SAN DIEGO ― If reaction to “The Hobbit’’ footage at Comic-Con is any indication, Peter Jackson has another couple of blockbusters on his hands. The crowd attending Jackson’s “Hobbit’’ preview at the fan convention Saturday went wild over a 12-minute reel the filmmaker and his colleagues screened. Broken into two films, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’’ and “The Hobbit: There and Back Again,’...

PiFan to also hold genre-fiction book fair, camping opportunities and movie-themed parties For horror, fantasy, mystery and animated film fans, Bucheon is the place to be this month. The annual Puchon (Bucheon) International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan), which is considered the largest genre film fest in Asia, is opening this Thursday ― featuring a total of 230 films from 47 countries. This...

Dance “Swan Lake”: Russia’s Novosibrisk State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre is presenting Tchaikovsky classic “Swan Lake.” The piece is directed by Igor Zelensky while its stage and costume have been designed by Louisa Spinatelli. The show runs from July 26 to 29 at Seoul Arts Center. Tickets range from 50,000 won to 250,000 won. For more information, visit www.sac.or.kr or call (02) 2650-74...

Zac Brown Band show diversity on new CD Zac Brown Band "Uncaged" (Southern Ground/Atlantic) The Zac Brown Band delivers a message with the title of its new album, "Uncaged" -- and the songs back up that statement. Although still likely to be described as a country band, the Georgia group purposely, and admirably, avoids current Nashville conventions on their new collection. Ten years in, the...

A Millionaire on the Run (Korea) Opening July 19 Comedy. Directed by Kim Ik-Ro. A promising salary man and a lobbyist, Choi Young-in (Park Jin-young) is attacked by a stranger while on a delivery mission to carry $5 million. He realizes that his boss Han Sang-moo (Cho Sung-ha), whom Young-in considered as his own brother, has betrayed him and made a scheme to kill him and take the money. While ...

Here’s one thing the movies get wrong pretty consistently ― the reaction of seemingly rational people upon seeing the supernatural, the impossible, the miraculous. “Red Lights,” the new film from the director of the nervy minimalist thriller “Buried” (Ryan Reynolds in a box), has great actors reacting exactly the way their characters would respond to things that fall under “This CANNOT be happen...

Peter O’Toole is retiring from show business, saying he no longer has the heart for it and that it’s time to “chuck in the sponge.” O’Toole, who turns 80 on Aug. 2, said in a statement Tuesday that his career on stage and screen fulfilled him emotionally and financially, bringing “me together with fine people, good companions with whom I’ve shared the inevitable lot of all actors: flops and hits...

NEW YORK - Spike Lee worked with Michael Jackson and considered him a friend, but the director says even he learned a lot combing through footage of the icon for a planned documentary about the singer’s “Bad” album. Lee calls it a “treasure chest of findings.” “We have footage in this documentary that no one’s ever seen, stuff that Michael shot himself, behind-the-scenes stuff,” he said in an i...

By Lee Hyun-jae, Intern reporter (lhj137@heraldm.com)

The South Korean film “The Concubine” has been sold to eight Asian countries, including Singapore, China and Japan, its distributor Lotte Entertainment said Thursday. Directed by Kim Dae-seung, the erotic period drama is about the love triangle involving a Joseon-era king, his concubine and another man. The film has sold more than 2.6 million tickets since opening at local theaters on June 6, a...

Seoul’s last old-style, one-screen cinema, soon to be knocked down and replaced by a hotel, played its final movie Wednesday ― the Italian classic “The Bicycle Thief’’ ― a moment so emotional for the theater operator that she publicly shaved her head in frustration. The theater, which opened in 1964, had become a place where mostly elderly moviegoers gathered regularly to watch classic Hollywood...

UBC dancer Ahn Ji-eun theatrically impressive in MacMillan’s interpretation of Shakespearean tragedy While considered one of the greatest love stories of all time, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is also a coming-of-age story. The piece is filled with adolescent rebellion; it deals with first love, loss of innocence, and the characters’ first efforts to separate themselves from their parents. ...