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 May 12-18, 2016

Embrace of the Serpent

The first film from the South American country of Colombia to be nominated for an Academy Award, Embrace of the Serpent is a look at the Amazon forest as seen through the eyes of a shaman and sole survivor of his tribe, in a story that tracks him over 40 years and covers his travels with two foreigner scientists who are searching for a sacred plant with psychedelic properties.

The story is based on the journals of German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg, who explored the Amazon in the early 1900s, and American botanist Richard Evans Schultes, who went there in the 1940s.

Filmed in glorious black and white, this rare motion picture is brought to cinemas by HAL Film, the indie distribution outfit that previously offered the unusual "foreign" films White God and The Tribe, and is determined to give movie-goers rewarding alternatives to the endless comic-book movies.

In addition to making the short-list of nominees for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, Embrace of the Serpent won the Art Cinema Award at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as accolades at Rotterdam, Sundance and many other fests. Critical reception is overwhelmingly praiseworthy.

It's in the original soundtrack with English and Thai subtitles at Esplanade Ratchada, House on RCA, Major Cineplex Ratchayothin, Paragon, SF World Cinema at CentralWorld and SFX The Crystal Ekamai Ram-Indra. Rated 15+

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Also opening

The Man Who Knew Infinity – Dev Patel, the English-Indian actor who made his breakthrough in Slumdog Millionaire and was also featured on the HBO series The Newsroom, stars in this fact-based biographical drama, portraying Srinivasa Ramanujan, the Indian mathematician who instinctively pioneered many theories despite having little formal training. The British production follows his rise from a humble upbringing in Madras to his acceptance into Cambridge University, where he encounters discrimination as he attempts to prove his theories. Ultimately, his genius is recognized and he becomes a close collaborator with fellow pioneering maths theorist G.H. Hardy, who is played by Jeremy Irons. Other stars include Toby Jones, Stephen Fry and Jeremy Northham. Critical reception is mixed, leaning to positive. Rated 15+

The Angry Birds Movie – It's been seven years since the iPad time-waster rocketed to popularity. Now comes a movie that will further cement the addictive Finnish game's place in pop culture. The Sony Pictures Imageworks animated feature attempts to tell the origin story of the main angry bird, a feathered misfit named Red, who for some reason has a chip on his wings and is always angry. Assigned to attend an anger-management retreat, he becomes suspicious about the mysterious arrival of strange green pigs and struggles to rally the other birds against what he sees as an alien invasion. Jason Sudekis voices the main character with other voices provided by Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Kate McKinnon, Sean Penn, Tony Hale, Keegan-Michael Key, Bill Hader and Peter Dinklage. This doesn't come out in the U.S. until next week, so the studios get a week to make bank in unsuspecting overseas territories without the benefit of mainstream critical reception. It's in 3D in some cinemas. Rated G

Equals – Two fine actors, Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult, star in this science-fiction romantic thriller about youngsters who live in a society where emotions have been outlawed and love is strictly forbidden. Nonetheless, biology tends to override any genetic engineering and they are tragically drawn to each other. Other stars include Jacki Weaver and Guy Pearce. This does not come out in the U.S. until July, and critical reception, so far, is tepid. Rated 15+

Embracing Khemarat (อ้อมกอดเขมราฐ, Aom-Kod-Khemarat) – Three loosely connected stories of romance take place in idyllic Khemarat, a small town in Ubon Ratchathani on the banks of the Mekong. They involve a young female physician who is posted to the local hospital and runs into cute conflict with the owner of a local coffee shop. Other stories have a young Lao immigrant woman who falls for a photographer and a "nerdy girl" who has attracted the eye of a quiet and shy schoolboy rock musician. Among the stars are Miss Thailand 2009 runner-up Kobkullaya Chuengprasertsri, who is an actual physician. Other stars are "Fluke" Teerapat Lohanan, "Palmy" Nantariya Namboon, "Tao" Phusin Warinrak, "Nong" Puttason Seedawan and "Golf" Anuwat Chucherdwattana. The film is written and produced by Dr Ritt Pokkrittayahariboon, a surgeon and businessman who settled in Khemarat and wanted to make a movie to promote the town and its attractions. The Nation had a bit more about it. Rated 15+

The Bodyguard – The formidable martial-arts actor Sammo Hung, the "big brother" of Jackie Chan who is still best known in Thailand as Hung Chin Pao for his string of 1980s Hong Kong action films, is back in action in The Bodyguard. He's an ageing former lawman from Beijing who has retired to a border town. He takes up the cause of protecting an innocent neighbor girl and runs into conflict with Russian gangsters, making this essentially a Chinese remake of Denzel Washington's The Equalizer. Critical reception is mixed. It's Thai-dubbed in most places but has the Chinese soundtrack with English and Thai subtitles at the usual downtown multiplexes, including Esplanade Ratchada, Paragon, Quartier CineArt and SF World Cinema at CentralWorld. Rated 15+

Azhar – The life of controversial Indian cricketer-turned-politician Mohammad Azharuddin is dramatized in this Bollywood picture, chronicling his accomplishments as batsman as well as his involvement in a match-fixing scandal toward the end of his career. Emraan Hashmi stars along with Prachi Desai and Nargis Fakhri. 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 – The club has a private event tonight but is back open tomorrow with sex and swimming pools in Peter Greenaway's erotic murder drama Drowning by Numbers from 1988. On Saturday, a housecat steals the scene in The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman's adaptation of a Philip Marlowe mystery, starring Elliot Gould. Sunday has another Fritz Lang film-noir starring Edward G. Robinson in Scarlet Street. And next Wednesday is a mid-career Jim Jarmusch feature, five taxi-cab tales in Night on Earth. 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 is no Friday French movie with Thai subtitles this week because there is a jazz concert. Saturday has the monthly "kids' movie", with the animated feature Mia et le Migou, a fantasy-adventure about a girl in South America who leaves her impoverished village in search of her father and has an encounter in the jungle with giant beings. The show is at 2pm. Next Wednesday at 7pm, there's a French film with English subtitles, the 2015 romantic comedy Caprice, which involves a triangular romance between a hapless guy, the actress he has a crush on and the pesky girl who inserts herself into the situation. Admission for the general public is 100 baht.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – Small-town secrets are spilled in The Sweet Hereafter, about a lawyer trying to persuade families to take part in a class-action lawsuit over a school-bus crash that killed 14 children. The much-acclaimed 1997 drama is by Canadian director Atom Egoyan, and it won many prizes, including the Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival. It was also nominated for two Academy Awards. Ian Holm stars as the lawyer, who has his own conflicts to deal with on top of the dysfunction of the townspeople. Part of the FCCT's Contemporary World Film Series, the screening is at 7pm on Monday, May 16, and is supported by the Embassy of Canada. Entry is 150 baht for non-members and 100 baht for the wine and snacks. There will be another entry in the series on Monday, May 30, with Thy Womb, a drama by noted independent Filipino director Brillante Ma Mendoza.

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Take note

The landmark Scala remains committed to the profession of showing movies, despite being threatened with imminent closure by landlord Chulalongkorn University, which is keen to redevelop Siam Square. The Scala's devoted management recently installed a new screen because the old one was showing its age and was long past due for an upgrade. The result is a much clearer and brighter picture that makes going to movies at the Scala well worth your while. It is the best value in movie-going in Bangkok. Please support the Scala while it exists.

Meanwhile, general Thai public awareness of the Scala's plight is finally starting to emerge, perhaps too little, too late. There was a Nation editorial this week, and there is also a Thai-language Change.org petition that asks Chula U. to "keep Scala" open and recognize that its unique cultural and architectural values outweigh the supposed economic benefits of building yet another shopping mall in a city already saturated by shopping malls.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening April 27-May 4, 2016

Captain America: Civil War

With Captain America: Civil War, Marvel Studios offers a more brightly lit and quippier counterpoint to the drab darkness of the DC comics films.

Like DC's Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Marvel's new Captain America movie pits top comic-book heroes against one another.

Here, the eternal Boy Scout, Steve "Captain America" Rogers, sees a threat in a plan by politicians to make superheroes accountable for all the collateral damage they are causing. It's understandable, I guess, given how Manhattan was ripped apart in the first Avengers movie and then Washington, DC took a big hit in Captain America: Winter Soldier.

The complex military industrialist Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, is on board with the politicians' scheme to keep the Avengers in check, but Rogers isn't so sure. So it's Cap and his team on one side and Iron Man and others on another.

Chris Evans returns as Cap, along with the core team that includes Anthony Mackie as Falcon, Sebastian Stan as Cap's former friend Bucky (now the damaged and brainwashed Winter Soldier), the archer Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and the supernatural-powered Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen)

Also back in action is Scarlett Johansson as conflicted anti-heroine Black Widow.

Robert Downey Jr. joins the proceedings this time out as Iron Man, adding his snappy one-liners, and basically making this Captain America movie an Avengers movie or another Iron Man movie. Don Cheadle is in there as well, as Iron Man's sidekick War Machine, along with Paul Bettany, the voice of longtime Stark family servant Jarvis, now the super cyber entity Vision.

And watch for a special appearance by the new Spider-Man, Tom Holland. Spidey was formerly trapped solely in Sony's web of Marvel Comic movies. With yet another new Sony Spider-Man series set to start next year, the webslinging teen hero has been freed up for crossover action in the Disney-owned Marvel Studios cinematic universe.

Many, many other supers will take part as well, introducing Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther and tossing in Paul Rudd as Ant-Man.

It's directed by the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe, frequent TV-comedy hands who won accolades for their work on Winter Soldier. This doesn't come out until May 6 in the U.S., but, in a positive sign, many critics have already been allowed to see it, and are giving it good reviews. It's in converted 3D in some cinemas, including IMAX. Opens today.  Rated G

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Also opening

The Idol – It's pretty rare for a Palestinian film to hit our screens, but I suppose this fact-based musical biopic makes commercial sense in a country where TV talent shows are a primary diversion, and so many of the movie and TV stars and popular musicians are former contestants of reality-TV talent shows. The drama covers the life of Mohammed Assaf, a young Palestinian musician who performed at weddings in refugee camps in Gaza. He went on to win on TV's Arab Idol in 2013, found worldwide fame and put Palestine in the spotlight. Tawfeek Barhom portrays the singer and Hany Abu-Assad directs. It screened at last year's Toronto International Film Festival and has been well-received by critics. Opens Thursday. It's in limited release in a handful of Major Cineplex outlets plus Apex in Siam Square, in the original Arabic with English and Thai subtitles. Rated G

Terra Formars – They are terraformers. On Mars. Get it? Terra Formars is yet another live-action adaptation of yet another popular Japanese comic series, and is much anticipated by fans of manga and Japanese pop culture. The prolific cult-film director Takashi Miike helms this big-budget effort, which was filmed in Iceland. Stars include Rinko Kikuchi and Rila Fukushima along with Kane Kosugi. Bit like Starship Troopers, the story deals with a small unit of soldiers who are fighting mutated cockroaches, giant bugs that were originally installed to help colonize the Red Planet. Opens Friday. It's Thai-dubbed in most places but the Japanese soundtrack with English and Thai subtitles is available in the usual downtown cinemas, including Apex Siam Square, Paragon, Quartier, Esplanade Ratchada, SFW CentralWorld and SFC Terminal 21. Rated G

Baaghi – A lot of Bollywood films, and other films, TV series, commercials, music videos, etc. from India, are made in Thailand. Local production-services company Benetone handles many of those projects, and they worked on Baaghi, which is actually set in Thailand. New-face leading man Tiger Shroff, along with Shradda Kappoor and Sudheer Babu star. It's the story of former college chums who fell in love with the same woman. Years later, she is abducted and is being held in Thailand, bringing the two former friends together again as fierce enemies. 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

Alliance Française – Lots of French film activities to report, in line with the Alliance's expansion of its movie programming. As covered in last week's update, tonight's French film with English subtitles is Heat Wave (Coup de chaud), a murder mystery that's set during a hot time in a small African town. Friday's French film with Thai subtitles is School of Babel, a comedy-drama about a special school in Paris for immigrant children. And there's a Saturday matinee "kids' movie", the 2010 animated Une vie de chat (A Cat in Paris), about a thieving feline who looks after a little girl. And the May schedule opens next Wednesday with the English-subbed Vincent, about a young man with secret superpowers. Shows are at 7pm (except the Saturday matinee, which starts at 2pm). Admission is 100 baht for the general public.

The Friese-Greene Club – April winds down with one more spy movie tonight, Carol Reed's Our Man in Havana with Alec Guinness. The club has a private event on Thursday, but is back open on Friday for a "quirky eighties" movie, Parents by director and often-seen character actor Bob Balaban. And the month closes out on Saturday with the dystopian drama Children of Men. For May, the club's schedule ponders the question, "Over-rated or Under-appreciated?" and then covers four distinctive auteur directors and one iconic actor. Wednesdays have the American indie director Jim Jarmusch while Thursdays are devoted to the great Orson Welles. Fridays have the artful eroticism of Britain's Peter Greenaway while Saturdays feature the overlapping dialogue and sprawling casts of America's Robert Altman. And Sundays, see, are devoted to Edward G. Robinson, starting with his film-noir classic with Bogie and Bacall, Key Largo. Wednesdays are mostly the early, under-appreciated efforts of Jarmusch, starting with 1984's Stranger Than Paradise, while next Thursday is the 75th anniversary screening of the classic film, Welles' Citizen Kane. 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.

The Special Screening of Three Classic Asean Films – The most-popular tickets at the Bangkok Asean Film Festival were the "Asean Classics", three older films that were screening alongside newer entries from all the Asean bloc countries. Those three films will be screened again on Sunday at the Film Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom. They are the 1972 Cambodian fantasy The Snake Man at 1pm, 1954's After the Curfew from Indonesia at 3pm and 1975's Manila in the Claws of Light at 5pm. I actually saw Manila, and it is well worth making the trip to the Archive if you missed the Bangkok screening. The film recently underwent digital restoration and looks amazing. It's a gripping and gritty drama about the working class in the city. Please note that The Snake Man is Thai-dubbed with no English subtitles, but the others have both English and Thai subtitles. For details, check the Facebook events page.

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Take note

I've gone ahead and issued my weekly update here a day early, owing to the big-tentpole opening of Captain America: Civil War, one day earlier than usual. Notably, Captain America doesn't open until next week in the U.S., so movie-goers in Thailand are among the first to feast eyes.

Tomorrow, the usual day movies tend to open here, there is scheduled to be one more new release, the Palestinian entry Idol.

For some reason, the Japanese film Terra Formars is not opening until Friday, which is unusual. And then there's the Bollywood release Baaghi, which opens on Friday, as per usual with the Bollywood films in Bangkok.

There are public holidays next week, including a Monday substitution for Labor Day on May 1, to give the working-class comrades and their elite overseers an extra day of rest. And then next Thursday is Coronation Day. But it appears the movies will shift back to their regular schedule of opening on Thursday.

Coming up, the dates for the third edition of the Silent Film Festival in Thailand are set for June 16 to 22, 2016 at the Lido and Scala cinemas. That's according to the latest newsletter from the Film Archive. Hopefully, more details will emerge soon.

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.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening February 25-March 2, 2016

Anomalisa

Charlie Kaufman, the innovative writer-director behind such mind-bending existential conundrums as Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation and Synecdoche, New York, turns to animation with Anomalisa.

It's the story of a lonely self-help author and motivational speaker (David Thewlis) who sees everyone (Tom Noonan) as identical until he's at a convention and meets a lonely sales rep (Jennifer Jason Leigh) who may or may not be the love of his life.

Kaufman, a veteran film and TV screenwriter, who in the past has worked with such directors as Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, collaborates this time around with Duke Johnson, a stop-motion animator whose previous credits include Morel Orel, Mary Shelley's Frankenhole and the stop-motion episode of Community, all under writer-producer Dino Stamatopoulos, the guy who is perhaps best known as "Starburns" on Community. Starburns Industries is the main production company behind the film. They put together initial funding through a Kickstarter campaign.

It was awarded the Grand Special Jury Prize and the Future Film Festival Digital Award at the Venice Film Festival last year and was nominated for a Golden Globe. It's also an Oscar nominee, up against other animated features, Pixar's Inside Out (the likely winner), Brazil's Boy and the World, Aardman's Shaun the Sheep and Studio Ghibli's When Marnie Was There.

Critical reception is generally praiseworthy. Although it's animated, this isn't a movie for the kiddies because there is a stop-motion animated sex scene, plus off-color language. In the U.S., it was rated R, which is restricted to viewers 17 and over unless accompanied by a guardian. Thai censors, doing their jobs, are also keen on keeping youngsters from seeing anatomically accurate stop-motion figures having sex, and have rated Anomalisa 20-, meaning you're supposed to show an I.D. if you look young.

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Also opening

Son of Saul – The Oscars' Best Foreign Language Film race comes into focus with Son of Saul, a Hungarian Holocaust drama that has already won the Grand Prix at Cannes, the Golden Globe and Critics' Choice Award. It's the likely winner in an Academy Awards category that also has Embrace of the Serpent from Colombia, Theeb from Jordan (two countries that are first-time nominees), the Turkish drama Mustang from France and A War from Denmark. A gripping, handheld-cam, found-footage-type account, Son of Saul takes place over a day and a half in a Nazi death camp in Hungary, where a Jewish prisoner who has been forced to help the Nazis incinerate their victims finds an unburned dead boy in a pile. He becomes determined to give the kid a decent Jewish burial. Meanwhile, the Sonderkommando prison workers plan a rebellion. László Nemes directs, making his feature debut. Critical reception is generally praiseworthy. Rated 15+

Zootopia – Walt Disney Animation Studios, the outfit behind the Oscar winners Frozen and Big Hero 6, didn't make it into the Academy Awards race this year. So maybe you'll be hearing more about this movie around this time next year. Though a more likely Oscar entry from the studio will be the South Pacific seafaring entry Moana, featuring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, coming later this year. All talking animals, the story of Zootopia is set in a world where mammals, predatory and prey alike, peacefully co-exist. Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), an idealistic bunny rabbit, decides she wants to join the police, even though most cops are bigger critters, such as the cape buffalo voiced by Idris Elba from The Wire. Assigned to parking patrol, Judy is befriended by a fast-talking con-artist fox voiced by Jason Bateman. Other voices include Shakira, J.K. Simmons, Jenny Slate, Tommy Chong, Octavia Spencer and Kristen Bell. There's more about the movie in an article in The Nation. Critical reception is generally positive. This one's okay for the kids and young-at-heart old-timers. It's in 3D in some cinemas, including IMAX. Rated G.

Monkey Twins (วานรคู่ฟัด, Wanorn Khoo Fud ) – Thai action cinema has been on the ropes for the past year or so. The leading proponent was writer, director and choreographer Panna Rittikrai, who died in July 2014. And the leading star, Tony Jaa, has largely parted ways with the Thai film industry in order to go work in Hollywood. So stunt specialists and martial-arts actors have been relegated to supporting roles in TV series and horror movies. But now comes Monkey Twins, which blends Thai and Chinese martial arts, dance and theater. Released by Kao Thaitayarn Co. Ltd., it's co-directed by figures who worked with Panna and Jaa in the past – Ong-Bak 2 writer Nonthakorn Taweesuk and Tom-Yum-Goong 2 action choreographer Weerapol Pumartfon. The story pits Hanuman, the monkey hero of Thai masked dance, against Sun Wukong, the magic monkey of Chinese opera. Sumret Muangput, Kazu Patrick Tang and Panyanut Jirarottanakasem star. Check out the trailer. Rated 15+

Gods of Egypt – Although Thai movie distributors have done a pretty good job this season getting Oscar-nominated movies in front of our eyes, they still must carry water for the Hollywood studios, which are responsible for this epic turd. Gerard "This Is Sparta!" Butler gobbles the scenery as Set, the God of Darkness, who defeats rival deity Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones) and blinds him in one eye. Set takes over Egypt and enslaves the people, giving rise to a mere mortal (Brenton Thwaites) who allies himself with Horus and attempts to lead a rebellion. Chadwick Boseman, Elodie Yung, Courtney Eaton, Rufus Sewell and Geoffrey Rush are also featured. This is is so bad, director Alex Proyas (I, Robot, Knowing) and the studio apologized for it before it was released, because of whitewashing. Further critical response awaits. Rated 15+

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Also showing

Wim Wenders: A Retrospective – Angels weary of immortality yearn for the human experience in Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin), which screens at 6 tonight in Lumpini Park. An influential film in the realm of world cinema, it's the opener of a two-week retrospective on German director Wim Wenders by the Goethe-Institut and the Thai Film Archive. The program then shifts to the Archive in Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, with screenings on Saturday and Sunday and next Saturday. This Saturday's offerings are Wenders' feature debut The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick and two entries from his Road Movie Trilogy, Alice in the Cities and Kings of the Road. Sunday has The American Friend, the Cannes Palme d'Or winner Paris, Texas and the Wings of Desire sequel Faraway, So Close! And next Saturday's films will be in 3D – a first at the Archive – with the dance documentary Pina and the drama Every Thing Will Be Fine. For more details, check the special post, the Archive's website or the Goethe website.

The Friese-Greene Club – The club has a private event tonight but the door swings back open tomorrow for the first of three remaining movies this month – One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, featuring Jack Nicholson in one of his great roles. Directed by Milos Forman, Cuckoo's was shot by cinematographer Haskell Wexler, who died in December. Saturday's "kinky" movie is Pedro Almodovar's Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, starring Antonio Banderas. And Sunday's Billy Wilder movie is The Apartment, a contemporary comedy starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray and Ray Walston. 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 – A serial killer is preying on young women in Oise, France, in the 1970s in the fact-based crime drama La prochaine fois je viserai le cœur (Next Time I’ll Aim for the Heart) directed by Cedric Anger and starring Guillaume Canet, Ana Girardot and Jean-Yves Berteloot. It screens at 7pm on Wednesday, March 2, at the Alliance. Please note there is no free French film on March 9 because there is instead a concert by Duo Brunetti-Pachioli.