Alfred Hitchcock had a celebrated recipe for suspense: a time bomb planted under a table, people sitting at the table and only the audience being aware that something is ticking. It’s a formula for tension that’s more or less thrown out the train window by “Source Code,” the psychological thriller opening Friday and starring Jake Gyllenhaal: The movie has about eight explosions. Characters and a...

Pool (Japan) Opened March 31 Drama. Directed by Omori Mika. Kyoko (Satomi Kobayashi), a middle-aged woman who had left her family to work for a guest house in Chiang Mai, Thailand, receives a visit from her daughter, Sayo (Kana). To Sayo’s surprise, Kyoko is more than happy to be in the guest house, living with kindhearted employee Ichio (Ryo Kase), young Thai boy Bie (Sittichai Kongpila), and ...

Black undies? Or white? It was a choice that confronted writer-director Zack Snyder while making “Sucker Punch,” a mostly female action-fantasy starring Emily Browning as a gun-toting, sword-swinging killer deceptively named Babydoll. She dispatches zombies and robots with the kind of brutality that made Snyder’s mostly male “300” a hit in 2007, but she also wears a thigh-high skirt that, as vie...

LAS VEGAS (AP) ― Johnny Depp’s tour guide on his “Pirates of the Caribbean” voyages is plotting the course for a fifth installment even before the fourth movie sails into theaters. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer says he has a screenplay in the works for a fifth “Pirates” tale after May’s “Pirates of the Caribbean:On Stranger Tides” comes out. Based on the Disney theme-park ride, the original three ...

Kim Eui-suk, new chairman of the controversy-plagued Korea Film Council (KOFIC), said he will regain public trust in the organization, after officially taking appointment Wednesday. It is the first time ever for a former movie director to take the position. Kim said his background as a film director will help him in the role. “I’ve seen the real problems and conflicts in the field because I’ve ...

“Norwegian Wood,” “Confessions,” “Closed Note” and “Paradise Lost.” These Japanese films, set to be released in Seoul next month, have one thing in common: they are all cinematic versions of Japan’s bestselling novels. According to Cracker Pictures, one of local distributors of the films, this is no coincidence ― the trend of making book-based films has been popular in Japan for the past couple...

I Am a Dad (Korea) Opening April 14 Action. Directed by Lee Se-young and Jeon Man-bae. Jong-sik (Kim Seung-woo) is a detective whose daughter is in need of a heart transplant. Finding it impossible to afford the expensive operation for his daughter, Jong-sik receives a bribe from illegal human organ traders and drops their murder charges for them. A man named Sang-man (Sohn Byeong-ho) is falsel...

“You can only breathe so much in corsets,” says Mia Wasikowska, who was required to wear such an apparatus, along with various bell-shaped skirts, flounced petticoats, and tight little bonnets, as she assayed the title role in the new and beautifully miserable “Jane Eyre.” “It restricts your voice and your breath, and it’s really symbolic of the repression of the day,” she observes. “That’s very...

Back in 2000, University of Southern California film professor Amanda Pope and a former student, Tchavdar Georgiev, were traveling in Russia and some of its satellites, working on a series of short portraits of emerging leaders in the post-Soviet world. The two were in Uzbekistan when Pope heard about an amazing collection of Russian avant-garde art in a remote museum deep in the country’s desert...

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Screen legend Elizabeth Taylor, the violet-eyed film goddess whose sultry screen life was often upstaged by her stormy personal life, died Wednesday at age 79. She died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she had been hospitalized for about six weeks, publicist Sally Morrison said. ``All her children were with her,'' Morrison said. Taylor ha...

Upcoming film tells a touching yet comical tale of a North Korean officer during the Korean War Just about two months ahead of the Korean War, a young communist military officer (Kim Joo-hyeok) and his soldiers arrive in a secluded country town in Chungcheong Province. Amid the intense political turmoil, the town, Seokjeongri, is peaceful. It is so remote that its people don’t even take the war...

WEST HOLLYWOOD, California (AP) _ Authorities in Los Angeles say Lindsay Lohan's father has been arrested over allegations he held his girlfriend against her will and prevented her from calling police. Sheriff's investigators say deputies were dispatched on a domestic violence call at 9 p.m. Monday to Michael Lohan's apartment. A news release says the 51-year-old was booked for investigation of...

HONG KONG (AFP) ― South Korea’s finest in film celebrated after blitzing the annual Asian Film Awards on Monday, bolstering the country’s growing reputation as the pre-eminent force in the region. South Korean movie stars and filmmakers dominated the glitzy ceremony in Hong Kong, now in its fifth year, snapping up awards for best director, best screenplay, best actor, best supporting actress and...