Winter crop

In addition to Citizen Dog, there's a bunch of other homegrown movies out in Thai theaters at the end of the year, reports Parinyaporn Pajee in The Nation.

Among this winter crop, there's MAIDS, or Jaew, about secret, crime-fighting maids. It's by Yongyooth Thongkongtoon, the director of Iron Ladies. Early teasers, featuring maids with M-16's hidden in their broom closets, made this film look pretty entertaining. New longer previews play on the fact that one of the characters is a Burmese hilltribe woman and therefore doesn't understand things about elevators and elevated trains, implying the stereotype that she's just a dumb hillbilly. This is getting a lot of laughs, but I don't find it funny. Too bad.

Other year-end films include:

• Khun Krabi Phee Rabad (SARS Wars), an action comedy from debuting director Thaweewat Wanta.
• Er Rer!, a heart-warming story of a friendship between a boy with Down’s Syndrome and a naughty girl.
• Sagai United, an exploitive sports drama from Mae Bia director Somching Srisuphab about members of the elusive Sagai hilltribe from southern Thailand who come to the city for a soccer tournament.
• My Space, a student-produced film from Thammasat University, it's a drama about a man and a woman who live in the same apartment building and strike up a friendship.

(Cross-published at Rotten Tomatoes)