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Gate Crasher

18/05/2012 : Welcome to Guru ’s Gate Crasher, your ultimate guide to finding something fresh to do in this big city.
SPECIAL REPORT FROM CANNESCannes Report Day 2

18/05/2012 : Cannes
May 17

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DVDREVIEW
An exploration of erotica
18/05/2012 : Sex as a loveless addiction, a compulsion that brings no pleasure or happiness, is no stranger to us here in Bangkok, where sex bars, bathhouses and massage parlours cater nightly to regulars who can't stay away. Recently, after I screened this new Blu-ray edition of Shame, Steve McQueen's wrenching portrait of a sex addict, for a group of friends, one of them wondered aloud what would have happened to its hero, Brandon Sullivan, if he had made his way to Soi Cowboy. It is a gruesome thought.
Moonrise at Cannes
18/05/2012 : Pre-teen love and rainbow eccentricity opened the 65th Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday. Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom served up an unusually amusing, toybox-like fantasy as a curtain raiser to the 12-day festival known for its roll-call of prestigious titles and pensive arthouse fares. But actually, Anderson's film about two 12-year-olds who fall in love and elope captures the dual modality that Cannes has always juggled with masterful trickery: an auteur movie by a brand-name filmmaker, and a dash of Hollywood magnetics and red carpet-worthy cast. This year we'll especially see that a lot more in the next 10 days.
Victoria beckham on CNN's talk Asia
18/05/2012 : Fashion designer and international style icon Victoria Beckham sits down with CNN correspondent Anna Coren for an in-depth one-on-one interview on CNN's Talk Asia.
A chance to admire Swedish films
17/05/2012 : Premiering last Tuesday, the Swedish Film Festival is a great treat for Bangkok's movie connoisseurs at SFX Cinema of the Emporium shopping complex.
SPECIAL REPORT FROM CANNES
Cannes Report Day 1
17/05/2012 : Moonrise sonata and the Tahrir battle
BALLETREVIEW
The Trocks Rock Bangkok
17/05/2012 : Ballet was alive again when Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (known affectionately by their worldwide fanbase as the Trocks) paid another visit to Bangkok last week at the Royal Paragon Hall. Dance-goers in Thailand who spend more that 600 baht per ticket to see a performance are rarely challenged with the kind of wit and intelligence this all-male and en-drag ballet troupe possesses. Big-budget musicals and many works billed in the annual Bangkok's International Festival of Dance and Music are so redundant that they narrow audiences' views of what is considered "beautiful dancing", and even more troubling, what is considered dance at all. Although the Trocks are no longer provocative or groundbreaking, even in the Thai dance scene, the company still holds its own special place in the international ballet world.
DIALOGUE
Playing with Purcell
17/05/2012 : NUNi Productions returns with a new experiment on opera. Taking Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, director and NUNi founder Pattarasuda Anuman Rajadhon gives the Baroque tragedy a darker and more grotesque spin.
The art of making a rainbow
17/05/2012 : A Rainbow in the Backyard family charity party will be held in the garden of 99 Rest Backyard Cafe on Rama IX, Soi 41, to raise awareness for Thai children with special needs, on May 26 from 2-6pm.
Cannes' line-up promises a big year
16/05/2012 : As is tradition, it will be helter-skelter in Cannes. The archangels will descend on the red carpet while the critics, all few thousand of them, will practice the old sport of vulturism, eyeing the wrecks and picking up the carcasses, when the the 65th Cannes Film Festival begins tonight (a week later than usual to allow the dust of the French presidential election to settle). There are 22 films in Cannes' Competition _ the most coveted contest in the world, sort of _ and most of them are latest works by brand-name directors who will, like futuristic priests, lead us to a prayer at Our Church of Cinema, godly and satanic. To many, the festival is also an annual rite of self-flagellation. Better bring your own whips.
Temple fair in the clouds
16/05/2012 : Prayers in Paragon Hall. New iPad apps on meditation centres. A haunted house in which earthly desires stalk you like inexorable ghosts. A "dharma boy band" of singers interpreting their tunes through the spiritual looking glass. Then monks as film programmers picking movies that discuss virtues and vices in diverse voices. In short, Buddhism in a new setting: Buddhism in a mall.