2009 Bangkok International Film Festival

The 2009 Bangkok International Film Festival (incorporating the Bangkok International Animation Festival 2009) ends today, after six days of screenings at Paragon Cineplex and SF CentralWorld. Today's (unfortunately invitation-only) closing film is Sawasdee Bangkok, a collection of nine short films about Bangkok inspired by Paris, Je T'Aime.

The Festival also included Lars von Trier's provocative Antichrist (25th and 26th September), Giorgos Lanthimos's similarly explicit Dogtooth (26th and 29th September), Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces (28th and 29th September), and Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Nymph (the short version rather than the Cannes version; 27th and 29th September). (Pen-ek's Ploy was screened in 2007, and his Invisible Waves opened the Festival in 2006.) The Festival's poster (Beauty Eternal) has been designed by Wisit Sasanatieng, who also designed the 2008 poster.

Celebration

Celebration, Madonna's third greatest hits album (after The Immaculate Collection and GHV2) features a comprehensive selection of hits from her entire career at Warner. She had been signed to Warner since her debut album in 1983, though Celebration is her final Warner project. (Future albums will be released by Live Nation.) Celebration is also available as a video compilation, Celebration: The Video Collection, an exhaustive videography featuring forty-seven videos (though the nudity in Justify My Love and Erotica is censored).

The double-disc album track-list is: Hung Up, Music, Vogue, Four Minutes, Holiday, Everybody, Like A Virgin, Into The Groove, Like A Prayer, Ray Of Light, Sorry, Express Yourself, Open Your Heart, Borderline, Secret, Erotica, Justify My Love, Revolver, Dress You Up, Material Girl, La Isla Bonita, Papa Don't Preach, Lucky Star, Burning Up, Crazy For You, Who's That Girl, Frozen, Miles Away, Take A Bow, Live To Tell, Beautiful Stranger, Hollywood, Die Another Day, Don't Tell Me, Cherish, and Celebration. A single-disc version is also available, with fewer tracks. It's So Cool is available as a digital bonus track.

The video track-list is: Hung Up, Music, Vogue, Four Minutes, Holiday, Like A Virgin, Into The Groove, Like A Prayer, Ray Of Light, Sorry, Express Yourself, Open Your Heart, Borderline, Secret, Erotica, Justify My Love, Material Girl, La Isla Bonita, Papa Don't Preach, Lucky Star, Burning Up, Crazy For You, Who's That Girl, Frozen, Miles Away, Take A Bow, Beautiful Stranger, Hollywood, Die Another Day, Don't Tell Me, Cherish, Celebration, Deeper And Deeper, I'll Remember, Rain, Secret, Bedtime Stories, I Want You, You'll See, The Power Of Goodbye, American Pie, What It Feels Like For A Girl, Love Profusion, Get Together, Jump, Give It 2 Me, and True Blue.

Antichrist

Antichrist, directed by Lars von Trier, is intentionally provocative, occasionally surreal, and ultimately misogynistic. The director also made The Idiots, which scandalised Cannes in 1999, and Antichrist is another Cannes succes de scandale.

The film is divided into a series of chapters, and also includes a prologue and epilogue. In the prologue, which is filmed in slow-motion and black-and-white, a man and woman have sex while their son falls to his death. The man, who is a psychotherapist, helps the woman overcome her grief (though his psychobabble is ineffective), and the couple take a trip to their cabin in the woods. The cabin is called Eden; the names of the protagonists are never revealed, though the Biblical reference is clear enough.

The woman is writing a thesis on gynocide (the systematic murder of women). 'Gynocide' was coined by the feminist writer Mary Daly in her excellent book Gyn/Ecology, though Antichrist is arguably an anti-feminist film. Like Eve, the woman becomes increasingly unsympathetic as a character, most obviously when she (unconvincingly) drills a hole through the man's leg. The film's ending suggests that, as in medieval witch trials, feminine evil must be destroyed.

Though most of the film is shot realistically with hand-held cameras and jump-cuts, there are some inexplicable fantasy sequences involving wild animals, notably a ludicrous talking fox who, in the director's voice, says "Chaos reigns!". There are also three close-up inserts which are included purely for shock value, featuring hardcore sex (as in The Idiots) and female circumcision.

Bodyworlds

Bodyworlds, the anatomical exhibition of preserved human corpses organised by Gunther von Hagens, has been touring the world for the past twelve years. Famously, when the exhibition came to London in 2002, von Hagens performed a public autopsy which was later televised.

This year, two corpses posed in mid-coitus were added to the exhibition, though they had to be removed before the exhibition was shown in Cologne (Germany), Augsburg (Germany), and Zurich (Switzerland). (A Bodyworlds imitator, Our Body, was banned in France earlier this year.)

The 100 Best Films

For the past five days, The Independent newspaper's Life supplement has published a list titled The 100 Best Films compiled by Anthony Quinn. Last year, two other UK newspapers (The Times and The Sunday Telegraph) published similar lists, though Quinn's selection is significantly better. His list is as follows:

1. All About Eve
2. Double Indemnity
3. Singin' In The Rain
4. The Wild Bunch
5. The Lady Eve
6. The Battle Of Algiers
7. Great Expectations
8. Vertigo
9. The Conformist
10. Chinatown
11. Brief Encounter
12. Kind Hearts & Coronets
13. This Is Spinal Tap
14. The Night Of The Hunter
15. To Have & Have Not
16. The Godfather I-II
17. Notorious
18. Sweet Smell Of Success
19. A Man Escaped
20. Citizen Kane
21. The Big Sleep
22. Raging Bull
23. Sherlock Jr
24. The Third Man
25. The Rules Of The Game
26. Fear Eats The Soul
27. Casablanca
28. The Red Shoes
29. Alien
30. The Magnificent Ambersons
31. On The Waterfront
32. Groundhog Day
33. The Apartment
34. The Last Detail
35. Duck Soup
36. L'Enfant Sauvage
37. Manhattan
38. Once Upon A Time In America
39. Breathless
40. Blue Velvet
41. Taxi Driver
42. Oliver!
43. It Happened One Night
44. Nashville
45. L'Atalante
46. Touch Of Evil
47. Gone With The Wind
48. The Conversation
49. Sunset Boulevard
50. Meet Me In St Louis
51. Overlord
52. Ball Of Fire
53. Sullivan's Travels
54. There Will Be Blood
55. LA Confidential
56. His Girl Friday
57. The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith
58. The Fallen Idol
59. The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis
60. Psycho
61. The Life & Death Of Colonel Blimp
62. Toy Story
63. The Dark Mirror
64. Downfall
65. Tokyo Story
66. Rashomon
67. Wild Strawberries
68. Rebecca
69. Aguirre: The Wrath Of God
70. The Lost Weekend
71. Barry Lyndon
72. Smiles Of A Summer Night
73. In A Lonely Place
74. Rumble Fish
75. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
76. The Deer Hunter
77. Rififi
78. The Lives Of Others
79. The Adventures Of Robin Hood
80. Duel
81. Mean Streets
82. The Lusty Men
83. The Searchers
84. The Reckless Moment
85. Ridicule
86. Diner
87. Peeping Tom
88. The Leopard
89. Trainspotting
90. La Kermesse Heroique
91. I Am Cuba
92. Nights Of Cabiria
93. Together
94. Picnic At Hanging Rock
95. Don't Look Now
96. Los Olividados
97. Election
98. Unforgiven
99. The Wages Of Fear
100. Army In The Shadows

Technically, there are 101 films on the list, as The Godfather parts I and II are both listed at #16. It's surprising that films such as The Searchers (#83), Rashomon (#66), Tokyo Story (#65), and Psycho (#60) are in such low positions. It's an extremely international list, though there are only two silent films included. All About Eve is a great film, but is it really the best film ever made?

Bangkok International Animation Festival 2009

The Bangkok International Animation Festival 2009 will take place from 25th-30th September at Paragon Cineplex and SF CentralWorld, in partnership with the 2009 Bangkok International Film Festival. Ponyo, released in Bangkok recently, will be screened again at the Festival.

1001 MoviesYou Must See Before You Die

The 2009 edition of Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die has now been released. As in the 2008, 2007, 2006, and 2005 versions, the changes are limited to the most recent films. Ten titles have been deleted, including The Passion Of The Christ, Meet The Parents, and The Queen; the most interesting of the ten additions is The Good, The Bad, & The Weird, a South Korean tribute to 'spaghetti westerns'.

Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea

Ponyo On The Cliff By The Sea is the latest film by master Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. The title character (loosely based on The Little Mermaid) is a fish who longs to be human after falling in love with Sosuke, the boy who catches her. Miyazaki's films all appeal to both children and adults, and Ponyo is no exception, though (like his earlier My Neighbour Totoro) it's aimed at a younger audience than some of his more recent works.

Miyazaki begins the film with a clear warning about marine pollution, depicting the sea and coastline littered with rubbish. Also notable is the portrayal of Sosuke's mother, Lisa; her frustration when she is late for work, and when her husband is late home, is surprisingly realistic, given the otherwise innocent nature of the film.

As in many of Miyazaki's films, there are magical elements which are never fully explained. Ponyo's father, for example, is a kind of Captain Nemo figure, a wizard who lives underwater; her mother is a sea goddess. At the end of the film, the wizard appears to rejuvenate a group of elderly people in a magical water-bubble, in an odd and surely unintentional echo of the film Cocoon.

For Alexis

Apichatpong Weerasethakul has directed a short film, For Alexis, as a tribute to the murdered film critic Alexis Tioseco, which is available online. Apichatpong has previously released other short films online, including Phantoms Of Nabua, Mobile Men, and Prosperity For 2008.

"Using all forms of violence..."

An audio clip in which Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva appears to call for the suppression of the red-shirt demonstrators "using all forms of violence" has been blocked by the Ministry of Information, Communication, and Technology. Thai sites that previously streamed it (including Matichon and Thai Insider) have now deleted it.

The tape was edited to misrepresent Abhisit, using extracts from his 19th and 26th April Confidence In Thailand TV programmes. According to the Democrats, it was originally distributed via email by an employee of SC Asset (a company owned by Thaksin's younger sister). It was apparently sent to Pheu Thai (the political party Thaksin controls) on 26th August. It has since been broadcast by ASTV and D-Station.

Inglourious Basterds

Inglourious Basterds [sic] is the new film by Quentin Tarantino, slightly re-edited (and two minutes longer) following its premiere at Cannes earlier this year. For more than a decade, Tarantino had been telling interviewers that he was planning a 'guys on a mission' film, and he had apparently been writing the script for much of that time. The result is a World War II revenge fantasy in a 'spaghetti western' style. (The opening caption, "Once upon a time", indicates the fantasy element; it's also a spaghetti western tribute, as are the many Ennio Morricone music cues.) The title is an intentional (though unexplained) mis-spelling of The Inglorious Bastards, the American release title of a 1978 Italian exploitation film.

So, Tarantino is again paying homage to 1970s genre cinema (after Blaxploitation in Jackie Brown, rape-revenge in Death Proof, and 'chop socky' in Kill Bill), though here he's also paying tribute to the cinema in general. The 'basterds' of the title, a group of Jewish-American vigilantes intent on killing Nazi soldiers led by top-billed Brad Pitt with a Southern drawl, are not really the main focus of the film. The crux of the plot actually involves a scheme to kill Adolf Hitler and other high-ranking Third Reich officers, by sending a former film critic and an actress to blow up a Parisian cinema. Coincidentally, the cinema's owner also plans to burn it down, by setting fire to inflammable nitrate film prints. Thus, cinema literally saves the world.

Christoph Waltz has received substantial praise for his performance as SS Colonel Landa. His character is arguably more significant than Pitt's, and he certainly gives the film's greatest performance. Speaking French, English, German, and Italian, he charms his suspects with effortless charisma. The film is composed of a series of chapters, each containing one or more long dialogue scenes; those featuring the cordial yet ruthless Landa are the most tense, amusing, and captivating. Like Samuel L Jackson and Harvey Keitel in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Waltz's precise delivery and verbal dexterity steal the show. (Jackson and Keitel have voice-over cameos in this film, as does Tarantino himself.)

Getting Off At Gateshead

Getting Off At Gateshead: The Dirtiest Words & Phrases In English From Ass-End To Zig-Zag, by lexicographer Jonathon Green, is divided into twenty-six alphabetical chapters, with each chapter devoted to a particular word. (Chapter three is the most interesting.) Brief etymologies and literary citations are provided, followed by synonyms and derivatives. The content is not all that different from Green's earlier Slang Down The Ages, and several other works, all produced by extracting thematic lists of words from Green's comprehensive slang dictionary (published in 1998, revised in 2005, and updated in 2008).

13th Thai Short Film & Video Festival

The 13th Thai Short Film & Video Festival closes this Sunday (and opened on 13th August). Each year, a short film to promote the Festival is played before every programme, and this year's film (Man Who Eat An Egg) was directed by Thunska Pansittivorakul, who filmed it in a recreation of Thomas Edison's primitive Black Maria studio. (The Black Maria replica was on show earlier this year, at the Cine-Bananas event; Thunska's Middle-Earth was screened at the 11th Festival.) Like the 12th Festival, this year's event takes place at the Bangkok Art & Culture Centre.

Discovering Orson Welles

Discovering Orson Welles is a compilation of articles about Welles by Jonathan Rosenbaum. There are a few essays and film criticism pieces, though many articles are less substantial: book reviews, notes, and other ephemera. In fact, what's most interesting here are not Rosenbaum's comments on Welles but rather his comments on other Welles books. He also presents a useful survey of the various versions of every Welles film, and discusses his contribution to the restoration of Touch Of Evil.

Rosenbaum's annotations are too "autobiographical in nature", and he tends to "spin out" his single meeting with Welles - both of which he acknowledges in his introduction. Despite this, however, Rosenbaum is the ideal Welles scholar, more objective and meticulous than acolytes such as Barbara Leaming or Peter Bogdanovich. Also, his criticisms of both Pauline Kael and David Thomson are very welcome.

Spaghetti Westerns

This is the third edition of Christopher Frayling's classic study of Italian westerns, subtitled Cowboys & Europeans From Karl May To Sergio Leone. Though Frayling did not coin the term 'spaghetti western', his book did popularise and destigmatise it.

Although the original Spaghetti Westerns was written almost thirty years ago, neither subsequent edition has revised or expanded the text, with the only additions being new prefaces and a brief introduction by the editor, film historian Jeffrey Richards. Even the errata and typographical errors remain uncorrected, though they are at least listed in the prefaces.

The book is essential as the first substantial, academic analysis of spaghetti westerns. It's also vital for anyone interested in the western genre, or in genre cinema in general. Frayling has since written two books with production designer Ken Adam: an extended interview, and a design monograph. He also wrote a biography of Sergio Leone (Something To Do With Death) and a monograph on Leone's films (Once Upon A Time In Italy).

Ganapati

Ganapati, an exhibition at Kerkar Art Complex in India, is causing controversy as it features irreverent drawings of the Hindu god Ganesha. The artist, Subodh Kerkar, has been threatened with violence, and complaints have been made to the police. He has been warned by the police not to "hurt religious feelings". The exhibition opened yesterday and will close at the end of the month.

Lae Nang... Long Tai

Paragon Cineplex, Bangkok, will host a mini film festival from 7th-9th August, called Lae Nang... Long Tai. The festival's films all depict life in southern Thailand, with the highlight being a screening of Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Invisible Waves on the final day. Invisible Waves was first shown in 2006, when it opened that year's Bangkok International Film Festival.

Cinerama Adventure

Cinerama Adventure is a feature-length documentary written and directed by David Strohmaier. It presents a comprehensive history of the Cinerama film production and distribution process.

Cinerama was developed by Fred Waller, who originally created an eleven-projector system called Vitarama in 1939, later modified to five projectors as a flight simulator for trainee pilots in World War II. Rare footage of both versions of Vitarama is included in Cinerama Adventure. Another key Cinerama antecedent was the triptych Polyvision system used by Abel Gance for Napoleon in 1927, also featured in Cinerama Adventure. Gance was inspired by the incredible Cineorama of 1900, a truly panoramic display produced by ten 70mm projectors.

No surviving Cineorama footage exists, and the process is not discussed in Cinerama Adventure. Also, footage from multi-projector processes produced after Cinerama, such as Disneyland's Circle-Vision (nine projectors, 1955), the Russian Kinopanorama (three projectors, 1958), and the experiments discussed by Stan van der Beek (author of Culture: Intercom & Expanded Cinema) and Gene Youngblood (author of Expanded Cinema), is also omitted.

Filming in Cinerama required three synchronised 35mm cameras, which could then be projected as a triptych onto a curved screen at an aspect ratio of 2.89:1. This resulted in an immersive audience experience, with the screen extending into the viewer's peripheral vision. Also, the process utilised seven audio tracks, with speakers positioned at the front, back, and sides of the auditorium.

Cinerama Adventure includes numerous short clips from the first Cinerama film, This Is Cinerama, which premiered in 1952 and is most famous for its roller-coaster opening sequence. [I saw This Is Cinerama in one of the three surviving Cinerama cinemas, the National Media Museum in Bradford, UK.] This Is Cinerama is not commercially available, so the clips in Cinerama Adventure are invaluable. Longer extracts were featured in The Reality Trip (a 1995 BBC Moving Pictures documentary), though this has never been released on video.

The documentary also includes extensive footage from various Cinerama travelogues, and from How The West Was Won, one of the few narrative Cinerama films. Finally, brief clips from conventional 70mm films projected onto Cinerama screens (including Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, originally shown in 2.21:1 with six audio tracks) are included. All Cinerama extracts are presented using the new Smilebox process, a digital simulation of the curved Cinerama screen.

Cinerama was a relatively short-lived process, as the three-camera system made close-ups and vertical compositions virtually impossible. Also, it was prohibitively expensive for cinemas to install the two extra projection booths necessary for Cinerama exhibition. However, the format did directly inspire the use of anamorphic widescreen processes such as CinemaScope, which successfully approximated the spectacle of Cinerama without the need for such cumbersome cameras or drastic cinema alterations. Cinerama, CinemaScope, and also 3D projection (all popularised in the early 1950s) were gimmicky attempts to draw audiences away from television and other pursuits, after American cinema audiences declined steeply in the late 1940s. (History is currently repeating itself, with new IMAX and 3D crazes perhaps reacting to the popularity of home theatre systems and HDTV.)

Cinerama Adventure features interviews with film historians such as John Belton (author of Widescreen Cinema) and Kevin Brownlow (who restored Napoleon and directed the documentary series Hollywood), and director Joe Dante. Belton and Dante also contributed to The Reality Trip, which discussed one aspect of Cinerama not mentioned in Cinerama Adventure: the vertical seams which appeared when the films were projected. These seams were often disguised by positioning conspicuous trees or similar objects within the frame, creating another aesthetic limitation for Cinerama directors.

Nymph

Pen-ek Ratanaruang originally screened Nymph at Cannes, and that version was given a limited release in Bangkok last month. Pen-ek has also prepared a shorter, more commercial version, which has received a wider release. This version makes slight trims to many scenes, shortening the dialogue-free stretches which multiplex audiences may have dismissed as longueurs.

Some sequences, such as Korn leaving his wife, and Korn and May praying to the tree, have been removed because they are already referred to in the dialogue: the audience knows that they have happened, so it is not necessary to actually show them. At least one key shot has been cut: we hear a loud noise, and later see Korn's bandaged hand, though without the shot of the broken glass (present in the original), it is not clear that Korn smashed the window of May's car.

Also, to enable the characters to reach the forest as quickly as possible, several scenes from the beginning of the film are deleted in their entirety. These include sequences in a photography shop (where Nop discusses his plan to visit the forest), a hotel (where May surreptitiously telephones Korn), and the car journey to the forest (during which May ignores Nop and answers phone calls from work). The result is that May and Nop's relationship seems to deteriorate only when they reach the forest, whereas in the original version it is clear that their marriage is in trouble even before they begin their trip.

The shorter version certainly has a faster pace, though the most noticeable change relates to the soundtrack. To create a conventional horror film atmosphere, music has been added to many scenes, whereas there was no music at all on the original soundtrack.

Courrier-International

The 9th July issue of Courrier-International has been banned in Morocco. The magazine features a cartoon of King Mohammed VI, by Khalid Kadar, depicting the King riding a jet ski on a pile of money. (Last year, an issue of L'Express International was also banned in Morocco.)

Poisoned

German artist Ottmar Horl is facing a police investigation following public complaints about his Nazi gnome, titled Poisoned. The golden gnome, which is performing a "Heil Hitler" salute, was on display in Nuremberg, though displaying Nazi iconography is illegal in Germany. Horl has previously shown similar gnomes in an exhibition titled Dance With The Devil, in Belgium and Italy.

Future Noir

Future Noir: The Making Of Blade Runner, by Paul M Sammon, has been updated to include details of The Final Cut, an additional version of the film Blade Runner released in 2007. The second edition of Sammon's book contains a 100-page chapter on the production of The Final Cut, listings of the various Blade Runner DVD releases, and an extensive interview with actor Harrison Ford.

Much of Sammon's primary research for the new edition was published by Empire magazine in August 2007. Sammon has been writing about Blade Runner ever since its production began: his on-set report was published by Omni in May 1982, his making-of article appeared in Cinefantastique in July 1982, and he compared the various versions of the film for Video Watchdog in November 1993.

A History Of Interior Design

A History Of Interior Design, by John Pile, is now in its third edition. Pile's historical survey spans more than 3,000 years, from Mayan temples and ancient Egypt to 21st century Europe. Interior design is "a field with unclear boundaries", as Pile acknowledges, though fortunately the book's scope is inclusive rather than exclusive, incorporating architecture, furniture, and enclosed exterior spaces in addition to conventional interiors.

There are almost 700 illustrations and nearly 500 pages, plus an Interactive Timeline CD-ROM, though the book concentrates primarily on Europe and America, with only a single chapter discussing non-Western design. The publisher, Laurence King, specialises in definitive surveys of various artistic fields, with other titles including A World History Of Architecture and Graphic Design: A New History.

Nymph (director's cut)

In Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Nymph, a young married couple take a camping trip to the forest. Nop communes with nature and photographs the surrounding trees, while his wife May is more interested in her cellphone signal, calling Korn, her lover back in Bangkok.

Nop and May's marriage is clearly going stale, as was the central relationship in Pen-ek's previous film, Ploy. Nymph, in its original version as premiered at Cannes, also share's Ploy's slow pace, sparse dialogue, and ambient soundtrack.

Nop becomes fascinated by one tree in particular, caressing its trunk as if it were a woman's body. He sees a nude woman in the distance, and follows her deeper into the forest. The woman he sees is perhaps the same woman who killed two rapists in the film's impressive prologue, with the camera swooping through trees and over a river. The woman may also be a spirit (the nymph of the film's English title) who personifies the unusually compelling tree.

Exactly what happens to Nop remains ambiguous. He seems to disappear, though later he apparently returns to the couple's house. As in Nang Nak, the returning spouse may not have returned at all; Nop may, in fact, have become a forest spirit himself, as does the missing boy in Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Tropical Malady.

The Spectator's 50 Essential Films

The Spectator, in its 20th June and 27th June issues, has published its list of 50 Essential Films, as follows:

1. The Night Of The Hunter
2. Apocalypse Now
3. Sunrise
4. Black Narcissus
5. L'Avventura
6. The Searchers
7. The Magnificent Ambersons
8. The Seventh Seal
9. L'Atalante
10. Rio Bravo
11. The Godfather I-II
12. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
13. Grand Illusion
14. Citizen Kane
15. The Scarlet Empress
16. Tokyo Story
17. Blade Runner
18. Rear Window
19. Point Blank
20. The Red Shoes
21. Mme De...
22. Shadows
23. Pickpocket
24. Viridiana
25. Barry Lyndon
26. City Lights
27. Pierrot Le Fou
28. Sunset Boulevard
29. Notorious
30. M
31. The Roaring Twenties
32. Singin' In The Rain
33. The Long Day Closes
34. Killer Of Sheep
35. Gun Crazy
36. Andrei Rublev
37. Taxi Driver
38. The 400 Blows
39. Pulp Fiction
40. Kind Hearts & Coronets
41. In The Mood For Love
42. Sullivan's Travels
43. 8½
44. Pinocchio
45. Great Expectations
46. Rome: Open City
47. Duck Soup
48. Jaws
49. Manhattan
50. Out Of The Past

Most directors are represented by only a single film, though Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock have two each, and Francis Coppola has three (with The Godfather I and II making a total of fifty-one films on the list). One oversight: nothing by Akira Kurosawa. Foreign-language films are quite well represented, though there are only two silent films.

Rediscovering Spiritual Value

Rediscovering Spiritual Value: Alternative To Consumerism From A Siamese Buddhist Perspective is a collection of recent articles and speeches by Sulak Sivaraksa, publisher of Seeds Of Peace. One of Sulak's previous books, ค่อนศตวรรษ ประชาธิปไตยไทย, was banned in Thailand in 2007.

Significantly, Rediscovering Spiritual Value includes an English translation of an interview in which Sulak discusses the Thai monarchy, originally published in a banned edition of the Thai journal Same Sky. In the translated version, Sulak adds a footnote at the end of the interview: "The Thai editor stopped the interview here, yet both the editor... and the interviewee were charged with lese-majesty."

Happy Wonju

A cartoonist in South Korea is facing a fine equivalent to $100,000 after his local council filed a complaint with the police. The cartoonist, Choi, inserted insulting comments about South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak into a cartoon in the Happy Wonju newsletter, distributed last month.

Putin: "It's a bit too much..."

A Russian artist, Alexander Shednov, also known as Shurik, has been arrested after he projected an image of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's face and a woman's body onto the side of a building in Voronezh on 12th June. In the collage, the PM says: "A third Presidential term? It's a bit too much. On the other hand, three's a charm".

Thai Rath

On 6th June, the sensationalist Thai Rath (ไทยรัฐ) newspaper published, on its front page, a photograph allegedly showing David Carradine’s body at the scene of his death. (His body had been discovered in his hotel wardrobe two days earlier.)

The image was partially censored, with a black moire pattern added to cover the body. (Incredibly, this pattern has led some international news sources, who have clearly not seen the photo, to claim that Carradine died wearing fishnet stockings.) The same image was also printed on an inside page with only slight pixelation.

Since the photograph was published, Carradine’s family has threatened legal action against any subsequent reproduction. Consequently, no other publication has printed the image, and it has been removed from Thai Rath’s website.

There is some speculation that the image is a fake, as it appears to show a relatively young man with black hair. But the position of the corpse is consistent with police reports that Carradine was discovered hanged and tied up in an apparent act of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Several unquestionably genuine photographs taken after Carradine’s autopsy have appeared online, though they have not appeared in any print publications.

Thai Rath is notorious for its crime-scene photographs. Perhaps the first was in 1961, when it published a photo of the body of a female student who had been raped and murdered. That image has rarely been reproduced, though it does appear in ๔ ทศวรรษภาพข่าวไทย (‘40 years of Thai photojournalism’).

World Comedy Film Festival 2009

Bangkok will host the inaugural World Comedy Film Festival later this month (10th to 16th June) at Paragon Cineplex and SF CentralWorld. The event has been postponed twice, and an ambitious early announcement, that Stephen Chow and Rowan Atkinson would be attending, has been quietly dropped.

The most interesting film in the programme is With Gilbert & George (screening on 12th and 16th June), a comprehensive portrait of the artists filmed by Julian Cole over a seventeen-year period. But it's an art documentary, not a comedy. (The artists were the inspiration for several murals at Bangkok's Siam Center mall.)