Michael Bay reboots ‘Transformers’

NEW YORK (AP) ― Summer is the season of Michael Bay. As much as anyone else, Bay ― in movies like “Armageddon,” “Pearl Harbor” and “Transformers” ― has shaped what the summer movie is: its quick-cutting bombast, its visual-effects flourish, its capacity for mass destruction. This summer, he’ll release “Transformers: Age of Extinction” (June 27), the fourth film in the franchise, with a revamped cast led by Mark Wahlberg. The 49-year-old Bay, who also produces “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (Aug.

April 24, 2014

‘You Must Remember This’ recalls Hollywood’s golden era

Robert Wagner is in a reflective mood.“Movies last forever,” noted the veteran actor (“Broken Lance,” “The Pink Panther,” the “Austin Powers” series), but the Hollywood he once knew has all but disappeared.“I turned around, and it was all gone,” Wagner, 84, said recently in Beverly Hills.Known as R.J. to his friends and colleagues, he’s dapper, charming, handsome and very much cut from the same cloth as the suave characters he played in the TV series “It Takes a Thief” and “Hart to Hart,” in whi

April 24, 2014

KOFA rediscovers classic Korean film

The Korean Film Archive has rediscovered the original reel of a popular film from the 1960s based on a real-life diary kept by a child from an impoverished household. The film, titled “Sorrow Even Up in Heaven,” enjoyed enormous popularity when it was released in theaters in 1965, drawing 285,000 viewers in Seoul alone. It is the highest-grossing black-and-white Korean film of all time, according to KOFA.Despite its box-office success, the film went missing along with many others produced before

April 22, 2014

‘Captain America’ tops box office for third week

LOS ANGELES (AP) ― Captain America continues to vanquish box office foes, triumphing in ticket sales for the third consecutive week and dominating over megastar Johnny Depp’s new movie.“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” added another $26 million to its coffers, according to studio estimates Sunday, while Depp’s sci-fi thriller, “Transcendence,” opened in fourth place with $11 million. Directed by longtime Christopher Nolan cinematographer Wally Pfister, the Warner Bros. film is Depp’s third c

April 21, 2014

Redefining Korean cinema

In Bong Joon-ho’s 2006 film “The Host,” its gigantic, amphibious monster ― which emerges after an American military pathologist dumps bottles of formaldehyde into Seoul’s Han River ― does not move forward. The ferocious creature stays by the river, as if it is trapped, even after kidnapping a teenage girl. Scholar and filmmaker Kim So-young thinks director Bong’s monster is a symbol of South Korea’s geographically isolated condition ― the country is practically an island as its division with Nor

April 20, 2014

Marlon Wayans is in it for laughs, but his career is no joke

“How you doin’, baby?” Marlon Wayans said, leaning down to kiss a doll on the lips.The toy, a prop from Wayans’ latest movie, “A Haunted House 2,” was propped up in a chair across the table from the actor at a stuffy Beverly Hills restaurant. The doll, named Abigail, was meant to resemble a creepy figurine from 2013’s “The Conjuring”: Both shared dead green eyes, sooty peasant dress and pigtail braids.Wayans, 41, has long been known for his outrageous comic taste. He dressed as a Caucasian femal

April 18, 2014

Box Office: 10 Minutes, My Father’s Emails, Son of God

10 Minutes (Korea)Opening April 24Drama. Directed by Lee Yong-seung.Ho-chan (Baek Jong-hwan) takes an internship position at a state-run agency, while dreaming of becoming a TV producer one day. He works hard as an intern, just as much as full-time workers, volunteering to work overtime and even giving up his weekends to attend his senior colleague’s social gatherings. He gets conflicted when he is asked to work as a stable full-time worker, as he doesn’t know if the job offer is worth giving up

April 18, 2014

Cannes taps epitome of 1960s cool for poster

PARIS (AFP) ― An image of Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni peering over his dark glasses taken from Federico Fellini’s classic “8 1/2” has been chosen for this year’s Cannes Film Festival poster. The sepia-tinted poster is the latest in a series that has featured some of the biggest names in cinema such as Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, Marilyn Monroe and Faye Dunaway. In a long career, the celebrated Italian actor, who died in 1996, was nominated for three best actor Academy Awards and star

April 16, 2014

3-D film reconstructs 18th-century Joseon fest

It took Crown Prince Sado (1735-1762) eight days to die of starvation after his father King Yeongjo ordered him to be confined in a cramped wooden rice chest. Sado’s son, who later became King Jeongjo, was only 10 when his father was killed by his grandfather. Exactly 33 years after Sado’s death, Jeongjo threw a grandiose festival in 1795, which lasted for eight days ― the same number of days his father spent alone locked in the wooden box.KBS Media’s latest 3-D documentary, “Uigwe, the 8-Day Fe

April 15, 2014

With $41.4 million, ‘Captain America’ holds off ‘Rio 2’

NEW YORK (AP) ― “Captain America” continued to flex its Marvel muscle at the global box office, as “The Winter Soldier” took in $41.4 million domestically and $60.6 million overseas. The strong second-week performance for the Walt Disney release in North America was enough to narrowly edge 20th Century Fox’s “Rio 2” in a springtime battle of sequels. The animated Amazon jungle tale “Rio 2” debuted with $39 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, almost exactly the opening weekend total of

April 14, 2014

Director Raoul Peck shoots new quake film in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) ― Haiti’s most respected filmmaker began production on a new film in Haiti this week, making perhaps the first feature to dramatize how people faced the topsy-turvy days and weeks after the 2010 earthquake. France-based Raoul Peck’s latest film, “Murder in Pacot,” uses a traditional stranger-comes-to-town plot line to examine how the quake upended Haiti’s strongly divided class system. The movie focuses on a well-to-do family whose house is almost completely destroyed.

April 13, 2014

‘Draft Day’ plays like a late-round pick

“Draft Day” is a “ticking clock” thriller built around the NFL draft, a movie that counts down to the fateful decision that one embattled general manager (Kevin Costner) makes with his team’s first round pick.It’s a reasonably interesting ― to NFL fans, anyway ― peek behind the curtains at the wheeling, dealing and over-thinking that goes on as teams and managers and coaches try to avoid looking as if they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re nagged into making hasty or ill-advised decisions b

April 11, 2014

Box Office: Innocent Thing, My Father’s Emails, Son of God

Innocent Thing (Korea)Opened April 10Thriller. Directed by Kim Tae-gyun.Former athlete and school teacher Joon-gi (Jang Hyuk) is married to his dutiful, pregnant wife, Yoo-jin (Sun Woo-sun). He doesn’t have much interest in teaching and would rather be a rugby coach, but this would not guarantee a stable income. He eventually falls for one of his students at an all-girls high school, who is seductive and at times too mature for her age. My Father’s Emails (Korea)Opening April 24Documentary. Dire

April 11, 2014

U.S. indie movie to open green film fest

An American independent film about three teenage friends who build a home in the woods will open this year’s Green Film Festival in Seoul, organizers said Monday.The debut feature by director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, titled “The Kings of Summer,” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last year. The director is to attend the festival’s opening ceremony in Seoul.Celebrating its 11th edition this year, GFFIS is the nation’s first international film festival to highlight environmental issues. It will

April 10, 2014

‘Captain America 3’ will go up against ‘Superman’

After sweeping the North American box office with “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” Walt Disney Co. announced that “Captain America 3” would return on May 6, 2016, Reuters reported Monday. Numerous news reports focused mainly on the fact that “Captain America 3” was scheduled to be released on the same day as Warner Brothers’ sequel to “Man of Steel” -- a reworking of the Superman series.Based on DC Comics hero Superman, last year’s “Man of Steel”grossed $688 million. DC Comics seems to be

April 10, 2014