Dear Galileo (Nee Tam Galileo)

A breezy looking comedy-drama from GTH, Dear Galileo (Nee Tam Galileo) follows two young Thai women as they head for Europe in a bid to escape their problems at home. One's flunked out of university and the other has been dumped by her boyfriend. The girls have all kinds of adventures, and take odd jobs, working in restaurants to earn money along the way.

It stars Chutima Teepanat and Jarinporn Junkiat, as well as Ray MacDonald, who plays a Thai guy the girls meet during their journey.

This is the second solo feature for director Nithiwat Tharathorn, who made his debut as one of the six directors of the 2003 childhood comedy Fan Chan and then made the teen comedy-weeper Seasons Change, which also starred Chutima.

The title is a metaphor taken from the concept embraced by Galileo Galilei that the Earth is not the center of the universe -- by getting out and discovering there's a big, wide world the girls discover that the world does not revolve around them.

The production hit London, Paris, Venice and Pisa. In an article in today's Daily Xpress/The Nation, Parinyaporn Pajee talked to Nithiwat and discovered that Dear Galileo is based on the director's own experiences of living and working abroad.

"People dream of a happy life in London or Paris with lots of spare time to travel around but it's not like that. When you work in a restaurant, you spend most of your time indoors and you stay in a small space to save money.

"I know many people do eventually settle down overseas and have a happy life but for me, there's no place like home," he says.

I wonder if Nithiwat was wearing ruby slippers and clicked his heels three times as he said that?

Also opening

Public Enemies -- 75 years ago on July 22, John Dillinger finished watching Clark Gable in Manhattan Melodrama at Chicago's Biograph Theater. As he was leaving, he was ambushed by FBI agents, who gunned him down on the pavement in front of the cinema. That very spot was where director Michael Mann and star Johnny Depp returned to make Public Enemies, which chronicles Dillinger's reign as Public Enemy No. 1 in the U.S. Christian Bale also stars as Melvin Purvis, the man tasked by J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) with bringing Dillinger down. French actress Marion Cotillard portrays Dillinger's girlfriend. Public Enemies has generally been praised for its stylised, grainy look and glamorous costumes, even if the execution of the story seems a bit dull. Oh, don't confuse this with another gangster movie, Public Enemy No. 1, the two part drama about French gangster Jacques Mesrine. Part one, L'instinct de mort, finished its run at the Lido and part two,  L'ennemi public n°1, opens next Thursday.

April Bride -- In this Japanese melodrama, a young woman is diagnosed with breast cancer and is given one month to live. She hides this fact from her boyfriend, but he finds out anyway, and then decide to marry her in an elaborate wedding. Will love cure her illness? It is supposedly based on a true story. It's at the Lido with English and Thai subtitles.

Also showing

• Week of Siam -- Six romance films from the 1980s and 90s are showing at House on RCA. They are detailed elsewhere.
• Short Film Marathon -- The preliminary run for the 13th Thai Short Film and Video Festival continues until August 2 in Conference Room 4 at the Bangkok Art and Culture Center, with showtimes starting at 5 daily.