Bangkok Cinema Scene special: European Union Film Festival, June 23-July 3, 2016

Sixteen films from 13 countries will screen for the general public in the long-running annual European Union Film Festival, starting next week at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld.

This year, the festival takes the theme “Look to the Past, See the Future”. Highlights include The Broken Circle Breakdown, a Belgian film that was a 2014 nominee for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Finland’s The Fencer, a Cold War drama that was a Golden Globe nominee, and Victoria, an innovative German crime drama that won three awards at the Berlin film fest and has been noted for its cinematography.

Other films hail from the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hungary, Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain.

There’s also a hidden 17th film from another country, Italy, which offers a one-off, invitation-only opening-night screening next Wednesday of Tale of Tales, a horror-fantasy from noted director Matteo Garrone and starring Salma Hayek.

Here is the line-up for the general public:

• The Broken Circle Breakdown – Belgium’s Oscar-nominated drama takes its title from the American bluegrass music that brings together two musicians, a young man and woman, who have a daughter they name Maybelle. Tragedy then strikes.
• Family Film – In this 2015 black comedy from the Czech Republic, a mum and dad take off for a vacation, inexplicably leaving their children and the family dog to fend for themselves.
• The Sunfish – A third-generation Danish fisherman struggling to hold on to his livelihood finds unlikely romance when he invites a marine biologist aboard his vessel. This won many prizes, including Denmark’s 2014 Bodil Awards for best actor and supporting actress for Henrik Birch and Susanne Storm.
• Silent Heart – A second entry from Denmark has three generations of a family reuniting amid conflict as their ailing mother wants to die before her illness worsens. Directed by Bille August, it won many prizes including best film at the 2015 Bolid Awards.
• The Fencer – The award-winning Finnish drama is set in 1950, with a young man trapped between his World War II past and the future of Estonia as his country comes under control of the Soviet Union.
• Standing Tall – A French judge (Catherine Deneuve) and a schoolteacher (Benoit Magimel) take up the cause of putting a juvenile delinquent (Rod Paradot) on the straight and narrow. It was a major nominee for this year’s Cesar Awards, with Magimel winning best supporting actor and newcomer Paradot named most promising actor.
• The Sweet Escape – In another French entry, a middle-aged graphic designer seeks to change his urban lifestyle and takes up kayaking.
• The People vs Fritz Bauer – Germany’s embattled Nazi hunter, the attorney general Fritz Bauer, comes under attack after he covertly approaches Israel’s spy service for help in tracking down Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. It was a nominee for several German Film Awards, and won best film.
• Victoria – Winner of the Berlin Silver Bear for cinematography, this German thriller was shot in one eye-popping continuous take, and follows a young Spanish woman, a newcomer to Berlin, as she is befriended one night by four young men who turn out to be criminals.
• Afterlife – A neurotic young man encounters the ghost of his father and the two form a bond that seemed impossible when the man was alive. From Hungary, this 2014 comedy-drama was nominated for prizes in Karlovy Vary and Palm Springs.
• Bikes vs Cars – Sweden offers a documentary look at how bicycles stack up against other forms of transport in such cities as Los Angeles, Toronto, Sao Paulo and Copenhagen.
• Baby (a) lone – Luxembourg’s official submission to the Oscars has troubled teenagers, a boy and girl, who meet in a school-detention programme and form a bond as they take out their frustrations with society.
• Finn – A boy and his father, both mourning the loss the boy’s mum, who died in childbirth on Christmas Eve, find solace in music and religious symbolism. From the Netherlands, this family drama was a nominee for the Crystal Bear at the 2014 Berlin film festival.
• Jack Strong – Poland offers a taut Cold War thriller about top Polish military official Ryszard Kuklinski, who became a spy for the US, spilling Warsaw Pact secrets in a bid to keep his country safe. Marcin Dorocinski stars, along with Patrick Wilson as Kuklinski’s CIA handler.
• The Wolf’s Lair – Portuguese filmmaker Catarina Mourao lifts the covers off her family’s tragic past in this documentary, in which she seeks to unravel the secrets and mysteries of her family during Portugal’s dictatorship.
• Truman – A terminally ill man is visited by an old friend, and the two set out for one last adventure, accompanied by the man’s loyal pet dog.

The European Union Film Festival opens to the general public next Thursday and runs until July 3 at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld in Bangkok. The festival will then be held from July 8 to 17 at SFX Maya Chiang Mai and from July 21 to 24 at SF Cinema City, CentralPlaza Khon Kaen.

Films will have English and Thai subtitles. Tickets are Bt120 in Bangkok, Bt80 in Chiang Mai and free in Khon Kaen.

The schedule can be found online. For more details, check www.SFCinemaCity.com.

(Cross-published in The Nation)

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening March 17-23, 2016

Jane Got a Gun

Natalie Portman is a young frontierswoman in Jane Got a Gun. Although she's got plenty of sand, she has to get help from her gunslinger ex-boyfriend when her farm and her husband (Noah Emmerich) come under attack from a land-grabbing villain.

Amazing that this movie got made. The gritty, female-focused western was initiated as a project for British director Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk about Kevin). But things apparently weren't to Ramsay's liking, and she departed the production on the first day of shooting. A game of musical chairs then took place as cast members departed and were replaced and others changed roles.

Australian actor Joel Edgerton was originally to play the villain, with Michael Fassbender as Jane's gunslinger ex. But Fassbender left and Edgerton moved into the hero role.

Edgerton brought in Gavin O'Connor, who he'd worked with on the fight picture Warrior, to direct.

Meanwhile, Jude Law, who was to be the new villain, left because he only wanted to work with Ramsay. Bradley Cooper was then cast, but didn't stick around. So Ewan McGregor ended up in the villain role.

Critical reception has been mixed, but it should do the trick if you are a fan of westerns like Unforgiven, True Grit or The Homesman. Rated 15+

---

Also opening

Triple 9 – Corrupt cops who are under the thumb of the Russian mob are forced into pulling off the perfect heist. To do so, they come up with a plan that involves setting up a rookie cop to be killed. A very violent police thriller, Triple 9 is directed by John Hillcoat, an Australian whose previous uncompromising, unrelenting and bleak efforts have included The Proposition, The Road and Lawless. The ensemble cast is toplined by Casey Affleck, with support from Chiwetel Ejiofor, Woody Harrelson, Anthony Mackie, Aaron Paul, Norman Reedus, Michael K. Williams and Clifton Collins Jr. Kate Winslet is the Russian mob boss. Critical reception is mixed, but if you're a fan of Hillcoat's previous efforts and aren't squeamish about violence, this is one to see. Rated 20-

Bangkok 13 (บางกอก 13 เมือง-ฅน-ตาย) – Veteran producer-director Dulyasit Niyomkul helms this horror thriller about a young woman (Tarntara Rungruang) who has a supernatural sixth sense. Haunted by a childhood secret, she hopes to find answers when she joins the cast of a reality TV series that sends contestants into 13 spooky places in Bangkok. Rated 13+

Ride Along 2 – Diminutive motor-mouth Kevin Hart reteams with hip-hop tough-guy Ice Cube in the second entry in director Tim Story's buddy-cop franchise. The original set up had Hart's wannabe cop trying too hard to impress his brother-in-law, a streetwise veteran lawman. So it's just more that sort of thing. Critical reception is mostly negative. Rated 13+

Friend Request – Social-media dangers are depicted in this German-produced thriller, in which was popular college student "unfriends" an acquaintance, which causes her to be cursed by a demonic presence that is killing her closest pals. Alycia Debnam-Carey, William Moseley and Connor Paolo star. Simon Verhoeven (no relation to Dutch director Paul Verhoeven) directs. Rated 15+

Jeruzalem – American tourists visiting religious sites in Jerusalem have to fight for their survival when the Holy City becomes the epicenter of the apocalypse. An Israeli-produced thriller, it's directed by the Paz brothers. Rated 15+

Retribution – And here's a Spanish-made thriller, in which a bank executive receives an anonymous phone call informing him he has just a few hours to obtain a large sum of money or a bomb under his seat will explode. Rated 13+

Hana's Miso Soup – Just as she is ready to start her life, a young woman is hit with a cancer diagnosis, but, miraculously, she becomes pregnant. And when the baby is born, the young cancer-stricken mother becomes determined to teach her daughter everything she knows, including how to make tasty, healthful miso soup. In Japanese with English and Thai subtitles at Apex Siam Square, House on RCA and SFW CentralWorld. Rated 13+

Kapoor and Sons – Summoned by their 90-year-old grandfather (Rishi Kapoor), estranged bickering brothers Rahul Kapoor (Fawad Khan) and Arjun Kapoor (Sidharth Malhotra) return to their childhood home. There, they fall in love with the same woman (Alia Bhatt). It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya. Opens Friday.

---

Also showing

Thailand-China Film Culture Week – Forty years of diplomatic ties and increasingly cozier relations are celebrated in Thailand-China Film Culture week, organized by the Guangxi Film Group Company Limited, SF cinemas and the Thai-Chinese Culture Union. Running from tomorrow until Sunday at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld, the event will have five contemporary Chinese films playing alongside two critically acclaimed indie Thai films. Here is the line-up:

• The Nightingale – An eight-year-old girl and her grandfather walk from Beijing to his rural hometown in Guilin in order to fulfill promise to his dead wife, to deliver a caged nightingale bird. From 2013, The Nightingale made the rounds of film festivals in 2014 and last year, and won a few awards.
• Liu San Jie – From 1978, here's a classic from the Guangxi library. Touted as China’s first musical movie, it's the story of a travelling folksinger, Third Sister Liu, who inspires villagers wherever she goes.
• The Dancing Young – High-school students who are crazy about dancing look for their big break as they try to balance the activity with their studies and social lives.
• Monkey King: Hero Is Back – The hero of Chinese literature and legend gets another outing in animated form in a story of a special child who unknowingly releases the Monkey King from a 500-year curse. He pays back the kid by fighting the evil monster who have taken over his village.
• Saving Mr. Wu – Andy Lau toplines this taut, fact-based thriller about a Hong Kong actor who is kidnapped in China by four criminals posing as police. The real cops have 24 hours to come up with a ransom to save the guy. Sheng Deng (Police Story: Lockdown and Little Big Soldier) directs. It was nominated for two awards at last year's Golden Horse Film Festival and has scored positive reviews.
• Eternity (ที่รัก, Tee Rak) – Award-winning Thai indie writer-director Sivaroj Kongsakul recounts a rural Thai-Chinese upbringing in this haunting, heartfelt drama that was inspired by the death of his father and the romance of his parents. It won the Tiger Award at the 2010 International Film Festival Rotterdam and also took prizes in Deauville and Hong Kong.
• W. – Chonlasit Upanigkit, a young filmmaker who sought out for talent in the film-editing suite, made his directorial debut with the enigmatic W., which was his student film. Originally three hours long, it was trimmed down to its two-hour bare essence and won critical acclaim in 2014. It's the story of a disoriented young woman who is thrown into the deep end of college life.

There's actually a screening of the musical tonight, but it is invitation only. Public screenings begin tomorrow night at SF World. Tickets are free and will be handed out 30 minutes before the shows – get your place in line well before that ensure you have a decent seat. For the schedule, please see the SF Cinemas website.

The Friese-Greene Club – Heineken? Don't even think about it ordering one if you see Blue Velvet at the Club tonight. It's part of monthlong tribute to cult director David Lynch. Tomorrow's "controversial" film is 2005's Hard Candy, about a teenage girl seeking revenge against a pedophile. And Saturday has the second of three screenings this month of Trump: What's the Deal?, a revealing 1999 documentary that is reportedly "the movie Trump doesn't want you to see." It costs 150 baht. Sunday has another of the films shot by the late British cinematographer Douglas Slocombe, the ahead-of-its-time dystopian sci-fi sports drama Rollerball, from 1975. And next Wednesday is another entry from Denmark's Dogme 95 school, Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, starring Bjork. 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.

Alliance Française – There are two movies to list this week – a "kids' movie" on Saturday and the usual Wednesday night screening. First up at 2pm on Saturday is The Painting (Le tableau), which has characters in an unfinished painting coming into conflict. Three of them team up for an adventure in which they leave the painting in search of the artist. And then the next usual Wednesday night screening will be Party Girl, a 2014 comedy-drama about an ageing nightclub hostess who decides to settle down and get married.

---

Take note

Way too many movies to deal with this week, as distributors and cinema chains work to get a few titles off their books and clear the decks ahead of next week, when the main focus will be on Warner Bros' big superhero tentpole, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Meanwhile, the Salaya International Documentary Film Festival is continuing to offer updates on on its sixth edition, which runs from March 26 to April 3 at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center and the Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom. Watch the Facebook page as details emerge.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening December 30, 2015-January 6, 2016

The Peanuts Movie

To close out 2015, some movies are coming out a day earlier on the eve of New Year's Eve, while others are being released as usual on Thursday, which is New Year's Eve. And some new movies are actually already playing, having made their bows in sneak previews last week.

I'll start with one of tomorrow's openings, The Peanuts Movie, which is adapted from the beloved newspaper-comic strip that spawned a merchandising empire as well as a string of successful animated holiday TV specials and theatrical features.

This new 3D computer-animated outing for the characters created by Charles M. Schulz offers Peanuts fans many familiar sights, such as Snoopy flying his doghouse against the Red Baron and Charlie Brown getting tangled up in a tree when he tries to fly a kite. The story also re-introduces Brown's perennial love interest, the mysterious "little red-haired girl", who is new in town and is thus clueless about how big a blockhead Charlie Brown can be.

The Peanuts Movie is put together by Blue Sky Studios, the same outfit that did such films as Robots, Ice Age and Rio. Critical reception has been generally positive, with the consensus being they got this one right. Perhaps it helped that Schulz' son and grandson were directly involved in the production, along with Paul Feig, a trusted comedy brand. It's even being mentioned as a possible Oscar nominee. Supposedly, the release includes a supporting short cartoon, Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe, featuring Scrat the sabretooth squirrel from Ice Age. Rated G

---

Also opening

Snap (แค่..ได้คิดถึง, Kae .. Dai Kit Tung) – Writer-director Kongdej Jaturanrasmee sharply observes contemporary Thai society with this romantic comedy-drama, which premiered in competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Set just as the military declares martial law, the story follows a young woman who is about to be married to a military officer. She returns to her provincial-capital hometown of Chanthaburi for a wedding of high-school friends and becomes nostalgic as she reconnects with her old boyfriend, who is the wedding photographer. You can read more about the film in an article in The Nation. There's also a review in the newspaper. This opened last Thursday in sneak preview and moves to a wider release tomorrow. Rated 15+

Pantai Norasingh (พันท้ายนรสิงห์) – As the story goes, Pantai Norasingh was an oarsman on the royal barge of a king during the Ayutthaya Period. One day, while steering in a fierce river current, Norasingh lost control and the boat slammed into a tree, breaking the bow. The penalty for damaging the king's barge and endangering the life of the monarch was death. No ifs, ands or buts. The king, witnessing that the barge crash was obviously an accident and not wanting to kill one of his best, most loyal men, objected to the death penalty. However, the dutiful oarsman insisted that no exception be made, otherwise, he feared, public respect for the law and the crown would be undermined. Veteran director MC Chatrichalerm Yukol presents this story as the latest in his long line of historical epics on Ayutthaya Period royals, which started in 2003 with Suriyothai and continued with the recently wrapped-up six-part Legend of King Naresuan series. According to Soopsip in The Nation, Chatrichalerm had originally intended Pantai Norasingh to be broadcast on television, but when he and the station could not agree on the best time to show the series, he took it back and re-edited it into the feature we now have before us. Opens today. Rateed G

About Ray – Teenage Ray (Elle Fanning) has made the decision to transition from female to male, against the objections of his mother (Naomi Watts), with the support of his lesbian grandmother (Susan Sarandon) and in the absence of his father (Tate Donovan). Critical reception is mixed. Opens today. Rated G

Daddy's Home – Will Ferrell reteams with his Other Guys comedy pal Mark Wahlberg for this family romp about a mild-mannered radio executive (Ferrell) who is struggling to bond with his new wife's two children. Complications ensue when their drifter father (Wahlberg) turns up, kicking off a war of one-upmanship as the two men compete for the kids' affections. Critical reception is mixed, placing Daddy's Home somewhere in the middle of the canon of Ferrell's comedies. This opened in sneak previews last Thursday and moves to a wider release tomorrow. Rated G

Barcelona Christmas Night – Christmas may be over and done with, but here's one more movie to keep the yuletide spirit going through New Year's. Multiple love stories unfold in this fluffy Spanish comedy-drama. One man is trying to win back his ex while another leaves his family to follow a woman. Meanwhile, a grandmother has a secret she's dying to tell her family, and a moody grandfather meets a Frenchman who reminds him of his first love. Opens today. Rated 15+

---

Also showing

German Open Air Cinema – Returning after a two-week holiday break, the series resumes next Tuesday night with Jack, a hard-hitting drama about a 10-year-old boy who goes looking for his mother after she fails to turn up to collect him after school. A nominee for the Golden Bear at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, it's directed by Edward Berger, who co-wrote the screenplay with Nele Mueller-Stöfen. The show is at 7.30pm on Tuesday, January 5, outdoors at the Goethe-Institut on Sathorn Soi 1.

Alliance Française – Female-centered films form the bulk of the free French film schedule for January, starting with Les Gazelles, a comedy about five thirtysomething women who are experiencing various problems in their relationships with men. The show is at 7pm on Wednesday, January 6, at the Alliance.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening November 5-11, 2015

Spectre

Despite expressing his weariness of the role, "blond Bond" Daniel Craig is back for a fourth outing as Agent 007 in Spectre, the 24th entry in the action-packed James Bond film franchise.

He's on the trail of the shadowy organization Spectre. Meanwhile, Bond's boss M (Ralph Fiennes) is in a power struggle for control of his spy agency and the future of the lethal "00" program.

Directed by Sam Mendes, Spectre marks the return of the Spectre name to the Bond franchise. Originally an acronym standing for Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion, the use of Spectre as a plot point in Bond films had been caught in a rights dispute stretching back to the "unofficial" Bond movie Thunderball. With those legal issues sorted, Bond can now officially battle Spectre as well as his perennial nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

The criminal mastermind Blofeld is portrayed in the new film by Christoph Waltz, the Austrian character actor who owes his career to Quentin Tarantino and Inglourious Basterds.

Joining the proceedings are actresses Léa Seydoux (Blue is the Warmest Color) and Monica Bellucci (Shoot 'Em Up) as the newest "Bond girls", and wrestler Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) as an assassin. Returnees from previous Bond outings include Naomi Harris as Ms. Moneypenny and Ben Whishaw as gadget guru Q.

Already released in the U.K., where it broke box-office records, critical reception is mostly praiseworthy. Rated 13+

---

Also opening

Hand in the Glove – Thai and Japanese talents combine both in front of and behind the lens for this quirky indie romantic comedy. Thai actor-musician Chanon Rikulsurakan stars as a glove-clad prince from a fictional country, who is visiting Kumamoto, Japan. Desperate to escape the pressures and protocols of being the heir to the throne, he sneaks out of his hotel and meets a local woman, who accompanies him on sightseeing trips. Directed by Japanese actor-director Yusuke Inaba, it was shot in Kumamoto by Thai cinematographer Pairach Khumwan, who is noted for his work on Thai director Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit’s 36 and Mary Is Happy, Mary Is Happy. Hand in Glove first screened in Bangkok in January during the Japanese Film Festival, so here's a chance for more folks to see it. It's in Japanese with English and Thai subtitles at House on RCA.

Tag – The bloodsoaked spirit of director Kinji Fukasaku and his Battle Royale appear alive and well in Tag, which is directed by prolific Japanese helmer Sion Sono. An adaptation of a novel by Yusuke Yamada, the story, such as it is, has skirt-clad Japanese schoolgirls being mowed down in various gory ways by mysterious malevolent forces. Reina Triendl, Mariko Shinoda and Erina Mano star. It's in Japanese with English and Thai subtitles at Apex and House. It's also showing at select Major Cineplex branches. Rated 18+

The Taking of Tiger Mountain – Hong Kong martial-arts veteran Tsui Hark returns to the scene with this Chinese historical epic, set after World War II, with Liberation Army forces trying to unseat an outlaw warlord and his gang, who have taken over a former Japanese stronghold. Tony Leung Ka-fai, Lin Gengxin and Zhang Hanyu star. Critical reception is leaning to positive. Seems it is Thai-dubbed only. Rated 15+

The Vatican Tapes – A Roman Catholic priest and exorcists from the Vatican encounter a young woman who has been possessed by an ancient satanic force. Michael Peña, Djimon Hounsou, Peter Andersson, Dougray Scott, Kathleen Richardson and Olivia Taylor Dudley star. It's directed by Mark Neveldine in his first solo outing from the Neveldine/Taylor duo, who are best known for their innovative Crank action comedies. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 15+

Baahubali – A prince who was raised as an orphan fights his estranged evil sibling for control of an ancient kingdom in this epic of all epics. It's rumored to be the most expensive movie ever made in India, and features state-of-the-art visual effects, sumptuous costumes and stunning locations. Immensely popular Telugu actor Prabhas stars. It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya. Opens Friday.

---

Also showing

Alliance Française – There are two other movies this week in addition to the Alliance's usual Wednesday screening. Tonight and tomorrow, there are Southeast Asian films as part of the Produire au Sud Bangkok film-funding workshop, which is organized by the World Film Festival of Bangkok and the Three Continents Film Festival in Nantes, France. The workshops give up-and-coming independent filmmakers experience in pitching their projects and finding backers to fund their films. Tonight's screening, at 7pm, is the Filipino coming-of-age drama Anita's Last Cha Cha, which was supported by the Produire au Sud Nantes in 2010. And tomorrow at 6.30pm is the Malaysian social satire Men Who Save the World by Liew Seng Tat. It was pitched at Produire au Sud Bangkok in 2008 and screened in the recent Bangkok Asean Film Festival. Both films will also screen in the World Film Festival of Bangkok, which opens on November 13. Next Wednesday, the Alliance has another climate change movie, Tara, voyage au coeur de la machine climatique, a made-for-TV documentary on an Arctic adventure aboard the schooner Tara. It screens at 7pm on Wednesday, November 11, at the Alliance.

Spanish Film Week – Presented by the Embassy of Spain in collaboration with SF Cinemas, the mini-fest has four films screening from tonight until Sunday at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld:

• El Niño – In Gibraltar, a hard-nosed Spanish detective and his female partner track a dangerous criminal known as "the Englishman" (Ian McShane). Meanwhile, a trio of youngsters enter the marijuana trade in hopes of raising the cash they need to open a bar. Directed by Daniel Monzon, El Niño was nominated for more than a dozen Goya Awards (the "Spanish Oscars"), including best director, original screenplay and supporting actor and actress for Eduard Fernandez and Barbara Lennie. It won prizes for production supervision, sound, special effects and song. Screens at 7 tonight.
• Magical Girl – The father of a terminally ill girl wants to make true his daughter's last wish - to have a dress inspired by the main character from "Magical Girl Yukiko", a Japanese animated TV series. As the dad is pushed to the brink in his quest for the expensive dress, he meets various quirky characters, among them a vomit-spewing femme fatale (portrayed by Goya-winning Barbara Lennie) and an unstable ex-con. Screens at 7pm tomorrow.
• 10,000 Km – Alex and Sergi are a young Barcelona couple who are planning to have a baby. Their plans hit a snag when Alex is offered a once-in-a-lifetime job offer to work as a photographer in Los Angeles. It'll take more than modern technology to keep them together. The romantic comedy had many festival appearances, including South by Southwest and Palm Springs, and won several awards, including the Goya for Best New Director for Carlos Marques-Marcet. Screens at 7pm on Saturday.
• Loreak (Flowers) – This Basque-language romantic drama centers on an unfulfilled married woman who begins receiving weekly deliveries of flowers. Her story slowly intertwines with that of a toll-booth attendant and that woman's crane-operator husband. The sophomore feature from the In 80 Days duo of Jose Mari Goenaga and Jon Garano, Loreak won prizes at festivals in San Sebastian and Palm Springs, and was a nominee for best film at the Goyas. Screens at 5pm on Sunday.

Tickets are 120 baht. For more details, check the SF cinemas website.

The Friese-Greene Club – Al Pacino, Takashi Miike, Christopher Guest, contemporary Chinese cinema and the utter pointlessness of it all are the focus of this month's schedule at the Club. Just a handful of the many many films by prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike screen on Thursdays, starting tonight with the gore-filled introduction to his bizarre oeuvre, Ichi the Killer. Fridays are devoted to Christopher Guest and his highly entertaining string of documentary-style comedies, starting tomorrow with the classic rockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, in which Guest co-starred and co-directed with Rob Reiner. Surely, the sound system will be cranked to "11". The club has private events listed this Saturday and Sunday, which pre-empts the regular program of Chinese films (Blind Shift opens the series on November 14) and existential crises movies (opening last Sunday with Magnolia). Next Wednesday is Serpico, with Pacino portraying the corruption-fighting New York cop who became an icon for Thai truckers. More on Serpico in Thailand is at the Southeast Asia Movie Theater Project. 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.

German Film Series – The Goethe-Insitut in Bangkok holds monthly film screenings at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center and the Thai Film Archive. This month's offering is the adventure yarn Measuring the World, about German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss and geographer Alexander von Humboldt and their surveys of the world in the 1800s. Detlev Buck (Same Same But Different) directs. It screens at 1pm on Sunday at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, and at 6pm on Tuesday in the little FA Cinematheque on the second floor of the BACC. For more details, visit www.Goethe.de/bangkok.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – The Club's Contemporary World Film Series closes out another year with a Thai film, the award-winning 2014 romantic drama The Teacher's Diary (คิดถึงวิทยา, Kid Tueng Wittaya). It's the sweetly sentimental tale of two teachers who are posted to an isolated floating schoolhouse a year apart. Despite never having met, they fall in love with one another through a diary they share at the school. Directed by Nithiwat Tharatorn and starring "Ploy" Chermarn Boonyasak and "Bie" Sukrit Wisetkaew, it won many awards for its screenplay, art direction and music. It was also Thailand's submisssion to this year's Oscars. Nithiwat will attend the screening, which is at 7pm on Monday, is supported by the GTH film studio and a wine brand. Admission is 150 baht for non-members and 100 baht for the wine.

---

Take note

The 13th World Film Festival of Bangkok is nearly upon us, running from November 13 to 22 at SF World. Highlights include the six-hour-long, three-part arthouse drama Arabian Nights, and two classics by Taiwanese New Cinema stalwart Hou Hsiao-hsien, Dust in the Wind and A Time to Live, A Time to Die. An article in The Nation has more details. Hopefully the festival organizers will update their website soon with a schedule of the screenings.

Bangkok Cinema Scene special: EU Film Festival, July 10-19, 2015

The annual European Union Film Festival is back for another edition, running this year from July 10 to 19 at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld, screening 18 entries from 14 countries. Tickets are 120 baht and are on sale now at the box office and through the SF Cinema City website.

Under the theme of “Cinema Live. New Light”, the festival will screen stories about people striving to survive and have better lives, as well as present the cultural richness and diversity of the EU through recent award-winning films.

Highlights include Trespassing Bergman, a documentary about Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman and featuring many famous directors, the German World War II drama Phoenix, Girlhood, a French coming-of-age drama about a black teenager, '71, about "the Troubles" in Northern Ireland, the award-winning Spanish romance Beautiful Youth, the Danish crime drama Northwest and Mr. Hublot, an Oscar-winning animated short from Luxembourg. There will also be a selection paying tribute to Manoel de Oliveira, the Portuguese director who died this past April at age 106.

In addition to Bangkok, the festival will bring selections to SFX Maya Chiang Mai from July 24 to August 8 (where tickets are 80 baht) and at SF Cinema City, CentralPlaza Khon Kaen from August 7 to 9 (queue up for free tickets 30 minutes before the shows). It should go without saying but I'll say it anyway – films will have English and Thai subtitles.

Here's the line-up:

• Melody (Belgium) – Bernard Bellefroid directs this drama about a young woman (Lucie Debay) who wants to open her own hairdressing salon. To achieve this, she agrees to be a surrogate mother for an Englishwoman (Rachael Blake). Debay and Blake shared the best actress prize at last year's Montréal World Film Festival, which also awarded Melody the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury-Special Mention.
• Fair Play (Czech Republic) – In 1980s Soviet-era Czechoslovakia, a talented young sprinter (Judit Bárdos) on the country's Olympics team is chosen for a secret program in which she's given performance-enhancing drugs without her knowledge. She wants off the steroids when she discovers the truth, but there's pressure from the coaches, her peers and from her mother to continue using them. Andrea Sedlácková directs. Fair Play was a nominee for the Audience Choice Award at last year's Chicago International Film Festival.
• Northwest (Denmark) – An 18-year-old street hood gets a leg up in the criminal underworld when he goes to work for a rival kingpin. Michael Noer directs this action-drama, which was nominated for three of Denmark's Bodil Awards and won best supporting actor. It was also an Audience Choice nominee in Chicago.
• The Hour of the Lynx (Denmark) – A priest is called in to counsel an inmate at a high-security facility for the criminally insane, who attempted suicide while rambling about God. Søren Kragh-Jacobsen directs. Sofie Gråbøl was a Bodil Awards best-actress nominee for her role as the priest.
• Concrete Night (Finland) – In the cramped slums of Helsinki, one young man prepares to go to prison as his younger brother contemplates following his sibling into a life of crime. Directed by Pirjo Honkasalo, Concrete Night won Best Film and six other prizes at Finland's Jussi Awards and the Spotlight Award of American Society of Cinematographers.
• Girlhood (France) – A 16-year-old girl with few other prospects in life joins an all-female street gang, where she at first experiences the rush of newfound confidence. Céline Sciamma (Tomboy, Water Lilies) directs. Girlhood won prizes at festivals in Philadelphia and Stockholm and was nominated for the Queer Palm at last year's Cannes Film Festival, in addition to several prizes at France's César Awards.
• Beloved Sisters (Germany) – The aristocratic Von Lengefeld sisters compete for the affections of hotheaded writer-philosopher Friedrich Schiller against the backdrop of social and political upheavals in France. Dominik Graf directs. Beloved Sisters won for best cinematography at last year's Bavarian Film Awards.
• Phoenix (Germany) – A woman who was disfigured in a concentration camp and is unrecognizable after facial reconstruction surgery, searches through ravaged postwar Berlin for her estranged husband, who she thinks might have betrayed her to the Nazis. Nina Hoss, Nina Kunzendorf and Ronald Zehrfeld star. Christian Petzold (Jerichow, Barbara) directs. A nominee at the German Film Awards, Phoenix has won at festivals in Hong Kong, Lisbon, San Sebastián and Seattle.
• Heavenly Shift (Hungary) – In Budapest, a young refugee from the Balkan War joins an ambulance crew and inadvertently becomes involved in the funeral business. Márk Bodzsár directs this comedy-drama, which was nominated for the Orbit Prize at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film and won the Director's Week Award at Fantasporto. 2014
• Dead Man Talking (Luxembourg) – William Lamers, a 40-year-old death row convict, has a few last words on the day of his execution. No one else is around to hear them, except for the lone journalist from the local newspaper. Patrick Ridremont stars as Lamers and directs. This comedy-drama was a best foreign film nominee at France's César Awards and was a major nominee at the Magritte Awards in Belgium, where it won for production design.
• Mr. Hublot (Luxembourg) – In a world where characters form parts for gigantic vehicles, Mr. Hublot becomes fearful and decides to not set foot outside his apartment. His solitude is shattered by the arrival of a robot dog. Directed by Alexandre Espigares and Laurent Witz, Mr. Hublot won last year's Academy Award for Best Animated Short.
• Borgman (Netherlands) – A homeless vagrant gradually infiltrates his way into the sealed-off surburban home of a well-off family. Alex Van Warmerdam directs this off-beat thriller, which was a nominee for the Palme d' Or at Cannes in 2013 and won prizes at many other festivals.
• Gebo and the Shadow (Portugal) – Part of a special tribute to Manoel de Oliveira, this 2012 entry was the centenarian filmmaker's final feature. It's based on a stage play and follows an elderly accountant who seems to be hiding something from his wife and daughter-in-law regarding the absence of his son. Michael Lonsdale, Claudia Cardinale, Jeanne Moreau and Leonor Silveira star. Screened at the Venice film fest, it was a major nominee for Portugal's Golden Globes.
• The Old Man of Belem (Portugal) – Manoel de Oliveira continued making films well past his 100th birthday. From last year, this short film has Don Quixote, Luís de Camões, Camilo Castelo Branco and Teixeira de Pascoaes having a chat in a garden in the middle of a modern city
• The Japanese Dog (Romania) – A flash flood hits a village, leaving an elderly man widowed and destitute. He's determined to rebuild, but has to deal with his estranged son, who has turned up after years away in Japan with a wife and son. They want to take dad back to Tokyo with them, but there are unresolved issues. Tudor Cristian Jurgiu directs, making his feature debut. The Japanese Dog was Romania's submission to the Oscars last year.
• Beautiful Youth (Spain) – A struggling young twentysomething couple, who still live with their parents, turn to making pornography after the woman discovers she is pregnant. Directed by Jaime Rosales, Beautiful Youth was selected for the Un Certain Regard competition at last year's Cannes Film Festival and won the Special Mention Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes Film Festival 2014.
• Trespassing Bergman (Sweden) – Famous film figures, including Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson, Michael Haneke, Robert De Niro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Takeshi Kitano, Francis Ford Coppola and Claire Denis, visit the remote Faro Island home of director Ingmar Bergman, and reflect on the legacy of the Swedish auteur and his films.
• '71 (United Kingdom) – Here's the hot ticket. This much acclaimed military drama is set during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and follows a young British soldier as he is accidentally abandoned by his unit during a riot in Belfast. Somehow, he must survive the night and find his way to safety. Jack O'Connell stars and Yann Demange directs, making his feature debut. This was a major nominee at the 2014 British Independent Film Awards, where it won Best Director. It also won the Bafta Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.

For more details, check Facebook or the SF Cinema City website.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening October 9-14, 2014

The Babadook

A widowed mother struggles to raise her six-year-old who has constant nightmares about The Babadook, a creature coming to kill them both. When a disturbing storybook mysteriously turns up, the boy is convinced that the book's main character is the killer creature. Eventually, the mother begins to see glimpses of a sinister presence all around her. Essie Davis, Daniel Henshall and Tiffany Lyndall-Knight star.

Actress Jennifer Kent (Babe: Pig in the City) makes her directorial debut with this indie Australian horror.

Winner of prizes at several genre film fests,  critical reception is crazily positive, with the consensus being it's "real horror rather than cheap jump scares – and boasts a heartfelt, genuinely moving story to boot." Rated 15+

---

Also opening

Autómata – It's I, Robot with a Spanish accent in this sci-fi thriller produced by and starring Antonio Banderas as an insurance investigator for a robotics company. It's a time when Earth's ecosystem has collapsed and humans are totally dependent on robots. Similar to Asimov's I, Robot, the 'bots are governed by two rules – they shalt not harm a human nor shall they modify themselves or other robots. Evidence emerges that they are breaking those protocols. So Banderas' Jacq Vaucan is on the case, and what he discovers has profound consequences for the future of humanity. Brigitte Sorensen, Dylan McDermott, Robert Foster and Tim McInnerny also star along with Banderas' ex-wife Melanie Griffith as a tinkerer who makes sex robots that look and sound like her. Spanish visual-effects specialist Gabe Ibáñez directs and is a co-writer of the script. Autómata screened in competition at the San Sebastian Film Festival. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 13+

Wai Peng Nakleng Kha San (วัยเป้งง นักเลงขาสั้น, Dangerous Boys) – Director Poj Arnon, always looking for a buzzworthy topic to hang a movie on, uses Bangkok's often bloody street wars between gangs of trade-school students as a backdrop for this coming-of-age drama about "frenemies" Peng and Ting, who fight whenever they meet. Rated 15+

The Prince – A retired assassin (Jason Patric) is drawn back into his old life when his daughter is kidnapped by a gangster named The Pharmacy (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson). To rescue her, he must confront an old rival (Bruce Willis). John Cusack, looking particularly weary, also stars. Brian A. Miller (The Outsider) directs. Critical reception is very poor. Rated 18+

Roaring Currents – Choi Min-sik (Oldboy) portrays wily Korean Admiral Yi Sun-shin, who with only 12 ships in his fleet, defeated more then 300 Japanese vessels in 1597’s Battle of Myeongryang. I can only assume the Japanese admiral's name was Ackbar. It's Thai-dubbed in most places except for SF cinemas at CentralWorld and Terminal 21. Rated 15+

Haider – Shakespeare's Hamlet is adapted for this drama about a poet returning home to Kashmir following the death of his father. As he confronts his uncle, he finds himself dragged into the politics of the restive region. Shahid Kapoor stars along with Tabu, Shraddha Kapoor, Kay Kay Menon and Irrfan Khan. This is the third Shakespeare adaptation by director Vishal Bhardwaj, who did Macbeth with 2003's Maqbool and Othello with 2006's Omkara. Controversial because of the contentious Kashmir setting, critical reception has been generally positive. It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit and Rama III. Opens Friday.

---

Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Tonight, Maggie Cheung has a snug-fitting silk dress to match every scene. It's In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-wai's exquisitely haunting tale of unrequited romance in 1960s Hong Kong. Tony Leung also stars. Tomorrow's cult classic is the dark comedy about a nasty group of high-school girls, Heathers, starring Winona Ryder. On Saturday, walk the beat with tenacious New York cop Popeye Doyle and his partner Cloudy as they try to bust a train-hopping drug smuggler in The French Connection. One of the best movies ever made, it's part of a monthlong look at the tense world of director William Friedkin. Sunday is another classic Hitchcock, with James Stewart peeping at Raymond Burr in Rear Window. And next Wednesday's tribute to Sir Richard Attenborough is his Oscar-winning biopic Gandhi, starring Sir Ben Kingsley. 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.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – Filipino cinema comes into focus on Monday in the FCCT's Contemporary World Film Series with Ekstra (The Bit Player). Vilma Santos, the reigning marquee queen of Pinoy cinema in the 1960s, stars as a background actress who has spent her career toiling away on soap operas, dreaming of her big break. It won several awards at last year's Cinemalaya Film Festival, including the Audience Choice and best acress for Santos. The screening is courtesy of the Embassy of the Philippines, with Ambassador Jocelyn Batoon-Garcia on hand to offer snacks and drinks from her country. The show is at 7pm on Monday, October 13 at the FCCT. Admission for non-members is 150 baht plus 100 baht for the eats and San Miguel suds.

Alliance Française – Classic French films are on offer in October with the theme of "eternal thrillers". Next week's offering is 1965's Pierrot le fou by French New Wave stalwart Jean-Luc Godard. Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as a bored Paris man whose life turns exciting when he travels to the Mediterranean with a young woman (Anna Karina) and the pair end up being chased by Algerian hitmen. It's in French with English subtitles at 7pm on Wednesday, October 15. And if you miss it next week, it'll be shown as part of the big French line-up at the World Film Festival of Bangkok, running October 17 to 26 at SF World at CentralWorld.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening August 7-13, 2014

The Swimmers

Thailand's GTH studio again aims for the eyeballs of the country's most lucrative movie-going demographic – upper- and middle-class urban teens – with their latest thriller The Swimmers (ฝากไว้..ในกายเธอ, Fak Wai Nai Kai Ther), in which a pregnant girl commits suicide in her school's swimming pool. Her ghost then haunts the guy who knocked her up.

Juthawut Pattarakamphon and Thonphop Lirattanakhachon star as the lads who have been going to the gym and minding what they eat. They are named Perth and Tan, and are rivals on the school's swim team. Supatsara Thanachart is Ice, the troubled young woman who is Tan's girlfriend but attracts the attentions of Perth.

The writer-director is Sophon Sakdaphisit, who has been behind GTH's string of hit thrillers, penning the early 2000s hits Shutter and Alone before making his directorial debut with 2008's Coming Soon. He followed that up in 2011 with Laddaland, a mature psychological drama.

Critical buzz so far places The Swimmer somewhere below Laddaland but perhaps a bit above Coming Soon. Rated 18+

---

Also opening

The Expendables 3 – Sylvester Stallone's latest action extravaganza arrives amid controversy over a near-perfect copy of the film being leaked to file-sharing sites weeks before its theatrical release. Not keen for that kind of publicity, the studio Lionsgate has made a federal case out of it. The story has Stallone's team of mercenaries trading shots with an arms dealer who was a former business partner. He's played by Mel Gibson. Back for more action are Expendables regulars Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews and Jet Li. Arnold Schwarzenegger is also back, again. New to the proceedings is embattled star Wesley Snipes plus Hollywood vets Harrison Ford, Kelsey Grammer and Antonio Banderas, and some new blood with Twilight star Kellan Lutz. There's even one "expendabelle", mixed-martial-arts fighter Ronda Rousey. The director is Patrick Hughes, who previously helmed the Australian thriller Red Hill – one definitely worth seeking out. Critical reception is mixed, leaning to negative. Rated 15+

Swelter – Another ageing action star, Jean-Claude Van Damme, fights for multiplex real-estate against his former Expendables castmates with Swelter, which is described as a "brutal heist drama" in the vein of Reservoir Dogs plus a few other movies, such as A History of Violence and High Plains Drifter. Alfred Molina, Lennie James (Snatch) and Grant Bowler (TV's Defiance) also star. It's a modern-day western about folks turning up in a dustblown town looking for another guy who double-crossed them. Like most of Van Damme's films of late, this is going direct-to-DVD in the States, so there's not yet much critical reception. Rated 15+

Into the Storm – This "found footage" disaster thriller revisits the territory of Twister and the more-recent Sharknado, though without the sharks. Various folks with cameras – high-school students, thrill-seekers, storm chasers and townspeople – track an unprecedented outbreak of tornadoes. Richard Armitage, Sarah Wayne Callies and Matt Walsh star. Critical reception is mixed. Actually, because it's "found footage", it's not in 3D, because, you know, that wouldn't be realistic. So count your blessings. Rated G

Entertainment – Akshay Kumar is a young man who finds out his entire life has been a fraud. He goes in search of his real father – India's largest diamond merchant. In Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit and Rama III. Opens Friday.

---

Also showing

Silent Film Festival – Alfed Hitchcock's debut feature, 1925's The Pleasure Garden, opens the festival at 8 tonight at the Lido. It's about the romantic entanglements of a pair of chorus girls. Tomorrow night is Hitch's boxing drama The Ring. Highlights this weekend include a free talk by piano accompanists Mie Yanashita and Maud Nelissen at 2 on Saturday, following a noon screening of Japan's The Water Magician. Sunday offers a free lecture on "The Silent Hitchcock" by Professor Charles Barr. It's at 2pm, wedged between repeat showings of The Pleasure Garden and The Ring. The big highlight is on Wednesday, when the fest shifts over to the Scala for one of Hitchcock's masterpieces, The Lodger from 1927, featuring a live performance by young Thai maestro Trisdee na Pattalung. And, just announced, Trisdee will be joined on Wednesday by his mentor, composer and conductor Somtow Sucharitkul. Tickets are 100 baht for the Lido shows and 500 baht for the closing-night gala at the Scala, available in advance from the box offices. Find out more at Facebook.com/silentfilmthailand.

Elle Fashion Film Festival – The fashionable fest put on by Post Publishing and SFX the Emporium runs until Saturday, with highlights that include Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, Michael Winterbottom's baudy escapade The Look of Love, the typewriter romance Populaire and the French singer biopic My Way. Be aware that some of the movies, including Grand Budapest, are being projected from Blu-ray, and may be a bit unclear at times. If you're picky about such things, check at the box office before plunking down 200 baht for the tickets. For more details, please see my earlier blog post or the SF Cinema website.

The Friese-Greene Club – Live octopus is on the menu for tonight's offering of Asian horror, Park Chan-wook's classic revenge thriller Oldboy – pointlessly remade recently by Spike Lee. Tomorrow, see how bad it gets in a Turkish prison with director Alan Parker's Midnight Express. Saturday's head trip is Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's supremely weird Being John Malkovich, and on Sunday, an insuranceman (Fred MacMurray) has a hard sell in Billy Wilder's classic film noir Double Indemnity. Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson also star. Next Wednesday, it's the story of a troubled woman (Kelly MacDonald) taking up with a suicidal hitman in The Merry Gentlemen, the first and so far only feature directed by Michael Keaton. Hear what it was like to work on the set from Bangkok-based film pro David Cluck, who served as Keaton's first assistant director. Cluck's extensive credits also include such films as The Artist, The Apparition and Oculus. 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.

The Lives of Others – Artists are featured in this Sunday's Film Virus double bill of biopics at Thammasat University Tha Prachan. First up is Goya in Bordeaux, focusing on the master painter's late-life voluntary exile to France. That's followed by Utamaro and His Five Women. From 1946, it recounts the life of Kitagawa Utamaro (1756-1806), known for his paintings of Japan's erotic "floating world". It's directed by Kenji Mizoguchi, whose earlier film The Water Magician, is part of the Silent Film Festival. 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, and next week's selection has resonance with the current situation in Gaza. From 2011, Une bouteille à la mer (A Bottle in the Gaza Sea) centers on a 17-year-old French immigrant in Israel who puts a message in a bottle, seeking an explanation for a bomb attack in Jerusalem. It's found by a young Palestinian man, who initiates an e-mail correspondence with the girl. It's in French with English subtitles at 7pm on Wednesday, August 13.

---

Take note

Whenever I mention the Lido and Scala to a co-worker, she tells me how they used to charge 20 baht for the front three rows, which would often be filled by students from nearby Chulalongkorn University. She's told me that anecdote about a dozen times or so, and I don't guess it ever gets old.

Now, for the first time in more than 10 years, prices have gone up at Siam Square's Apex cinemas. At the Lido, seats in the rear rows are 120 baht, but still 100 baht closer to the screen. The Scala's seats are priced at 140 baht for the bleacher section, 120 baht for the back rows on the floor up to row O and 100 baht down front.

The move follows Apex's recent shift to digital projection, which was introduced under a special "promotional" price of 100 baht. However, with the prices at other cinema chains now routinely topping 200 baht, the Lido and Scala remain fantastic bargains even after the price hike, so please support them.

Making the Apex cinemas a better bargain is their "Movie Mileage Card", which you get stamped on each visit. A full card gets you into a film for free! And, unlike loyalty cards at other cinemas, the Apex Movie Mileage Card never expires, is free and has no strings attached. Ask for one on your next visit.

Next Tuesday, August 12, is Her Majesty the Queen's birthday, and in honor of the big national holiday, movie distributors will release another batch of new films, among them a remake of the classic Thai romance Plae Kao (The Scar), the buddy-cop comedy 22 Jump Street, Tommy Lee Jones' western The Homesman, the acclaimed drama Joe starring Nicolas Cage and a sneak preview of Michael Bay's reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I'll update with another post early next week.