The words and feelings pouring out of Celestelle Webster, 19, and Christelle Roach, 18, on this sunny afternoon seem fiercely, startlingly beyond their years.“The bones in my body are like needles in my skin ... I am a bomb, take shelter.”Facing each other onstage in the small auditorium at the Miami Beach Regional Library, they summon a wrenching vision of domestic violence with lines they wrote together.“Why are you still here? I’m in love with the arsonist ... There is a fire burning inside m

July 2, 2014

Chinese actress Tang Wei and Korean filmmaker Kim Tae-yong will get married in the fall, Kim’s agency Bom Film Production said on Wednesday.The two first met through the 2009 film “Late Autumn” as an actress and director. After the film, they maintained a good friendship until October 2013 when Tang visited Korea for a commercial shoot. From then on, they grew as a couple.Tang Wei and Kim Tae-yongThe couple will have their wedding this fall, only inviting friends and family.“Through movie, we go

July 2, 2014

The Divine Move (Korea)Opening July 3Crime, Action. Directed by Jo Bum-guProfessional Go player Tae-seok (Jung Woo-sung) watches as his brother is murdered by Sal-su (Lee Bum-soo) during a high stakes Go match. He is even allegedly framed for the crime and locked up in prison. When he serves his time, he vows revenge against notorious Sal-su and his gang. He gathers professional Go players and forms a team to prepare for the final match against Sal-su’s invincible team. His players play one-by-o

June 27, 2014

The 13th Mise-en-scene Short Film Festival opened Thursday at Megabox Cinema Isu and Art Nine Seoul, both near Isu Subway Station, southern Seoul. A total of 57 short films, which were selected from 852 entries through three evaluation rounds, will be screened.The festival jury consists of 10 film directors and five honorary judges. The directors include Yoon Jong-bin (“Berlin”), Min Kyu-dong (“All About My Wife”) and Kim Yong-hwa (“200 Pounds Beauty”). The honorary judges are actors Kang Dong-w

June 26, 2014

CHICAGO (AP) ― “Star Wars” creator George Lucas announced Tuesday that he has picked Chicago to host his much-anticipated museum of art and movie memorabilia, in a major victory for the nation’s third-largest city. San Francisco and Los Angeles also had sought the museum. Lucas said in a written statement that he hopes to open the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in 2018. “I am humbled to be joining such an extraordinary museum community and to be creating the museum in a city that has a long tradi

June 25, 2014

The book “The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared” by Swedish journalist-turned-writer Jonas Jonasson and its eponymous film adaptation are enjoying success both in Korean bookstores and at the box office.The book ranked No. 7 on the bestseller list for the third week of June, according to the Korea Publishers Society. The ranking was compiled from eight major offline and online bookstores. The movie premiered at No. 5 in the local box office last weekend with 82,745

June 25, 2014

Alexandre Desplat. (AFP)ROME (AFP) ― French film composer Alexandre Desplat ― whose dozens of works include the scores for “The King’s Speech” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” ― will head up this year’s Venice festival jury, organizers said Monday.The Golden globe-winner behind the music in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “New Moon” from the Twilight saga will be the first composer to lead the jury at the world’s oldest film festival, taking place this year from Aug. 27 to Se

June 24, 2014

A heated debate on privatization raged in Korea last year. Supporters argued that it could provide increased efficiency and better quality, reducing the government’s deficit and losses. Opponents countered that the mandate to make a profit could deteriorate service quality, and cause increased costs and inequality among consumers.Privatization, which is linked to economic theories and policies, has become a complicated matter with layers of implications. People are interested in it, but often ge

June 23, 2014

As part of the 7th annual Arab Cultural Festival, the Arab Film Festival opened in Seoul and Busan for Korean audiences to gain a wide range of knowledge and understanding of less-explored Arab culture. “I hope that through the films of the festival, the audience discovers that the Arabs share the same contemporary and universal issues with us,” said Chung Yong-chil, the secretary-general of the Korea-Arab Society, the host of the festival. The festival runs from June 19-25 in Seoul’s Arthouse M

June 22, 2014

Meagan Good stopped having sex, and all of a sudden it was all anyone wanted to talk about with her. “People are fascinated by it!” she said, adding she doesn’t mind talking about her sex life (or lack thereof).Good and her “Think Like a Man Too” co-star Michael Ealy were in town last week to talk about the movie, the sequel to the surprise 2012 blockbuster “Think Like a Man,” based on Steve Harvey’s book, Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man. “Too” follows the group of friends navigating relations

June 20, 2014

Transformers: Age of Extinction (U.S.)Opening June 25Action, SF. Directed by Michael BayThis fourth installment of the “Transformers” film series takes place four years after the invasion of Chicago that left the city torn apart in “Transformers: Dark of Side of the Moon.” An old mechanic (Mark Wahlberg) discovers that his old semi-truck is a deactivated robot, Optimus Prime. Once the robot’s survival is known, a shadowy group reveals itself in an attempt to take advantage of the robots to contr

June 20, 2014

TOKYO (AFP) ― While a digitalized Hollywood reboot stomps its way to box office success around the world, the original Godzilla ― a man in a rubber suit ― has hit screens in Japan again, as relevant as ever.The 1954 classic, which spawned more than two dozen follow-ups, has been cleaned up for a two-week run in Tokyo to mark the 60th anniversary of the monster from the deep.Despite the shaky sets and the all-too-obvious latex costumes, a new generation of movie-goers declared themselves impresse

June 18, 2014

PARIS (AFP) ― Director Quentin Tarantino lambastes digital film-making as nothing less than the “death of cinema as I know it.” Converts hail it as a democratizing force for good that is cheaper and faster than celluloid.A debate is raging in the film world about the merits of shooting movies on 35 mm film versus digital cameras.In one corner are those who believe digital’s practical and economic benefits make it impossible to resist.In the other, “purists” such as Tarantino and “The Dark Knight

June 15, 2014

“There’s only one thing more dangerous than making them mad: Making them partners ...”The situation is as follows: You’re on a quiz show. The category is “Cop-Buddy Movies.” All you have to do to win $350 million is to know what film ― and which immortal duo ― the above marketing slogan refers to.No, it’s not so easy. The cop-buddy genre is, after all, one of the most popular and resilient in American films. The list of characters and films built on odd-couple casting and mismatched marriages of

June 13, 2014