Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening March 3-9, 2016

Hail, Caesar!

With Hail, Caesar!, the Coen Bros. return to the Hollywood Golden Age at Capitol Pictures, which they first mined for screwball-comedy hijinks in Barton Fink, which was set in the 1940s.

Now in the 1950s, Capitol has a brash new executive “fixer”, played by Josh Brolin, who has his work cut out for him when the studio's biggest star, matinee idol Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) goes missing during the production of a swords-and-sandals epic. Turns out he's been kidnapped by a shadowy group known as "the Future".

Aside from Coen veterans like Clooney and Brolin, there's also Frances McDormand as a film editor and Tilda Swinton in dual roles as rival twin sister gossip columnists. Channing Tatum and Alden Ehrenreich are a couple other young leading men at the studio. Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson and Jonah Hill also star.

The Coens have stated that this is the third entry in their Numbskull Trilogy of films with their favorite numbskull Clooney, following O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and Intolerable Cruelty (2003), though 2008's Burn After Reading might also fit in there too.

Critical reception is mostly positive, putting Hail, Caesar! somewhere in the Coens' middle realm, below A Serious Man and above The Man Who Wasn't There. Rated 13+

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Also opening

London Has Fallen – Remember 2013, when there were two back-to-back "Die Hard in the White House movies"? One was Roland Emmerich's stupidly fun White House Down, with Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx, and the other was the straight-faced, grimmer-toned and much-less-fun Olympus Has Fallen, which was directed by Antoine Fuqua and starred Gerard Butler as a disgraced Secret Service agent who redeems himself when the White House comes under attack. He's back in London Has Fallen, protecting president Aaron Eckhart as he attends a British prime minister's funeral, which becomes a target for a Pakistani arms dealer who wants to wipe out all the world leaders. Charlotte Riley joins the cast, playing a British agent. Returnees include Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster and Melissa Leo. Babak Najafi, an Iranian-born Swedish filmmaker, takes over as director, making his English-language debut. Rated 18+

Love Say Hey .. Yaak Say Wa Rak Ther (เลิฟเซเฮ.. อยากเซว่ารักเธอ) – High-school seniors have to figure out how to balance love, friendship and their studies as they work to make a film together for their graduation project. Napat Jaitientum directs. He previously directed the gay romances, last year's Love Love You and 2014's Love's Coming. Rated G

Office – An office supervisor (Bae Sung-woo) snaps after a long day at work, kills his family and disappears. A police detective (Park Sung-woong) is on the case, but co-workers are tight-lipped about the man, until, one by one, they start getting killed off too. It's directed by Hong Won-chan, who makes his debut as helmer following screenplays on such acclaimed South Korean thrillers as The Chaser, The Yellow Sea and Confession of Murder. In Korean with English and Thai subtitles at SFW CentralWorld and Esplanade Ratchada. Rated 18+

Mojin: The Lost Legend – An infamous tomb robber (Chen Kun) has settled down to retire with his new fiancee when an old girlfriend (Angelababy) who he thought died 20 years ago resurfaces and lures him back to China and the tomb of a Mongolian princess, which holds an artifact that has the power to raise the dead. Thai-dubbed it seems. Rated 13+

Jai Gangaajal – Priyanka Chopra portrays the first female police superintendent in Bankipur, Bihar. She decides to take on a corrupt local politician and his henchmen. Manav Kaul, Rahul Bhat and Queen Harish also star. In Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Danish films, David Lynch, "controversy!", a tribute to cinematographer Donald Slocum and Donald Trump: What's the Deal? are featured this month. The abstract movies of David Lynch are featured on Thursdays, beginning with The Elephant Man. Friday's "controversial" film is A Clockwork Orange. This Saturday is a one-off special event, the fourth edition of the 9 Film Fest, which will screen the winning entries in this year's online contest. To compete, filmmakers have to come up original nine-minute films that contain a "signature item" that is unique from year to year. This year's "9SI" was "flower". Sunday has the films shot by Slocum, beginning with the screwball British comedy The Lavender Hill Mob. Later in the month, the club has scheduled Saturday screenings of Trump: What's the Deal?, a 1999 documentary that is reportedly "the movie Trump doesn't want you to see". It's set for March 12, March 19 and March 26, for Bt150 per person. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

Signes de Nuit in Bangkok – The Reading Room, Filmvirus, the Goethe-Institut and the International Festival Signet de Nuit present an extensive selection of experimental short films and documentaries from this year's International Festival Signet de Nuit in Paris. Screenings are on Friday and Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at the Reading Room on Silom Soi 19. For the full schedule, please check the Facebook events page.

Wim Wenders: A Retrospective – The Thai Film Archive lets light filter through its state-of-the-art 3D projector for the first time, with back-to-back Saturday screenings of two 3D films by influential German director Wim Wenders. First up at 1pm is Pina, Wenders' tribute to the late German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. That's followed by the drama Every Thing will be Fine, which has James Franco as writer who kills a child in a car wreck. These are two films in which the filmmaker seeks to use 3D to "immerse" the audience in sights, sounds, experiences and storytelling, rather than just titillate with gimmicks and flashy special effects as most mainstream commercial 3D films do. It's an approach that contemporaries of Wenders have taken, such as Werner Herzog with his 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams or Martin Scorsese, with his epic childhood drama Hugo., and Jean-Luc Godard with Goodbye to Language. For more details, check the special post, the Archive's website or the Goethe website.

German Film Week – Following the recently concluded Open Air Cinema season, the ongoing Wim Wenders: A Retrospective and the monthly German Film Series, German cinema remains in focus with German Film Week from March 7 to 13 at Paragon Cineplex. It will screen seven contemporary German films from 2013-14. Here's the line-up:

• Monday, March 7: Who am I – No System is safe – Baran bo Odar directs this thriller about a hacker who uses the virtual reality to become "somebody". An opening reception precedes this screening, beginning at 6pm.
• Tuesday, March 8: Schönefeld Boulevard – A plus-size teenage girl gets her first taste of the wide open world when construction of a new Berlin airport comes to her neighborhood.
• Wednesday, March 9: The Age of Cannibals (Zeit der Kannibalen) – Two longtime business consultants who make their living travelling to far-flung countries advising companies, are both in for disappointment when they are passed over for a big promotion.
• Thursday, March 10: Inbetween Worlds (Zwischen Welten) – In Afghanistan, a German soldier becomes conflicted between duty and his conscience as he works in a Taliban-controlled area with a young Afghani interpreter.
• Friday, March 11: A God send (Ein Geschenk der Götter) – An unemployed actress takes a job teaching a theater class to chronically jobless folks. They will try to put on the play Antigone.
• Saturday, March 12: Jack – A 10-year-old boy goes looking for his mother after she fails to turn up to collect him after school. A nominee for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, the drama is directed by Edward Berger, who co-wrote the screenplay with Nele Mueller-Stöfen.
• Sunday, March 13: Patong Girl – There's conflict for a German family on vacation in Phuket, when the teenage son falls for a local lass and runs off. Mum runs off too, to search for the boy, but instead goes on a journey to find herself. Susanna Salonen directs this Thai-German comedy-drama, filmed in Phuket with a Thai and German cast.

Shows are at 7pm. All films will have English subtitles. Tickets cost 120 baht and 150 baht at the Paragon box office.

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Sneak preview

Kung Fu Panda 3 – The Dreamworks Animation franchise returns with Jack Black's rotund martial artist Po and his friends getting up to more adventures. Po, the orphaned panda, finds his homeland and bonds with his father and other panda family members. Meanwhile, an evil new adversary arises in the former of master Kai, voiced by J.K. Simmons. Along with Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, David Cross, Seth Rogen and Jackie Chan in returning roles, newcomers to the franchise include Bryan Cranston and Kate Hudson. It's in sneak previews from Saturday until Wednesday, with kid-friendly screenings starting between 2pm and 5pm . Rated G

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Take note

There's no free film screening next Wednesday at the Alliance Française, which instead will have a one-off concert Duo Brunetti-Pachioli. The free French films return on March 16.

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

Sicario

Emily Blunt is your guide into the dark underbelly of America's continuing war on drugs. In Sicario, she is the hard-driving, by-the-book chief of an FBI hostage-response unit, who makes a grisly discovery in a cartel safehouse along the U.S.-Mexico border. The high-profile case brings her to the attention of a sketchy, flip-flop-clad Defense Department operative (Josh Brolin), who is running a top-secret task force. She's in way over her head, trying to keep up with a quietly intense Latino operative of ambiguous origins (a terrific Benicio del Toro).

Denis Villeneuve (Prisoners, Enemy) directs. Sicario premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year. Critical reception has been very positive, with Oscar buzz already generating for the performances by Blunt and del Toro, and the stunning cinematography of the bleak landscape by master lensman Roger Deakins.

Sicario moves this week to a wide release, following two weeks of nightly sneak previews. Rated 15+

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Also opening

The New Rijksmuseum – Filmed over the course of many years, this documentary covers the controversial renovation of the historic main building of Amsterdam’s landmark art museum, which is home to many masterpieces and finally reopened in 2013 after 10 years of costly delays. Among the issues causing the hold-up was the powerful lobby of Dutch bicyclists, which objected to plans that would altered the museum's main-thoroughfare two-wheeler path through the museum's archway entry. This is the latest entry in SF Cinemas' Doc Holiday series, put on in conjunction with the Documentary Club. Critical reception has been generally positive. It's at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld and at SFX Maya Chiang Mai. For showtimes and other details, please check the the Documentary Club Facebook page or SF Cinemas' booking site. Rated G

Pan – The origins of Peter Pan are imagined in epic detail in this fantasy by director Joe Wright (Atonement, Hanna). Living a bleak existence at a London orphanage, 12-year-old Peter (Levi Miller) is whisked away to the magical world of Neverland, where he's befriended by James Hook (Garrett Hedlund) and the warrior princess Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara). They must band together to save Neverland from the ruthless pirate Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman. No, really. That's Hugh Jackman). This film has been controversial because of the casting of Mara as Tiger Lily, a character typically portrayed as Native American. Critical reception is mixed. It's in 2D and converted 3D. Rated G

We Are Your Friends – Former teen idol Zac Efron is trying hard to be edgy. Following his comic turn as a rowdy frat boy in Bad Neighbors, the former Disney star takes another gritty turn in We Are Your Friends, playing a young DJ struggling to break into the club scene in Hollywood. He’s taken under the wing of an older DJ (Wes Bentley), but things get complicated when the young man makes an unexpected connection with his new mentor’s girlfriend. A flop on release in the U.S. in August, critical reception has been mixed. Rated 18+

Sinister 2 – A young mother (Shannyn Sossamon) moves into an old farmhouse with her twin boys, who become haunted by an evil entity and are forced to watch gruesome home movies in the basement. This is a sequel to a 2012 horror, with James Ransone (Ziggy from The Wire) reprising his role from the first film as Deputy So-and-So. Here, he's Ex-deputy So-and-So, but is still on the case, trying to prove the evil ghost is real. This is cut from the same horror cloth as other Blumhouse Productions, such as Paranormal Activity and Insidious. Critical reception is not as positive as it was for the first Sinister. This was in sneak previews last week and now moves to a wider release. Rated 18+

Super Hero Taisen GP: Kamen Rider 3 – Rubber-suited masked superhero motorcycle riders have another outing in Japan's long-running tokusatsu franchise. Thai-dubbed. Rated G

Pokémon the Movie: Hoopa and the Clash of Ages – And here's another entry in a long-running Japanese franchise. These anime movies (Pokémon, Doreamon, etc.) are brought in for the kiddies when school is on break. Thai-dubbed. Rated G

Jazbaa – Aishwarya Rai Bachchan stars in this drama, which is a Bollywood remake of the South Korean drama Seven Days. Aish portrays a high-powered lawyer whose daughter is abducted. Instead of money, the kidnapper wants the lawyer to defend a career criminal who is appealing his conviction for rape and murder. Irrfan Khan, Shabana Azmi, Chandan Roy Sanyal and Jackie Shroff also star. In Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya. Opens Friday.

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Also showing

Shnit International Short Film Festival – The third Bangkok edition of the Swiss-based fest is running until Sunday at the Lido cinemas in Siam Square. Begun 13 years ago, the gimmick of this festival is that it is held on the same weekend in many cities worldwide. In addition to the line-up of submitted finalist foreign shorts, there is the "Made in Thailand" program on Friday and Saturday night, with the finalist Thai entries Gen A by Napat Tangsanga, Enlightenment by Sampattavanich Disspong, Ma Nyein Chan by Natpakhan Khemkhao, Once Upon a Time in Tungyahlaum by Natthapat Kraitrujpol, Echoes from the Hill by Pasit Tandaechanurat and Jirudtikal Prasonchum, We Used to Love Each Other by Aroonakorn Pick, Deleted by Nitaz Sinwattanakul and 1428 by Autthavisit Hatsadinthon Na Ayutthaya. Find out more at the festival's Facebook events page.

The Friese-Greene Club – Tonight, the club offers another film by English writer-director Andrew Birkin, 1988's Burning Secret, starring Faye Dunaway, Klaus Maria Brandauer and child actor David Eberts in a coming-of-age drama. "Vastly underrated" and "recommended" is what the FGC has to say about it. Tomorrow, it's another French film based on the writing of Marcel Pagnol, 1986's Manon des Sources, which is a sequel to the countryside epic Jean de Florette, shown at the club last Friday. Saturday's Irish entry is Once, an ultra-low-budget 2007 hit musical drama about romance between buskers in Dublin. Glen Hansard from The Frames and Markéta Irglová star. On Sunday, screen sirens Bette Davis and Joan Crawford square off in the campy psychological thriller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? It's part of a monthlong tribute to journeyman director Robert Aldrich. Next Wednesday, it's the documentary Crumb, which has Ghost World director Terry Zwigoff profiling his friend, influential counterculture comic artist R. Crumb. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand – Monday is a special evening for the FCCT's Contemporary World Film Series, which welcomes award-winning Filipino director Brillante Mendoza and his acclaimed 2007 drama Foster Child. The screening is in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema, with Netpac founder and president Dr Aruna Vasudev also present. Winner of the Netpac jury prize at the Brisbane film fest and dozens of other awards, Foster Child centers on a poor woman (Cherry Pie Picache) who works as a foster mother for an adoption agency. Here, the foster parent Thelma achingly forms a bond with the toddler John-John, and follows her on her last day with him before she hands him off to a wealthy American family. Netpac, which is a grouping of Asian filmmakers, academics and critics, organizes special juries that present awards at top film festivals. The evening, set for Monday, October 12, starts at 6pm with a cocktail reception. Vice Minister for Tourism and Sports, Associate Professor Chavanee Tongroach is scheduled to be on hand to introduce Mendoza and Vasudev before the screening at 7.30. There will then be a talk session with the director and the Netpac head. Admission is 150 baht for non-members and 100 baht for the Bombay Gin cocktails and snacks. Another film is set at the FCCT on October 19, the Swiss father-son drama Sam.

Alliance Française – A tax inspector (Benoît Poelvoorde), his new bride and her sister become entwined in a love triangle in 2014's 3 coeurs (3 Hearts). Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chiara Mastroianni and Catherine Deneuve also star. It screens at 7pm on Wednesday, October 14, at the Alliance.

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Sneak preview

The Walk – Filmed in actual 3D, everything about The Walk is calculated to make you queasy, and there are reports of viewers actually getting sick while watching it. "We worked really hard to induce vertigo," director Robert Zemeckis has said about his latest film, which is a dramatization of the life of high-wire artist Philippe Petit, who in 1974 walked on a cable he illegally strung up between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. It's a story previously covered in the Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire. Joseph Gordon-Levitt portrays the thrill-seeking French daredevil Petit. Oscar buzz is really heating up for this one and critical reception is very positive. Now, I don't generally recommend you plunk down the several hundred baht to see movies in 3D, but every once in awhile, a film comes along that is a true 3D event worth a gander. To get the full effect, you'll want to see The Walk in IMAX. And while there are now several of the newer smaller IMAX screens in Thailand, the only authentic full-size IMAX screen is the Krungsri IMAX Paragon Cineplex. Accept no substitutes. The Walk is in sneak previews from around 8 nightly before a wider general release next week.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening October 1-7, 2015

May Who?

Teenage angst takes the form of electricity in the Thai teen romance May Nhai .. Fai Raeng Fer (เมย์ไหน..ไฟแรงเฟร่อ , a.k.a. May Who?), which is about a schoolgirl who is afflicted with a powerful electrical charge, which she releases when her heartbeat reaches 120 beats per second. This makes it difficult for her to get close to anyone.

Sutatta Udomsilp stars as May. She keeps a low profile at school in order to keep her shocking condition a secret, but her heart gets racing whenever she sees the star athlete Fame (Thanapob Leeratanakajorn). Her superpower is discovered by classmate Pong (Thiti Mahayotharak), a shy guy who also keeps to himself but has a crush on the school's most popular girl (Nareekul Katepraphakorn). So May agrees to help Pong score with his crush if he keeps her secret and helps her hook up with Fame.

May Who? has movie studio GTH doubling down on the last few months of the year, as the film is being released less than a month after the studio's current hit Freelance. Usually the studio makes just two or maybe three films a year, and spreads them out more. Sure to also do well at the box office, May Who? is directed by Chayanop Boonpakob, a former indie filmmaker who got his big commercial break with the 2011 hit SuckSeed, about a teenage rock band. Along with the special effects related to the girl's superpower, May Who? also includes animated segments, inspired by notebooks Chayanop drew in when he was in high school.

The new film has been accompanied by the usual promotional blitz by GTH, but it's been a bit awkward because talented young actress "PunPun" Sutatta has been suspended from working by the company after she and members of the cast of Hormones the Series misbehaved on a train while visiting Japan. They posted a clip of their rowdy behavior on social networks, not realizing that being disruptive on public transport is seriously frowned upon in orderly Japan. To prevent the breach in etiquette from becoming a major international incident, GTH made all involved issue apologies, and they punished PunPun and the others by banning them from social media and suspending them from work. And PunPun's suspension doesn't end until sometime next week, too late to support her new film before its release.

You can read more about the movie in an article in The Nation. Rated G

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Also opening

The Tribe – From Ukraine, this crime drama is set in a boarding school for deaf children, where a new kid is drawn into the school's institutional system of organized crime. He becomes a pimp for a classmate and crosses the line when he falls in love with her. Directed by Miroslav Slaboshpitsky, The Tribe was one of the most-buzzed-about, controversial titles at the Cannes Film Festival last year. It won loads of prizes on the festival circuit and made the top-10 lists of many critics. An unusual film, it's brought to Thai cinemas by a new distribution outfit, HAL Film, which will also release another buzzworthy oddball from film festivals, the Hungarian canine crime drama White God. Free of conventional dialogue, the characters in The Tribe communicate only in Ukrainian sign language and there are no subtitles, which is how it's meant to be seen. It's at Paragon and Esplanade Ratchada. Rated 20-

The Martian – Matt Damon is an astronaut left for dead on Mars after the mission is hit by a dust storm and the crew are forced to flee. Looking at a four-year wait for help to arrive, he turns to science to survive, using his skills as a botanist to grow a food crop. Meanwhile on Earth, there are conflicts in Nasa, where officials determine a rescue mission is too risky. Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara, Michael Peña, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Donald Glover also star. Ridley Scott (Prometheus, Alien) directs, marking his return to space after last year's Biblical epic Exodus. Critical reception is very positive, especially from excited Nasa scientists, who worked closely with the production to keep things real. It's in 2D and converted 3D. Rated G

Hotel Transylvania 2 – The Sony Pictures Animation franchise continues, with Dracula opening his monsters-only resort hotel to the general public as he gets to know his half-human half-vampire grandson. Adam Sandler voices Dracula, with the voice cast featuring his pals Kevin James and David Spade. Other returnees from the first film include Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez and Steve Buscemi. Mel Brooks is among the new additions. He plays Dracula's dad Vlad. Written by former Saturday Night Live staffer Robert Smigel (the hand and voice behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog), this harmless family-friendly feature is directed by Genndy Tartakovsky, who previously did the cartoon series Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack. Critical reception is mixed. It's in 3D as well as 2D. Rated G

Attack on Titan: End of the World – Here's the sequel to Attack on Titan: Part 1, which was released here last month. A live-action adaptation of a manga series, the story is set in a post-apocalyptic future and deals with humans fighting against giant man-eating beings that have taken over the world. In Part 2, young hero Eren (Haruma Miura) leaves his walled city to join a revenge-seeking scouting party. Critical reception is mixed. As with Part 1, it's Thai-dubbed in most places, but has the original soundtrack at a few select downtown locations, including SF Terminal 21, SF Rama 9, Paragon and the Quartier CineArt. Rated 13+

Singh Is Bliing – Akshay Kumar stars in this colorful Punjabi comedy, which is a sequel of sorts to 2008's Singh Is Kiing, in which he played a happy-go-lucky simpleton who becomes a crime kingpin in Australia. Here, his comic misadventures take him to Romania in pursuit of a mysterious woman. Amy Jackson, Kay Kay Menon and Lara Dutta also star. It's directed by Prabhu Deva, who previously worked with Akshay on the action comedy-drama Rowdy Rathore. It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Paragon and at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Rama III and Pattaya. Opens Friday.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – October at the FGC spotlights the work of English writer-director Andrew Birkin on Thursdays, starting tonight with the 1993 coming-of-age family drama The Cement Garden, based on novelist Ian McEwan's book. It won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin film fest. Fridays are devoted to adaptations of works by French writer Marcel Pagnol, starting tomorrow with 1986's rural drama Jean de Florette, which starred Gérard Depardieu, Daniel Auteuil and Yves Montand and was at the time the most-expensive French film ever made. It won dozens of awards. Head to Ireland on Saturdays, with a line-up that starts with Alan Parker's The Commitments, about working-class Dubliners who form a soul band. The classic films of Hollywood tough-guy director Robert Aldrich screen on Sundays, starting with the 1955 film-noir Kiss Me Deadly. Ralph Meeker stars as Mickey Spillane's Los Angeles private eye Mike Hammer. Wednesdays have a line-up of documentaries, beginning next week with The Aristocrats, which is the story of a filthy joke that has kept comedians in stitches for generations. Special events in October include screenings of the made-in-Thailand South Korean romance So Very Very, courtesy of director Jack Park. And there's no Irish film on the last Saturday of the month. Instead, it's John Carpenter's Halloween, because, well, just look at the calendar. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

Alliance Française – There are two free French films to list. At 2pm on Saturday, there's a "kids' movie", Peau d'âne. Also known as Donkey Skin, Jacques Demy's 1970 live-action musical is adapted from an old French fairy tale about a king who has grown wealthy thanks to his pet donkey's excrement of gold. When his wife dies, he seeks to marry his own daughter. With the help of her fairy godmother, the princess escapes the incestuous marriage by donning the skin of the magical donkey and going into hiding. Catherine Deneuve is the princess. Next week's usual free French film is La belle vie (The Good Life), a 2012 drama about brothers who have lived a life on the run with their father, dodging a custody battle with their mother. Coming of age, the youngest brother experiences his first crush. It screens at 7pm on Wednesday, October 7, at the Alliance.

Shnit International Short Film Festival – The third Bangkok edition of Shnit runs from next Wednesday until October 11 at the Lido multiplex in Siam Square. Now in its 13th year, the Switzerland-based Shnit fest is held simultaneously in several cities, with Bangkok joining Bern, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Cape Town, Moscow, San José and Hong Kong. The selection includes new short-film entries from around the world plus a special bloc of "Made in Thailand" shorts. Find out more at the festival's Facebook events page.

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Sneak preview

Sinister 2 – A young mother (Shannyn Sossamon) moves into an old farmhouse with her twin boys, who become haunted by an evil entity and are forced to watch gruesome home movies kept in the basement. This is a sequel to a 2012 horror, with James Ransone (Ziggy from The Wire) reprising his role from the first film as Deputy So-and-So. Here, he's an ex-deputy, but is still on the case, trying to prove the evil ghost is real. Critical reception is not as positive as it was for the first Sinister. It's in sneak previews from around 8 nightly in most cinemas and opens wider next Thursday. Meanwhile, the excellent U.S.-Mexico crime thriller Sicario continues in sneak previews before also opening wider next week.

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Take note

The World Film Festival of Bangkok is set for November 13 to 22 at SF World Cinema at CentralWorld. Keep an eye on the festival's Facebook page for a glimpse of the selection.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand has a special event on October 12 to mark the 25th anniversary of Netpac, the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema, with a screening of the indie Filipino film Foster Child. Director Brilliante Mendoza is scheduled to be in attendance with Netpac president Aruna Vasudev.

And outside Bangkok, Filmvirus has organized a touring show for Filipino director Lav Diaz's Venice prize-winning opus From What Is Before. Running just over 5.5 hours, it is an epic drama set in a small town during the Marcos dictatorship in the 1970s. It screens on October 10 at Prince of Songkhla University in Pattani, 5pm on October 12 at Walailak University in Nakhon Sri Thammarat, 2pm on October 21 at Silpakorn University Pathum Thani and 2pm on November 7 at Chiang Mai University. Screenings in Bangkok are in the planning stages.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening August 12-19, 2015

Inside Out

For their latest feature Inside Out, the wizards at Pixar Animation go inside the mind of a depressed 11-year-old girl at a crucial time in her life.

Such a story may not seem like the type of uplifting family friendly movie Pixar is best known for, but it could well be the most-imaginative and complex story yet attempted by the pioneering computer-animation studio.

The main characters are the emotions Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger and Disgust, who operate from Headquarters, a spaceship-like command center inside the mind. Under the controlling efforts of the domineering Joy, things run pretty smoothly until a mishap causes Joy and Sadness to be swept away to the far recesses of the girl Riley's mind. They have a big adventure, trying to figure out how to get back to Headquarters. Meanwhile, Fear, Anger and Disgust are ill-equipped to handle operations as Riley is struggling to cope with moving with her parents to a new city.

It's directed by Pete Docter, who previously touched on childhood fears with Monsters Inc. and growing old with the emotional Up. He also came up with Toy Story and Wall-E. Helping to crack the code of Inside Out was co-director Ronnie del Carmen, who has had a hand in Pixar's Brave, Ratatouille and other pictures. They approached it from their viewpoint as doting fathers, who came up with Inside Out as a way of coping with their children growing up.

The voice cast is perfect, with Amy Poehler bringing her relentlessly perky persona from TV's Parks and Recreation to the proceedings as Joy. She is so darned happy you want to strangle her. She's joined by Phyllis Smith from the U.S. version of The Office as the melancholy but deceptively powerful Sadness. The emotions are further rounded out by Saturday Night Live's Bill Hader as Fear, Mindy Kahling from The Mindy Project as, eww, Disgust, and always-outraged comedian Lewis Black as Anger.

Critical reception is overwhelmingly positive. I've actually already seen this myself, and can attest that it is another fine effort by the folks at Pixar. If you don't leak anything from your eyes at some point, then something is probably wrong with you.

As with all Pixar and Walt Disney animation films, there will be an accompanying short before the main feature, with Inside Out paired with the Polynesian-tinged musical romance Lava.

It's in actual 3D, though I saw it in 2D, and didn't feel I missed out. In the U.S., the grown-up-friendly Inside Out is rated PG, meaning youngsters might need parental guidance to understand it fully. But here in Thailand, where the censors take a cursory glance, see it's a cartoon and automatically think it's only for kids, it's rated G.

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Also opening

Our Little Sister – Following the death of their estranged father, three twentysomething siblings invite their shy 13-year-old sister from another mother to come live with them at their grandmother's house, which is in a lovely rural setting. Hirokazu Kore-eda directs, and Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa, Kaho and Suzu Hirose star. Adapted from the manga Umimachi Diary, the drama premiered in the main competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Critical reception is generally praiseworthy. It's at Apex, House, Paragon, SF World and SFX Maya Chiang Mai. Rated 15+

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. – In 1963, at the height of the Cold War, debonair CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill from Man of Steel) is forced to team up with a tough Soviet spy (Armie Hammer from The Lone Ranger) to stop a mysterious criminal organization that has acquired its own atomic bomb. Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Hugh Grant and Jared Harris also star. Guy Ritchie directs this long-in-the-works adaptation of the 1960s TV series that starred Robert Vaughn and David McCallum. It looks stylish enough, I suppose. However, I wish Ritchie would go back to directing more small-budget British gangster movies like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch, rather than overblown retreads like his Sherlock Holmes movies or this thing. No chance of that. He's doing Knights of the Roundtable: King Arthur next. Surprisingly, critical reception is actually mostly positive. It's in 2D only, including IMAX. Rated G

Monster Hunt – In ancient China, a young man (Jing Boran) becomes pregnant after an encounter with a demon. He and his strong-willed monster-hunter girlfriend (Bai Baihe) plan to sell the baby demon lord, but develop feelings for it as they evade bounty hunters. Eric Tsang and Sandra Ng also star. A blend of live-action actors with computer-animated blobs from the Uncanny Valley, it's directed by Raman Hui, who previously worked in Hollywood on such efforts as Shrek and Antz. It's been a big hit in China, and you can read all about it in a Los Angeles Times article. Rated G

The Diabolical – When a single mother (Ali Larter) and her two young children are tormented by an evil presence in their quiet suburban home, she turns to her scientist boyfriend (Arjun Gupta) to take on the violent forces that paranormal experts are too frightened to face. An indie horror directed and co-written by Alistair Legrand, The Diabolical premiered at this year's South by Southwest Festival, and has had some positive reviews from horror-speciality websites. Rated 18+

Parasyte: Part 2 – Young hero Shinichi (Shota Sometani) and the friendly alien parasite in his right hand come up against various forces of the pro-parasite cabal, including a mean ex-schoolteacher, the mayor and his mysterious bodyguard (Tadanobu Asano). This follows the first part, which was released here in May. Critical reception has been mixed, with the consensus being that Part 1 was pretty strong, but Part 2 isn't. Rated 15+

Brothers – Akshay Kumar and Sidharth Malhotra are fighting siblings who take out their anger with each other in the mixed-martial-arts fighting ring in Brothers, which is an official remake of the 2011 Hollywood fight drama Warrior. Jacqueline Fernandez also stars. It's in Hindi with English and Thai subtitles at Major Cineplex Sukhumvit, Central Rama III and Pattaya. Opens Friday.

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Tonight, two of the club's themes this month combine, with French director-actress Catherine Breillat starring with Marlon Brando in Bernardo Bertolucci's controversial erotic drama The Last Tango in Paris. Tomorrow, there's some new guy, a Star Wars: The Force Awakens actor named Max Von Sydow, playing a game of chess against Death in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal. Friday has more Bertolucci, his 1970 Italian political thriller Il Conformista. Saturday's Terry Gilliam movie is his unsung 2013 effort The Zero Theorem, which fans view to be a final entry in a trilogy of Orwellian films by Gilliam, Brazil and 12 Monkeys being the other two. And Sunday has the original conspiracy theory thriller, John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate, starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh and a very terrifying Angela Lansbury. Next Wednesday is a directorial effort from Breillat, 2001's Fat Girl, in which two teenage sisters explore their sexuality. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

19th Thai Short Film and Video Festival – The Thai Film Archive and Thai Film Foundation's annual short-film extravaganza opens at 5.30pm tomorrow at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center. Selected from more than 500 entries from around the world, the program is a daunting thing to get your head around. Don't think too hard. Just do what I do – show up, sit down, shut up and take it all in as best you can. The highlights are many, with the broadest appeal coming from the selections from the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival, which is the biggest and best short-film showcase in the world. Many Oscar-winning entries have come out of that festival. Other widely appealing shorts can be found in the International Competition slots and the S-Express, which has films from Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. The Queer Program is something the festival organizers are quite fond of, and rightly so. They additionally have a special program this year called "Out of Place", which is a selection of expat-friendly stories about foreigners and their misadventures in foreign countries. That's all in addition to the usual selections of Thai shorts, youth and student films, documentaries, animation and experimental entries. The fest runs until August 23, with weekday screenings starting at 5.30pm and then a full slate on Saturdays and Sundays, starting from 11am. Please note that the BACC is closed on Mondays, so no fest that day. Shows are in the BACC's fifth-floor auditorium as well as a smaller improvised space on the fourth floor. Admission is free. For the schedule and further details, please check the festival's Facebook page.

Alliance Française – There is no free French film tonight because of Her Majesty the Queen's Birthday and the Mother's Day public holiday (which is why movies in the malls are opening a day earlier this week), but the Alliance is back open for movies next Wednesday with a special event, which brings actress Irene Jacob to Bangkok for a "meet the artist" session with Polish auteur Krzysztof Kieslowski's arthouse drama Rouge (Red), which is part of his influential Three Colors trilogy. The show and talk are at 7.30pm on Wednesday, August 19 at the Alliance.

Bangkok Cinema Scene: Movies opening June 25-July 1, 2015

Maggie

Arnold Schwarzenegger is earning terrific reviews for his comeback-career dramatic turn in Maggie, a slow-burn indie zombie thriller about a father who refuses to let his infected daughter go.

Talented young Abigail Breslin (Zombieland, August: Osage County) is the daughter. She has been infected and quarantined following a mysterious illness that has society on edge.

It's the feature directorial debut of Henry Hobson, a young filmmaker who previously created the title credits for several movies, including August: Osage County, The Lone Ranger and Snow White and the Huntsman.

Critical reception is mixed, with the consensus being that the performances by Schwarzenegger and Breslin lift an otherwise clunky drama. It also serves as a warm-up for the next week's big tentpole, Terminator Genesys, which has Arnie returning once again to one of his most iconic roles. Rated 13+

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Also opening

The Duff – Teenage perceptions about body image are addressed in this high-school comedy about a girl who learns she's been designated her clique's "D.U.F.F." – designated ugly fat friend – even though she is neither fat nor ugly. Mae Whitman (Arrested Development, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) stars, along with Robbie Amell and Bella Thorne. The director is Ari Sandel, who makes his feature dramatic debut after previously working in television and on Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show. Critical reception is mostly positive. It's at SF cinemas. Rated 15+

Barely Lethal – Along with Maggie and The Duff, this action comedy could well complete a triple feature this week of movies spotlighting teenage female characters. Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit, Pitch Perfect 2) stars as a student at a secret all-girls boarding school for assassins. Yearning for a normal life, she gives her minders the slip and then poses as an exchange student at a public high school, where she finds life even more challenging than black-ops missions. Jessica Alba and Samuel L. Jackson also star. Kyle Newman, who previously did the Star Wars homage Fanboys, directs. Critical reception is mixed. Rated 15+

It Follows – After a sexual encounter with a stranger, a carefree young woman can't shake the feeling that she's being followed. David Robert Mitchell, yet another Hollywood rookie, directs. Maika Monroe, a former professional kiteboarder who's turned to acting, stars. Critical reception for this indie thriller is crazily positive. It moves to a regular release following two weeks of nighttime sneak previews. Rated 15+

Steak (R)evolution – Tapping into the trendy "foodie" movement, this follows carnivorous gourmets as they trek the world, looking for the best steak. France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Belgium, the UK, the US, Canada, Japan, Argentina and Brazil are visited, chatting up ranchers, butchers, chefs, historians and meat-eaters along they way. Rated G.

Lovesucks (รักอักเสบ) – A sports news anchor (Teya Rogers) is hit with a double whammy when she’s demoted from her job and then discovers her boyfriend (footballer Teerathep Vinothai) has been cheating on her. She then embarks on a one-night stand with another guy (James Maggie). Actress "Donut" Manasnan Panlertwongskul makes her directorial debut with this romantic comedy, which is produced by TrueVisions Original Pictures. At SF cinemas. Rated 13+

Tomb Robber – An ancient tomb is discovered in a remote valley and rumors start circulating that it may be the site of long-lost treasure. This is a Chinese 3D thriller but it seems to be showing only in 2D here. At Major Cineplex; Thai-dubbed only. Rated 15+

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Also showing

The Friese-Greene Club – Tonight, a fast-talking TV journalist (Dustin Hoffman) acts as an intermediary in a hostage situation involving a disgruntled former security guard (John Travolta) in Mad City, a 1998 drama by Costa-Gravas. Tomorrow, it's one last Peter Sellers film for the month, with an early acclaimed performance in 1959's I'm All Right Jack. Saturday's food-themed movie is the bizarre Eating Raoul while Spielberg Sunday is devoted to Schindler's List. Shows are at 8pm. The FGC is down an alley next to the under-renovation Queen's Park Imperial Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 22. For more details, check the club's Facebook page.

A Child Outside: Retrospective to John Torres – Filmvirus and the Reading Room, with support from the Japan Foundation, bring leading Filipino indie filmmaker John Torres to Bangkok for a two-day retrospective of all his films. Saturday's program will be a selection of short films made from 2004 to 2011. There will also be two self-confessional autobiographical features, Todo Todo Teros, which blended found footage and home-video clips, and won several awards, and Years When I was a Child Outside, which won an award at the Bangkok International Film Festival in 2008. Sunday's line-up has Torres' two dramatic features, 2010’s Refrains Happen Like Revolutions in a Song, about a young woman who takes on different roles as she travels from village to village. There's also 2013’s Lukas the Strange, a coming-of-age yarn about an awkward teenager coming to grips with his manhood just as a film crew comes to his village. And Torres himself will close off the event with a talk. Shows start at 1pm. The venue is a fourth-floor walk-up in a shophouse on Silom Soi 19, opposite Silom Center. Recent Filmvirus events there have been packed to the rafters, so be sure to arrive early to ensure you'll have a seat. For further details, check the Facebook events page.

Alliance Française – In Grand Central, a young drifter (Tahar Rahim) finds work scrubbing reactors at a nuclear power plant. As if the health risks from radioactivity weren't enough, he begins an affair with the wife of a co-worker. Léa Seydoux, Olivier Gourmet, Denis Ménochet, Johan Libéreau also star. Rebecca Zlotowski directs this award-winning romantic comedy-drama. It screens at 7pm on Wednesday, July 1, at the Alliance.