Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
The next Ryan Gosling vehicle (no pun intended), will be by the same director, the now popular Nicolas Winding Refn will take place in Thailand. In “Only God Forgives” A Thai ex-cop and Gosling will come head to head in the streets of Bangkok. Shooting is to happen mostly at night. (Bangkok Post – Refn) It looks like God Only Forgives is going to made before the Logan’s Run remake that’s also to star Gosling, along with mentions of a romantic comedy set in New York that’s also yet another Gosling adventure.
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Don’t mess with the King. A Colorado Thai American man, Joe Gordon did just that. He translated parts of a banned book about the King and posted it online. He went to Thailand for medical treatment (we wonder what kind?) and was put in jail. He’s now pleading guilty after trying the innocent route and he’ll be soon forgotten until he gets out. Who’s going to be in his corner on this one besides unnamed embassy helpers? Where’s Gore or Carter? It’s a tough battle in Thailand, where the King is revered by much of the population. You can’t make fun of him, or anything like that, or else even the common folk will get pissed. They actually like him. (Fox – Thai King)
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Using the best in Ching Chong technology, Chinese classical music is used to illustrate fruit carving. The artist, Vid Nikolic carves a watermelon skin into an amazing flower and he can carve any veggie into something that you’d want to display until it rots away. Yet, after going to the carving fruits link, this art came from Thailand! It’s an amazing video nonetheless. Watermelon skin carving from Vid Nikolic on Vimeo.
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Thai Elephant gets prosthetic leg. Not much to say about this, right? But it shows Thailand’s love for their elephants. (Huffington Post – Elephant Prosthetic Leg)
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Forget what you think you know about Pabst Blue Ribbon and the oh-so-ironic hipster cachet the brand has acquired in the last five or ten years. Right now, believe it or not, PBR is the fanciest and priciest American brew you can buy in China. And remember Buick, maker of those dependable but less-than-glamorous suburban mom-mobiles you were embarrassed to be seen getting out of at school or the rock concert? Like PBR, it is also a luxury, prestige brand in China, considered a true status symbol for the wealthy and upwardly mobile. In Cambodia, Kentucky Fried Chicken is considered a destination restaurant, where members of that country’s small but growing upper-middle class go to be seen and partake of pricey meals which can cost 10 times what the average Cambodian makes doing a day’s work. In Thailand, the delicious but basically down-scale Krispy Kreme donut brand has established itself in Bangkok’s Rodeo Drive-like Siam Paragon shopping mall, rubbing retail elbows with a Marc Jacobs store and a Ferrari dealership. These are just a few examples of how American companies with struggling or unpopular brands are taking those brands to Asia and reinventing them to appeal to a generation of Asian consumers who know greater mobility and wealth than their parents. It makes sense, if you think about it, even though to us the idea of paying 46 bucks for a bottle of PBR (that’s what the fancy Pabst Blue Ribbon 1844 brand costs) seems pretty ridiculous. Still, you have to admire the brands that are finding prestige and new life among Asia’s young and wealthy. And, like us, you’re probably wondering what a $46 bottle of any kind of beer tastes like. (Foreign Policy – Upscale Asians Like Downscale Brands)
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