The Korea Herald

This year, summer movies not only about men

May 1, 2011

From its earliest days, Hollywood has been a boy’s club. And summer traditionally is the season of boy movies ― big, loud, rude and not terribly smart. So what are we to make of the summer of 2011 when so many titles suggest, well, an estrogen-centric approach? It’s not as if bad boys and manly men will be AWOL from the megaplex over the next four months ― not with “Thor” and “Green Lantern” a...
Box Office

Apr 29, 2011

Mao’s last dancer (Australia) Opening April 28 Drama. Directed by Bruce Beresford. A drama based on an autobiography by Li Cunxin. Eleven-year-old Li (Chi Cao) from a poor Chinese village is taken to Beijing by Madame Mao’s cultural delegate to study ballet. A few years later, Li is invited to perform with the Houston Ballet by its director. As the first Asian to be invited, Li soon becomes a s...
Reese Witherspoon occasionally welcomes disorder in her life

Apr 29, 2011

LOS ANGELES ― As far as tightly wound actresses go, Reese Witherspoon tops the list. She insists upon a strict sense of order in her life. Her production company is called Type A, a moniker her latest costar, Robert Pattinson, says fits her strong sense of self perfectly. And even when she appears to be having a spontaneous moment, lamenting that her well-orchestrated career built around an avoid...
Universal soups up ‘Fast and Furious’

Apr 29, 2011

LOS ANGELES ― Hoping to transform one of its few successful film series into a top-tier global franchise, Universal Pictures has refueled “Fast and Furious” with an international backdrop, a bigger production budget and a new genre. Audiences will witness the results of that strategy Friday when “Fast Five” debuts as the first of Hollywood’s summer season releases. The movie abandons the world o...
Jude Law in Austria for ‘360’ film

Apr 27, 2011

VIENNA (AP) ― Hollywood actor Jude Law is among the stars of “360” ― a new movie partly set in the Austrian capital in which the British heartthrob plays a man whose marriage has hit a lull. The film is directed by Fernando Meirelles and inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s play “Reigen,” or “La Ronde.” While storyline specifics are being kept under wraps, screenwriter Peter Morgan told reporters Tu...
Tribeca documentaries examine bullying, toxicity

Apr 25, 2011
Hollywood’s latest trend reimagines classic childhood tales

Apr 25, 2011

LOS ANGELES ― All grown up, Hansel and Gretel return to the forest to exact revenge on their childhood tormentors. Snow White escapes the Evil Queen and takes up with a group of Shaolin monks. And after leaving Kansas, carnival barker Oscar Diggs remakes himself as a wizard in the Emerald City. Childhood classics as seen through a fun-house mirror? Well, yes. But for the film business, it’s also...
Emma Watson takes break from Brown University

Apr 24, 2011

Emma Watson, who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movie series, is to put her studying on hold. “I’ve decided to take a bit of time off to completely finish my work on ‘Harry Potter’ … and to focus on my other professional and acting projects,” posted Watson on her site Emmawatson.com, explaining her decision. “I will still be working towards my degree ... it’s just going to take me ...
How Sidney Lumet fought showbiz blacklist

Apr 22, 2011

LOS ANGELES ― I’d almost forgotten what an unabashed liberal Sidney Lumet had been until I read an essay by New York Post critic Kyle Smith, an unabashed conservative who has little good to say about Lumet’s signature work, seeing it as emblematic of the weak-kneed moral relativism of lefty do-gooders. Taking apart Lumet’s “12 Angry Men,” Smith dubs it an “ur-myth of liberal fantasy,” saying “one...
Box Office

Apr 22, 2011

Norwegian Wood Opening April 21 Drama. Directed by Tran Anh Hung. Upon hearing the Beatles’ song “Norwegian Wood,” a Japanese businessman reminisces about the intense romance of his university days in Tokyo, set against the turbulent student riots of the late 1960s. Toru Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama), an aloof university student at the time, had lost Kizuki -- his best friend in high school -- a...
Director Max Winkler’s persistence pays off with ‘Ceremony’

Apr 22, 2011

LOS ANGELES ― When Max Winkler set out to make a movie, he made one thing clear: He didn’t want any help from his Hollywood veteran father, no matter how tempting the prospect. Editing his directorial debut, “Ceremony,” out of his boyhood bedroom put Winkler mighty close to Dad ― Henry Winkler, still remembered best as the Fonz from “Happy Days.” “I would walk down the hall and I would have a s...
‘Journals of Musan’ to screen with English subtitles

Apr 21, 2011

“The Journals of Musan” will be shown with English subtitles at Cinecode Sonje in Samcheong-dong this week. A scene from “The Journals of Musan” (JINJIN Pictures) “The Journals of Musan” is director Park Jung-bum’s debut feature, about a North Korean defector Jeon Seung-chul (Park Jung-bum) who originally came to South Korea to live a better life, but finds it difficult to be happy with his def...
‘Ghost’ selected for Cannes short film competition

Apr 21, 2011

The short film “Ghost,” directed by Lee Jung-Jin (a.k.a. Ma Dahci), has been selected for the Short Film Competition of the 64th Cannes Film Festival. “Ghost” is a 10-minute thriller about a criminal hiding in an empty house in a deserted town where gentrification has been discontinued. “Ghost” by Lee Jung-jin The Short Film Competition is an official competition category that highlights young...
Animated documentaries tell real-life stories

Apr 18, 2011

Canadian director brings film about artists with Down syndrome to Women’s Film Festival Canadian animation director Shira Avni makes films that are “in between genres.” “Animated documentaries don’t fit into doc festivals, nor do they fit into anime festivals,” Avni told The Korea Herald in Seoul last week. “But they get invited to both.” Her 2009 animated documentary, “Trying Your Own Shoes,”...
Box Office

Apr 15, 2011

Norwegian Wood Opening April 21 Drama. Directed by Tran Anh Hung. Upon hearing The Beatles’ song “Norwegian Wood,” a Japanese businessman reminisces about the intense romance of his university days in Tokyo, set against the turbulent student riots of the late 1960s. Toru Watanabe (Kenichi Matsuyama), an aloof university student at the time, had lost Kizuki -- his best friend in high school -- a...