Bank shenanigans in Pattaya: The International!
Pattaya movies beginning Thursday, June 18, 2009
… through Monday, June 22
by Thomas Ohlson
Best Bets: Up. The International. Angels & Demons. Drag Me to Hell.
To avoid like the plague: Blood: The Last Vampire.
Here is the 96th edition of my weekly compilations of movie times and comments for Pattaya! And the 9th 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.
For the Pattaya online version, go to:
http://thomatpattaya.blogspot.com/
Here are my comments on the films playing in Pattaya for the week beginning Thursday, June 18, 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.
Programs change next Tuesday with the advent of what the movie folk hope is the next blockbuster, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Meanwhile, the most loved film of the year so far has arrived and doing fine business here: Up. It rates high with reviewers, and with the public as well, already the third-highest earner of the year in the US. I particularly like how the Bangkok Post reviewer Kong Rithdee sums it up: “A real joy. … It’s buoyant and marvelous.”
And don’t forget that Drag Me to Hell has gotten the best reviews of any horror film in years; I thought it a hoot!
Now playing in Pattaya * = new this week
* The International: US/ Germany/ UK, Crime/ Thriller – 118 mins – With Clive Owen and Naomi Watts. An Interpol agent attempts to expose a high-profile financial institution's role in an international arms dealing ring. In this gripping thriller Interpol Agent Louis Salinger (Clive Owen) and Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi Watts) are determined to bring to justice one of the world's most powerful banks. Uncovering myriad and reprehensible illegal activities, Salinger and Whitman follow the money from Berlin to Milan to New York to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a high-stakes chase across the globe, their relentless tenacity puts their own lives at risk as their targets will stop at nothing – even murder – to continue financing terror and war. Rated R in the US for some sequences of violence and language. Mixed or average reviews: 52/54 out of 100.
Houston Chronicle, Amy Biancolli: Now’s as good a time as any for some out-of-control greedy-banker-bashing.
Roger Ebert: Not since the days of silent movies have bankers as a group been cast so ruthlessly as villains. They used to wear waxed mustaches and throw widows and orphans out into the storm. Now the mustaches are gone. "Banker" has been incorporated into the all-embracing term "Wall Street." The bankers in "The International" broker arms deals, sell missiles under the counter and assassinate anyone who gets too snoopy. First they throw you out into the storm, then they blow you up.
Whether this is a fair portrait is not the purpose of a film review to determine. It is accurate of the bankers on view here, and given the face of Armin Mueller-Stahl, once familiar as a good guy, now enjoying a new career as a ruthless villain. His bank, based in Luxembourg as so many schemes are, has been assassinating nosey-parkers for getting too close to their operations, which involve investing in African rebels, nuclear weaponry and arming both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The movie has a scene in it Hitchcock might have envied, a gun battle ranging up and down the ramps of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Why there? Because the visuals are terrific.
* Phee Tum Tim / ผีตุ๋มติ๋ม: Thai, Comedy – 90 mins – A goalkeeper on a Thai football team cracks his head on a goal post and dies. But wait, that’s just the beginning! Somehow his body is possessed by the spirit of a transsexual who has a burning desire to see the Thai football team make it to the World Cup. (Shown in Thai only with no English subtitles.)
Up: US (Disney/Pixar), Animation/ Action/ Adventure/ Comedy/ Family – 96 mins – Everyone’s current favorite! An animated comedy/fantasy adventure about a 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 (see picture at right), 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.
Drag Me to Hell: US, Horror/ Thriller – 99 mins – 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.
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. The Big C version is dubbed into Thai, with no English subtitles.
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.
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.
Dek Khong / อนุบาลเด็กโข่ง: Thai, Comedy/ Drama – 90 mins – The “King Kong Gang” is a powerful and invincible gang that rules and terrorizes all the kids in the kindergarten, led by a boy of such immense size that a high-school girl who thinks he’s in high school falls for him, rendering him incapable of leading his gang.
Roommate / รูมเมท เพื่อนร่วมห้องต้องแอบรัก: Thai, Romance/ Drama – 90 mins – About three young females and two young males who live together and play together in a rock band named Roommate. As you might expect, includes the band’s music as well. (In Thai only/ no English subtitles.)
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.
Blood: The Last Vampire: Hong Kong/ Japan, Action/ Horror – A thoroughly disgusting mess of violence and killing. A remake of the 2000 movie of the same name about a vampire who is part of a covert government agency that hunts and destroys demons in Japan and who is inserted into a military school to discover which one of her classmates is a demon is disguise. I think the film is depraved and shameful, and serves only to brutalize the people who come to see it. Rated R in the US for strong bloody stylized violence. In English, mostly. Skip it!
Scheduled for Pattaya cineplexes on Tuesday, June 23
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: US, Action/ Adventure/ 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. Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) again joins with the Autobots® against their sworn enemies, the Decepticons.
Hollywood Reporter: Bay's team of four editors stitch together smashing but meaningless images, though it's as difficult to make out which machine is which as it is to tell what anyone is saying. The noise level -- not helped by Steve Jablonsky's relentless score -- is super-intense and everyone yells lines at high speed. Because nothing they're saying makes any sense, it's hardly important.
Eye for Film: Despite the intervening years, neither Sam nor the franchise that features him has exactly matured. This sequel is essentially a recap of all the bludgeoning biffo from the first film, only with more characters, and more Transformers on both sides of the (good) Autobot/ (bad) Decepticon spectrum. It is bigger and longer than the original – but certainly no better, and this time round lacking even a novelty factor.
The action revolves around a long-buried machine capable of destroying all life on Earth, and an ancient Transformer known as The Fallen (in case anyone misses his Luciferian identity) who returns to set those old cogs a-whirring and take vengeance on the humans he so inexplicably hates. The Fallen orchestrates the resurrection of mega-bad-robot Megatron to help him find the hidden 'Matrix' ignition key for the machine – and so Sam finds himself once again drawn into helping the Christ-like Autobot leader Optimus Prime (cue solemn stirring music whenever he appears) to save humankind.
Both Prime and Sam must make some messianic sacrifices (again) in order to beat the Decepticons to the Matrix and then beat The Fallen to kingdom come – but since their martyrdoms are not permanent (there's the franchise's future to consider), they lack all substance. Here, as in a video game, all the players can call on more than one life, which serves to reduce considerably any sense of real peril.
Much-needed (if very hit-and-miss) comic relief is provided by Sam's embarrassingly all-American parents (Kevin Dunn, Julie White), by former agent Simmons (John Turturro), by new roommate-cum-geek Leo (Ramon Rodriguez), and by a perky pair of rap-speaking Autobots named Mudflap and Skids. Beyond that, it's a series of mindless, pounding, effects-heavy set-pieces, no doubt all technically brilliant, but still numbing on the attention, and cut so fast and furious that it is often, as in the first film, difficult to divine (let alone care) who exactly is doing what to whom.
And looking forward:
Jul 1 (Wednesday) – Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: US, Animation/ Action/ Comedy/ Romance. After the events of Ice Age: The Meltdown, life begins to change for Manny and his friends: Scrat is still on the hunt to hold onto his beloved acorn, while finding a possible romance in a female sabre-toothed squirrel named Scratte. Manny and Ellie, having since become an item, are expecting a baby, which leaves Manny anxious to ensure that everything is perfect for when his baby arrives. Diego is fed up with being treated like a house-cat and ponders the notion that he is becoming too laid-back. Sid begins to wish for a family of his own, and so steals some dinosaur eggs which leads to Sid ending up in a strange underground world where his herd must rescue him, while dodging dinosaurs and facing danger left and right, and meeting up with a one-eyed weasel known as Buck who hunts dinosaurs intently. With the voices of Ray Romano and John Leguizamo.
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.
Jul 23 – 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.
Aug 20 – Inglourious Basterds: US/ Germany, Action/Adventure/ War – Director Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds with Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, and Mélanie Laurent, begins in German-occupied France, where Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema.
Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as "The Basterds," Raine's squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich. Fates converge under a cinema marquee, where Shosanna is poised to carry out a revenge plan of her own.
Quentin Tarantino's long-awaited tale of Jewish-American troops on the hunt for Nazi scalps in WWII France is unlikely to get usurped as the most bad-ass movie of 2009, thanks to the fact that, well, it's a Quentin Tarantino film. Inglourious Basterds stars Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine, leader of the titular squadron that includes Samm Levine, Eli Roth, and B.J. Novak; along with German actress and Allied agent Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), they attempt to bring down the Nazis -- in the bloodiest way possible. Mike Myers, Cloris Leachman, and Samuel L. Jackson also star in the exploitation throwback, so look forward to a star-studded (and gore-filled) good time.
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.
