19 February 2009
Phantoms Of Nabua
Recently, another new film by Apichatpong, Mobile Men, was also distributed online, and his Prosperity For 2008 was given an online release last year. He is best known as the director of Syndromes & A Century.
18 February 2009
Mobile Men
13 February 2009
Art Of Animation
05 February 2009
Hemat
04 February 2009
โปรแกรมหนังสั้นไทยคัดสรร
Unfolding The Aryan Papers
A new short film, Unfolding The Aryan Papers by Jane and Louise Wilson, features pre-production photographs of Johanna Ter Steege (costume tests, photographed by Kubrick, from the Stanley Kubrick Archive) and new film footage of the actress shot by the Wilsons. The exhibition will be showing at the British Film Institute (in London) and online (Animate Projects), from 13th February to 19th April.
31 January 2009
Quote of the day...
A: “Yes. But it takes time to get court orders, so we may delete certain content deemed inappropriate before we go through the process.”
— Bangkok Post
The Computer Crime Act allows the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology to block websites only after successfully applying for a court order. Interviewed by Voranai Vanijaka in today’s Bangkok Post, ICT Minister Ranongrak Suwanchawee initially denied preemptively blocking websites, though she then immediately contradicted herself, and admitted to violating the Computer Crime Act. (In a previous quote of the day, a Ministry of Culture official patronised Thai filmgoers.)
29 January 2009
San-Dan-Ka
21 January 2009
Verisimilitude
The lèse-majesté charge relates to a single paragraph (the second paragraph on page 115), though Nicolaides courted controversy by excerpting this paragraph in the press release he issued to promote the book. The passage in question has been published in various Australian newspapers (The Australian, 5th September 2008; The Age, 10th September 2008; The Sydney Morning Herald, 16th December 2008; The Canberra Times, today). It was also quoted yesterday by The Scotsman newspaper in Scotland.
02 January 2009
Dirty Words
In his chapter on one of the words (yes, that one), Jonathan Wilson quotes a paragraph verbatim from my website without any attribution. The editor has already confirmed that I'll be referenced properly when the book is reprinted.
21 December 2008
The Dark Knight (IMAX 70mm)
Six sequences, including the incredible truck-flip (achieved without CGI), were filmed in IMAX 70mm format. With an aspect ratio of 1.43:1, these scenes occupy the full IMAX screen, though the majority of the film was shot on 35mm and is framed at 2.4:1.
19 December 2008
Perishable Beauty
A banqueting table laden with rotting food, sealed in an air-tight tank and growing mouldier every day, is the most impressive exhibit. There is also a diamond created from human ashes, produced commercially by Algordanza. Other displays, relying on TV clips, photographs, and everyday objects, are underwhelming.
Although the Perishable Beauty poster is seemingly inspired by Orlan, her work is not included in the exhibition. Also, the exhibition is filled with dead flowers yet Otto Berchem is not represented. (His sculpture Deadheading was shown in Bangkok two years ago, at The Suspended Moment.) Indeed, the exhibition is more suited to a museum than to TCDC, as it's educational rather than artistic.
Save The Film
15 December 2008
“It’s over, boss...”
12 December 2008
International Film Festival 2008-2009
Illustration
11 December 2008
An Interview With Muhammed
02 December 2008
“The Court had no other option...”
Somchai, Thaksin Shinawatra’s brother-in-law, had been PM for only three months. He was appointed following the disqualification of Samak Sundaravej earlier this year. Samak’s removal emboldened the People’s Alliance for Democracy, who had been occupying Government House. On 5th and 6th October, the PAD also blockaded parliament, though they were dispersed by riot police on 7th October. One protester was killed by an exploding tear gas cannister; Queen Sirikit presided over her funeral on 13th October, in an apparent signal of support for the royalist PAD.
The head of the nine judges defended today’s decision, saying: “The Court had no other option”. The judgement marks the third guilty verdict against parties affiliated with Thaksin, after Samak’s disqualification and the dissolution of Thai Rak Thai. Today’s decision seems designed to placate the PAD, and it has already been described as a judicial coup.
01 December 2008
People’s Alliance for Democracy
Meanwhile, with Suvarnabhumi closed for a whole week due to the demonstrators, there has still been no serious attempt by the police to remove the PAD. The Prime Minister is in hiding, and army chief Anupong Paochinda has called on him to resign (in an interview with Channel 3 on 16th October). Under normal circumstances, Anupong would surely be dismissed for insubordination, though sacking him could provoke another coup.
In what it called a ‘final war’, the PAD occupied Government House for three months, completely unopposed by the police. On 26th August, one of the PAD’s core leaders, Sondhi Limthongkul, gave an interview to the Bangkok Post newspaper in which he dared the army to launch a coup (“soldiers today are cowards”) and positioned himself as the protector of the monarchy (“If we don’t do it, the monarchy might collapse”).
Despite its name, the PAD’s policies are undemocratic. Sondhi has called for a ‘new politics’ that would result in only 30% of MPs being elected, with the other 70% being appointed.
24 November 2008
New Sermon
21 November 2008
Astonishment & Power
20 November 2008
100 Films
Pour Une Cinematheque Ideale
The 100 films were chosen by a panel of seventy-eight film critics. The list is ranked according to the proportion of votes each film received, as follows:
48/78 (61%)
- Citizen Kane
- The Night Of The Hunter
- The Rules Of The Game
- Sunrise
- L'Atalante
- M
- Singin' In The Rain
- Vertigo
- Les Enfants Du Paradis
- The Searchers
- Greed
- Rio Bravo
- To Be Or Not To Be
- Tokyo Story
- Le Mepris
- Ugetsu Monogatari
- City Lights
- The General
- Nosferatu
- The Music Room
- Freaks
- Johnny Guitar
- La Maman & La Putain
- The Great Dictator
- The Leopard
- Hiroshima Mon Amour
- Pandora's Box
- North By Northwest
- Pickpocket
- Casque D'Or
- The Barefoot Contessa
- Mme De...
- Le Plaisir
- The Deer Hunter
- L'Avventura
- Battleship Potemkin
- Notorious
- Ivan The Terrible I-II
- The Godfather
- Touch Of Evil
- The Wind
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Fanny & Alexander
- The Crowd
- 8½
- La Jetee
- Pierrot Le Fou
- Confessions Of A Cheat
- Amarcord
- La Belle & La Bete
- Some Like It Hot
- Some Came Running
- Gertrud
- King Kong
- Laura
- Seven Samurai
- The 400 Blows
- La Dolce Vita
- The Dead
- Trouble In Paradise
- It's A Wonderful Life
- M. Verdoux
- The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
- Breathless
- Apocalypse Now
- Barry Lyndon
- Grand Illusion
- Intolerance
- Partie De Campagne
- Playtime
- Rome: Open City
- Senso
- Modern Times
- van Gogh
- An Affair To Remember
- Andrei Rublev
- The Scarlet Empress
- Sansho Dayu
- Talk To Her
- The Party
- Tabu
- The Bandwagon
- A Star Is Born
- M. Hulot's Holiday
- America America
- El
- Kiss Me Deadly
- Once Upon A Time In America
- Le jour se leve
- Letter From An Unknown Woman
- Lola
- Manhattan
- Mulholland Drive
- My Night At Maud's
- Night & Fog
- The Gold Rush
- Scarface
- Bicycle Thieves
- Napoleon
18 November 2008
Memento
Leonard Shelby and his wife were attacked in their home by two masked men. During the attack, Shelby killed one of the men, though he sustained a head injury that resulted in anterograde amnesia: he can remember his life before the attack, though he has lost his short-term memory. Consequently, he photographs everyone he meets, writes notes to himself, and even tattoos important information on his body. The film begins with Leonard searching for his wife’s murderer, a man whose initials are JG. He is helped by an amoral cop, Teddy; and he meets a bartender, Natalie, who gives him vital information. Teddy and Natalie both exploit Leonard to a certain degree, as does the only other person he interacts with, a motel clerk.
Leonard exists in a constant state of confusion, unable to remember anything for more than a few minutes, and the film employs a unique narrative structure in order to give the audience the same sense of bewilderment. The story is told in reverse chronological order, with each event followed by the event that chronologically preceded it. Throughout the film, Leonard tracks down clues that lead him to JG, and each new clue is initially a mystery to the audience: we learn of the significance of each event only when its context is revealed by the subsequent scene. (The technique was later used by Gaspar Noé in Irreversible.)
Memento’s narrative positions it alongside the non-linear, fragmented structures of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and other recent films, a trend inspired by the success of Pulp Fiction. With a complex series of clues, an unreliable narrator, and a twist ending, it also recalls The Usual Suspects. The film demands an audience’s attention, since every scene contains a new piece of the puzzle; it’s one of the smartest and most original films of the decade.
13 November 2008
Legendary Movies
There are plenty of genuinely legendary films in the book, though there are also quite a few popular yet insubstantial (and frankly awful) titles: A Summer Place, The Pink Panther, Mary Poppins, Love Story, Forrest Gump, and Life Is Beautiful. Also, very recent films (such as the Bourne and Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogies) could hardly be described as legendary.
The Legendary Movies are as follows:
- Cabiria
- The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari
- Nosferatu
- Battleship Potemkin
- Metropolis
- The Blue Angel
- Frankenstein
- Grand Hotel
- King Kong
- It Happened One Night
- Modern Times
- Grand Illusion
- The Wizard Of Oz
- Ninotchka
- Stagecoach
- Gone With The Wind
- Citizen Kane
- Casablanca
- Arsenic & Old Lace
- Rome: Open City
- Gilda
- It's A Wonderful Life
- Bicycle Thieves
- The Asphalt Jungle
- Sunset Boulevard
- Singin' In The Rain
- High Noon
- Don Camillo
- The Wild One
- Roman Holiday
- From Here To Eternity
- A Star Is Born
- On The Waterfront
- Sabrina
- Seven Samurai
- Rear Window
- Rebel Without A Cause
- & God Created Woman
- The Ten Commandments
- The Seventh Seal
- The Bridge On The River Kwai
- The Great War
- Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ
- Some Like It Hot
- A Summer Place
- La Dolce Vita
- Breathless
- Two Women
- Psycho
- The Magnificent Seven
- Breakfast At Tiffany's
- West Side Story
- Lolita
- Jules & Jim
- Lawrence Of Arabia
- The Pink Panther
- 8½
- The Leopard
- A Fistful Of Dollars
- Goldfinger
- Mary Poppins
- Dr Zhivago
- A Man & A Woman
- Guess Who's Coming To Dinner
- The Dirty Dozen
- Belle De Jour
- The Graduate
- In The Heat Of The Night
- Romeo & Juliet
- Planet Of The Apes
- Bullitt
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Rosemary's Baby
- Easy Rider
- Midnight Cowboy
- Love Story
- M*A*S*H
- Dirty Harry
- A Clockwork Orange
- Cabaret
- The Godfather
- The Sting
- American Graffiti
- The Exorcist
- Jaws
- One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
- Nashville
- Taxi Driver
- Rocky
- In The Realm Of The Senses
- Saturday Night Fever
- Star Wars IV: A New Hope
- Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
- The Deer Hunter
- Grease
- Apocalypse Now
- Manhattan
- Alien
- The Blues Brothers
- The Shining
- American Gigolo
- The Party
- Raiders Of The Lost Ark
- Escape From New York
- First Blood
- ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
- Blade Runner
- Once Upon A Time In America
- A Nightmare On Elm Street
- Back To The Future
- Top Gun
- 9½ Weeks
- Wings Of Desire
- The Last Emperor
- Rain Man
- Nikita
- Pretty Woman
- Edward Scissorhands
- Raise The Red Lantern
- The Silence Of The Lambs
- Thelma & Louise
- Basic Instinct
- Batman Returns
- Schindler's List
- Forrest Gump
- Pulp Fiction
- Seven
- Mission: Impossible
- Life Is Beautiful
- Titanic
- The Matrix
- Gladiator
- The Lord Of The Rings I-III
- Amelie
- Talk To Her
- Kill Bill I-II
- The Last Samurai
- Million Dollar Baby
- The Bourne Identity/Supremacy/Ultimatum
- Pirates Of The Caribbean I-III
05 November 2008
LittleBigPlanet
[Previously, a song featuring Koran quotes was removed from Joey Boy's album The Greatest Beats in Thailand. Also, Lebanese performer Marcel Khalife's song Ana Yousef, Ya Abi (1995) was accused of blasphemy due to its Koran quotation. MF Husain, who painted the controversial Mother India, also quoted from the Koran in his song Noor-Un-Ala in 2004.]
04 November 2008
Stanley Kubrick:
Essays On His Films & Legacy
The contributors to Depth Of Field (Diane Johnson, Vincent LoBrutto, Frederic Raphael, Jonathan Rosenbaum, et al.) were less academic, though arguably more authoritative. The contributors to Rhodes's book all have university teaching positions, yet none of them has previously published any work on Kubrick.
In his introduction, Rhodes inexplicably praises the first essay as a "monumental examination of Kubrick's photography for Look magazine". Unfortunately, the essay is a missed opportunity: instead of providing a detailed analysis or survey of Kubrick's Look photography, the author (Philippe Mather) spends page after page on photojournalism textbooks and sociological theories. Also, Mather's Look sources are all secondary, seemingly limited to Drama & Shadows and LoBrutto's biography.
Other disappointing essays include overly descriptive articles on Kubrick's documentaries (by Marina Burke) and Killer's Kiss (by Tony Williams), both of which feature extensive plot summaries and only limited analysis. Then there is Eric Eaton's dry, theoretical study of Paths Of Glory: he examines the film's "conceptualization of at least two fundamental, polarized properties: (1) abstraction-concretion; and (2) the opposition of the powerful cultural forces emanating from the two states toward the concrete world of"... zzzzzzzzz.
Thankfully, there are also some more engaging essays: Hugh S Manon explores Kubrick's contributions to film noir, Reynold Humphries examines the politics of Spartacus, and Homay King analyses the camerawork of Barry Lyndon. There are three interesting approaches to Eyes Wide Shut: gender, by Lindiwe Dovey; carnival, by Miriam Jordan and Julian Jason Haladyn; and phenomenology, by Phillip Sipiora. (Dovey does, however, make a glaring error, writing that Eyes Wide Shut "is the only film in which Kubrick acts as an extra". In fact, Kubrick is not an extra in Eyes Wide Shut, though he does briefly appear in five of his earlier films.)
The book's final chapter, by Robert JE Simpson, deals with Kubrick's personal reputation and public image, discussing the media representations of Kubrick that have appeared since his death (including Raphael's book, Eyes Wide Open; Colour Me Kubrick; and the Stanley Kubrick Archive, in London). This is the book's most original chapter, and contains valuable information on texts that many people may be unaware of.
6th World Film Festival of Bangkok
L'Express International
Forbidden Words
The authors take an inclusive approach, finding space not only for swear words and profanities but also for political correctness, proscriptive usage, and jargon. Each chapter begins with an abstract, though an introduction outlining the various areas of enquiry might be a useful addition, given the wide scope of the book.
The first chapter explores the origins of social taboos and literary censorship, material which will be familiar to many readers. More interesting is the next chapter, which discusses euphemistic language; here, the authors coin a new term, 'orthophemism', to describe literal vocabulary which is neither euphemistic nor dysphemistic.
The bulk of the book is a series of thematic chapters describing linguistic taboos against sex, bodily fluids, food, disease, and death. (My website is cited as a reference in one chapter.)
30 October 2008
100 All-Time Favorite Movies
Taschen's 100 All-Time Favorite Movies are as follows:
- The Birth Of A Nation
- Nosferatu
- The Ten Commandments
- The Gold Rush
- Battleship Potemkin
- The General
- Metropolis
- The Blue Angel
- Under The Roofs Of Paris
- M
- Duck Soup
- King Kong
- Modern Times
- Grand Illusion
- Gone With The Wind
- Fantasia
- Citizen Kane
- To Be Or Not To Be
- Casablanca
- The Big Sleep
- La Belle & La Bete
- Notorious
- The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre
- Bicycle Thieves
- The Third Man
- All About Eve
- Rashomon
- The Young & The Damned
- Sunset Boulevard
- A Streetcar Named Desire
- The African Queen
- High Noon
- Fanfan The Tulip
- The Wages Of Fear
- Seven Samurai
- La Strada
- Rebel Without A Cause
- The Night Of The Hunter
- Giant
- The Searchers
- Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud
- Wild Strawberries
- Vertigo
- The 400 Blows
- Some Like It Hot
- Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ
- La Dolce Vita
- L'Avventura
- Psycho
- Breakfast At Tiffany's
- Lawrence Of Arabia
- To Kill A Mockingbird
- Dr Strangelove
- Goldfinger
- Dr Zhivago
- Pierrot Le Fou
- Andrei Rublev
- Bonnie & Clyde
- The Graduate
- 2001: A Space Odyssey
- Once Upon A Time In The West
- Easy Rider
- Midnight Cowboy
- The Wild Bunch
- Death In Venice
- A Clockwork Orange
- Deliverance
- Cabaret
- The Godfather
- The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie
- A Woman Under The Influence
- Chinatown
- Jaws
- One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
- Taxi Driver
- Star Wars IV: A New Hope
- Annie Hall
- The Deer Hunter
- The Tin Drum
- Mad Max
- Apocalypse Now
- Raging Bull
- Fitzcarraldo
- Fanny & Alexander
- Scarface
- Blade Runner
- The Fourth Man
- Blue Velvet
- Dead Ringers
- The Silence Of The Lambs
- Forrest Gump
- Chungking Express
- Pulp Fiction
- LA Confidential
- Face/Off
- The Celebration
- All About My Mother
- American Beauty
- Magnolia
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
27 October 2008
The Nation On Sunday
The rather pointless name-change is accompanied by a new magazine produced in partnership with Asia News. The first half of the magazine includes new features by Nation journalists; this is encouraging, as most features (and all international news and sport) in both The Nation and the Bangkok Post are supplied by agencies.
However, the back half of the magazine comprises reprints of Asian newspaper/magazine articles which were previously reprinted in Asia News. In what is either an embarrassing mistake or a sign of desperation, two of the articles reprinted from Asia News are actually articles which it reprinted from The Nation and the Daily Xpress. One of them is a preview of the World Film Festival and first appeared in the Daily Xpress on 10th October, more than two weeks ago.
25 October 2008
The Movies That Matter
In his introduction, Gritten outlines the dilemma he faced: Halliwell's Film Guide was expanding each year, as more films were added. The twenty-third edition reviewed over 24,000 films, and, apparently, readers were complaining that the book was too large and heavy. (Why don't they just buy more sturdy shelves?) So, Gritten decided to substantially shift the book's focus: it will no longer attempt to review every release, and will, instead, concentrate on only a few thousand noteworthy films. The emphasis is on theatrical releases, not on DVDs or videos, in another departure from recent editions.
Thus, there are reviews of every mainstream film released in the past year (350 of them), plus 2,000 significant films released in the past twenty years, plus 500 classic films released more than twenty years ago. (The 500 films range in chronology "from Intolerance to Blue Velvet", according to Gritten, though actually The Birth Of A Nation, which predates Intolerance, is also included.) In total, therefore, there are almost 3,000 films listed.
Why include 2,000 films from twenty years yet only 500 films from ninety years? Gritten's rationale is that "for good or bad, most films seen today" are less than twenty years old. That may be true, but it does not explain why they are Movies That Matter. Gritten, in his introduction, claims that the 2,000 films in the twenty-years group all have "brand new" reviews, though this is not really the case. Thus, although this new version has 350 extra reviews of very recent films, we are not actually getting value for money, because the deletions (more than 20,000!) far exceed the additions.
The films are listed alphabetically, though not always logically. For example, The Devil's Backbone is listed under 'T' (for 'The') whereas The Godfather appears under 'G' (for 'Godfather'). To add to the confusion, there is no cross-referencing of alternate titles.
21 October 2008
“He is sentenced to two years in jail...”
Thaksin and Potjaman are currently living in exile in London. They jumped bail earlier this year, ostensibly to attend the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics, and have not returned to Thailand since. They were not prevented from leaving the country, despite carrying a suspiciously large collection of luggage with them. Thaksin was ousted in a coup in 2006, while he was attending the United Nations in New York. A military-appointed Assets Examination Committee froze ฿76 billion of Thaksin and Potjaman’s assets last year, pending the outcome of an anti-corruption investigation.
20 October 2008
Hyena
The documentary narration seems to offer an inadvertent political commentary, though if challenged, the director could argue that the juxtaposition is coincidental, as Rama IX posters can be found in many Thai houses. The technique recalls that of Manussak Dokmai’s short film Don’t Forget Me (อย่าลืมฉัน), in which archive footage of the 6th October 1976 massacre is accompanied by narration from a documentary on the Mlabri tribe, though in that case the voice-over describing tribal rituals provides an ironic counterpoint to the massacre footage.
16 October 2008
MovieMail's Top 50 Films Of All Time!
The Top Fifty Films are as follows:
1. Three Colours: Blue/White/Red
2. Breathless
3. Singin' In The Rain
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey
5. A Man Escaped
6. The Seventh Seal
7. The Third Man
8. The Leopard
9. Miller's Crossing
10. M. Hulot's Holiday
11. The Lives Of Others
12. Lawrence Of Arabia
13. Blade Runner
14. I Was A Fireman
15. Casablanca
16. Andrei Rublev
17. Seven Samurai
18. Citizen Kane
19. Brief Encounter
20. Annie Hall
21. Some Like It Hot
22. It's A Wonderful Life
23. The 400 Blows
24. A Matter Of Life & Death
25. Bicycle Thieves
26. Tokyo Story
27. Jaws
28. Battleship Potemkin
29. The Rules Of The Game
30. Pather Panchali/Aparajito/Apur Sansar
31. Psycho
32. The Battle Of Algiers
33. Nashville
34. Belle De Jour
35. Dr Mabuse The Gambler
36. All About Eve
37. My Neighbour Totoro
38. The Godfather I-III
39. Vertigo
40. Sunset Boulevard
41. La Dolce Vita
42. Fitzcarraldo
43. All Quiet On The Western Front
44. There Will Be Blood
45. Satantango
46. L'Avventura
47. The Night Of The Hunter
48. Festen
49. The New World
50. Chinatown
12 October 2008
The Henson Case
David Marr’s The Henson Case is the definitive book on the incident, a day-by-day account of a media scandal. (The tabloid The Daily Telegraph’s headline on 23rd May was “CHILD PORN ‘ART’ RAID”.) Marr criticises the artist’s decision to use “the most contentious image in Henson’s exhibition” on the opening-night invitations, which Henson admits was a mistake. This photo, no. 30 in a series of untitled portraits, is reproduced in the book. (The Director of Public Prosecutions ultimately concluded, in a statement on 5th June, that “mere nudity is not indecent in the legal sense.”)
Nude images of minors have been removed from galleries in the past, most recently a Nan Goldin photograph investigated, and subsequently exonerated, by UK police last year. Photographs of children by Robert Mapplethorpe, Graham Ovenden, Ron Oliver, Will McBride, David Hamilton, Tierney Gearon, and Annelies Strba have previously been investigated by UK police as potentially obscene. In America, the FBI investigated photographers Jacqueline Livingston and Jock Sturges, though ultimately no charges were brought.