“Boomerang Family” is, as its title suggests, a story of a modern Korean family and its struggling members “returning” to their caring mother. “Failan” (2001) and “Maundy Thursday” (2006) director Song Hae-sung has adapted author Cheon Myeong-gwan’s novel to create a work that’s an entertaining mixture of comedy and engaging, heart-felt family drama.The film opens with a rather grim, violent scene, in which In-mo (played by Park Hae-il), a penniless filmmaker, is beating up a man who seems to ha

Film April 30, 2013

Meet Celine and Jesse again, this time in Greece.After its very successful world premiere at Sundance Film Festival in January, the follow-up to the famous “Before Sunrise” (1995) and “Before Sunset” (2004) is finally arriving in theaters in Korea next month. Its well-loved protagonists ― Celine and Jesse, again played by Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke ― are now on a vacation in Greece, talking about all kinds of things including aging, kids and careers.Like its predecessors, the film, titled “Befo

Film April 28, 2013

The cinema’s leading purveyor of Southern Gothic, Jeff Nichols, hands Matthew McConaughey his latest tour de force turn in “Mud,” a down and dirty if entirely-too-long mythic melodrama in the “Tobacco Road” tradition.Nichols (“Shotgun Stories,” “Take Shelter”) has cooked up an exotic stew that includes obsessive love, a woman unworthy of it, a criminal on the run and a Huck Finn coming of age tale set against a dying way of life in backwaters Arkansas.Ellis (Tye Sheridan, terrific) is a poor kid

Film April 26, 2013

Asking Kevin Starr a question is like turning on a fire hose. First there’s a blast of erudition. Then, as his intellect gathers, information rushes out in a deluge. He’s talking, but it’s as if an invisible scholar inside his head is yanking books off shelves, throwing them open, checking the index, then racing off to find the next volume. On the outside, Starr is an avuncular 72-year-old, but his brain is sprinting like an Olympian.Amazingly, it’s possible to keep up.This may be Starr’s greate

Books April 25, 2013

Nothing Gold Can StayBy Ron Rash (Ecco)When a prisoner on a chain gang is sent to the nearest farmhouse to fetch water in the backwoods of North Carolina, author Ron Rash sets the scene for a sterling collection of short stories in “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” They span a range of years and an even wider range of emotions.Rash’s 14 stories are broken into three sections and set in a variety of eras and places. He introduces a would-be hippie in the 1960s; college-bound sweethearts of today and their

Books April 25, 2013

July 1914: Countdown to WarBy Sean McMeekin (Basic Books)A Sarajevo chauffeur took a wrong turn, and Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip had his chance to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. In the resulting inferno of World War I, 9 million others died.The conventional wisdom of the last 100 years holds that Germany’s desire for empire and cultural hegemony turned Princip’s deed into an excuse for war. Barbara Tuchman’s famed history, “The Guns of August,” makes the most of this cas

Books April 25, 2013

What would it be like to dance on the moon? There, things weigh six times less than they do on Earth. Imagine how far you could go with every jump and leap ― and how light your body would feel. The latest volume of Azalea, an American, English-language journal featuring Korean literature and culture published by Harvard University’s Korea Institute, features contemporary Korean author Bae Myung-hoon’s (“Tower” “Concealing”) science fiction “Art and the Acceleration of Gravity” ― a story of a Seo

Books April 25, 2013

Rapper Psy left for the U.S. on a three-month promotional tour of “Gentleman” on Thursday morning.Speaking to reporters at Incheon International Airport, Psy said, “While my iTunes rankings currently are going down, the YouTube hits continue to climb.“I hope to see my iTunes ranking go up during this promotional tour, which includes TV appearances and press interviews.”On Thursday, “Gentleman” hit fifth place on Billboard’s main chart, climbing up from the No. 12 spot last week.Meanwhile, his lo

Performance April 25, 2013

French writer-director Jacques Audiard’s acclaimed drama about two utterly unhappy individuals forming an unlikely but genuine relationship arrives in local theaters next month.Based on short stories by Canadian writer Craig Davidson, the movie, “Rust and Bone,” stars Marion Cotillard (“Midnight in Paris,” “The Dark Knight Rises”) as Stephanie, a beautiful, self-assured killer whale trainer who works at a marine park in Antibes, a resort town in southern France. One night she runs into Ali (Matt

Film April 24, 2013

People April 24, 2013

As director Alfred Hitchcock once said, the act of watching others for voyeuristic pleasure is a “basic human trait.” In the end, the cinematic experience, sitting in the dark hidden and distanced from the events on the screen, is a form of voyeurism. Movie spectatorship is, in late French film theorist Christian Metz’s words, “inherently antisocial”: It offers us the pleasure of looking ― from romance to murder to horror ― knowing the scenes we see cannot look back at us.Director Choi Seung-ho’

Film April 23, 2013

Seoulites were offered free children’s books and brochures a day before Tuesday’s World Book Day.In celebration of World Book Day on April 23, the state-run Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea gave out free roses, a total of 100 children’s books, and 50,000 brochures on book recommendations in central Seoul near Gwanghwamun. The day, organized by UNESCO to promote reading, publishing, and copyright, was chosen as it is the anniversary of the death of many renowned writers, including W

Books April 22, 2013

A film school student won the top prize at the third Olleh International Smartphone Film Festival on Sunday for his smartphone-made short “After 24 Months.” Kim Chan-nyeon, who is currently on leave of absence from Dongguk University’s film program, won the competition by creating a work that features a dystopian world where everyone communicates through smart devices. His protagonist is the only human being in the world who tries to make human-to-human eye contact. The 24-year-old also won the

Film April 22, 2013

CJ Entertainment’s latest Chinese-language film topped the Chinese box office in the first week of its release, becoming the first-ever Korea-China joint production film to gross 100 million yuan ($16.2 billion) in the country.“A Wedding Invitation,” directed by Korean filmmaker Oh Ki-hwan (“Last Present,” 2001, “Art of Seduction,” 2005), features Chinese stars Eddie Peng and Bai Bah-he as the leads. It tells the story of two former lovers who run into each other after being separated for five y

Film April 21, 2013