Still a funny, that Dave Barry.A phone conversation with him is like sitting in the audience in a comedy club. In Florida.Because while Barry may have mined the weirdness of the Sunshine State for his syndicated Miami Herald column and some of his 30-odd books, he is starting to write like a short-fused retiree.The cover of his new book depicts Barry with one finger pointed, standing behind the title, “You Can Date Boys When You’re Forty.”Think he’s joking? Don’t be so sure.Consider this passage

Books March 13, 2014

Canadian conductor Judith Yan first saw ballerina Kang Sue-jin dance four years ago, when she was visiting Stuttgart, Germany. Kang, who was one of the principals of the Stuttgart Ballet at the time, was playing her signature role: Tatiana in John Cranko’s “Onegin.”“I have to say, you have to see Sue-jin dance,” Yan, who is currently the director of Guelph Symphony Orchestra, said in an interview in Seoul on Monday. “It was like a revelation. I remember going to see Sue-jin dance for the first t

Performance March 12, 2014

Kim Woo-taek, CEO of major Korean film production and distribution company Next Entertainment World, has been named one of the advisors and consultants for the Asian Film Market to be held in October this year.The film market, which is a comprehensive marketplace for an array of industry events at the annual Busan International Film Festival, announced the list of advisors to this year’s edition on Tuesday. The names on the list include Choi Jae-won of Withus Film, who produced this year’s box o

Film March 11, 2014

The original production of famous Broadway musical “Cats” is having its first Korean run in six years, according to Seol & Company.“Cats,” which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2011, is the second-longest-running show in Broadway history. Based on “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats” by T.S. Eliot, the musical was first performed in Korea in 1994, and was a hit in 2003, 2007 and 2008. The four presentations altogether drew some 1.2 million viewers in the country. The plot of the musical revo

Performance March 10, 2014

Mark Helprin’s 30-year-old fantasy novel “Winter’s Tale” saunters onto the screen as a lovely but slow and emotionally austere experience, a romantic weeper that shortchanges the romance and the tears.They threw Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (“A Beautiful Mind”) and a cast including three Oscar winners at this exercise in magical realism, and yet Helprin’s bulky, honored book leaves them pinned to the mat, its big themes seemingly diminished by the time the credits roll.Colin Farrell

Film March 7, 2014

Stories We Tell (Canada)Opening March 14Documentary. Directed by Sarah PolleyCanadian filmmaker Sarah Polley discovered in 2007, at age 28, that her father was not her biological father and that she was in fact born from her late mother’s extramarital affair. Her personal documentary “Stories We Tell” follows her shocking discovery and family secrets, consisting of interviews with her siblings from her mother’s two marriages, as well as Michael Polley, the man who raised her, and her biological

Film March 7, 2014

“The Wrestler” and “Black Swan” filmmaker Darren Aronofsky’s controversial biblical blockbuster “Noah” is arriving in Korean theaters on March 30.Based on the biblical story of Noah’s Ark, the film stars Academy Award-winning Australian actor Russell Crowe as Noah ― the man chosen by God for a great mission before the coming of an apocalyptic flood.Actress Jennifer Connelly (“A Beautiful Mind,” “Blood Diamond”) is starring as Noah’s wife, while Emma Watson (“Harry Potter,” “The Bling Ring”) is p

Film March 7, 2014

Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley is mostly known in Korea for her 2011 drama “Take This Waltz,” a tale about a freelance writer who becomes bored of her stable marriage and falls for an artist who lives across the street.The emotional struggle of Margot, the protagonist of “Take This Waltz,” may make more sense after watching Polley’s personal documentary “Stories We Tell,” which deals with her late mother’s extramarital affairs.The documentary premiered in 2012 at the Venice International Film F

Film March 6, 2014

The Good Luck of Right NowBy Matthew Quick (Harper)Matthew Quick, the author of “The Silver Linings Playbook” and several YA novels, has written another book for adults, “The Good Luck of Right Now.” Fortunately it is already optioned by DreamWorks, and you can wait for the movie ― because the last thing you should ever do is read this deeply wacky book.Written as a series of letters to Richard Gere after the protagonist’s mother dies and he finds one of Gere’s “Free Tibet” fundraising letters i

Books March 6, 2014

Elizabeth Kolbert started her journalism career as a stringer for the New York Times and worked in the trenches there as a political reporter, but once she took a job at the New Yorker and made the environment her specialty, she became an exemplar of explanatory journalism. Her books and articles have won every conceivable journalism and science-writing award.Good thing she has her bona fides lined up, because her new book, “The Sixth Extinction” (Henry Holt, 319 pp.) is sure to cause a big-time

Books March 6, 2014

The only thing that might have made “Still Life With Bread Crumbs” more enjoyable would have been a summer’s day so I could have read it outside, instead of huddled near a space heater.It’s the seventh novel from Anna Quindlen, the former New York Times columnist who won the Pulitzer Prize, wrote regularly for Newsweek and published the slender “A Short Guide to a Happy Life,” which has sold more than 1 million copies, many to moms, aunts, grandmothers, family friends and others looking for a li

Books March 6, 2014

British tenor Paul Potts paid his 11th visit to Korea on Saturday, but this time he was not here to perform. The “Britain’s Got Talent” winner attended a Seoul press screening of James Corden’s film “One Chance” on Tuesday, which depicts his dramatic rise to operatic fame based on his 2013 autobiography of the same title.“The book and the movie are separate but they have the same theme and they have the same message, and that is achieving your goals,” Potts told reporters after the screening of

Film March 5, 2014

This weekend, Disney’s animated film “Frozen” broke the 10-million viewer mark in local theaters, becoming the second film to reach the milestone this year after “The Attorney.” It is no exaggeration to say the country is almost obsessed with the film. Not only is “Frozen” the highest-grossing animated film ever in Korea but it is also one of only two foreign movies among the nation’s 10 highest grossing films of all time ― the other is James Cameron’s “Avatar.” Local costume players like to dre

Film March 3, 2014

The Korean National Ballet, which welcomed new artistic director famed ballerina Kang Sue-jin in February, is opening its 2014 season with Marius Petipa’s “La Bayadere.” It is the first ballet Kang is staging since her appointment earlier this year.The ballet company premiered Petipa’s 1877 piece last year, showcasing its own, slightly altered version specially created for the troupe by Russian choreographer Yury Grigorovich. The first run of the ballet, featuring the tragic love story of a Hind

Performance March 2, 2014

Seoul Art Cinema will screen 22 modern films it thinks are important or severely underrated. The featured filmmakers include Brian De Palma, Nanni Moretti, Abbas Kiarostami and Takashi Miike. The special series, titled “Parallax,” will begin in March. Some of the films have already been released in theaters in Seoul, though they did not succeed commercially, while one of them ― Margarethe von Trotta’s “Hannah Arendt” ― is having its Korean premiere. “Hannah Arendt” is a drama about the eponymous

Film Feb. 27, 2014