Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening June 16-22, 2016

Distance

Three award-winning Asian indie directors – Tan Shijie from Singapore, Xin Yukun from China and Sivaroj Kongsakul from Thailand – each take a crack at directing Taiwanese actor Chen Bo-lin in Distance
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The three-segment drama has the actor in different roles in stories that explore the notion of "distance" and what it means in our societies.

The producer behind this ambitious indie project is Anthony Chen, the Singaporean filmmaker who won much acclaim for his 2013 drama Ilo Ilo. He's helped out by Thai producer Aditya Assarat, who also wrote one of the segments.

Distance previously was the opening entry in the Golden Horse Film Festival in Taipei.

It's in Chinese with English and Thai subtitles at SF World Cinema CentralWorld, SFX Cinema Central Rama 9 and SFX Cinema Maya Chiang Mai. Rated 15+

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Also opening

The Nice Guys – Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe team up for this buddy comedy that is a throwback to a bygone era of Hollywood comedies. Set in 1970s Los Angeles, the neo-noir story has a down-on-his-luck private eye (Gosling) getting help from a self-employed enforcer (Crowe) in investigating the mysterious death of a porn star. Shane Black, the cult-figure screenwriter of Lethal Weapon, co-wrote the script and directs. Critics love it. Rated 15+

Central Intelligence – And Thai movie distributors and cinema chains double down on buddy comedies, with this one starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Kevin Hart. Johnson is a former fat kid who was bullied in school. He grew up musclebound and became a CIA agent. He attends his high-school reunion while claiming to be on secret mission. He and a motor-mouthed classmate (Hart) get up to adventures while they foil a terror plot. The director is Rawson Michael Thurber, who previously helmed the comedy masterpiece Dodgeball as well as We're the Millers. Critical reception is just starting. Rated G

Finding Dory – After more than a decade of enduring the endless pestering of talk-show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres to make a sequel to 2003's Finding Nemo, animators at Disney-Pixar finally gave up and made Ellen a movie featuring her forgetful blue tang fish Dory. She starts to have flashbacks to her family, and enlists her clownfish friends Marlin and Nemo to help her. She's then captured and taken to a marine research facility, where she has to make new friends to help her in her quest. Albert Brooks is back as the voice of Marlin with other voice talent including Ed O'Neill, Idris Elba, Dominic West and many others. Critics have all drunk the Pixar Kool-Aid. It's in 3D in some cinemas, including IMAX. Rated G

Udta Punjab – Four characters – a rock star, a migrant labourer, a doctor and a cop – fight the menace of drugs. Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Alia Bhatt and Diljit Dosanjh star. In Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya. Opens Friday.

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Also showing

The Third Silent Film Festival in Thailand – One of the earliest vampire films, 1922's Nosferatu opens the festival at 8 tonight at the Scala. Live musical accompaniment will be by German composer and multi-instrumentalist Gunter A. Buchwald, with percussion by Thai classical musician Anant Nark-kong. Tickets are 200 baht. The fest then shifts over to the Lido for screenings from Friday until Wednesday. Tickets are 120 baht. They are all great films and are worth seeing on the big screen with live musical accompaniment – it is an experience that can only be had in the cinema. The line-up was profiled in a special post last week. For further details, check check www.Fapot.org or www.Facebook.com/silentfilmthailand.

Singapore Film Festival – The third annual Bangkok showcase of Singaporean cinema gets underway today at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld. Running until Sunday, the fest have five entries, ranging from 1997's 12 Storeys to last year's SG50 celebration 7 Letters. It was all covered in a special post last week. Tickets are free and will be handed out 30 minutes before the shows. For more details, check the SF cinemas' site.

Bangkok Gay and Lesbian Film Festival – The second edition of the BGLFF continues until Sunday at the Quartier CineArt. Lots of worthwhile stuff. The line-up and schedule were detailed in a recent special post. Tickets are 160 baht and 180 baht. Please note that there are no ads before the shows, so the films are generally starting on time, at least that was the case when I attended last weekend.

The Friese-Greene Club – American politics are still in focus tonight with Recount, an award-winning 2008 HBO drama about the 2000 presidential ballot recount in Florida. Kevin Spacey, Laura Dern, John Hurt and Denis Leary are among the stars. Tomorrow, it's Wong Kar-wai's drama of unrequited romance In the Mood for Love, which had Bangkok locations standing in for 1960s Hong Kong. And Saturday has a "not-so-classic" foreign film made in Thailand, Sacrifice!, a 1972 Italian cannibal horror that's also known as The Man from Deep River. And Sunday's film from 75 years ago is the Josef von Sternberg thriller The Shanghai Gesture. Next Wednesday is a documentary on U.S. politics, 1960's Primary, which recalls the Democratic nomination fight between JFK and Hubert Humphrey. 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 – Tomorrow night's French film with Thai subtitles is Il était une forêt (Once Upon a Forest), a documentary by Luc Jacquet, who later did March of the Penguins. Next Wednesday's French film with English subtitles is Alda et Maria (All Is Well), in which a pair of teenage girls escape civil war in the Congo and land in Lisbon. Shows are at 7pm. Admission for the general public is 100 baht.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – The Contemporary World Film Series has one more movie this month, with Le meraviglie (The Wonders) at 7pm on Monday. An Italian-Swiss drama, it's about a family of beekeepers in the Tuscan countryside who have their quiet lives disrupted by the arrival of a troubled teenage boy and by a reality-TV crew. Directed by Alice Rohrwacher, it won the Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014. Admission is 150 baht for non-members plus 100 baht for anyone wanting the wine and cheese laid on by the Swiss Embassy.

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Take note

House cinema is still closed for renovations. The place was to reopen today, but work is taking a bit longer than expected, now lasting until June 22.

The European Union Film Festival kicks off next week at CentralWorld, running June 22 to July 3.

And the oddball Thailand International Film Destination Festival has finally got around to simply stating when it will take place. Drumroll please: July 4 to 13 at Paragon Cineplex.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening January 7-13, 2016

Cartel Land

One of the most significant contributions to the Thai movie-going world in 2015 was the formation of the Documentary Club, which brought in a steady stream of buzzworthy new documentaries to local cinemas and promoted them mostly through online social media.

Formed as a personal project of Bioscope magazine editor Thida Plitpholkarnpim, the Documentary Club has been a big success, showing that mainstream audiences really do want to watch documentaries, and it forges on into 2016, with its ongoing Doc Holiday series at SF Cinemas, starting with Cartel Land.

Directed by Matthew Heineman (Kathryn Bigelow is among the executive producers), Cartel Land gets into Sicario territory as it trains lenses on the ongoing Mexican Drug War and profiles vigilante efforts to stop the violence on both sides of the border, with the U.S.-based Arizona Border Recon founded by Tim “Nailer” Foley and Mexico's Autodefensas, run by a physician, Dr. Jose Mireles.

One of the titles being mentioned as a possible Oscar nominee, Cartel Land premiered at last year's Sundance Film Festival, where it won Best Director and the Special Jury Award for Cinematography in the U.S. Documentary Competition.

It's at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld and at SFX Maya Chiang Mai. For more details, check the Documentary Club Facebook page. Rated 18+

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Also opening

The Big Short – The beginnings of this fact-based financial comedy go back to the closing credits of The Other Guys, the 2010 Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg comedy about police partners trying to arrest a crooked Wall Street financier. Humorously illustrated with simple charts and diagrams, the closing credits of The Other Guys explained the Ponzi scheme that led to the 2008 financial meltdown. Director Adam McKay, better known for comedies like Anchorman or Stepbrothers than for prestige-seeking social-commentary pieces, wanted to continue with that theme. That led him to this unlikely adaptation of Michael Lewis' non-fiction book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. It's about financial-world outsiders who spot a worrisome trend in the housing-lending market and then decide to profit from the inevitable collapse. Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and a bearded Brad Pitt are among the ensemble cast. Earning comparisons to another much-acclaimed high-energy finance flick, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Big Short has been nominated for three Golden Globe Awards and is being mentioned as a possible Oscar nominee. Critical reception is generally praiseworthy. Rated 15+

The Hateful Eight – Right from the beginning, Quentin Tarantino has made a big deal out of his latest picture. He threw a tantrum when the script was leaked and vowed not to make the movie. Friends and financial backers convinced him to change his mind, and so he organized a table read of the script before a live audience. More yes-men emerged to tell Tarantino to make the movie. In shooting it, he decided to revive a moribund film format, Ultra Panavision 70, and then take it on a "roadshow" to the handful of theaters still equipped to project 70mm. It comes to us in digital form only, which is too bad. With plenty of Tarantino's non-stop, rapid-fire vulgarities, the story is about passengers on a stagecoach – a hangman (Kurt Russell), his condemned prisoner (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a bounty hunter and former Union Army cavalry major (Samuel L. Jackson) and a town's new sheriff (Walton Goggins) – seeking refuge from a blizzard in a remote outpost. They encounter four other figures – an elderly Confederate general (Bruce Dern), a cowboy (Michael Madsen), an Englishman (Tim Roth) and a Mexican (Demián Bichir) – whose motives are mysterious. Influenced by TV westerns such as Bonanza and The Virginian, it's been described as an Agatha Christie drawing-room mystery set in the old American west. It is already nominated for three Golden Globe Awards: screenplay, best score (by Ennio Morricone, his first in decades) and actress (for Leigh, her second Globe nod following 1994's Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle). And The Hateful Eight is also feeling the Oscar buzz. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 18+

The Dressmaker – Kate Winslet stars in this Australian comedy-drama. Set in the early 1950s, it's about a small Outback town's former resident, who left in disgrace decades before, returning to care for her ailing, eccentric mother (Judy Davis). An accomplished Paris fashion designer, she sets up her sewing machine and begins to bring a new sense of style to the locals, among them the town lawman, played by Hugo Weaving. Liam Hemsworth also stars. Jocelyn Moorhouse (Muriel's Wedding, How to Make an American Quilt) directs. It was a major nominee at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards and winner of the best actress, supporting actress and supporting actor prizes for Winslet, Davis and Weaving. Critical reception is mixed, leaning to positive. Rated 15+

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Satyajit Ray's restored Apu Trilogy screens on Thursdays. Tonight, it's the second entry, 1956's Aparajito. Fridays have a line-up of great motion pictures lensed by cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, who died on January 1 at age 85. It starts with Robert Altman's LA-noir entry, The Long Goodbye, starring Elliott Gould as detective Philip Marlowe. Saturdays are devoted to Paul Thomas Anderson, who was right out of the gates with his first feature, Hard Eight, starring Philip Baker Hall as a roving gambler who takes a young buck (John C. Reilly) under his wing. Gwyneth Paltrow also stars. And watch for Philip Seymour Hoffman – it wouldn't be a PT Anderson film without him. Sundays, the church pews are reserved for worshipers of St. Audrey, starting with 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's. Truman Capote, Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini will deliver the liturgy. Wednesdays thumb their nose at the corn-fed with "U.S. Meet World", a series of critically acclaimed "foreign" films that for reasons nobody can figure were hits in the United States. Next week's offering is all about that American fascination for weird Spanish Civil War stories with Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. 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 Open Air Cinema – The Swiss embassy chips in with I Am the Keeper (Der Goalie bin ig), a drama about a criminal who is released from prison after he served his time and kept his mouth shut. He seeks a fresh start back in his hometown and falls for a local diner's waitress while trying to stay out of the way of his past. The show is at 7.30pm on Tuesday, January 12, outdoors at the Goethe-Institut on Sathorn Soi 1.

Alliance Française – It's West Side Story in France in Geronimo, which has star-crossed young lovers from rival gangs shielded by an idealistic young community educator. Tony Gatlif directs. The show is at 7pm on Wednesday, January 13, at the Alliance.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening January 15-21, 2015

The Isthmus

A singularly weird film, The Isthmus (ที่ว่างระหว่างสมุทร, Teewang Rawang Samut) opens for a limited run this week, more than a year after it made initial bow on the festival circuit.

Tapping into indie Thai cinema's popularity for "contemplative" or "shoegaze" films, the film's poster adds a new tagline for the Bangkok theatrical run, "A celebration of nothingness."

Directed by a pair of university film-studies lecturers, Sopawan Boonnimitra and Peerachai Kerdsint, The Isthmus deals with a little girl who suddenly starts speaking only Burmese after her Myanmar nanny dies. The girl's hi-so single mother (Sangthong Gate-U-thong from Citizen Dog and Muay Thai Chaiya) is desperate to find out what's wrong, so she takes the girl and journeys to Ranong, the coastal border province that's home to the late nanny's sister and a vast community of Mynamar migrants. There, they encounter various other characters, such a local physician and community activist, and an oddball Japanese priest.

Screened at the 2013 edition of the Busan film festival and the World Film Festival of Bangkok, The Isthmus is a strange film and is difficult to sum up, though it is a worthy attempt to address the issues of Myanmar migrants and show their place in society. It's at House on RCA and at Apex in Siam Square.

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Also opening

Blackhat – Celebrated director Michael Mann (Heat, Collateral) makes his return with this globe-trotting high-tech crime thriller. Chris Hemsworth stars as a convicted hacker who cuts a deal with the authorities to be freed from prison so he pursue a network of cyber-criminals in a hunt that takes him from Chicago to Los Angeles and Hong Kong to Jakarta. Viola Davis also stars, along with top Taiwanese talents Tang Wei and Wang Leehom. Critical reception is forthcoming. Rated 15+

Into the Woods – A baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) are cursed with childlessness by a witch (Meryl Streep). So they venture into an enchanted forest to find a way to break the spell and encounter various fairy-tale characters who are searching for their own happy endings. Based on the hit 1980s Broadway musical by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim, there are plenty of songs and dancing along the way. Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine and Johnny Depp also star. A nominee for three Golden Globe Awards (Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, best actress for Emily Blunt, best supporting for Meryl Streep), critical reception is leaning to positive. Rated G

The Water Diviner – Russell Crowe directs and stars in this historical drama as an Australian farmer whose three sons go off to war in Turkey. When they fail to return after the Battle of Gallipoli, he heads to Turkey himself. In Istanbul, he forms a bond with a hotel owner (Olga Kurylenko) while trying to find a way to get to Gallipolli. Critical reception is mostly positive. Rated 15+

Home (a.k.a. At the Devil’s Door) – As she's preparing a house for sale, a real-estate agent encounters a young runaway girl and then becomes entangled with a supernatural force. An indie horror, it premiered at last year's South by Southwest festival and is directed by Nicholas McCarthy, who earlier did the indie horror The Pact. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 15+

Laggies – Keira Knightly stars in this indie coming-of-age comedy as a 28-year-old slacker woman. At her 10-year high-school reunion, she panics after her long-time boyfriend suddenly proposes marriage. She then crosses paths with a 16-year-old girl (Chloe Grace Moretz), buys her beer and feels a kinship. Sam Rockwell also stars. Lynn Shelton (Humpday, Your Sister's Sister) directs. Laggies premiered at Sundance last year. Critical reception is generally positive. Rated 15+

Wolves – A popular high-school student (Lucas Till) awakens from a horrific nightmare, only to realize that he’s living it. Forced into a life on the run, he is drawn to a remote mountain town where he discovers others like him. Jason Momoa and Merritt Patterson also star. David Hayter, screenwriter on Watchmen and X-Men 2, directs, making his feature debut. Critics are howling. Rated 15+

Tevar – A young man goes to factionalism-hit part of the country to participate in a kabaddi match, but ends up being drawn into a conflict over a young woman and the dangerous faction leader who seeks to marry her. Arjun Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha and Manoj Bajpai star. It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Central Rama III and Pattaya. Opens Friday.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Tonight, it's a masterpiece of Spanish cinema with Spirit of the Beehive, a 1973 drama by Victor Erice, it's been described as the "bewitching portrait of a child’s haunted inner life". Tomorrow's documentary is The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia, a 2009 portrait of a family of redneck career criminals. Saturday's "strange future" is Woody Allen's Sleeper, while Sunday's Doris Day movie is Calamity Jane. Next Wednesday's documentary is Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22.  For more details, check the club's Facebook page. There's just nine seats, so book them.

Filmvirus Kawaii Luv Luv – Up first in the Sunday double-bill of Japanese romantic dramas is Permanent Nobara from 2010. Directed by Daihachi Yoshida, it follows a young divorced woman back to her small hometown, where she takes up work in her mother's hair salon, where the women spend their days talking about men and relatinships. Next is 1995's A Last Note, about a group of ageing actresses and their friends and their reflections on life. The show starts at 12.30 on Sunday in the Pridi Banomyong Library at Thammasat University Tha Prachan, in the Rewat Buddhinan Room, floor U2, the basement. Dress appropriately and inform the desk worker you are there to see a movie. For details, call (02) 613-3529 or (02) 613-3530.

Polish Film Festival – Six recent examples of Poland’s celebrated cinema will be shown in the Polish Film Festival from Sunday until Thursday at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld. Organized by the Polish Filmmakers Association, the Polish Film Institute and the Embassy of Poland, here is the lineup:

• Ida – Poland's official submission to the Academy Awards, the black-and-white drama is set in the 1960s and follows a young woman as she's about to take her vows as a Catholic nun. She takes trip to see the last surviving member of her family, and uncovers dark secrets about World War II and the Nazis. Screens at 6pm on Sunday with q-and-a by producer Ewa Puszczynska and 9pm on Wednesday. 
• Walesa: Man of Hope – Veteran filmmaker Andrzej Wajda directs this acclaimed biopic about the Nobel Prize-winning founder of the Solidarity Movement, which spearheaded the Polish revolution. Screens at 8pm on Sunday and 9pm on Tuesday.
• One Way Ticket to the Moon – It's 1969 and a young man is about to enter the submarine service in the Polish Navy. Before he goes, his older brother decides to take him on a trip across the country to meet friends and relatives – and for the young man to lose his virginity. Screens at 7pm on Monday with q-and-a by director Jacek Bromski and 9pm next Thursday.
• Fanciful – After the death of her mother, a 15-year-old girl falls ill with a strange disease, and her previously distant father enters her life and tries to re-establish a connection. Meanwhile, the girl’s fight against illness presents a tough test for the family. Screens at 9pm on Monday and 7pm next Thursday with q-and-a by producer Eryk Stepniewski.
• Gods – Another biopic, this one follows the efforts of Dr Zbigniew Religa, a maverick cardiac surgeon who led a team of doctors in Poland’s first human heart transplant. Screens at 7pm on Wednesday with q-and-a by director Lukasz Palkowski.
• Life Feels Good – A young man grows up with cerebral palsy against the backdrop of major changes in Polish society during the 1980s and '90s. Screens at 7pm on Tuesday.

All films have English and Thai subtitles. Tickets are Bt120.

German Open Air Cinema – The fact-based story of a Swiss policeman who helped German and Austrian Jews escape the Nazis during the late 1930s is depicted in Akte Grüninger (Grüninger's Fall). It screens at 7.30pm on Tuesday, January 20, at the Goethe-Institut of Sathorn Soi 1.

Alliance Française – A woman struggles to balance her job as a journalist with raising her two young daughters, just as the president election arrives in her town and her ex-husband shows up for his court-appointed visit with the kids. It's La Bataille de Solférino (Age of Panic), in French with English subtitles at 7pm on Wednesday, January 21 at the Alliance.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening January 8-14, 2015

Foxcatcher

One of the season's most-buzzed-about awards contenders, Foxcatcher is based on true events that I don't remember. And I want the story to be a surprise, so I'm avoiding reading too much else about it.

So here's what I've gathered by only halfway researching about the film. Channing Tatum stars as Olympic wrestler Mark Schultz, who despite winning a gold medal, has always been overshadowed by his more-beloved brother Dave (Mark Ruffalo). But Schultz sees a way to greater glory when he and his brother are invited by eccentric millionaire John du Pont to move onto his large estate and train for the 1988 Olympics.

Both Mark Schultz and the creepy du Pont are desperate men, and their drive to achieve pushes them into a spiral of self-destruction.

Bennett Miller (Capote, Moneyball) directs. Already, Foxcatcher has a number of accolades, including the best director prize from Cannes and three Golden Globe nominations – best picture, best actor for Carell and best supporting actor for Ruffalo.

Critical reception is generally positive. Rated 18+

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Also opening

Taken 3 – Liam Neeson again brings his particular set of skills to the franchise that relaunched his career as an action star. In this third and possibly final entry, his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) is killed and he's framed for murder. While eluding the authorities and protecting his daughter (Maggie Grace), he must track down the real killers. Forest Whitaker also stars. Olivier Megaton (Taken 2, Colombiana) directs the script by producer Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 13+

Hector and the Search for Happiness – Simon Pegg is a quirky psychiatrist who is tired of his humdrum life. So he embarks on a global quest to uncover the secret to true happiness. Rosamund Pike also stars. Peter Chelsom (Hannah Montana the Movie, Shall We Dance) directs. Critical reception for this piece of schmaltz is mixed. If you're a fan of Pegg's work in such movies as Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, go watch those again. Rated 13+

Black and White: The Dawn of Justice – This is the second entry in a big-budget Taiwanese police-action franchise. Mark Chao stars as Hero Wu, a dutiful police detective. He's paired up with arrogant loner cop Chen Zhen (Kenny Lin) to track down the mastermind behind a series of bombings. They discover the attacks are just a prelude to a bigger scheme involving stolen missiles and biochemical weapons. Thai-dubbed. Rated 13+

Beauty and the Beast – Vincent Cassel and Léa Seydoux star in this live-action adaptation of the French fairy tale about a young woman who falls in love with a beastly-looking man. It's in release for one week only from tomorrow at the Apex cinemas in Siam Square.

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Also showing

Frozen Sing-Along – Follow the bouncing snowflake and see if you can match the high notes of "Let It Go" with the sing-along version of Disney's Oscar-winning animated hit. More than a year on, Frozen remains crazily popular, thanks mostly to the hit song "Let It Go", which is not only a favorite with karaoke fans, but is also so insanely loved by children, that director Jennifer Lee has apologized to parents who are fed up with hearing it. The Frozen Sing-along runs in cinemas for just one week. Rated G

The Friese-Greene Club – Spanish filmmakers, "strange futures", Doris Day and documentaries help get 2015 underway at the Club. Thursdays are devoted to Spanish directors, opening with Abre Los Ojos by Alejandro Amenabar, which was remade as Vanilla Sky. "But the original is so much better," seems to be the consensus. Documentaries are featured on Wednesdays and Fridays. Tomorrow, it's 2012's The Imposter, about a man who returns his family after disappearing years before. "Strange futures" are on Saturdays, opening with the influential Silent Running, director Douglas Trumbull's 1972 sci-fi classic, starring Bruce Dern as the last man alive aboard a massive spaceship. Sundays are all about Doris Day. This week it's Pillow Talk. Next Wednesday's documentary is 2009's Cropsey, which examines the New York urban legend of a child-killing monster and segues into the story of Andre Rand, a convicted child kidnapper. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22.  For more details, check the club's Facebook page. There's just nine seats, so book them.

The Circle – SF Cinema's "Doc Holiday" series continues with The Circle, a fact-based Swiss drama about the relationship between schoolteacher Ernst Ostertage and drag queen Robi Rapp, chronicling their efforts as members of the Circle, a pioneering gay-rights group that battled homophobia in the 1950s. It's Switzerland's entry for the best foreign language film at this year's Academy Awards. It screens in German with English and Thai subtitles at 9pm from tomorrow until Sunday and at 5pm on Saturday and Sunday at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld. For details, check the SF Cinemas website.

Filmvirus Kawaii Luv Luv – Filmvirus starts 2015 with a series of Sunday double features of youth-oriented Japanese romances, running until February 8. First up is 2013's See You Tomorrow, Everyone by Yoshihiro Nakamura, followed  by 2012's The Drudgery Train by Nobuhiro Yamashita. The show starts at 12.30 on Sunday in the Pridi Banomyong Library at Thammasat University Tha Prachan, in the Rewat Buddhinan Room, floor U2. Dress appropriately and inform the desk worker you are there to see a movie. For details, call (02) 613-3529 or (02) 613-3530.

German Open Air Cinema – It's star-crossed romance in The Silent Mountain, when war breaks out in the Dolomites just as an Italian woman and an Austrian man hope to form their own European union. William Moseley, Eugenia Costantini and Claudia Cardinale star. It screens at 7.30pm on Tuesday, January 13, at the Goethe-Institut off Sathorn Soi 1.

Alliance Française – A bitter and depressed woman falls into an alcoholic coma and awakens 25 years in the past, giving her a second chance at life in Camille Redouble, written, directed by and starring Noémie Lvovsky. Will she make the same choices that led her to an unhappy marriage? It's in French with English subtitles at 7pm on Wednesday, December 14 at the Alliance.

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Take note

In addition to the Polish Film Festival from January 18 to 22 at SF World cinema at Central World, another upcoming event is the Japanese Film Festival from January 30 to February 8 at Paragon. And Filmvirus and and Wathann Film Festival join for a screening of old and new Myanmar films on January 24 and 25 at the Reading Room.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening June 5-11, 2014

Edge of Tomorrow

Wash, rinse, repeat. Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise in another post-apocalyptic tale of the future. In Edge of Tomorrow, he's an ordinary suit-and-tie guy who is drafted into the military, dropped into a D-Day-style warzone and almost instantly killed. However, he finds himself caught in a time loop and fighting and dying over and over and over again. Sounds like all his movies.

He then meets a more-seasoned soldier – a tough lady warrior (Emily Blunt) who takes no guff. She whips him into shape and teaches him how to stay alive a bit longer and get closer to finally defeating the mysterious enemy.

Bill Paxton, Brendan Gleeson and Noah Taylor also star. Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Swingers) directs. It's adapted from a 2004 Japanese light novel All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. The script, long in development, went through the Hollywood mill, with the final draft by Christopher McQuarrie, the writer-director of Reacher, which also starred Cruise.

Critical reception is surprisingly positive. "Gripping, well-acted, funny and clever," says the consensus. It's in 3D (converted) in some cinemas, including IMAX. Rated G

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Also opening

7500 – Too soon after the mysterious tragedy of the vanished Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, this air-travel thriller deals with a Los Angeles-to-Tokyo flight that encounters a supernatural force over the Pacific Ocean. Leslie Bibb, Ryan Kwanten, Jerry Ferrara, Amy Smart, Jamie Chung and Scout Taylor-Compton star. Takashi Shimizu (The Grudge) directs. This was supposed to come out sometime last year, but was delayed for unknown reasons. There isn't much of a critical response. Rated 15+

The Rooms (ห้อง/หลอก/หลอน, Hong/Lork/Lorn) – Three directors – Panjapong Kongkanoi, Itthisak Uasoontornwattana and Jaded Uaychimplee – offer a mix of romance, horror and comedy in a trio of ghost stories. Asa Wang, Taveerit Joonlasap and Sawika Chaiyadej star. Rated 15+

Sri Thanonchai 555+ (ศรีธนญชัย 555+) – Thanachat Tulyachat, the young actor best known for the Boonchoo comedy franchise reboot, stars in this period-costume comedy as the historical folklore figure Sri Thanonchai, a consummate trickster who is famous for his wit but also uses his gifts to take advantage of others. Rated 15+

Poo Baow Tai Ban (ผู้บ่าวไทบ้าน อีสานอินดี้) – It's a Northeastern rural comedy-romance from a new Khon Kaen-based outfit, E-San Indy Film Studio. Sri Thanonchai leading man “Arty” Thanachat Tulyachat also stars in this one. He's a guy pining after a local lass who has plans to leave the village and move to the big city. Martin Brewer, a Briton with a farm and family in the area, also appears. It's at Major Cineplex, mainly upcountry branches for now, and is in Northeastern dialect with central Thai subtitles. A wider Bangkok release is planned for later. Rated G

Holiday – Akshay Kumar is a military officer who goes undercover to destroy a terrorist sleeper cell in this Bollywood action comedy. Sonakshi Sinha also stars. Brought in by the BollywoodThai crew, it's in Hindi with English subtitles at SF Cinema City Terminal 21. For more details, call (089) 488 2620. Opens Friday.

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Also showing

Kafka Festival in Bangkok – Wrapping up with a screening at 6 tonight, the Goethe-Institut's celebration of writer Franz Kafka has two films – the 1965 Czech short Postava k podpírání (Joseph Kilian) and the 2006 documentary Who Was Kafka? For details, see the website.

European Union Film Festival – Various quirky characters come together in Finsterworld, the first fictional feature by documentarian Frauke Finsterwalder. Aiming to explore the German psyche, it screens at 6.30 tonight as the final entry in the Bangkok edition of the annual EU fest. Tickets are handed out 30 minutes before showtime. For details, check SFCinemaCity.com or www.Facebook.com/EuinThailand.

The Friese-Greene Club – Democracy? That's what Jack Lemmon is questioning when he travels to Chile in 1973 in search of his son in 1982's Missing by Costa-Gavras, screening tonight. Tomorrow's modern interpretation of classic stories is Cruel Intentions, a 1999 reworking of Les Liaisons dangereuses with wealthy New York high schoolers in place of 18th century French aristocrats. Saturday, say no to censorship with Klip, a sexually explicit 2012 Serbian drama about a 14-year-old Belgrade party girl. Follow that up with Sunday's Marilyn Monroe movie, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Wear your diamonds. Next Wednesday has Zhang Yimou's 1990 tragedy Ju Dou, which was initially banned in China because it was so vividly bleak. It stars Gong Li in the title role as a young woman sold into an abusive marriage who captures the eye of her husband's young adopted nephew. It won the Luis Buñuel Special Award at Cannes. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. There's just nine seats, so book them. Also, check the Facebook page for updates and program changes.

Filmvirus K-PopPop – Twelve contemporary South Korean films will be screened from this Sunday until July 13 in the Pridi Banomyong Library at Thammasat University, Tha Prachan. Organized by Duangkamol Bookhouse's Filmvirus crew, the series was to have started last Sunday, but was wisely postponed when they got wind of plans for a protest. Starting at 12.30pm, the lineup opens with Bleak Night, a 2010 coming-of-age drama that centers on a father searching for answers after the mysterious death of his teenage son. That's followed by Ba-bi (Barbie), in which young sisters are at odds when an American man has to choose which one of them to adopt. Other films in the series are The Yellow Sea and Life Track on June 15, a double bill by Jang Jooh-hwan of Save the Green Planet and Hwayi: Monsters Boy on June 22, National Security and Terror Live on June 29, Montage and The Five and July 6 and Iri and Breathless on July 13. The venue is the Rewat Buddhinan Room on floor U2, the basement. Dress appropriately and inform the desk worker you are there to see a movie. They'll then want an ID that can be copied. The campus is located on the river opposite the Chao Phraya River Express Wang Lang (Siriraj) pier. Take a ferry heading to Tha Prachan or Wat Mahathat. Phone numbers to try are (02) 613-3529 or (02) 613-3530.

ChopShots Travel Festival – Award-winning documentaries from this year's ChopShots Documentary Film Festival in Jakarta will screen on Sunday at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre's fifth-floor auditorium. Here's the lineup:

• Consider – Panu Saeng-Xuto directs this 20-minute examination of a transgender teenager's conflict with one intolerant teacher. 1.30pm.
• Where I Go – The winning Best Southeast Asian Short Documentary, Cambodia's Neang Kavich directs this look at a young Cambodian-Cameroonian man and the struggles he's faced with discrimination and coming to terms with his own identity. Follows Consider.
• Flaneurs #3 – The second-place Southeast Asian short by Indonesia's Aryo Danusiri is a 13-minute experimental work that captures "a throng of believers crowd[ed] together in front of a stage. The speeches have ended. They are enraptured." 4.30pm.
• Madam Phung's Last Journey – A special mention winner, this feature by Vietnam's Nguyen Thi Tham follows a cross-dressing carnival troupe with such fairground attractions as a lottery, a miniature train ride, a bouncy house, merry-go-round, balloons and darts and a shotgun aiming at members performing songs and sketches. 4.45pm.

From 3 to 4.30, there will be a talk with filmmakers Neang Kavich, Nontawat Numbenchapol, Panu Saeng-Xuto and Kamolwan Nophaket. Admission is free and all films have English subtitles. For more details, check the BACC page.

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Take note

The curfew has been lifted in the prime travel destinations of Pattaya, Samui and Phuket, but Bangkok and the rest of the country remain under lockdown from midnight to 4am. Keep your eyes and ears open for news of protests. As with last weekend, the military may move into areas and shut everything down.