Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening May 8-14, 2014

Village of Hope

Thai indie filmmaker Boonsong "Sueb" Nakphoo tells hardscrabble stories of contemporary rural life, enlisting his family members, friends and neighbors in his native rural Sukhothai Province to help him make his low-budget movies. It's a portrait of folks who have been surpassed by society, and they are out of step with the increasingly urbanized, digitized, plastic-coated modern Thailand.

Boonsong's latest feature is the ironically titled Village of Hope (วังพิกุล, Wangphikul), which is a sequel to his 2010 effort Poor People the Great.

In between those two films, Boonsong did the ambitious Four Stations, a 2012 compilation of four short stories by noted Thai authors. It won a jury prize at last year's Deauville Asian Film Festival.

With Village of Hope, which premiered at last year's Mumbai Film Festival, Boonsong further hones his craft, presenting the succinct tale in black and white. The story follows Sorn, a somber young soldier on leave who returns home. He feels ill-at-ease as he reaquaints himself to the village’s slow pace and the struggles of his impoverished relatives, who all live in a tight-knit collection of rustic wooden houses. Boyhood has slipped away and the reality of adulthood is looming for young Sorn.

Village of Hope screens at 6.30 nightly until Wednesday, May 14 at the Lido in Siam Square, with post-screening talks by the director and his crew.

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By the River

It's a big week for Thai indie cinema, with two interesting films in limited release.

Along with Village of Hope, there's By the River (สายน้ำติดเชื้อ, Sai Nam Tid Shoer). Directed by Nontawat Numbenchapol, who follows up his Thai-Cambodian border doc Boundary, By the River looks at the hardships in a remote Karen village in Kanchanaburi where lead mining has contaminated the creek that used to be the community's lifeblood.

Concentrating mainly on the villagers, the film only briefly refers to the legal wrangling over the Klity Creek case, which stretched on for more than a decade. Though a verdict last year ordered a clean-up, it's going to be a massive effort, covering some 19 kilometers of waterway. It doesn't seem like the damage will ever be truly undone. Meanwhile, how will the villagers survive?

Nontawat recently returned to the village to stage a special outdoor screening for the residents.

Worth mentioning at this point is an effort to bring clean water to the village being undertaken by the Enlawthai Foundation.

By the River won a special mention at last year’s Locarno Film Festival and also screened at the 11th World Film Festival of Bangkok. It's been picked up by the new Thai indie outfit Mosquito Films Distribution and was part of the recent ChopShots festival in Jakarta.

Shows are scheduled to be at 4 and 8 daily (approximately) at SFW CentralWorld and SFX Maya Chiang Mai. Rated G.

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Also opening

13 Sins – Eight years have gone by since there was word of a Hollywood remake of the 2006 Thai thriller 13 Beloved. The slick, tension-filled drama had a down-on-his luck salesman receiving a series of mysterious phone calls promising him increasing rewards for completing 13 increasingly sinister and dangerous tasks. Also called 13 Game Sayong and 13: Game of Death, the original film was directed by Chookiat Sakveerakul and was based on a comic by Eakasit Thairatana. Daniel Stamm (The Last Exorcism) directs this new version, which at one time bore the title Angry Little God. Mark Webber stars as the salesman, with Devon Graye, Tom Bower, Rutina Wesley, Pruit Taylor Vince and Ron Perlman. Critical reception is mixed, with a few surprisingly kind reviews. I wonder if they ever saw the original? Rated 18+

Bad Neighbours – Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne are a young couple with a new baby. They look forward to settling into adulthood in in their dream home in a quiet residential neighborhood, but their plans are disrupted when an unruly fraternity moves in next door. An escalating war between the neighbors looks to spiral out of control. Zac Efron also stars, playing the lead frat boy. Nick Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek) directs. Critical reception for this raunchy comedy is actually pretty positive. Rated 18+

Oculus – After a young man is released from jail for the murder of his parents, he teams up with his sister to take down the real killer – a supernatural force unleashed through an antique mirror from their childhood home. Brenton Thwaites and Karen Gillan star. Critical reception is generally positive. This opened in sneak previews last week and now moves to a wide release. Rated 15+

Spirits War (ไพรดิบ, Prai Dib) – In this fantasy, spirit hunter Prai (Akara Amarttayakul) stops to rest in a forest near an abandoned mine and comes under attack. He is soon rescued by another spirit hunter, Paratee, but then she is taken prisoner by an evil priest. Pisut Praesangeam, who earlier this year did She Devil (รักเราเขย่าขวัญ, Rak Rao Khayao Khwan) and the 2008 comedy Super Hap, directs. Rated 15+

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Maggie Smith won an Oscar for her portrayal of a radical girls' boarding-school teacher in 1969's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, screening tonight. Tomorrow, open those pod-bay doors and check out the big-screen must-see spectacle of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. On Saturday, it's Brian DePalma's Carrie, which is among this month's crop of "troubled youth" movies. It was originally scheduled to screen during an earlier "troubled youth" series at the club but was pulled due to a last-minute schedule change. Sunday's Audrey Hepburn showcase is 1953's Roman Holiday. And next Wednesday, perhaps have a pizza delivered to your seat while you are watching another classic American comedy – Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Shows start at 8. The FGC is down an alley next to the Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. With just nine seats, the screening room fills up fast, so reservations are a must. There are sometimes additions and changes in the schedule, so please check the website and Facebook page for updates.

Learning through Asean – Indonesian movies – Films by celebrated Indonesian independent director Edwin will be screened this Saturday and next at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom. This Saturday at 3pm is his surreal comedy Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly, which comments on the serious issues surrounding race and Chinese ethnicity in Indonesia. Among the offbeat characters is a singing dentist who warbles Stevie Wonder's song "I Just Called to Say I Love You". From 2008, it competed in several film festivals, winning prizes in Nantes, Rotterdam, Singapore and the Golden Horse fest. Next Saturday, May 17, starting at 1pm, is the also-surreal Postcards from the Zoo, a comedy-drama about an orphan girl who grows up in a zoo, where she is raised by the giraffe keeper and works odd jobs to earn her keep. She then takes up with an itinerant cowboy magician. That's followed at 3pm with short films by Edwin and then a talk with the director and his producer Meiske Taurisia.

German Film Series – A young family copes with impending death when the father is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor in the 2011 drama Stopped on Track (Halt auf freier Strecke). Andreas Dresen directs. Part of the Goethe-Institut's series of monthly screenings, it's showing at 1pm on Sunday at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, and at 6pm on Tuesday, May 13, in the fifth-floor auditorium of the Bangkok Art and Culture Center. For further details, please contact the Goethe-Institut at (02) 108 8200.

Alliance Française – Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival – a historic first for a film from Chad – Un homme qui crie (A Screaming Man) is the story of Adam, a former champion swimmer comfortably spending his declining years looking after a luxury hotel's pool. He's demoted to security guard when his own son is hired to take over as lifeguard. With the country in the midst of a civil war, Adam sees an opportunity to move the younger man out of the picture. Mahamat Saleh Haroun directs and Youssouf Djaoro and Diouc Koma star. The show is at 7pm on Wednesday, May 14 at the Alliance Française de Bangkok.

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Take note


There's another new movie-listings website – Cinematic.asia. For now, it appears to only support showtimes for the big multiplex chains, Major Cineplex and SF.

The other startup movie-listings site Moveedoo collates data from the Apex cinemas in Siam Square and House on RCA as well as the mall cineplexes. So Moveedoo has the edge over Cinematic.

Both Moveedoo and Cinematic have arisen since the demise of MovieSeer, which went down the drain last year.

Indie filmmaker Thunska Pansittivorakul has released his taboo-breaking 2010 feature Reincarnate through his Tumblr site, but the actual platform is Vimeo. To watch, you'll have to "follow" Thunska on Vimeo, send him a message and then receive a password. Reincarnate will stream through Sunday, then on Monday, another of his features will be released online for one week only.

Mark your calendar for the European Union Film Festival, which runs from May 23 to June 5 at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld. Highlights include this year's Oscar-winning foreign film, The Great Beauty (La grande bellezza) from Italy. A free festival, this is always a very popular event with thrifty expats and balloon-chasing freeloaders, so be prepared to queue up for an hour or two to guarantee you'll get a decent seat.

And the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand has a "double bill" coming up, with Switzerland's La Petite Chambre (The Little Room) on May 19 and from the U.K., Michael Winterbottom's Trishna on May 26. Shows are now at 7pm, not 8 as they've been in the past.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening April 24-30, 2014

The Railway Man

Here's another movie made in Thailand, which dovetails nicely with the ongoing Thailand International Destination Film Festival.

The Railway Man is about a British war veteran who tries to come to terms with the psychological trauma he suffered as a prisoner working on the Thai-Burmese Death Railway under the Japanese.

The setting is the same as The Bridge on the River Kwai, though that classic film wasn't made here – it was shot in Sri Lanka.

Colin Firth stars as Eric Lomax, a British veteran who, years after the war, seeks out his former tormentor, the Japanese officer Takashi Nagase (Hiroyuki Sanada). He then returns to Thailand – it really is Thailand this time – to take the train to Kanchanaburi and walk over that iconic bridge and revisit the site of his torture. The film is based on Lomax's 1995 autobiography.

Other stars include Jeremy Irvine as Lomax during the war, Nicole Kidman as his wife and Stellan Skarsgard as his best friend. Australian helmer Jonathan Teplitzky (Better Than Sex, The Burning Man) directs.

Critical reception is mixed, leaning to positive. Rated 15+

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Under the Skin

Scarlett Johansson is earning widespread praise for her portrayal of an alien who preys on men in Scotland in Under the Skin, the much-anticipated third film by English director Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast, Birth).

Adapted by Glazer and Walter Campbell from Michel Faber's 2000 novel, the film was shot guerrilla style, with hidden cameras. The actress approached non-actors and picked the men up in unscripted conversations.

Critical reception is mostly positive. It premiered in the main competition at last year's Venice Film Festival. Nominations include best director and actress at the British Independent Film Awards and best film at the London Film Festival. Rated 15+

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Also opening

Brick Mansions – When he died in a November car crash, Fast and Furious actor Paul Walker had completed several films. Brick Mansions is one of them. He portrays an undercover Detroit cop working to bring down a crime lord who rules over a dangerous neighborhood that's been cordoned off from the rest of the city. Written and produced by Luc Besson, it's a remake of Besson's Paris-set crime drama District 13 and stars District 13 leading man, parkour stuntman David Belle as a guy who reluctantly teams up with Walker's character. Rap musician RZA portrays the crime lord. This is just coming out in the U.S. this week, so critical reception isn't registering. Rated 13+

The Nut Job – The boom in computer animation continues with this Canadian-South Korean co-production that's a heist flick about talking squirrels looking to steal a bunch of peanuts. The voice cast features Will Arnett, Brendan Fraser, Stephen Lang, Maya Rudolph, Liam Neeson and Katherine Heigl. Critics aren't going nuts over this – it's strictly kiddie fare. It's at SF cinemas. Rated G

The End (ผู้หญิงเลือกได้) – Fed up with her cheating boyfriend, a woman (Natalie Duchien) decides to pick up a strange man in a pub – a decision that will change her life forever. Parm Rangsri (Pawnshop) directs. Rated 18+

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Also showing

Thailand International Destination Film Festival – Spotlighting Thailand's role in international film productions, the second edition of the Destination Film Festival continues until Monday at Paragon Cineplex. Today's screenings are the classic Cambodian war drama The Killing Fields, the 1997 Bond entry Tomorrow Never Dies starring Pierce Brosnan and Michelle Yeoh, and the Thai premiere of A Stranger in Paradise, an action thriller about a Wall Street trader who ends up trapped in Bangkok's underbelly of crime.Tomorrow, the screenings include Secret Sharer, an adaptation of a Joseph Conrad story about a ship's captain who lands in trouble after he rescues a Chinese woman from the sea. And there will be Ninja: Shadow of a Tear, a gritty action drama starring Scott Adkins. Saturday's offerings are Trafficker, about a young Vietnamese man caught up in a life of crime; Out of Inferno, the Pang brothers' 3D disaster drama about firefighters battling a high-rise blaze; and Glory Days, about a 1990s rock band reuniting and attempting to relaunch their music careers from Pattaya. Sunday includes the Thai big-screen premiere of The Scorpion King 3 and the Indian Olympic athlete biopic Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. Monday's screenings include the thriller The Mark: Redemption and the 1976 Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun, starring Roger Moore and Christopher Lee. Following many of the films, there will be question-and-answer sessions with the stars, producers, directors and film crews. Tickets are free and can be booked in advance by calling (096) 324 2642. For the schedule, please see program guide, the website or Facebook page.

Swedish Film Festival – Controversial documentaries, award-winning historical dramas and a childhood adventure are set to screen in the Swedish Film Festival. Organised by the Embassy of Sweden, seven films will be shown from tonight through Sunday at SFX the Emporium. Here's the lineup:

• Big Boys Gone Bananas!* – A 2011 documentary about another documentary by Fredrik Gertten, it depicts the director's legal troubles after he was sued by Dole for his 2009 film Bananas!*, which covered allegations relating to the fruit grower’s pesticide use at a plantation in Nicaragua.
• Call Girl – A 2012 drama directed by Mikael Marcimain, it’s based on the “bordellharvan” political scandal of the 1970s, which linked prominent Swedish politicians to a prostitution ring that included underage girls. The story focuses on a delinquent girl who is sent to live in a juvenile home and is eventually recruited by the prostitution ring’s madame (Pernilla August). It received the Fipresci Discovery Prize at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival, the Silver Award at the Stockholm film fest and was nominated in 11 categories in Sweden’s Guldbagge Awards, including best film, director and screenplay, and won in four technical categories.
• TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from the Keyboard – This documentary follows Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm, the founders of the Pirate Bay, the torrent-tracking website. The movie was released legally and for free on the Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites, but, controversially, several Hollywood studios flexed their censorship muscles and pressured Google to remove any search links pointing to it.
• The Last Sentence – This is a biographical drama about Torgny Segerstedt, a Gothenburg newspaper editor whose criticism of Hitler and the Nazis ran counter to the Swedish government’s intentions of remaining neutral during World War II. Jesper Christensen stars as Segerstedt. Other cast members include Pernilla August, Bjorn Granath and Ulla Skoog, who won best supporting actress at last year’s Guldbagge Awards.
• The Ice Dragon – A 2012 adaptation of a children’s novel, depicting the adventure of 11-year-old Mik, a boy in search of a new home. Trekking across the snow-covered countryside, he learns about whales, fishing, friends and love while staying a step ahead of the authorities. It won for best visual effects at last year’s Guldbagge Awards.
• Avalon – This acclaimed 2011 comedy-drama won the International Critics Award at Toronto and scored Guldbagge Awards last year for best actor and supporting actor. Johannes Brost and Peter Carlberg star in the tale, which takes its inspiration from the hit Roxy Music song of the same name and follows a 60-year-old high-society man who is determined to party as if the ’80s never ended.
• Behind Blue Skies – Set during the 1970s, its stars Bill Skarsgard as a young man who takes a summer job at a Swedish resort hotel. He’s taken under the wing of the hotel manager (Peter Dalle), who mixes the lad up in various shady business deals.

Tickets are free and can be picked up in the cinema lobby 30 minutes before the shows. For the full schedule, visit www.SFCinemaCity.com.

The Friese-Greene Club – Tonight, Anthony Hopkins stars in The Efficiency Expert, a.k.a. Spotswood. He's a cold-blooded management consultant who's sent to Australia to straighten out a troubled factory and its wacky bunch of workers. Tomorrow, Albert Brooks looks at impossible relationships in Modern Romance. On Saturday, David Mamet has a young industrial engineer (Campbell Scott) caught in a complex scam in The Spanish Prisoner. Steve Martin, Rebecca Pidgeon, Felicity Huffman, Ben Gazzara and Ricky Jay also star. Sunday is the final Michael Redgrave movie of the month, the 1945 Ealing Studios' horror anthology Dead of Night. It features Redgrave obsessed by his ventriloquist's puppet. And April closes out with next Wednesday's Seduced and Abandoned, with director James Toback following Alex Baldwin around at the Cannes Film Festival as the actor rubs shoulders with many celebrities while trying to drum up funding for a film. Shows start at 8. The FGC is down an alley next to the Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. With just nine seats, the screening room fills up fast, so reservations are a must. There are sometimes additions and changes in the schedule, so please check the website and Facebook page for updates.

Bangkok Autism Film Festival – In observance of World Autism Awareness month, the third Bangkok Autism Film Festival will screen four films on Saturday at Paragon Cineplex. The fest opens at 11am with The Story of Luke, a 2012 comedy about a young autistic man who seeks a job and a girlfriend. Next at 2 is Travels with My Brother, a 2009 short film about a high-functioning autistic man and his relationship with his sister as they travel about their hometown of Toronto. That's followed by Children of the Stars, a 2009 mid-length documentary about a Chinese family and the struggles to cope with their five-year-old autistic son. After another screening of The Story of Luke, there will then be a benefit gala called Indigo Night (dress code indigo blue) and the world premiere of Documenting the Rainbow (Ban Tuk Sai Roon). Directed by Ranitar Charitkul, it documents the making of a play, The Rainbow Theater. Tickets are 250 baht (700 baht for VIP), though the tickets to the Indigo Night gala and Documenting the Rainbow will be sold separately. Proceeds benefit the Rainbow Room Foundation. For details, call (02) 712 5204-5 or e-mail autismawarenessthailand@gmail.com. For the schedule, please check the Facebook events page.

A scene from the Oscar-winning short Helium.

What the Festival – WTF Cafe and Gallery, a popular venue for in-the-know artsy types in Bangkok, celebrates four years this weekend with a festival that will feature the screenings of Oscar-winning and nominated short films. The party starts on Saturday on Sukhumvit Soi 53 – a sweaty hike from Thonglor BTS or a taxi ride from Phrom Pong BTS – but the short films screen on Sunday, from 5 to 5.45pm at Opposite Mess Hall, the trendy eatery across the alley from WTF. The films include That Wasn’t Me (Aquel No Era Yo), a Spanish effort that looks at child soldiers in Africa. It won Spain’s Goya Award last year and was an Oscar nominee this year. Next is the Oscar-nominated Finnish comedy Do I Have to Take Care of Everything? It follows an overwhelmed mother trying to rush her family out the door for a wedding. Finally, there's  Helium, the Academy Award-winning short this year. It's about terminally ill boy who escapes to a magical fantasy world through stories told to him by the hospital's eccentric janitor. The party wraps up with an acoustic street performance by the Morlam International Band. For more details, see the gallery's website.

Film Virus Double Bill – The final pair of movies in the series at Thammasat University are "little gems", starting with 2011's The Dish and the Spoon, a drama by American indie director Alison Bagnall. Greta Gerwig and Olly Alexander star as a couple thrown together under traumatic circumstances. And the closing film is 1987's Housekeeping, starring Christine Lahti and Sara Walker as teen sisters who go to live with their eccentric aunt (Andrea Burchill) in rural Idaho. It's by Scottish director Bill Forsyth. The show starts at 12.30pm on Sunday. The venue is the Rewat Buddhinan Room in the basement of the Pridi Banomyong Library at Thammasat University, Tha Prachan. You'll need to show your I.D. and have it scanned to gain entry. To get there by ferry, take the Chao Praya River Express to Wang Lang (Siriraj) pier and then transfer to a ferry heading to Tha Prachan or Wat Mahathat piers.

Alliance Française – A young man's plans for romance are foiled when the French government calls an early end to the long summer holiday in order to rescue the economy in La Fille Du 14 Juillet (The Rendez-vous Of Déjà Vu). The 2013 screwball comedy is directed by Antonin Peretjatko and stars Grégoire Tachnakian, Vimala Pons, Vincent Macaigne. The show is at 7pm on Wednesday, April 30 at the Alliance Française de Bangkok. It's at the intersection of Rama IV and Wireless roads, opposite Lumpini Park in the former location of the Suan Lum Night Bazaar.

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Take note

Hey, here's Major Cineplex showtimes, which I can't find a link for on their website. So I tried a Google search, and that page is what I found.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening November 22-28, 2012

The Master

Boogie Nights director Paul Thomas Anderson continues in the starkly bold direction he took with There Will Be Blood, about an iconoclastic 1910s oilman, with The Master
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Set in post-World War II America, it's a striking portrait of drifters and seekers. Joaquin Phoenix stars as navy veteran who returns from war unsettled and uncertain of his future. He is drawn to a group called "The Cause" and its charismatic leader (frequent Anderson collaborator Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Amy Adams also stars.

The film has been controversial because it is loosely based on L. Ron Hubbard and the early days of the Church of Scientology, but it also picks up on themes explored in There Will Be Blood.

It premiered at the Venice Film Festival in September, and fueled controversy there when it was awarded the Silver Lion for best director and Volpi Cup for best actor (shared by Phoenix and Hoffman). The jury reportedly wanted to give The Master the Golden Lion top-prize as well, but the festival's rules prevented that, so the prize went to Kim Ki-duk's Pieta, and ended up feeling like a consolation prize to the South Korean director.

Tipped as a likely multiple nominee for next year's Academy Awards, critical reception is mostly positive. At Apex Siam Square and Paragon. Rated 18+.

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Also opening

Premium Rush – Joseph Gordon-Levitt, coming off a strong performance in Looper, climbs aboard a bicycle for this thriller about a hotshot New York City bicycle messenger who is chased by a corrupt cop seeking the envelope he's supposed to deliver. In the film, Gordon-Levitt rides a "fixie", a bicycle with no brakes nor gears that's popular among Bangkok hipsters. Michael Shannon, Dania Ramirez and Jamie Chung also star. David Koepp, screenwriter on dozens of hit films, directs. Critical reception is mostly positive. Rated 13+.

Red Dawn – Wolverines! John Milius' gritty 1984 classic about patriotic teenagers who take up arms as guerrilla fighters after the Soviets invade the U.S. has been remade. Rather implausibly, the U.S. is invaded by North Korea. Originally it was supposed to be China, but studio executives thought they ought not offend the world's biggest emerging movie market. A bunch of young stars are in the cast, among them Chris "Thor" Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson from The Hunger Games. Adrianne Palicki, Josh Peck and Isabel Lucas also star. Critical reception is mostly negative. Rated 15+.

3 AM (ตีสาม 3D, Tee Sam 3D) – Following the international-sales success of its 3D haunted airplane thriller Dark Flight earlier this year, Five Star Production offers more three-dimensional scares with this three-segment horror flick. Patchanon Thammajira directs The Wig, which follows two sisters (Apinya Sakuljaroensuk and Focus Jirakul) in a haunted wig shop. Kirati Nakintanon directs a story about a medical student (Tony Rakkaen) who gets the job of looking after the corpses of a bridge and groom. And Isara Nadee directs O.T., starring Shahkrit Yamnarm and Ray MacDonald as pranksters in an office whose practical jokes on co-workers go too far. Rated 15+.

The Four – Gordon Chan brings “The Four Great Constables” novel series to the big screen. Four sleuths skilled in martial arts are hired by the emperor to solve various mysteries. Liu Yifei, Collin Chou, Ronald Cheng, Deng Chao and Anthony Wong star. Thai-dubbed only at Major Cineplex. Rated 15+.

Love, Faith, Miracle Season 2 (ความรัก ศรัทธา ปาฏิหาริย์ (ซีซั่น 2), Kwam Rak, Sattha, Patiharn (Season 2)) – Eight short films, each running around 10 to 15 minutes, are produced by Satien Dhammasathan. Stars include Shahkrit Yamnarm, Lalita Sasiprapha and Sorrapong Chatree. Admission is free. In Thai – no English subtitles – at the Scala from Friday through Sunday.

Rak Jab Jai (รักจับใจ ) – Thai stage musicals have increased in popularity in the past couple of years and the fad doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. This is a recent hit stage musical that's simply been filmed, so if you missed the live performance or you want to see it again, here's your chance. Pop singer "Bie" Sukrit Wiesetkaew stars. He's a guy in love with a blind woman (Nuenruthai Sophon). In Thai – no English subtitles – at Major Cineplex. Rated G.

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Also showing

Fados is the closing film.

World Film Festival of Bangkok – The 10th annual festival rolls into its final weekend with lots of movies worth seeing. Tonight at 9.30 is The Lovers on the Bridge, a 1991 drama by French director Leos Carax. Tomorrow at 8.20 is Elephant Shaman by Shane Bunnag, about the last elephant shaman in Thailand. It screens again on Saturday at 3.40. Also on Saturday is Return to Burma, which follows a Burmese construction worker who returns home after working for years as a laborer in Taiwan. Sunday's highlights include Under Snow from Japan and Win/Win from the Netherlands. The closing film is Fados, which is a celebration of Portugal's predominant musical genre. It starts at 6 on Sunday. It's all at the Esplanade Cineplex Ratchada.

Entre nos mains (Into Our Own Hands) – The Alliance Française Bangkok's month of documentaries finishes off with this 2010 work by Mariana Otero about workers who form a cooperative to take over a bankrupt lingerie factory. It's at the Alliance Française at 7.30pm on Wednesday, November 28.

Jab Tak Hai Jaan – Yash Chopra's final feature before his death last month is a sweeping Bollywood romance starring Shah Rukh Khan, Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif. He's working as a bomb-disposal expert for the Indian army in Kashmir, where he meets Anushka, a Discovery Channel intern who by chance comes across his old diary and discovers his haunted past and mourning over a lost love. Score by AR Rahman. It's at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Paragon. Rated 15+.

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Sneak preview

Cloud Atlas – Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run) and the Wachowskis (The Matrix) team up for what's been termed  the biggest-budget independent film ever made. Filming what had been regarded an "unfilmable" novel by David Mitchell, the sprawling narrative traces half a dozen or so stories through 500 years of history, from the 19th century to the distant future, with characters in overlapping storylines who have been reincarnated in various forms. The star-studded cast includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Bae Doona, Ben Whishaw and James D'Arcy. Critical reception is mixed, but even critics who don't care for the film seem to think it's something that should be seen, just to be believed. It's in sneak previews this week from around 8 nightly at Apex Siam Square, Paragon and CentralWorld before moving to a wider release next week. Rated 18+.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening September 20-26, 2012

Savages

Oliver Stone is back in action with Savages, a gritty tale of a couple of young marijuana growers who run afoul of a violent Mexican cartel.

Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson star as Chon and Ben, two hipsters who are growing a potent strain of weed that Chon, a former soldier, brought back from the war in Afghanistan. It's made them very wealthy but has attracted unwanted attention from the Mexican drug cartel. They share a girlfriend (Blake Lively) who's named O and when they won't give in to the cartel's demands, O is kidnapped.

The cast boasts John Travolta as a corrupt DEA agent, with Benicio Del Toro as a cartel enforcer and Salma Hayek chewing up scenery as the cartel leader.

Based on a crime novel by Don Winslow, who also co-scripted the movie, Savages is a return of sorts to the sordid types of stories Stone stylishly spun in Natural Born Killers and U-Turn.

Critical reception is mixed but it's generally faring better than Stone's previous effort Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Rated 18+.

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Also opening

I Carried You Home (Padang Besar, ปาดังเบซา) – Indie Thai director Tongpong Chantararangkul makes his feature debut with this slow-moving drama about estranged sisters (Akhamsiri Suwanasuk and Apinya Sakuljaroensuk) who are reunited by the bizarre circumstances of their mother's death. They accompany their mom's body on an ambulance drive from Bangkok to their hometown of Pedang Besar on the Thai-Malaysian border. I Carried You Home premiered at last year's Busan International Film Festival, where it was in the New Currents competition. Other festival appearances have included Marrakech, Vancouver, Rotterdam, Deauville and most recently Washington, D.C. It opened the 9th World Film Festival of Bangkok in January and was also featured at June's MovieMov Italian Film Festival. It's at Apex cinemas in Siam Square and at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld. Rated 15+.

Dredd 3D – Karl Urban, the Kiwi actor who's become a favorite of genre fans for playing Dr. McCoy in the Star Trek remake and as the killer government agent in Red, takes over a role once held by Sylvester Stallone. It's a new adaptation of the comic book about a dystopian lawman who's given the authority of judge, jury and executioner. He's charged with bringing justice to a feared slum and its resident druglord (portayed by Lena Headey from Game of Thrones and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles). Olivia Thirlby also stars, playing Dredd's rookie telepath partner. And watch out for Wood Harris, a.k.a. Avon Barksdale from The Wire. In contrast to the unwelcome remakes of a couple other 1990s sci-fi movies, Total Recall and the upcoming RoboCop, anticipation for this new take on Judge Dredd has been high because the 1995 Stallone version was too campy to do the comic justice. And fans haven't been disappointed by this darkly violent tale, which is penned by Alex Garland (The Beach). Critical reception is mostly positive. In 3D. Rated 18+.

Hit and Run – Dax Shepard co-directs and stars in this independent car-chase comedy about a getaway driver who breaks out of the witness protection program in order to take his girlfriend to Los Angeles. While racing down the road, he has to stay ahead of gangsters, the girlfriend's ex-boyfriend and a U.S. marshal. Kristen Bell, Bradley Cooper, Tom Arnold and Kristin Chenoweth also star. Critical reception is mixed, but if you like car-chase flicks, then you'll probably have fun with this. Rated 15+.

Bait – It's been more than 35 years since Jaws swam into cinemas, and movie-goers still aren't safe from sharks. In Bait, hungry great whites are washed ashore in a tsunami. They are feeding in a flooded supermarket where shoppers are trapped. Bait saw a limited theatrical release in the U.S. but is mostly going direct-to-DVD. Critical reception, so far, is mixed. In 3D. Rated 15+.

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Also showing

L’heure zéro (Towards Zero) – Pascal Thomas directs this 2007 mystery based on the novel by Agatha Christie. François Morel, Danielle Darrieux, Melvil Poupaud, Laura Smet, Chiara Mastroianni, Alessandra Martines and Clément Thomas star in this whodunnit about a wealthy old woman murdered at her seaside home. Which one of her eccentric guests is the culprit? A vacationing police inspector tries to unravel the tangle of clues. It's in French with English subtitles at 7.30pm on Wednesday, September 26 at the Alliance Française.

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Take note


The Nokia Ultra Screen theaters at Paragon Cineplex are no more. After seven years, the premium cinema wing at Paragon has been renamed under a new sponsorship deal with Bangkok Airways. Similar to the EGV Gold Class theaters, the Bangkok Airways Blue Ribbon Screens offer an ultra-pricey but ultra-comfortable alternative to the conventional multiplex auditoriums. They have a reclining chair, pillows and blankets, and a deluxe lounge to sit in before the show.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening August 2-8, 2012

Total Recall

I don't know why it's necessary to remake Total Recall. The 1990 original by Paul Verhoeven, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, still holds up today, thanks to practical special effects and miniatures that didn't rely on hokey CGI trickery. It's part of a canon of late '80s and early '90s sci-fi classics that also includes Verhoeven's Robocop (also with a remake in the works) and James Cameron's Terminator films.

But whatever. Now we have a new Total Recall, which puts Colin Farrell in the Schwarznegger role of a man who's had his memories of being a secret agent on Mars erased, and shadowy forces at work to keep him from remembering.

The setting is similarly futuristic, in a dystopian society where dreams, memory and reality are blurred, thanks to memory-implant technology by the Rekall company, which provides customers with virtual vacations.

Len Wisemen, helmer of the Underworld series of vampire movies directs, and he puts his wife and Underworld star Kate Beckinsale in the Sharon Stone role.

Bryan Cranston, Bookeem Woodbine, John Cho, Bill Nighy and Jessica Biel also star.

Kurt Wimmer, the writer-director of the dystopian drama Equilibrium as well as screenwriter of such films as Salt and Law Abiding Citizen, handles the screenplay. It's adapted from a Philip K. Dick story.

It could actually be ok. However, Total Recall doesn't come out in the U.S. until tomorrow, so there's not yet many reviews. Rated 13+.

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Also opening

Echo Planet (เอคโค่ จิ๋วก้องโลก, Echo Jew Kong Loke) – It was back in 2006 that the Thai movie industry entered the age of computer animation with Khan Kluay, the tale of a little tusker who would become the brave war elephant of King Naresuan the Great. Despite its very nationalistic historical storyline, Khan Kluay attracted overseas buyers, spawned a sequel and made a name for Kantana Animation. Now Khan Kluay director Kompin Kemgumnird, a veteran of animated features at Disney and Blue Sky Studios, aims for even broader international appeal with Echo Planet (เอคโค่ จิ๋วก้องโลก, Echo Jew Kong Loke). The environmentally themed story is about a gifted Karen boy who can talk to animals and his tough older sister. They rescue a foreigner boy scout who is the son of the president of Capital State. The three of then set off on an adventure in which they have to stop a project that will cause environmental havoc. Read more about it in a Nation article today. It's in 3D in some cinemas. Rated G.

Ka Nam Nom (ค่าน้ำนม) – Social-problem dramas used to be a large component of the Thai film industry back in the 1970s and '80s, but have mostly been relegated these days in favor of horror, comedies and weepy romantic melodramas. Ka Nam Nom, literally "mother's milk", comes out just before the August 12 Queen's Birthday and Thai Mother's Day holiday, and seeks to get back to the roots of social-problem movies. Chudapha Chanthakhet stars as a widowed single mother who struggles to raise her boy and girl, and hopes they will rise from their hardscrabble, small-town roots and have better lives. Full of promise, brother and sister head to Bangkok for schooling, but end up getting caught up in all the various problems that come with life in the big city, such as gang fights and drugs. Teerapat Yamsri and Uttama Chiwanichpan star as the brother and sister and Nati Phunmanee directs. Rated 15+.

The Son of No One – Channing Tatum. He's so hot right now. With recent critically hailed starring roles in such movies as the action drama Haywire, the comedy spoof 21 Jump Street and the strip-dancing drama Magic Mike, based partly on his own life, Thai distributors dip into Tatum's recent backlog of work and pull out The Son of No One, a police drama that saw only a limited release in a few territories last year and mostly went direct to video. He's a rookie cop assigned to the precinct in the working-class neighborhood where he grew up, and where an old secret threatens to destroy his life. Al Pacino also stars, along with James Ransone, Ray Liotta, Tracy Morgan, Katie Holmes and Juliet Binoche. Critical reception is mostly negative. It's at Major Cineplex branches, including Paragon, Mega, Esplanade and EGV. Rated 18+.

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Also showing

36 – Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit is a well-known independent filmmaker who's done several award-winning shorts. In the past few years, he's broken into the mainstream industry as a screenwriter on several projects with the GTH studio, including the romance that's currently in cinemas, Seven Something. He also has his own project going, the medium-length feature 36, an experimental effort composed of 36 shots that is described as a "relationship movie that touches on melancholic memories and old buildings". He's been self-releasing the film for the past month or so, organizing screenings at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, the Alliance Francais and now at House. He's been promoting the screenings through the social networks and the Thai media, and most sessions have sold out. It's at House on RCA, showing at 1.45pm and 5.15pm until Sunday.

La tête de maman – Carine Tardieu directs this 2007 comedy-drama starring Karin Viard, Kad Merad and Pascal Elbé. It's about a 15-year-old girl who wants to bring happiness back into the life of her ailing mother, so she sets out to locate her mom's old boyfriend - now a middle-aged veterinarian. It's in French with English subtitles at the Alliance Française on Wednesday, August 8, at 7.30pm.

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Take note

Director Kongej Jaturanrasmee's trippy psychological drama P-047 (Tae Peang Phu Deaw, แต่เพียงผู้เดียว) is continuing its limited release for a third week at the Lido and Esplanade Ratchada. I don't want to explain much more about the movie. Just go see it.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening January 12-18, 2012

Warrior

Up-and-coming English actor Tom Hardy is already on Bangkok screens in the highly acclaimed Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and will be seen again in this summer's The Dark Knight Rises, but here he is all bulked up and sporting a six-pack in Warrior, opposite rising Australian star Joel Edgerton in a drama about estranged brothers who enter a mixed martial arts tournament and work out their troubled relationship in the octagonal-cage ring.

Nick Nolte is their father, a former boxer, alcoholic and born-again Christian. He agrees to train his prodigal youngest son (Hardy).

Gavin O'Connor, who previously helmed the fact-based Kurt Russell hockey drama Miracle, directs.

While the film's promotional material draws comparisons to Rocky, critics have also noted similarities to other recent critically acclaimed fighting movies, Wrestler and The Fighter.

Warrior is being tipped as one of the favorites of the year's awards season, with Hardy and Nolte being mentioned for laurels. Critical reception is generally positive.

It's at Apex Siam Square.

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Also opening

My Week with Marilyn – The Weinstein Company aims to repeat the Oscar-baiting success of The King's Speech with another artful fact-based historical drama that's set in England. This one deals with royalty of a different sort – screen siren Marilyn Monroe, breathlessly portrayed by Michelle Williams, who has already collected a few prizes for the role and is nominated for several others, including a Golden Globe. The year is 1956, and Monroe, having just married playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), is in England on her honeymoon and to film The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh). A 23-year-old assistant to Olivier (Eddie Redmayne) strikes up a friendship with the actress and ends up writing a couple books about his experience. Dame Judi Dench also stars, portraying actress Dame Sybil Thorndike. Critical reception is mostly positive. At Apex Siam Square, Paragon Cineplex and SFW CentralWorld. Rated 13+.

Contraband – Mark Wahlberg stars in this crime drama as a reformed criminal who is pulled back into his old life after his brother-in-law botches a drug deal. To protect his family, Marky Mark has to go to Panama to retrieve millions in counterfeit U.S. currency by duct-taping the bills around his torso. Kate Beckinsale, Caleb Landry Jones, Ben Foster, Giovanni Ribisi and Lukas Haas also star. Icelandic actor-director Baltasar Kormákur directs, and it's a remake of 2009's Reykjavík-Rotterdam, which Kormákur starred in. This movie is just being released this week in the U.S., so critical reception is too early to tell. Rated 15+.

5 Days of War – Finnish director Renny Harlin caught fire in Hollywood back in the 1990s, directing such cult-classic action movies as Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger and The Long Kiss Goodnight. He was even married to Long Kiss star Geena Davis for a time. Then he directed Cutthroat Island, a pirate movie filmed in Thailand that was a over-budget disaster that bombed at the box office. Since then, he's directed a string of mostly duds and doesn't look to be turning things around with 5 Days of War, in which an American journalist, his cameraman and a Georgian native are caught in the crossfire of the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Rupert Friend, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Richard Coyle, Rade Sherbedgia and Val Kilmer star. It had a limited release in the U.S. last summer and went to DVD in November. Now it's in theaters in Thailand. Critical reception is mostly negative. Rated 18+.

What's Your Number? – Anna Faris stars as a young woman who begins a frantic search for all her ex-boyfriends in an effort to find out which one was her true love. She get help from a guy played by Chris Evans. Critical reception for this predictable and formulaic rom-com is mostly negative. At SF cinemas. Rated 13+.

Friends Never Die (มึงกู เพื่อนกันจนวันตา, Mueng Koo Phuean Kan Jon Wan Tai) – A once-popular subgenre of Thai cinema was the teenage gangster movie, and they continue to crop up from time to time, and this is one of those. Moving from Bangkok to study in Chiang Mai, the new kid in town, Song ("Mouse" Nattacha Chantaphan), faces problems with senior students and copes by joining a gang led by a guy named Gun (Mario Maurer). Together they overcome the bullying and learn what friendship really is. Rated 15+.

Rak Wei Hei (รักเว้ยเฮ้ย!) – A nerd (Phongphit "Starbucks" Preechaborisuthkul) falls in love with a young female DJ ("Ink" Chayanuj Boontanapibul from Channel [V] Thailand) and learns how to win her heart from a love guru (Nakorn “Ple” Silachai). Rated 15+.

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Also showing

Don 2 – Shah Rukh Khan is back as the indisputable king of the Asian underworld, and he aims to take over the European drug cartel. A sequel to a 2006 action drama, it was filmed in Thailand, Berlin, Kuala Lumpur and Switzerland.  Priyanka Chopra, Lara Dutta, Om Puri, Lara Dutta and Kunal Kapoor also star. In Hindi with English subtitles at SF Cinema Terminal 21 tonight at 7.45 and at Major Rama III tomorrow and Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 4 and 7.30. Call (089) 488 2620, (02)225 7500 or visit www.BollywoodThai.com.

German Open Air Cinema – Daniel Brühl (Inglourious Basterds, Goodbye Lenin!, The Edukators) stars in next Tuesday evening's feature, Elephant Heart (Elefantenherz), a 2002 drama about a struggling amateur boxer. He works a tedious job and still lives at home with his unemployed alcoholic father. His only joy comes from training at the local gym, and he gets a chance at being a contender from a shady promoter. The German Open Air Cinema series runs on Tuesdays until February 28 at the institute on Sathorn Soi 1. Show times are at 7.30pm.

Hiroshima mon amour – Born in colonial French Indochina, writer Marguerite Duras specialized in East-West romances that were based on her own life, penning stories like The Lover and The Sea Wall, both of which have been made into movies. In 1959, she wrote the screenplay for this Japan-set drama by Alain Resnais, about the relationship between a French actress only known as "she" (Emmanuele Riva) and a married Japanese man only known as "him" (Eiji Okada). Touching on themes of the atomic bomb, forgetfulness and memory, the film is generally credited with starting the French New Wave cinema movement. It's showing at 7.30pm on Wednesday, January 18, at the Alliance Francaise Bangkok.

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Take note

There are at least five film festivals coming up in the next two weeks and running into February in Bangkok and around Thailand.

Starting January 18 is the Goethe-Institut Thailand's Science Film Festival, with screenings of mostly short documentaries in venues around Bangkok, mainly geared for busloads of schoolchildren. It was postponed from last year because of the floods.

Also postponed from last year is the World Film Festival of Bangkok, which starts on January 20. The opening is at Paragon Cineplex, but after that, the screenings will all be at the Esplanade Ratchadaphisek. The closing films on January 27 will be outdoor screenings at the Village Square at the Nine Neighbourhood Centre on Rama IX Road. Highlights include Turin Horse by Bela Tarr, this year's recipient of the festival's Lotus Award, and the 3D Cave of Forgotten Dreams by Werner Herzog.

The 6th Bangkok Experimental Film Festival runs from January 24 to February 5 in various venues around Bangkok. The special focus is "Raiding the Archive", and the opening on January 24-25 will be at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom. Other screenings take place on January 28-29 and February 4-5 at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

The Hua Hin International Film Festival has imposed itself on January 26 to 29, with a selection of around 50 films. Some of them, like the Aung San Suu Kyi biopic The Lady and the South Korean romance Always, will have regular theatrical runs. And six of the films in the HHIFF are also screening in the World Film Festival.

And up in Chiang Mai from February 2 to 5, there's the Lifescapes Southeast Asian Film Festival, with a selection of documentaries and documentary-style dramas that aim to tackle social issues in the five mainland Southeast Asian countries. The Nation had a story about the first four festivals mentioned here plus one more.

Some films you might have missed have been brought back this week at House on RCA: Pen-ek Ratanaruang's hitman thriller Headshot, the original Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and the psychological thriller Take Shelter.