The Curse of the Lamia visits Pattaya!
Pattaya movies beginning Thursday, June 4, 2009
… through Wednesday, June 10
by Thomas Ohlson
Best Bets: Star Trek. Wolverine. Angels & Demons. Drag Me to Hell.
Here is the 94th edition of my weekly compilations of movie times and comments for Pattaya! And the 7th online edition!
Unlike my Chiang Mai website (http://thomatfilms.blogspot.com), I am not going to attempt to keep the Pattaya movie times up to date. It’s just too much, given the uncertainty. Times will generally be given here once a week, on Thursdays. After that, you will need to use the links to the websites of the theaters, or call using the phone numbers given. (But it's probably best to just go look – and even then, I suggest you be prepared for disappointment and frustration!) You can use this website as a fairly accurate guide as to what’s playing, but only a rough guide as to the times after Thursday.
Here are my comments on the films playing in Pattaya for the week beginning Thursday, June 4, for Pattaya Major Cineplex (at Villa Supermarket Center), for the SF Multiplex at Central Plaza (Big C), and for the spanking new SFX Cinema Pattaya Beach on the 6th Floor of Central Festival Pattaya Beach, the new huge and beautiful mall located between Sois 9 and 10 and running the length of the soi from Beach Road to 2nd Road.
Drag Me to Hell has gotten the best reviews of any horror film in years. It must be the curse of the Lamia! I loved it!
Now playing in Pattaya * = new this week
* Drag Me to Hell: US, Horror/ Thriller – 99 mins – Terrific! Director Sam Raimi started out making perversely entertaining horror fare like the Evil Dead movies before directing blockbusters like Spider-Man. Well, he's back, and in outstanding B-movie form. Alison Lohman stars as a loan officer who becomes the victim of a curse, with evil spirits on her trail and certain damnation in her future – unless she can break the spell. Drag Me to Hell is a wickedly good time: blood-curdlingly scary and ghoulishly funny, it's also taut and timely. It’s the best-reviewed horror film in years. Reviews: Universal acclaim: 83/78 out of 100. The Big C version is dubbed into Thai, with no English subtitles; in English at the other two locations.
Rotten Tomatoes: Sam Raimi returns to top form with Drag Me to Hell, a frightening, hilarious, delightfully campy thrill ride.
* Blood: The Last Vampire: Hong Kong/ Japan, Action/ Horror – A thoroughly disgusting mess of violence and killing; it’s a remake of the 2000 movie of the same name. A vampire who is part of a covert government agency that hunts and destroys demons in a post-WWII Japan is inserted into a military school to discover which one of her classmates is a demon is disguise. Rated R in the US for strong bloody stylized violence. In English, mostly.
Twitch: Bottom line is, Blood: The Last Vampire is a straightforward action film. Forget the wafer thin plot and try to ignore the potential where certain scenes could have been made better. It’s nice to look at with plenty of style over substance, and unfortunately nothing more.
I would also have to add that it’s pretty disgusting in its depiction of the “beauty” of killing – the graceful spumes of blood, lovingly photographed in slow motion; the languorous way that severed limbs and chopped heads slowly curve to earth. I consider it a shameful use of the potentialities of cinema, and serves only to brutalize the people who come to see it. Constant watching of films like this immures people against empathy with anguish and death. I would be happy to see this film and its ilk prohibited from ever being seen, and all those remotely connected with its creation jailed.
Star Trek (2009): US/ Germany, Sci-Fi/ Adventure/ Action – 126 mins – All new! And I think it’s a great deal of fun, for fans of the series, and also for those who are not. This much-anticipated film is a reboot of the series, going back to the series’ ’60s roots by depicting the formative experiences of the legendary heroes Kirk and Spock. The young James Tiberius Kirk is played by Chris Pine as a wild Iowa boy whose father sacrificed himself at the helm of a spaceship at the very moment the child was being born. He is convinced to attend the Starfleet Academy with an eye to joining the crew of the Enterprise.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine: US/ New Zealand/ Australia, Action/ Fantasy/ Sci-Fi/ Thriller – 97 mins – Though most reviews are lukewarm, I think it’s simply brilliant, starting out with eight minutes of nigh perfect popular filmmaking, a sequence that is thrilling, sensible, and, wonder of wonders, deeply intriguing! It then veers into a quiet sequence building up a love-interest, which might seem to be just padding, but no, get involved with it, because the love relationship leads to some real emotional payoffs down the line. Really, it’s a superb action film for anyone who likes the genre, with excellent performances by Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, and many others. Mixed or average reviews: 43/44 out of 100.
Stay for two very short additional scenes during the closing credits, one of which, in a bar in Japan, is a lead-in to the sequel.
Angels & Demons: US, Crime/ Drama/ Mystery/ Thriller – 140 mins – A tight, taut thriller. The team behind the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code returns for the highly anticipated Angels & Demons, based on the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon, who once again finds that forces with ancient roots are willing to stop at nothing, even murder, to advance their goals. Ron Howard again directs. Mixed or average reviews: 48/50 out of 100.
Terminator Salvation 4: The Future Begins: US/ Germany/ UK, Action/ Sci-Fi – 130 mins – With Christian Bale, Moon Bloodgood, and Common; directed by McG. In this highly anticipated – in some quarters – fourth installment of The Terminator film franchise, set in post-apocalyptic 2018, Christian Bale stars as John Connor, the man fated to lead the human resistance against Skynet and its army of Terminators. But the future Connor was raised to believe in is altered in part by the appearance of Marcus Wright, a stranger whose last memory is of being on death row. Connor must decide whether Marcus has been sent from the future, or rescued from the past. As Skynet prepares its final onslaught, Connor and Marcus both embark on an odyssey that takes them into the heart of Skynet's operations, where they uncover the terrible secret behind the possible annihilation of mankind. If you’ve seen any of the other three installments of this series, you know what to expect: Plenty of chases, explosions, and great effects. Mixed or average reviews: 52/51 out of 100.
Night at the Museum 2: Escape from [Battle of] the Smithsonian: US/ Canada, Action/ Comedy – 105 mins – If you liked the first adventure, you’re sure to like this one even more – bigger, better, and with fantastic special effects. After a wacky night at the New York Museum of Natural History, the perpetually hapless Larry (Ben Stiller) must infiltrate the Smithsonian after some of his resurrected friends were shipped to Washington for storage. He finds himself in the middle of a vast conflict between many of the museum’s most noteworthy historical figures. Mixed or average reviews: 42/50 out of 100.
2022 Tsunami: Thai, Action/ Disaster – Here’s the studio synopsis: “Thailand 2022. …All life is swept away in an enormous tidal wave, the land is destroyed, and the only way to survive now is to battle nature itself.” You’ll have to make up your own mind on this one. 
As for me, I really wish I’d have liked this film better, because the director really has his heart in the right place, and stories about the injuring of the planet by humans really need to be encouraged, and the theme hammered home. And he’s building a huge studio complex outside Bangkok to make filmmaking more viable in Thailand, and that is all to the good. And he seems to have energy and vision. But damn, at the moment he is showing very few skills in a film like this, and one cringes at the editorial choices and the directing choices made in this current offering. But I really wish him well.
Wise Kwai has a terrific review of this film (the review is terrific, not the film; click to read the whole article).
Wise Kwai: An overly dramatic, disaster-epic version of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Bluntly and artlessly, Toranong Srichua uses his film as a cudgel to beat the topic of climate change senseless. An old-time social-realism moviemaker, he wants to show audiences the reality, but it is difficult to take his message seriously. Never mind that 2022 Tsunami is only fitfully entertaining -- mostly unintentionally so because of the melodramatic acting and cartoonish CGI. All the moralizing and preaching about nice cars, fancy shopping malls, and skytrain transport systems rings hollow when it's those very things that Toranong depends on in order for people to see his movie.
And, as he's so fond of pointing out numerous times in the film, none of it is going to matter anyway when the big wave hits, because everything will be gone.
… But it's hard to take the movie seriously when the characters are so woodenly and melodramatically portrayed, especially the corrupt politician who harbors a secret and his son the hedonist, who swims with bikini-clad babes, takes drugs and kills sea gypsy fishermen. Toranong's perverted, heavy-handed morality is summed up in those characters.
The Pink Panther 2: US, Adventure/ Comedy/ Mystery – 92 mins – Insp. Jacques Clouseau teams up with a squad of International detectives who are just as bumbling as he is. Their mission: Stop a globe-trotting thief who specializes in stealing historical artifacts. Starring Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Alfred Molina, and Andy Garcia – a very talented cast, but critics seem to say this is little more than a series of lame slapstick gags. Generally negative reviews: 36/36 out of 100.
Scheduled for Pattaya cineplexes on Thursday, June 11
Up: Disney/Pixar animated fantasy. A comedy adventure about 78-year-old balloon salesman (voiced by Ed Asner) who finally fulfills his lifelong dream of a great adventure when he ties thousands of balloons to his house and flies away to the wilds of South America. But he discovers all too late that his biggest nightmare has stowed away on the trip: an overly optimistic 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell. Also starring Christopher Plummer, and a speech-assisted dog. Reviews: Universal acclaim: 88/86 out of 100. Rotten Tomatoes: Another masterful work of art from Pixar, Up is an exciting, hilarious, and heartfelt adventure impeccably crafted and told with wit and depth.
And looking forward:
Jun 18 – State of Play: A thriller about a principled investigative journalist in the midst of a vast conspiracy – engrossing, smart, unnerving, and surprisingly timely, and a tribute to the hardworking reporters that shed light on our political system. Russell Crowe stars as an old-school Washington beat reporter who's had a solid professional rapport with an up-and-coming congressman (Ben Affleck) – that is, until some of the congressman’s associates turn up dead. Crowe uneasily joins forces with Rachel McAdams, a blogger at the paper, to untangle a sinister web of secrets and lies. The film’s ensemble, which also includes Helen Mirren as an exacting editor, is unimpeachable, as is the immediacy and authenticity of the newsroom setting.
Jun 23 (yes, a Tuesday) – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: US, Action/ Sci-Fi. It’s Autobots® versus Decepticons®, Round 2, in Michael Bay’s film based on Hasbro’s Transformers™ action figures. Look how we have to write about it! It’s all about trade names and merchandising! The action figures for sure will be on sale in the lobby. Start saving your money, they won’t be cheap. With Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, and John Turturro.
Jul 2 – Public Enemies: With Johnny Depp as Dillinger! Michael Mann’s latest film pits Johnny Depp against Christian Bale as the two star as career criminal John Dillinger and G-man Melvin Purvis, respectively, in Public Enemies, a Great Depression-era drama about the FBI’s attempts to shut down organized crime. The film features a strong supporting cast, including Billy Crudup, Channing Tatum, Giovanni Ribisi, and Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard.
Jul 16 – Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: Latest Harry Potter episode. As the boy wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) enters his sixth year at Hogwart's, danger is afoot thanks to the growing forces of He Who Shall Not Be Named. But that's not the only hazard Harry, Ron, and Hermione have to contend with, as another sort of fickle magic is in the air: teenage hormones. Expect director David Yates to serve up the usual brand of Harry Potter excellence (he directed the last HP film, Order of the Phoenix) although screenwriter Steve Kloves has taken some liberties with the material, so Potterites, beware! Voldemort (… oops! I named him!) is tightening his grip on both the Muggle and wizarding worlds, and Hogwarts is no longer the safe haven it once was. If, indeed, ever it was.
New website for Major Cineplex
Here you go: Schedule on Major Cineplex Website or http://www.majorcineplex.com/showtimepage.php
It’s basically a mixture of Thai and English, and this is how you work it: The link above gets you to the “Showtime” page. On the right two-thirds of the screen you will see two lists: movies, and theaters. At the top of the list of movies, click “Select All Movie” unless you’re really only interested in one movie. On the list of theaters, click “Pattaya.” This is one of four cities in the “Zone UPC-South-East” section, which is the 7th region down, or the 3rd from the bottom. Then hit “go” either at the top or the bottom of the lists, and almost immediately you will get at the very bottom of the page a list of the movies, the cinemas (โรง) they are in, and their remaining times (เวลา) for the day. If you do this after midnight and in the early morning, you will get a blank. Times are posted later in the morning. You have no way at the moment for getting any times except for the current day, and only the remaining times.
