Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening June 23-June 29, 2016

Elvis and Nixon

A bizarre intersection of American pop culture and politics is recounted in Elvis and Nixon, which stars Michael Shannon as the King of Rock 'n' Roll and Kevin Spacey as Tricky Dick.

It's the story of a famous photograph taken in the Oval Office in 1970, in which the President shakes hands with the King, and Presley asked to be sworn in as a special undercover agent of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, and to be given a badge.

Other stars in the indie comedy-drama include the ever-reliable Colin Hanks, plus Alex Pettyfer, Johnny Knoxville, Evan Peters, Tracy Letts and Tate Donovan.

Critical reception is mostly favorable.

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Also opening

Independence Day: Resurgence – Twenty years after the first Independence Day, director Roland Emmerich gets most of the band back together for another epic of special-effects-driven global destruction. Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman, Judd Hirsch and Brent Spiner are among the returnees with Will Smith among the notables not appearing. This is imagined as a reboot of the ID franchise and could be the first of a trilogy. However, early critical reception is not so good so far.

A Hologram for the King – Colin Hanks' dad is a down-and-out businessman who takes a gamble on landing a big deal with Saudi Arabia's monarch, who envisages a massive economic development rising up from the nothingness of the desert. The stressed-out exec has a panic attack, and is nursed back to health by a Saudi woman (Sarita Choudhury from Homeland), and the two hit it off in a taboo star-crossed romance. The story is based on a novel by Dave Eggers, who also wrote the screenplay. Tom Tykwer (Run Lola Run, Cloud Atlas) directs. Critical reception is mixed.

Queen of the Desert – Nicole Kidman portrays Gertrude Bell in this historical drama, chronicling the achievements of the intrepid British explorer, diplomat and writer in the Middle East in the late 1800s and early 1900s. James Franco, Damian Lewis and Jenny Agutter are among the other stars, along with Robert Pattinson, who plays Colonel T.E. Lawrence. It's the first feature in six years from the veteran writer-director Werner Herzog. Sadly, critical reception is generally negative.

Raman Ragav 2.0 – Nawazuddin Siddiqui portrays a serial killer who preyed on citizens in 1960s Mumbai, using a steel rod to smash victims' heads to bits. Vicky Kaushal also stars. It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya. Opens Friday.

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Also showing

The European Union Film Festival is under way at CentralWorld. I covered the offerings in a special post last week. The opening film, the terrific Tale of Tales, unfortunately won't be repeated during the festival, but it has been picked up by the small Thai distributor Mono Film, and hopefully it will soon get a decent general release. There are also screenings at the usual places I cover here, the Friese-Greene Club and Alliance Francaise. But I'm not going into details about those because ...

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Take note

I am cutting things short this week in order to say farewell.

It's been my pleasure to bring you news of new movie releases and film events in Bangkok these past several years, but now it is time for me to shift my focus to other matters besides what's playing in Bangkok cinemas.

I leave you with an urging to get out and watch films in the cinema, and please support Bangkok's handful of independent theaters – House and Lido and especially the Scala.

Thanks for reading.

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 special: The Third Silent Film Festival in Thailand, June 16-22, 2016

Vampires, those fanged fiends who come out at night to suck our blood, have long been a staple of the silver screen, and one of the earliest examples of the genre, Nosferatu, will be the opening entry of the Third Silent Film Festival in Thailand, next Thursday, June 16, at the Scala theatre in Bangkok’s Siam Square.

Directed by F.W. Murnau, the 1922 German Expressionist horror was an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Names and details were changed when producers were denied the rights to the novel. So, for example, Count Dracula, as portrayed by German character actor Max Schreck, became Count Orlok. Stoker’s estate sued, and got a court to rule that all copies of the film should be destroyed. But just like vampires, Nosferatu was not so easily killed. And the film stands today as a masterpiece of cinema and an influential landmark in the horror genre.

Put on by the Film Archive (Public Organisation) Thailand, the Silent Film Festival will feature eight other films, including more examples of German Expressionism, from the master himself, Murnau, and others.

Among them will be Murnau’s The Last Laugh, about an elderly hotel doorman who feels disgraced after he’s put in charge of cleaning the washroom. Also from Murnau is his first Hollywood effort, 1927’s Sunrise, which many cinephiles consider one of the best of the silent era. It’s about a social-climbing farmer who falls in love with a city woman and attempts to murder his wife.

And the German slate is further filled out with 1925’s Variety, which depicts romance between high-flying circus acrobats. It’s directed by E.A. Dupont, whose Piccadilly was a hit with crowds at last year’s Silent Film Festival.

Sure to strike a chord with local audiences is a gender-bending 1921 German adaptation of Hamlet. Starring Danish actor Asta Nielsen and directed by Svend Gade and Heinz Schall, this version imagines what it would have been like if Hamlet was born female and disguised as a male to preserve the family’s lineage.

French film heritage is acknowledged in two entries, the romantic comedy Two Timid Souls from 1928, which was the last silent film by the French master Rene Clair, and 1920’s The Swallow and the Titmouse by Andre Antoine. Remarkably, The Swallow and the Titmouse spent 63 years on the shelf, unedited, before film editor Henri Colpi discovered more than six hours of footage. A World War I saga of families who operate river barges, Colpi trimmed the epic down to a tight 79 minutes.

Following on from the Silent Film Fest’s focus on early Hitchcock two years ago, there’s another example of the early British thriller, 1928’s Shooting Stars, directed by Anthony Asquith. It’s the twisting story of a film star falling in love with an actress whose married to another actor.

And no Silent Film Festival would be complete without an effort by one of the icons of the silent era – Buster Keaton. Paying tribute to the ever-daring comedy actor, who died 50 years ago this year, will be his laugh-filled western Go West from 1925. It’s the story of a hapless city slicker who lands a job on a cattle ranch.

Cue the music

A key component of the Silent Film Festival in Thailand is live musical accompaniment. As has been done in the past two years, world-renowned musicians who are experts in silent film are brought in just for the fest.

Performing on opening night will be German composer and multi-instrumentalist Gunter A. Buchwald. Acclaimed as a “world class improviser”, Buchwald has been performing with silent films since 1978, adding musical flourishes to more than 2,900 screenings.

He’ll alternate shows with Tama Karena, a New Zealander who has been the director of music at the Chinese International School in Hangzhou, China. He previously taught music in Hong Kong and at the New International School of Thailand. Kerena’s performances include the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy, which is the world’s top silent-film showcase.

Making opening night with Nosferatu at the Scala even more special will be the addition of Thai classical musician Anant Nark-kong, who will add traditional bamboo percussion to the accompaniment of Buchwald.

The Third Silent Film Festival in Thailand runs from June 16 to 22 at the Apex theatres in Siam Square.

The opening-night show Nosferatu will be at the Scala. Tickets are 200 baht. All other shows will be at the Lido, where tickets are 120 baht. Tickets are available now at the Lido box office.

For the schedule and more details, check www.Fapot.org or www.Facebook.com/silentfilmthailand.

(Cross-published in The Nation)

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

Patong Girl

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Also opening

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Also showing

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

The Friese-Greene Club – Chow Yun-fat is at his best tonight in The Killer, John Woo's seminal slice of 1980s Hong Kong action and thrills. Tomorrow, it's the "quirky '80s" with the Coen Bros.' debut Blood Simple, which pretty much set the template for everything they've done since. The club is booked for a private event on Saturday but is back open on Sunday for Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Next Tuesday, there is a special screening, of the Cambodian documentary I Am Chut Wutty, which covers the killing of an environmental activist. With a venue in Phnom Penh threatened with "strong action" if it showed the film, director Fran Lambrick granted permission for the FGC to show it. It is a case similar to Bradley Cox's banned-in-Cambodia documentary Who Killed Chea Vichea? about a slain Cambodian labor organizer. Find out more at the Facebook events page. And next Wednesday it's Carol Reed's film-noir spy tale Our Man in Havana, starring Alec Guinness. Shows are at 8pm (except for Seven Samurai, which starts at 7). The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

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

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

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Take note

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

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening April 6-12, 2016

Luang Phee Jazz 4G

Today's Chakri Memorial Day public holiday kicks off anticipatory celebrations of next week's Songkran Thai New Year, which is a three-day public holiday from next Wednesday to Friday. So, this week and next, the movies are being released a day or two early in hopes that the idled government workers, corporate staffers and bank employees will want to spend their time out of the office paying to see new movies.

The big Thai tentpole is the Songkran-flavored Luang Phee Jazz 4G (หลวงพี่แจ๊ส 4G, a.k.a. Joking Jazz 4G). It's about a bespectacled, gauge-eared, tattooed hipster with a checkered past who is hiding out as a monk at an isolated mountaintop temple. He's played by hipster comedian Phadung “Jazz Chuanchuen” Songsang. He and his temple-boy friends have an adventure as they are sent to Bangkok on a mission during Songkran.

Directed by Poj Arnon, Luang Pee Jazz 4G is the first release under the prolific producer-director's rebooted Film Guru production marque, which has been relaunched in a new partnership with Major Cineplex, the Kingdom's biggest movie-theater chain.

Poj and Film Guru were formerly associated with Phranakorn Film, a film studio owned by the Thana Cineplex chain of upcountry cinemas. Phranakorn released a string of hit country comedies in the early 2000s, including the original Luang Phee (Holy Man) movie in 2005.

Originated by comedian, actor and director Note Chernyim, the first Luang Phee Teng starred ubiquitous comedian and TV host Pongsak "Theng Terdterng" Pongsuwan as a former street hood who has entered the monkhood and ministers to colorful residents in a provincial town. Other Luang Phee Teng installments followed in 2008 and 2010, with rapper Joey Boy and actor-musician Krissada Sukosol Clapp taking respective turns as the saffron-clad lead character. As each movie stands alone, with different characters in the lead, they aren't really sequels but are part of a franchise all the same.

The Nation has more on this latest Luang Phee movie, which is the fourth in the series. Rated 15+

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Also opening

The Huntsman: Winter’s War – Universal Pictures is borrowing more than a couple pages from Disney as it attempts to spin its 2012 live-action Snow White and the Huntsman film into an epic franchise. A bit like Frozen, though likely not near as much fun, this new picture is the tale of cold sister royals in a wintry realm. Charlize Theron returns as the Evil Queen Ravenna, who is joined by her sister, the Ice Queen Freya, played by Emily Blunt. They ban love from the land and are cruel. So it's up to one of the Evil Queen's former soldiers, the huntsman Eric (Chris Hemsworth) and his comrade-in-arms (and secret lover) Sara (Jessica Chastain) to fight back. In addition to conventional 2D, it's in converted 3D, including IMAX. Critical reception is mostly negative. Rated 13+

The Himalayas – This fact-based adventure story recounts the bond between famed South Korean mountaineer Um Hong-kil and plucky younger climbers, culminating in the risky scaling of Everest by the senior climber, who comes out of retirement for a very meaningful ascent. Critical reception has been mixed, but it beat Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the South Korean box office. It's in Korean with English and Thai subtitles at the True Screen X at the Quartier CineArt. That's the panoramic 270-degree cinema in the ritzy EmQuartier mall. Rated G

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Tonight, Robert Redford is a young CIA analyst in over his head in 3 Days of the Condor. Tomorrow, it's Bruce Lee's The Way of the Dragon, which has him in Rome, helping a relative defeat Italian mobsters. A fur-covered Chuck Norris is a featured fighter. On Friday, it's Static, an early feature-film effort by Mark Romanek, the innovative director of many classic music videos. Saturday has dystopian time-travelling by Bruce Willis in Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys while Sunday is Akira Kurosawa's mystery thriller Rashomon. Please take note of the Club's new policy on smoking, which snuffs the butts from 7.15 until the movie is over. If you've visited before and were bothered by the smoke but didn't say anything except to vote with your feet, maybe give the place another chance. 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 – I now have a belated clarification on the programming changes at the Alliance, which last Friday began weekly screenings of French films with Thai subtitles. That's in addition to the usual Wednesday screenings of French films with English subs as well as a "kid's movie" on one Saturday each month. This week, owing to Chakri Day, there is no English-subbed screening. Friday has Rengaine (Hold Back), about the taboo romance between a black Christian man and an Arab Muslim woman in Paris. It's at 7pm. Again, it will screen in French with Thai subtitles. Also, there is now a cost for these movies – 100 baht for non-members, 50 baht for members and Alliance students. Take note that there will be no films at the Alliance next week, because of the Songkran public holiday. The films resume on April 20 and April 22.

German Film Series – In East Germany in 1989, as the Berlin Wall is set to come crumbling down, a little girl wants to build a machine to bring home her uncle who escaped to the West. Meanwhile, an East German police officer tries to keep order. It's Sputnik, part of the German Film Series put on monthly by the Goethe-Institut. The show is at 1pm on Sunday at the Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, and at 6pm on Tuesday in the little FA Cinematheque on the second floor of the Bangkok Art and Culture Center (not the fifth floor auditorium). For details, check the Goethe website.

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Take note

As mentioned at the top of this week's post, the movies are being released a day or two earlier during the Songkran holiday period. Usually, new movies are released on Thursdays.

Next week, there will be program changes on Tuesday, Thai New Year's Eve, with the much-anticipated Stephen Chow comedy The Mermaid. and sneak previews for the Emma Watson Chilean coup drama Colonia. More new releases are set to follow next Wednesday on the actual Songkran Day with the Thai horror Take Me Home, Disney's live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book and the Terrence Malick head-scratcher Knight of Cups. So see you next Tuesday.

Looking past Songkran, the FCCT will have a one-two punch of screenings in its Contemporary World Film Series, with Deepa Mehta's Earth on April 19 and the Pakistani drama Dukhtar (Daughter) on April 25.

And there will be a second edition of the Asean Film Festival, organized by the Culture Ministry, which is keen to promote Bangkok the hub of Southeast Asian art and culture. According to a source, this year's fest runs from April 21 to 26 at SF World, with plans is to show classic films from neighboring countries, including the serpentine fantasy romance Pous Keng Kang from Cambodia, 1954's After the Curfew from Indonesia and Lino Brocka's Manila in the Claws of Light from 1975. I hope to have more on that soon.

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+

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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.

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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.

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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 March 10-16, 2016

The Hunting Ground

Rape culture at American colleges is exposed in The Hunting Ground, a documentary on campus rape crimes, institutional cover-ups and the toll that rape and sexual abuse takes on students, families and society.

It's the latest film by Kirby Dick, the noted documentary filmmaker whose previous works include Twist of Faith (on sex abuse of children in the Catholic Church), the informative This Film Is Not Yet Rated (on Hollywood's hypocritical film-ratings agency) and The Invisible War (on sexual assault in the U.S. military).

A winner of several awards, The Hunting Ground features the Academy Award-nominated original song "Til It Happens to You", written by Diane Warren and performed by Lady Gaga. It was featured in a special live performance at the recent Oscars ceremony. Critical reception has been mostly positive.

Brought to Thailand by the Documentary Club, The Hunting Ground is at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld and SFX The Crystal Ekamai-Ram Indra. For more details, check the Documentary Club Facebook page and SF's bookings site. Rated 13+

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Also opening

Kung Fu Panda 3 – The DreamWorks Animation talking-animals franchise keeps rolling, with the portly panda martial-artist Po (Jack Black) reuniting with his long-lost father (Brian Cranston) and paying a visit to a secret panda paradise. Meanwhile, a new villain arises in the form of a snorting bull named Kai (J.K. Simmons), who is defeating kung-fu masters across the land and stealing their supernatural powers. Along with Black, returning voices include Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, David Cross, Dustin Hoffman, James Hong and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Kate Hudson and Jolie's children add their voices to this latest adventure. Critical reception is generally positive. This was in daytime sneak previews last week and now moves to general release. It's in 3D in some cinemas. Rated G

The Divergent Series: Allegiant – Taking a page from adaptations of Harry Potter, The Hobbit and The Hunger Games, it's apparently mandatory now for the third book in young-adult-science-fiction novel trilogies to be broken in two for the Hollywood movie adaptations. This is part one of the final chapter in Divergent, with Part 2 (now called Ascendant) not due out until next year. So it's not over yet. Anyway, the story has the teen heroine Tris (Shailene Woodley) and her rebel-scum friends faced with having to flee for their lives from a comfortable existence in post-apocalyptic utopian Chicago. Theo James, Jeff Daniels, Octavia Spencer, Ray Stevenson, Zoë Kravitz,  Miles Teller and Ansel Elgort also star. Critical reception is starting to trickle in, but won't really get going until next week when this opens in the U.S. The release in overseas territories is a move to gin up box-office takings before the majority of critics weigh in and trash the film. In addition to 2D screenings in ordinary cinemas, there's also a 2D IMAX version. Rated 13+

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Also showing

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – Film screenings resume at the FCCT, with a special Thai documentary screening and panel discussion tonight and a South African film on Monday. First up is Y/Our Music, a critically acclaimed and nominated Thai-British documentary on the political and social divide in Thai music. It covers the nearly forgotten mor lam artists of the Thai country music scene in the Northeast and oddball indie musicians in Bangkok. Panelists will be co-director "Art" Waraluck Hiransrettawat Every, political scientist Dr. Sirote Klampaiboon, and Bangkok Post music columnist John Clewly. The show is at 7 tonight. Admission is (yikes!) 450 baht for non-members. Monday marks the beginning of the year's Contemporary World Film Series, which opens with Drum, a fact-based 2004 South African drama about a writer for Drum magazine getting caught up in the anti-Apartheid movement in the 1950s. Taye Diggs and Gabriel Mann star. South African Ambassador Ruby Marks will be on hand, along with South African wine and snacks. Entry is 150 baht for non-members plus 100 baht for the drinks and food. The show starts at 7pm.

German Film Week – The Goethe-Institut's annual showcase continues tonight with Inbetween Worlds (Zwischen Welten), following a German soldier in Afghanistan as he becomes conflicted between duty and his conscience as he works in a Taliban-controlled area with a young Afghan interpreter. Tomorrow, it's A God send (Ein Geschenk der Götter), in which an unemployed actress takes a job teaching theater to other jobless folks. Saturday has Jack, about a 10-year-old boy looking for his missing mother. And the week concludes on Sunday with Patong Girl, about a dysfunctional German family on vacation on Phuket. It was shot in Phuket with a Thai and German cast, with assistance from production-services firm De Warrenne Pictures. Shows are at 7pm at Paragon Cineplex. Tickets are 120 baht and 150 baht at the box office.

The Friese-Greene Club – A support-group meeting for the confused will be convened at the Club immediately following tonight's screening of the L.A.-noir mystery Mulholland Drive, part of a monthlong tribute to cult director David Lynch. Tomorrow's "controversial" film is another cult entry, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. "Not for the faint-hearted," warns the Club. Saturday is the first of three screenings this month of Trump: What's the Deal?, a 1999 documentary on the bloviating U.S. presidential candidate. It's reportedly "the movie Trump doesn't want you to see." Showing no fear of being sued by Trump, the FGC has specially licensed the film for screenings in its nine-seat boutique cinema, and is charging 150 baht a head to recoup the costs. Douglas Slocum, the veteran British cinematographer who died last month at age 103, is paid tribute in Sunday screenings. This week's entry is The Servant, a 1963 adaptation of a Harold Pinter novel that won four BAFTAs, including best cinematography. "The Best of Danish" is featured on Wednesdays, with Thomas Vinterberg's 1998 family drama Festen. It's the first of the films made under the rules of the Dogme 95 movement, which aimed to bring filmmaking back to the basics of story, acting, and theme, eschewing special effects and slickness. 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 has got it going on when it comes to film. In addition to the recent Wim Wenders retrospective and the ongoing German Film Week there are the monthly installments in the year-round German Film Series, which has screenings at the Thai Film Archive and the Bangkok Art and Culture Center. This month's entry is Love Steaks, an indie romance about the unusual relationship between a resort's trainee masseur and the hotel's chef-in-training. It screens at 1pm on Sunday at the Thai Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, and at 6pm on Tuesday in the BACC's fifth-floor auditorium.

Alliance Française – Following a one-week hiatus, the free French films return at the Alliance with Deux de la Vague (Two in the Wave), a 2010 documentary on the friendship between two of the founding titans of the French New Wave – Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. It screens at 7pm on Wednesday, March 16, at the Alliance.

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Take note

Details are starting to emerge about the Salaya International Documentary Film Festival, which runs from March 26 to April 3 at the Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, and the Bangkok Art and Culture Center. Hit the Salaya Doc Facebook page to see what they are up to.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening March 3-9, 2016

Hail, Caesar!

With Hail, Caesar!, the Coen Bros. return to the Hollywood Golden Age at Capitol Pictures, which they first mined for screwball-comedy hijinks in Barton Fink, which was set in the 1940s.

Now in the 1950s, Capitol has a brash new executive “fixer”, played by Josh Brolin, who has his work cut out for him when the studio's biggest star, matinee idol Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) goes missing during the production of a swords-and-sandals epic. Turns out he's been kidnapped by a shadowy group known as "the Future".

Aside from Coen veterans like Clooney and Brolin, there's also Frances McDormand as a film editor and Tilda Swinton in dual roles as rival twin sister gossip columnists. Channing Tatum and Alden Ehrenreich are a couple other young leading men at the studio. Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson and Jonah Hill also star.

The Coens have stated that this is the third entry in their Numbskull Trilogy of films with their favorite numbskull Clooney, following O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and Intolerable Cruelty (2003), though 2008's Burn After Reading might also fit in there too.

Critical reception is mostly positive, putting Hail, Caesar! somewhere in the Coens' middle realm, below A Serious Man and above The Man Who Wasn't There. Rated 13+

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Also opening

London Has Fallen – Remember 2013, when there were two back-to-back "Die Hard in the White House movies"? One was Roland Emmerich's stupidly fun White House Down, with Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, and the other was the straight-faced, grimmer-toned and much-less-fun Olympus Has Fallen, which was directed by Antoine Fuqua and starred Gerard Butler as a disgraced Secret Service agent who redeems himself when the White House comes under attack. He's back in London Has Fallen, protecting president Aaron Eckhart as he attends a British prime minister's funeral, which becomes a target for a Pakistani arms dealer who wants to wipe out all the world leaders. Charlotte Riley joins the cast, playing a British agent. Returnees include Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster and Melissa Leo. Babak Najafi, an Iranian-born Swedish filmmaker, takes over as director, making his English-language debut. Rated 18+

Love Say Hey .. Yaak Say Wa Rak Ther (เลิฟเซเฮ.. อยากเซว่ารักเธอ) – High-school seniors have to figure out how to balance love, friendship and their studies as they work to make a film together for their graduation project. Napat Jaitientum directs. He previously directed the gay romances, last year's Love Love You and 2014's Love's Coming. Rated G

Office – An office supervisor (Bae Sung-woo) snaps after a long day at work, kills his family and disappears. A police detective (Park Sung-woong) is on the case, but co-workers are tight-lipped about the man, until, one by one, they start getting killed off too. It's directed by Hong Won-chan, who makes his debut as helmer following screenplays on such acclaimed South Korean thrillers as The Chaser, The Yellow Sea and Confession of Murder. In Korean with English and Thai subtitles at SFW CentralWorld and Esplanade Ratchada. Rated 18+

Mojin: The Lost Legend – An infamous tomb robber (Chen Kun) has settled down to retire with his new fiancee when an old girlfriend (Angelababy) who he thought died 20 years ago resurfaces and lures him back to China and the tomb of a Mongolian princess, which holds an artifact that has the power to raise the dead. Thai-dubbed it seems. Rated 13+

Jai Gangaajal – Priyanka Chopra portrays the first female police superintendent in Bankipur, Bihar. She decides to take on a corrupt local politician and his henchmen. Manav Kaul, Rahul Bhat and Queen Harish also star. In Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Danish films, David Lynch, "controversy!", a tribute to cinematographer Donald Slocum and Donald Trump: What's the Deal? are featured this month. The abstract movies of David Lynch are featured on Thursdays, beginning with The Elephant Man. Friday's "controversial" film is A Clockwork Orange. This Saturday is a one-off special event, the fourth edition of the 9 Film Fest, which will screen the winning entries in this year's online contest. To compete, filmmakers have to come up original nine-minute films that contain a "signature item" that is unique from year to year. This year's "9SI" was "flower". Sunday has the films shot by Slocum, beginning with the screwball British comedy The Lavender Hill Mob. Later in the month, the club has scheduled Saturday screenings of Trump: What's the Deal?, a 1999 documentary that is reportedly "the movie Trump doesn't want you to see". It's set for March 12, March 19 and March 26, for Bt150 per person. 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.

Signes de Nuit in Bangkok – The Reading Room, Filmvirus, the Goethe-Institut and the International Festival Signet de Nuit present an extensive selection of experimental short films and documentaries from this year's International Festival Signet de Nuit in Paris. Screenings are on Friday and Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at the Reading Room on Silom Soi 19. For the full schedule, please check the Facebook events page.

Wim Wenders: A Retrospective – The Thai Film Archive lets light filter through its state-of-the-art 3D projector for the first time, with back-to-back Saturday screenings of two 3D films by influential German director Wim Wenders. First up at 1pm is Pina, Wenders' tribute to the late German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. That's followed by the drama Every Thing will be Fine, which has James Franco as writer who kills a child in a car wreck. These are two films in which the filmmaker seeks to use 3D to "immerse" the audience in sights, sounds, experiences and storytelling, rather than just titillate with gimmicks and flashy special effects as most mainstream commercial 3D films do. It's an approach that contemporaries of Wenders have taken, such as Werner Herzog with his 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams or Martin Scorsese, with his epic childhood drama Hugo., and Jean-Luc Godard with Goodbye to Language. For more details, check the special post, the Archive's website or the Goethe website.

German Film Week – Following the recently concluded Open Air Cinema season, the ongoing Wim Wenders: A Retrospective and the monthly German Film Series, German cinema remains in focus with German Film Week from March 7 to 13 at Paragon Cineplex. It will screen seven contemporary German films from 2013-14. Here's the line-up:

• Monday, March 7: Who am I – No System is safe – Baran bo Odar directs this thriller about a hacker who uses the virtual reality to become "somebody". An opening reception precedes this screening, beginning at 6pm.
• Tuesday, March 8: Schönefeld Boulevard – A plus-size teenage girl gets her first taste of the wide open world when construction of a new Berlin airport comes to her neighborhood.
• Wednesday, March 9: The Age of Cannibals (Zeit der Kannibalen) – Two longtime business consultants who make their living travelling to far-flung countries advising companies, are both in for disappointment when they are passed over for a big promotion.
• Thursday, March 10: Inbetween Worlds (Zwischen Welten) – In Afghanistan, a German soldier becomes conflicted between duty and his conscience as he works in a Taliban-controlled area with a young Afghani interpreter.
• Friday, March 11: A God send (Ein Geschenk der Götter) – An unemployed actress takes a job teaching a theater class to chronically jobless folks. They will try to put on the play Antigone.
• Saturday, March 12: Jack – A 10-year-old boy goes looking for his mother after she fails to turn up to collect him after school. A nominee for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, the drama is directed by Edward Berger, who co-wrote the screenplay with Nele Mueller-Stöfen.
• Sunday, March 13: Patong Girl – There's conflict for a German family on vacation in Phuket, when the teenage son falls for a local lass and runs off. Mum runs off too, to search for the boy, but instead goes on a journey to find herself. Susanna Salonen directs this Thai-German comedy-drama, filmed in Phuket with a Thai and German cast.

Shows are at 7pm. All films will have English subtitles. Tickets cost 120 baht and 150 baht at the Paragon box office.

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Sneak preview

Kung Fu Panda 3 – The Dreamworks Animation franchise returns with Jack Black's rotund martial artist Po and his friends getting up to more adventures. Po, the orphaned panda, finds his homeland and bonds with his father and other panda family members. Meanwhile, an evil new adversary arises in the former of master Kai, voiced by J.K. Simmons. Along with Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, David Cross, Seth Rogen and Jackie Chan in returning roles, newcomers to the franchise include Bryan Cranston and Kate Hudson. It's in sneak previews from Saturday until Wednesday, with kid-friendly screenings starting between 2pm and 5pm . Rated G

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Take note

There's no free film screening next Wednesday at the Alliance Française, which instead will have a one-off concert Duo Brunetti-Pachioli. The free French films return on March 16.