou was cast.

Austrian actor Christoph Waltz from Inglourious Basterds also stars, playing the lead villain Chudnofsky, a Russian mob boss. And Cameron Diaz is researcher and love interest Lenore Case.

Critical reception is leaning to negative, with the consensus being "it's sporadically entertaining, but ... never approaches the surreal heights suggested by a Michel Gondry/Seth Rogen collaboration." It's in 3D (converted from 2D) in some cinemas, including IMAX. Rated 15+.

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Also opening


From Prada to Nada – Adapted from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, this riches-to-rags comedy stars Camilla Belle and Alexa Vega as spoiled socialite sisters who upon their father's death discover they are dirt poor. This gives way to a fish-out-of-water scenario as they two are forced to move from their luxurious Beverly Hills mansion to their aunt’s modest home in the Latino neighborhood of East L.A. Critical reception is thin on the ground with the consensus being that while it's pleasant enough, From Prada to Nada is a predictable, dumbed-down retread of the Austen novel. Rated G.


Teng Nong Jiwon Bin (เท่งโหน่ง จีวรบิน) – TV-comedy cohorts Pongsak "Teng Terdterng" Pongsuwan and Choosak "Nong" Iamsuk are back together for their third Teng Nong/Nong Teng movie for the big screen, directing themselves in this high-flying action comedy for Sahamongkol Film. Similar to his Holy Man character in the Monk Teng movies he left behind years ago (Phranakorn has made two Luangpee Teng sequels without him), Teng dons the robes of a Buddhist monk on a pilgrimage to Tibet. Aiming to return to Thailand, he is offered a ride on a cargo plane owned by a wealthy jeweler (Nong). But the flight turns bumpy thanks to the efforts of a gang of thieves, led by a hot-headed "Tao" Somchai Kemklad. Comic relief is offered by familiar faces, among them actress "Tukky" Sudarat Butrprom as a flight attendant, along with comic actors Somlek Sakdikul and Kom Chuanchuen. New-face actress "Mo" Amina Phinit gives the boys something to look at. There's trailer at YouTube. I guess it's okay for monks to fly airplanes? Rated 15+.

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Also showing


Isan Film Festival – An excerpt version of the Jim Thompson Art Center's festival is set for tonight. It's a selection of films that were shown up in Nakhon Ratchasima during the Jim Thompson Farm open house and the Art on Farm project. The program includes Haunted Houses, a 60-minute work made by Apichatpong Weerasethakul for the Istanbul Biennale in 2001. Here's more:

The film’s narrative was directly scripted from two episodes of a popular Thai television show, Tong Prakaisad. The series mainly deals with love and the problems of the wealthy.

The filmmaker then traveled to the villages near his home and asked villagers to participate by acting according to the script. All 66 villagers from six villages participated. The story was continuous, but the actors who played the characters were constantly changed as the filming location moved from one village to another.

Haunted Houses deals with various forms of media addiction (soaps, lifestyles, transformation of/between cultures, etc.). Little is explored in Thailand of the tremendous impact of dramas in shaping the rural landscapes and the minds. A house is like a “medium”, hosting a television set that transmits these hypnotizing images.

Each night after 8pm, several millions of the houses in the country are “haunted”.

The second film in the Isan Film Festival program is the groundbreaking 1977 docu-drama Tongpan, directed by Paichong Laisakul and written by Kamsing Srinok. The 60-minute 16mm black-and-white film follows a poor farmer as he participates in a seminar to discuss the building of a dam on the Mekong. The farmer lost his land to another dam some years before, and has struggled ever since. Tongpan was at one time banned for its socialist leanings.

The show time is 6.30 tonight at Jim Thompson House on Kasemsan Soi 2, opposite National Stadium.


Chulalongkorn University International Film Festival 2011 – The annual DVD-screening series of highly acclaimed award-winning foreign films continues tomorrow with The Milk of Sorrow, a Peruvian drama about a girl suffering from a rare disease that was transmitted through her mother's breast milk. On Monday it's French director Clair Denis' White Material, about a white Frenchwoman (Isabelle Huppert) trying to save her coffee plantation in Africa. And next Wednesday has the Russian drama Room and a Half, a partly animated fictionalized biographical account about exiled poet Josef Brodsky. The show times are at 5 in the Mahachakrisirindhorn Building, ninth Floor. Admission is free. All movies are screened on DVD with English subtitles. Call (02) 218 4802 or visit ChulaFilmFest.multiply.com.


Germany 09 – Part of the annual open-air film series at the Goethe-Institut Bangkok until February 22, next Tuesday's show is a 2009 compilation of short documentaries on modern Germany, all made between August and November 2009. With the efforts led by Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, The International), the directors are Hans Weingartner, Fatih Akin, Wolfgang Becker, Sylke Enders, Dominik Graf, Christoph Hochhäusler, Romuald Karmakar, Nicolette Krebitz, Dani Levy, Angela Schanelec, Hans Steinbichler, Isabelle Stever and Martin Gressmann. The show time is at 7.30. Call (02) 287 0942-4 or check the Goethe-Institut website.


This Prison Where I Live – British director Rex Bloomstein's documentary is about the contrasting lives of two comedians – the jailed Burmese comic Maung Thura, better known as Zarganar and German stand-up funnyman Michael Mittermeier, who is free to walk around and crack wise. The genesis of the documentary goes back to 2007, when Zarganar granted Bloomstein an interview, despite being banned by the junta from all forms of artistic activity and talking to foreign media. Two years later, hearing that Zarganar had been sentenced to 35 years in jail, Bloomstein teamed up with Mittermeier to travel secretly to Burma and make a movie about the man who describes himself as the "loudspeaker" for the Burmese people, and to investigate humour under dictatorship. This Prison Where I Live screens at 8pm on Wednesday, February 9 at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand. Bloomstein will be on hand to talk about the extremely difficult circumstances of making this movie. Admission for non-members is 150 baht.