'So Bad It's Good' Month

Bangkok's Jam Cafe is hosting a 'So Bad It's Good' season this month, as part of its regular Cult Movie Night event. Tonight's film is Edward D Wood's trash masterpiece Plan Nine From Outer Space, one of the most notorious of the 1950s sci-fi B-movies. (Previous Cult Movie Night seasons include Philip Seymour Hoffman Month and Noir Month.)

Plan Nine has had an undeserved reputation as the worst film ever made ever since it was named as such in Michael and Harry Medved's book The Golden Turkey Awards. (Aside from mocking bad films, Michael Medved is also a religious critic of liberal media values; his Golden Turkey Awards is significant only because it inadvertently drew attention to the obscure Ed D Louie film Him.)

Edward D Wood's reputation has been reappraised following Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood and the Plan Nine documentary Flying Saucers Over Hollywood. The Incredibly Strange Film Book, by Jonathan Ross, devotes a chapter to Wood, and another to Wood's bizarre exploitation film Glen Or Glenda. Ross was presumably influenced by Jim Morton's essay on Wood in the Re/Search book Incredibly Strange Films.

Noah

Darren Aronofsky's new film, Noah, stars Russell Crowe as the antediluvian patriarch who built the ark and survived the flood. The Biblical story of the flood is told in less than five pages, though Aronofsky has expanded it into a 138-minute epic. Noah, like The Fountain, opens with a quotation from Genesis. Its budget was more than twice that of all Aronofsky's five previous films (Pi, Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain, Black Swan, and The Wrestler) combined, though Aronofsky is better suited to low-budget indie films rather than bloated studio projects.

With its apocalyptic flood, Noah could have been the ultimate disaster movie, but instead of emphasising the deluge itself, Aronofsky has added new elements in an attempt at dramatic tension. The entire third act, with Noah becoming increasingly deranged after his daughter-in-law's pregnancy, is an un-necessary embellishment. The most bizarre additions are the Warriors, giant rock-creatures who look like leftovers from the Lord Of The Rings.

The film is being released in 2D and IMAX DMR in English-language territories, with some screenings in Dolby Atmos. It has also been retrofitted into 3D and IMAX DMR 3D for foreign-language markets.

Typewriter Art

[Typed on a 1923 Remington Portable no. 1.]

For Monkeys Only

The Dazed & Confused website is currently streaming For Monkeys Only, a new short film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The film, just over a minute in length, features a static shot of a stone monkey statue, with a garish, flashing eye symbol superimposed over it. Apichatpong's previous online short films are 2013, Cactus River, Ashes, For Alexis, Phantoms Of Nabua, Mobile Men, and Prosperity For 2008.

I interviewed Apichatpong last year for Encounter Thailand magazine. He is most famous for his feature films Syndromes & A Century (censored in Thailand) and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. He has hosted two retrospectives of his short films in Bangkok: Apichatpong On Video Works and Indy Spirit Project. His other works include A Letter To Uncle Boonmee and Mekong Hotel, both related to his Primitive art installation.

301 Greatest Movies Of All Time

Empire magazine has launched another Greatest Movies Of All Time readers' poll. The survey closes on 4th May, and a list of the top 301 films will appear in the July issue of the magazine.

A History Of Film Music

A History Of Film Music, by Mervyn Cooke, is a comprehensive history of film scores and soundtracks. Unlike previous works on the subject, the book's scope extends beyond Hollywood and also covers film music from France, the UK, the Soviet Union, Italy, Japan, and India.

Cooke discusses the use of music to accompany silent films, the transition to sound film, and the subsequent development of the Hollywood musical. He also profiles the major film composers, and highlights the stylistic trends in the evolution of film soundtracks, such as the Wagnerian leitmotif, the epic score, and the appropriation of jazz, pop, and classical music.

Cooke writes that Max Steiner's score for King Kong, rather than his work on Gone With The Wind, is "universally acknowledged as his most important achievement, one that almost single-handedly marked the coming-of-age of non-diagetic film music". Similarly, he notes that Bernard Herrmann's Psycho score is "universally acknowledged to be one of the most original and influential in cinema history". (Surprisingly, Herrmann's cameo in The Man Who Knew Too Much is not mentioned.) John Williams, whose scores include Jaws and Star Wars, is cited as the primary exponent of "the new symphonism", the contemporary revival of the traditional symphonic score.

Stanley Kubrick is singled out as as the director who "engaged most thoroughly and influentially with classical music". Most famously, Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathrustra became "inextricably associated with outer space in the popular imagination" after Kubrick used it in 2001: A Space Odyssey. In an uncharacteristic digression, Cooke dismisses Eyes Wide Shut as a "dreary sex melodrama that quickly collapses under the weight of its own pretensions". (He overlooks Eyes Wide Shut's subversion of Kubrick's penchant for classical compositions, when an apparently non-diagetic Shostakovich waltz is interrupted by switching off a diagetic hi-fi.)

The book's subheadings contain some unfortunate neologisms, such as "postlude" (the opposite of 'prelude') and "glocal" (a combination of 'global' and 'local'); and the odd choice of cover photo (Jaws 3D) was presumably a compromise because the publisher couldn't get the rights to the original Jaws. But with full coverage of Hollywood films, and a uniquely international scope, A History Of Film Music is the history of film music.

“Acts of the prime minister that are unconstitutional...”

It seems increasingly likely that Yingluck Shinawatra will become the third prime minister affiliated with Thaksin Shinawatra to be disqualified by the Constitutional Court. (Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wongsawat were both dismissed in 2008. The court disqualified Thaksin himself in 2007, though he had already been removed by a military coup.)

Twenty-seven senators signed a petition asking the Constitutional Court to rule on Yingluck’s removal of Thawil Pliensri as head of the National Security Council. The court accepted the petition yesterday, and Yingluck now has fifteen days to defend herself against a charge of violating the constitution. Thawil claims that his transfer “involves acts of the prime minister that are unconstitutional”.

Yingluck demoted Thawil in 2011, replacing him with the chief of police, and then appointed Priewpan Damapong as the new police chief. Thawil was secretary of the Council for the Resolution of the Emergency Situation (which launched the military massacre in 2010), and Priewpan is Thaksin’s brother-in-law, thus the court petition argues that Thawil’s replacement was politically motivated. The constitution prohibits “the recruitment, appointment, reshuffle, transfer... of a Government official” if such action is performed “for personal benefits or for the benefits of others or of a political party” (article 266).

If the Constitutional Court finds Yingluck guilty, she will automatically face dismissal as PM. This scenario is highly likely, as the Central Administrative Court has already ruled that Thawil’s replacement was unconstitutional. That verdict was upheld last month by the Supreme Administrative Court, and Thawil has now been reinstated to comply with the forty-five day deadline imposed by the court.

The constitution states that, if a prime minister leaves office, the new PM must be a member of parliament: “The Prime Minister shall be a member of the House of Representatives” (article 171). Furthermore, the prime minister must be selected by a majority parliamentary vote: “the appointment of a person as Prime Minister shall be passed by the votes of more than one-half of the total number of the existing members of the House of Representatives” (article 172). If a majority vote is not reached within thirty days, “the person who has received the highest votes” must be selected (article 173). However, the Constitutional Court’s nullification of the election means that a prime minister cannot be proposed or voted for, as there are no sitting MPs.

The People’s Alliance for Democracy and People’s Democratic Reform Committee have both called for a royally-appointed prime minister, citing article seven of the constitution, though article seven merely affirms “the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State”. In fact, the King unequivocally ruled out an appointed prime minister in 2006, saying: “Article seven does not empower the King to make a unilateral decision... If the King made a decision, he would overstep his duty and it would be undemocratic”.

The status of the caretaker cabinet would also be in question following the Prime Minister’s dismissal. According to the constitution, the cabinet must remain until the next parliament is in place: “The outgoing Council of Ministers shall remain in office for performing duties until the newly appointed Council of Ministers takes office” (article 181). However, the constitution also states that the cabinet must resign following the prime minister’s disqualification: “Ministers vacate office en masse upon... the termination of ministership of the Prime Minister” (article 180).

The Constitutional Court is likely to be one of the primary arbiters in these cases, and in the absence of legal precedents, much will depend on the court’s own interpretation of the constitution. Ominously, the court declared the election illegal on 21st March despite having declared it legal on 12th February; and it ruled that the election could be postponed, citing the 2006 election as a precedent, though the 2006 election was not postponed.

Yingluck is not the only prime minister to be found guilty of inappropriately transferring government officials. Abhisit Vejjajiva has been convicted of two such cases: he demoted Piraphon Tritasawit in 2009, and ignored the Administrative Court’s verdict requiring reinstatement; and the Court ruled last month that Abhisit’s 2009 dismissal of Patcharawat Wongsuwan was also unlawful. However, neither case reached the Constitutional Court, unlike Yingluck’s transfer of Thawil.

Language!

Language!: 500 Years Of The Vulgar Tongue is a history of slang written by Jonathon Green. The book is organised thematically, with chapters on slang topics (crime, sex, and sport), the development of slang in Anglophone territories (Australia and America), and the slang subsets of various minorities and subcultures (Cockney, teenage, gay, and African-American). As Green writes in his preface, the book tells "the story of the language, its development and proliferation".

There are also chapters on slang lexicography, a subject that Green first covered in Chasing The Sun. Green himself is a leading slang lexicographer: his Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang was a worthy successor to Eric Partridge's Dictionary Of Slang & Unconventional English, and his exhaustive Green's Dictionary Of Slang is the definitive slang dictionary.

For its American edition, Language! has been retitled The Vulgar Tongue: Green's History Of Slang. Green's previous books include The Encyclopedia Of Censorship, All Dressed Up, Getting Off At Gateshead, and Slang Down The Ages (which, like Language!, charts the development of slang's major themes, though with less historical context). His essay on the adjective 'cuntal' appeared in the journal SEx [sic], and he has contributed to various TV documentaries including Without Walls: Expletives Deleted.

The Public Enemy

The Public Enemy, directed by William Wellman, is one of the greatest and most influential of the early gangster films. It was released only a few months after Little Caesar, though it has aged much better than that earlier film.

The public enemy of the title is Tom Powers, played by James Cagney in his breakthrough performance. The film established Cagney as the archetypal gangster star, and as the most electrifying actor of the 1930s. The intensity of his performance is startling even now. He would later star in Angels With Dirty Faces, The Roaring Twenties, and the pinnacle of the gangster genre, White Heat.

The film begins with the childhoods of Tom Powers and his friend Matt Doyle, as they graduate from petty theft to organised crime; GoodFellas and The Departed begin with similar flashback sequences. One scene, in which Powers robs a gun shop using one of the shopkeeper's own guns, was imitated in The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly. The film's most famous moment, though, is when Powers shoves half a grapefruit into his girlfriend's face, an act that's been parodied many times since (for example, in Some Like It Hot).

Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, both released by Warner Bros., initiated a cycle of gangster films and confirmed social realism as the predominant Warner studio style. The gangster film was one of several cycles that began in the 1930s: horror (Dracula and Frankenstein), musical (42nd Street), western (Stagecoach), and comedy (It Happened One Night) genres were all re-established for the sound era. (Thomas Schatz discusses this in his book Hollywood Genres.)

The Public Enemy was a pre-Code film, and not subject to the strict censorship imposed by the Hays Code in 1934. The film's attitude to sex is therefore surprisingly frank: unmarried couples are seen sharing hotel rooms, which was deemed unacceptable by the censors just a few years later. The film's final scene is also utterly uncompromising, a bleak and powerful ending that would be considered shocking even today.

Silapathorn: A Decade Of SuccessIn Thai Contemporary Art

Thunska Pansittivorakul's provocative documentary The Terrorists will be shown tomorrow as part of an event celebrating ten years of the Silapathorn Award. Silapathorn: A Decade Of Success In Thai Contemporary Art will conclude with a screening of Thunska's film before a play at the Chang Theater in Thonburi, across the river from Bangkok.

Thunska won the Silapathorn Award in 2007. The Terrorists has previously been screened as part of two art exhibitions in Bangkok: Dialogic in 2011 and ประชาเฌอระลึก in 2012.

Dracula

Dracula, directed by Todd Browning, was the first official screen adaptation of Bram Stoker's Victorian Gothic novel. The book had been filmed before, as Nosferatu by FW Murnau, though Murnau's adaptation was unauthorised and its American distribution was legally prevented following a lawsuit by Stoker's widow. Murnau's Nosferatu is one of the masterpieces of Expressionist cinema, though Browning's Dracula pales in comparison.

Dracula's script was based on a popular Broadway stage play, rather than being adapted directly from the original novel. As a result, the film feels too theatrical, with long dialogue scenes and characters wandering around large, bare sets. There are frequent silences, accentuated by the lack of a music score, giving the film a stilted and slow pace. Dracula is finally killed in an anti-climactic and perfunctory way, followed by a strangely abrupt ending. (The film originally had an epilogue and greenish tinting, and a silent version was also released; these have since been lost, though a Spanish-language version survives.)

The camerawork is also quite pedestrian, panning slowly away from the action whenever anything horrific happens. Only one sequence demonstrates the skills of cameraman Karl Freund: the fluid camera movement in the establishing shot of the sanitarium, filmed with a dolly and crane. Freund was the cinematographer for several classic German silent films, including Metropolis, The Last Laugh, and Berlin: Symphony Of A Great City; after working on Dracula, he directed Universal's The Mummy.

Count Dracula and Frankenstein's monster are the two most iconic characters in horror literature and cinema. Dracula was not marketed as a horror film (hence the odd selection of Swan Lake as its opening-titles music), though it initiated a cycle of Universal horror films that would continue throughout the 1930s. (For a detailed history, see Kevin Brownlow's documentary Universal Horror.) Immediately after Dracula, Universal released James Whale's Frankenstein, Hollywood's first true horror film, a far superior production inspired by German Expressionism. Frankenstein featured two of Dracula's supporting cast, Edward van Sloan and Dwight Frye; Frye also appeared in Whale's The Invisible Man and Bride Of Frankenstein.

Dracula may be dead, though Bela Lugosi's performance is too lifeless, with his thick Hungarian accent and odd delivery. Later interpretations, such as Christopher Lee in Hammer's Dracula and even Udo Kier in Andy Warhol's Blood For Dracula, have more vitality and menace. Lugosi and Boris Karloff (Frankenstein's monster) later appeared together in Universal's The Black Cat. Lugosi became a rather tragic figure, playing cameos in Edward D Wood's Glen Or Glenda and Plan Nine From Outer Space. He was portrayed by Martin Landau in Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood.

“Don’t even dream that there'll be another election...”

This afternoon, the Constitutional Court declared that the election held on 2nd February was unconstitutional. Citing article 108 of the constitution, which requires that the “election day must be the same throughout the Kingdom”, the court argued that the election did not take place on a single date and was thus invalid.

People’s Democratic Reform Committee protesters led by Suthep Thaugsuban prevented candidates from registering in twenty-eight constituencies, and blocked voting at 11% of polling stations. Suthep’s anti-democratic agenda has never been in doubt, though he confirmed it again yesterday: “If the court rules the election void, don’t even dream that there’ll be another election. If a new election date is declared, then we’ll take care of every province and the election will fail again.”

The Constitutional Court’s judgement is in contrast to its verdict of 12th February, when it rejected calls from the opposition Democrats to nullify the election. Today’s verdict is hardly surprising, however, given that the court had previously nullified the 2006 election. The Democrats boycotted this year’s election, as they did in 2006, in the expectation that the result would be voided by the court.

Today’s verdict legitimises the protesters, and reinforces the impression that the judiciary lacks impartiality. In 2007, the Constitutional Court dissolved Thai Rak Thai though exonerated the Democrats. The following year, in what has been described as a judicial coup, it disqualified Samak Sundaravej for hosting a TV cookery show and dissolved the People Power Party.

Canal Zone

A long-running copyright lawsuit, involving artist Richard Prince's appropriation of existing photographs, has finally been settled out of court. Photographer Patrick Cariou sued Prince in 2009, claiming that Prince's Canal Zone exhibition included photographs reproduced without permission from his book Yes Rasta. Canal Zone was shown at the Gagosian Gallery in New York from 17th June to 28th August 2009.

Cariou initially won the case, when the Southern District Court of New York ruled in 2011 that the gallery must transfer ownership of the exhibited artworks to Cariou, and cease distribution of the exhibition catalogue. That decision was overturned on appeal last year, and twenty-five of Prince's works were deemed to have altered Cariou's original images sufficiently enough to qualify as distinctive artworks rather than copies.

The appeal verdict applied to the majority of Prince's exhibited works, though a handful of pieces were excluded from the ruling: "there are five artworks that, upon our review, present closer questions. Specifically, Graduation, Meditation, Canal Zone (2008), Canal Zone (2007), and Charlie Company do not sufficiently differ from the photographs of Cariou's that they incorporate for us confidently to make a determination about their transformative nature as a matter of law."

This week, Cariou received an undisclosed settlement from Prince, and dropped his claim of copyright infringement. Prince's Spiritual America, his appropriation of a Gary Gross photograph, caused controversy when it was censored from the Pop Life exhibition and catalogue in 2009.

The Book: A Global History

The Book: A Global History, edited by Michael F Suarez and HR Woudhuysen, is a collection of more than fifty essays covering the entire history of publishing and printing. Most of the chapters are also available in the first volume of The Oxford Companion To The Book, though The Book: A Global History features three additional essays and costs six times less. (The Oxford Companion also includes a second volume of 5,000 shorter encyclopedic entries.)

Each chapter is a concise overview of its topic rather than a comprehensive survey, though all chapters are accompanied by individual bibliographies. The number of illustrations is limited, though the book is elegantly designed (except for the stock photo on the jacket). The scope is truly global, with accounts of book production in more than thirty countries and regions. As the editors write in their introduction, "We have sought not only temporal comprehensiveness, but broad geographical range as well."

Philip Seymour Hoffman Month

Bangkok's Jam Cafe is hosting a season of Philip Seymour Hoffman films this month, as part of its regular Cult Movie Night event. The season is a tribute to Hoffman, who died last month. (Previous Cult Movie Night seasons include Noir Month.)

Tonight's film is Synecdoche, New York, the directorial debut of acclaimed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman. It was previously screened in Bangkok last November, as part of the Cinema Diverse season and the 11th World Film Festival of Bangkok.

The Godfather Family Album

The Godfather Family Album, published by Taschen, features photographs taken by Steve Schapiro on the sets of Francis Coppola's Godfather trilogy. The format is similar to Schapiro's Taxi Driver book, with hundreds of photographs accompanied by reprints of old magazine articles about the making of the films (including Peter Biskind's feature from the August 1997 issue of Premiere). It was first published in a limited edition, though it's now available as a standard hardback.

Schapiro's "two most memorable images" from The Godfather - Marlon Brando holding a cat, and Salvatore Corsitto whispering into Brando's ear - are both included, though the most remarkable photos are a series of candid shots of Brando in the make-up chair, his face being manipulated by two make-up artists. The book was edited by Paul Duncan, who has edited many other film books for Taschen, including Cinema Now, Art Cinema, Horror Cinema, Film Noir, Stanley Kubrick: Visual Poet, Alfred Hitchcock: Architect Of Anxiety, and Taxi Driver.

This is the latest of several books about the making of The Godfather: previously, Peter Cowie wrote The Godfather Book and The Godfather: The Official Motion Picture Archives, and the screenplay was published as The Annotated Godfather with notes by Jenny M Jones. There are also several versions of the Godfather trilogy itself: the three films are available individually, though there are also two VHS box sets with re-edited versions of the films - The Godfather Trilogy 1901-1980 and The Godfather: The Complete Epic 1902-1959.

Behind The Scenes At The BBFC

Behind The Scenes At The BBFC: Film Classification From The Silver Screen To The Digital Age, edited by Edward Lamberti, is a history of the British Board of Film Classification (formerly the British Board of Film Censors), published a hundred years after the BBFC was founded in 1912. Despite its somewhat cliched title, this is a rigorous and academic history of a century of British film censorship.

Each of the book's eleven essays examines a different period of the BBFC's history, beginning with Simon Brown's meticulous account of the Board's formation and its regulation of silent films. The 1930s and 1940s are covered by Robert James, though Jeffrey Richards, who specialises in the social history of British cinema, has written about this period elsewhere. Steve Chibnall, author of Quota Quickies, discusses 1950s censorship. Tracy Hargreaves deals with the permissive 1960s, and the BBFC's libertarian censor, John Trevelyan. The 1970s are split into two essays: Stevie Simkin explores the wave of sexually violent films such as A Clockwork Orange; and Guy Osborn and Alex Sinclair examine the role of the BBFC's most influential censor, James Ferman.

Sian Barber's essay on 1980s censorship is not really substantial enough, as it devotes only limited space to perhaps the most significant period of the BBFC's history, namely the 'video nasties' controversy and the subsequent Video Recordings Act. (Video nasties have been analysed elsewhere by Martin Barker; John Martin's Seduction Of The Gullible, David Kerekes and David Slater's See No Evil, Karl French's Screen Violence, and Jake West's documentary Video Nasties also examine the video nasty debate.)

In contrast, the final three essays - Julian Petley's summary of 1990s censorship, and accounts by former and current BBFC heads Robin Duvall and David Cooke - are outstanding. Petley, who has written elsewhere about contemporary film censorship and the moral panic surrounding Child's Play III, discusses the classifications of "Carmaggedon" [sic] and Crash. Duvall's chapter, The Last Days Of The Board, takes its title from a television documentary which covered the retirement of James Ferman. Cooke examines the issue of arthouse hardcore films such as Nine Songs, Destricted, and Inside Deep Throat.

The book concludes with a short section on the BBFC's role in classifying online content, and there are also profiles of controversial films including Battleship Potemkin, A Clockwork Orange, Ichi The Killer, and Nine Songs. Mark Kermode contributes a brief foreword, though he does not discuss the censorship of The Exorcist (which he has written about elsewhere, in a BFI Classics book and a Video Watchdog article).

This is not the first study of the BBFC's history. Censored, by Tom Dewe Mathews, also explores the history of the BBFC and British film censorship in considerable detail, and there have been several documentaries on the BBFC: BBC2's Empire Of The Censors from 1995, Channel 4's The Last Days Of The Board from 1999, and BBC4's Dear Censor... from 2011.

“We will stop closing Bangkok...”

Suthep Thaugsuban has announced that his ‘Shutdown Bangkok’ campaign, which has disrupted traffic in the city since 13th January, will finally end on 3rd March. He pledged to dismantle his blockades at major intersections, and consolidate his protest camp at Lumpini Park: “We will stop closing Bangkok and give every intersection back to Bangkokians. We will stop closing Bangkok from Monday.”

However, Buddha Issara, a Suthep ally who is leading a protest site at Chaengwattana, has refused to withdraw from the area. (Buddha Issara, a Buddhist monk, has also been accused of extortion, after protesting at businesses associated with Thaksin Shinawatra and insisting on payment before agreeing to leave: last week, he demanded ฿120,000 from the SC Park Hotel, which is part of the Shinawatra Group.)

Suthep led People’s Democratic Reform Committee protests against the proposed amnesty bill last year, and successfully pressured the government into dropping the proposal, though the protests continued to escalate. Protesters blocked the registration of candidates for some constituencies before the general election, and obstructed polling stations to prevent advanced voting. On election day, Suthep’s PDRC forced the closure of 11% of polling stations, denying millions of citizens their right to vote.

The decision to end the shutdown is an acknowledgement that the PDRC has been unsuccessful in its plan to bring down the government. Suthep caused maximum disruption on the streets (as the yellow-shirts did in 2006 and 2008), and the Democrat Party boycotted the election (as it did in 2006), recreating the circumstances that led to the coup in the hope that the army would intervene again. However, this time the Court ruled that the election was legal, and army chief Prayut Chan-o-cha called on both sides to avoid confrontation.

Suthep’s public support is also dwindling, and attendance at his rallies has been declining sharply. There were also concerns about public safety, after several deaths from grenades and gunfire aimed at some protest sites: last weekend, four people, including three young children, died after attacks on protesters in Ratchaprasong (close to Siam Square in Bangkok) and Trat (a province on the Cambodian border).

Dear Censor...

Dear Censor...: The Secret Archive Of The British Board Of Film Classification uses files and correspondence from the BBFC's archive to show how films were censored in the UK from the 1950s to the 1980s. The documentary features letters exchanged between BBFC directors and film directors and distributors, and examiners' reports on controversial films such as The Wild One, Rebel Without A Cause, A Clockwork Orange, The Devils, and Salo.

The programme, part of BBC4's Timeshift series, was directed by Matt Pelly and broadcast on 29th September 2011. Its access to the BBFC's archive is unprecedented, though the BBFC's policy of preventing access to material from the past twenty years means that the documentary couldn't cover more recent controversies such as Child's Play III, Crash, Grotesque, and A Serbian Film.

Dear Censor... is the third TV documentary exploring the history of the BBFC. BBC2's Empire Of The Censors, a comprehensive history from the 1910s to the early 1990s, was broadcast in 1995. Channel 4's The Last Days Of The Board, covering the BBFC in the 1990s, was transmitted in 1999. Tom Dewe Mathews wrote Censored, the definitive book on British film censorship, in 1994.

Full Metal Jacket Diary

Matthew Modine's Full Metal Jacket Diary has been released as an iOS app. It was originally published as a book in 2005, and the app combines the book's text and images with additional multimedia content. Modine has recorded an audio version of the journal he wrote while making Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, and the app even includes letters from Kubrick to Modine.

“This case is over...”

A general election was held as scheduled on 2nd February, though the government continues to face street protests and judicial interventions. Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra met the Election Commission of Thailand on 28th January, after the Constitutional Court decreed that the election could be legally postponed. While the ECT called for a delay, Yingluck argued that there was no legal precedent for an extension beyond the sixty-day period stipulated by the constitution.

People’s Democratic Reform Committee protesters attempted to prevent voting on election day, just as they had when advanced voting took place on 26th January. 89% of polling stations opened successfully, though voting was cancelled in nine provinces due to PDRC disruption and lack of Election Commission officials. Kitti Eaksangkul was almost strangled by a PDRC protester as he attempted to enter a polling station, and a photograph of the assault was reproduced in newspapers around the world. On the day before the election, a lone gunman shot four pro-democracy demonstrators at Lak Si in Bangkok. (His M16 rifle was concealed in a Kolk popcorn bag, which has since become a tasteless fashion accessory among some PDRC members.)

There is still confusion surrounding twenty-eight constituencies in which no candidates could register for the election, marking another disagreement between the government and the Election Commission. The government maintains that the existing royal decree can be applied to the new round of registrations and by-elections, though the ECT insists that a new decree is required. This is uncharted legal territory, a further sign of the stalemate created by the cycle of protests in Bangkok. As with the election postponement, the ECT will ask the Constitutional Court to adjudicate on the need for a royal decree.

Following a petition from the Democrat party (which boycotted the election) seeking an annulment of the election, the Constitutional Court ruled last week that the election was legal. This was an unexpected victory for the government, as the court had annulled the 2006 election (which the Democrats also boycotted).

The Democrats have previously accused the government of disrespecting Constitutional Court judgements (after the court rejected Yingluck’s bill to restore a fully-elected Senate), thus the Democrat lawyer was careful not to challenge the court’s validation of the election. The lawyer, Wiratana Kalayasiri, said: “This case is over. But if the government does anything wrong again, we will make another complaint.”

The PDRC protesters are still occupying several intersections in Bangkok, though they closed two of their camps at the start of this month. The protest sites are almost deserted during the daytime, though more protesters arrive in the evenings. Some sites resemble street markets rather than political demonstrations. Also, PDRC leader Suthep Thaugsuban has failed four times to appear at the Criminal Court to answer murder charges relating to the 2010 military massacre.

More than a month after Suthep’s ‘Shutdown Bangkok’ protest escalation, the police have begun an attempt at reclaiming some of the blockaded buildings and roads. Yesterday, four protesters and a police officer were killed at Phan Fah near Democracy Monument. Protesters attacked the police with grenades and gunfire, and the police responded with live ammunition.

Today, the Civil Court ruled that, while the government is within its rights to declare a state of emergency, it has no authority to disperse the protesters. This judgement is a contradiction, as political demonstrations are forbidden during a state of emergency. It also legitimises the illegal protest movement and represents another judicial undermining of the government’s authority. Furthermore, the ruling is in contrast to the Civil Court’s decision of 5th April 2010, when it decreed that the government did have the authority to disperse United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship protesters.

Yesterday, the National Anti-Corruption Commission unanimously decided to bring formal charges against Yingluck for her role in the government’s rice subsidy scheme. This could potentially lead to her impeachment, if she were found guilty. Impeachment would require a three-fifths majority vote in the Senate, though Yingluck would be suspended from duty pending the Senate’s vote.

In 2011, the government agreed to pay farmers up to 50% above the market rate for their rice, intending to withhold it from the world market and thus drive up the price. The result, however, was that other countries such as India and Vietnam increased their rice exports, the government was left with vast stockpiles of rice that it could not sell, and therefore it could not pay the farmers for the rice they had supplied.

Despite initially dismissing the rice farmers as uneducated peasants, the PDRC have now embraced the farmers as victims of the government, and are raising money to pay them. (Suthep accused the government of buying votes with this and other policies, though he is now employing the same strategy by paying the rice farmers himself.)

La vie de Mahomet

Charlie Hebdo has published a new edition of its comic-book Mohammed biography. La vie de Mahomet (‘the life of Mohammed’), by Stephane Charbonnier and Zineb el Rhazoui, was previously available in two parts: Les débuts d’un prophète (‘the beginnings of a prophet’) and Le prophète de l’islam (‘the prophet of Islam’). The new edition combines these with an additional twenty pages of new material, including provocative cartoons of Mohammed having sex.

Charlie Hebdo previously courted controversy by printing cartoons of Mohammed in 2006, 2011, and 2012. It is currently facing a blasphemy charge following its headline criticising the Koran.

Charlie Hebdo

The satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo is being sued for blasphemy by the Muslim Judicial Defence League, and the case will be heard in a Strasbourg court on 7th April. The law of blasphemy was abolished throughout most of France after the French Revolution, though it still applies in the Alsace-Moselle region, which includes Strasbourg.

The issue of Charlie Hebdo under investigation was published on 10th July last year. Its front page featured a cartoon by Laurent Sourisseau (known as Riss), accompanied by the headline "LE CORAN C'EST DE LA MERDE" ('the Koran is shit').

Charlie Hebdo has previously courted controversy by printing cartoons of Mohammed in 2006, 2011, and 2012. It also published a comic-book biography of Mohammed, titled La Vie De Mahomet (part 1, part 2).

Thai Cinema

Thai Cinema, or Le Cinema Thailandais, published in 2006 in both English and French, was the first book to examine the history of the Thai film industry. The anthology, edited by Bastian Meirsonne, includes essays by Thai and Western writers, and is accompanied by a DVD of interviews.

There is some overlap between the first two chapters, as they both summarise Thai cinema history, presenting essentially the same chronology. There are also essays on various aspects of distribution: cinemas, posters, piracy, and censorship; and profiles of actors such as Mitr Chaibancha (the original Red Eagle).

The Thai New Wave is covered in several chapters, including profiles of directors Pen-ek Ratanaruang (Paradoxocracy, Headshot, Nymph, Ploy) and Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee, Syndromes & A Century). There are also essays on contemporary short films and indie cinema, and a useful overview of the themes explored in recent Thai films.

Most essays are only a few pages long, offering brief summaries of topics that deserve more extensive coverage. Also, there are some inconsistencies due to the variety of languages involved; for example, Nonzee Nimibutr's film Dang Bireley's and Young Gangsters [sic] is variously translated as "Dang Bireley's and the Gangsters", "Dang Bireley's and the young Gangsters", and "Dang Bireley and the Young Gangsters".

12 Angry Men & Citizen Kane

The Thai Film Archive in Salaya will screen two Hollywood classics later this month. Sidney Lumet's courtroom (or rather, jury room) drama 12 Angry Men will be shown on 23rd February; and Citizen Kane, the masterpiece by Orson Welles (and arguably the greatest film ever made), will be screened on 28th February.

Closer

Valerie Trierweiler, the former partner of French President Francois Hollande, is suing Closer magazine for invasion of privacy. The magazine's current issue, published today, features paparazzi photographs of Trierweiler wearing a bikini. Following the lawsuit, Closer has blurred the photographs on its website.

Trierweiler sued Closer and other magazines for publishing similar photographs in 2012. Last month, Closer was sued by Hollande's mistress, and French Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti won damages against the magazine. (Like Trierweiler, Filippetti was photographed while on holiday on the island of Mauritius.) Closer published topless photographs of Kate Middleton in 2012.

El Universo

Ecuador's state media watchdog SuperCom, the Superintendency of Information and Communication, today fined the newspaper El Universo 2% of its revenue from the past three months, in relation to a cartoon by Xavier Bonilla (known as Bonil). The newspaper was also ordered to print an apology and a revised version of the cartoon.

Bonil's cartoon, published on 28th December last year, depicted a police raid on the home of journalist Fernando Villavicencio, who had been investigating allegations of government corruption. The cartoon's caption stated that the police were removing evidence to avoid incriminating the government. President Rafael Correa criticised the cartoon in a speech earlier this month.

Jesus & Mo

Jesus & Mo Volume I: Where's The Soap? is the first of six compilations of the online comic Jesus & Mo. This first volume, published in 2006, contains the first fifty comic strips. Subsequent collections were published in 2008 (volumes II, III, and IV), 2010 (volume V), and 2013 (volume VI).

Jesus & Mo is one of many Mohammed cartoons published in solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, which printed twelve Mohammed caricatures in 2005. Charlie Hebdo published a Mohammed comic book last year, La Vie De Mahomet (volume I; volume II). Technically, Jesus & Mo does not depict Mohammed, as its first comic reveals that Mo is Mohammed's body double.

Conversations with Thaksin — From Exile to Deliverance: Thailand’s Populist Tycoon Tells His Story

Conversations with Thaksin — From Exile to Deliverance: Thailand’s Populist Tycoon Tells His Story is a collection of interviews with former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra conducted by Tom Plate. The interviews took place in Dubai, where Thaksin is living in exile, and lasted for over ten hours, thus Thaksin’s life—both political and personal—is covered in considerable depth.

As its title suggests, the interviews are conversations rather than probing interrogations: Thaksin is essentially given a platform to rehabilitate his reputation, and the author rarely challenges his version of events. The title also implies a certain informality, and this is reflected in Plate’s colloquial writing style. Phrases such as “wow, everyone seemingly is in an excellent mood!” feel inappropriate for a political interview.

Astonishingly, Thaksin suggests that he could return to Thailand by royal appointment: “if the monarchy were kind enough to appoint me as an advisor to the Crown Property, I can help Crown Property do better financially.” He adds, “I don’t want to have a Privy Councilor position”, as if such an offer were even remotely possible.

The various controversies of his premiership are reconfigured with Thaksin in the role of victim. He says that the sale of Shin Corp. to Temasek was actually his children’s idea: “My children, they came to me, they said... it might be a good idea for us to sell.” The confiscation of his assets is mentioned only in relation to his decision to sell Manchester City FC: “With assets frozen in Bangkok, I didn’t have enough money to support the club.” Thaksin even uses the notorious Tak Bai incident to elicit personal sympathy: “the tragic and embarrassing incident was part of the plot to topple me”.

Plate sides with Thaksin and his wife over the Ratchada land deal case: “In fact, there was no duplicity. She didn’t hide anything.” He glosses over the thousands of deaths following Thaksin’s drugs crackdown—“Innocent people were being scooped up in the military sweeps”—though devotes multiple pages to softer issues such as Thaksin’s sporting interests and shopping trips.

Even though the book was published in Singapore, material that could contravene Thailand’s lèse-majesté law has been removed. This self-censorship becomes apparent when Thaksin discusses the origins of the 2006 coup: he accuses the Privy Council of orchestrating the coup was a way of “getting me. [content here deleted]”. (The parentheses were added by Plate; Thaksin’s comments are similar to those he made in a Financial Times interview on 20th April 2009.)

Plate is less cautious when it comes to Privy Council head General Prem, referring to “Prem Tinsulanonda, one of the men behind the coup”. (Note the omission of the word ‘allegedly’.) Later, Plate mentions “such an openly gay officer like Prem”. (Rumours of Prem’s homosexuality have not been officially confirmed or acknowledged by the Thai media; Paul Handley’s The King Never Smiles notes that Prem “was so discreet that no one could ever expose his homosexuality”.)

The Wolf Of Wall Street

The Wolf Of Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese, was based on the memoir of Jordan Belfort, a former stockbroker convicted of fraud. It was written by Terence Winter, the creator of Boardwalk Empire (which Scorsese has also directed). The script was intentionally modelled on the style of Scorsese's GoodFellas, and The Wolf's voice-over narration and direct-to-camera monologues are familiar devices from that earlier film.

Leonardo DiCaprio (in another totally unsympathetic role, following Django Unchained) gives a tour-de-force performance, though his character is so OTT that the three-hour running time is exhausting: the entire film feels like the hyperactive final reels of GoodFellas. This is Scorsese and DiCaprio's fifth collaboration, following Gangs Of New York, The Aviator, The Departed, and Shutter Island. It's one of Scorsese's most explicit and excessive films, with even more drugs and profanity than The Departed; like Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, its sex scenes were edited to avoid an 'NC-17' rating.