LOS ANGELES (AP) ― The good news for Hollywood: Summer movie revenues are up worldwide as studios rebounded from a dismally slow start to the year. The bad news: Domestically, revenues rose only a fraction compared to the previous year’s, while actual movie attendance dropped for the fourth-straight year. Taken together, the summers of 2010 and 2011 combined form the smallest domestic audiences...

VENICE (AFP) ― Hollywood star George Clooney spoke Wednesday of his disillusionment with the U.S. political scene ahead of the premiere of his dark political thriller “The Ides of March” in Venice. The director told reporters ahead of a star-studded opening of the world’s oldest film festival that the work was ready to begin filming in 2008 when Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential elections, ...

He was once called a great master of slapstick comedy with his trademark persona, a fool named "Young-gu." After becoming a movie director, Shim Hyung-rae became the first to receive "Korea's new intellectual" medal from the liberal government led by President Kim Dae-jung in 1999. The honor was given in recognition of his success in exporting his first sci-fi monster picture "Yonggari" to the U...

Park Jin-young, South Korean music mogul, may take a leading role in a movie. JYP Entertainment, Park’s agency, said on Monday that he is in talks to star in the film “Five Million Dollar Man.” Park is a singer-song writer and producer, as well as founder and head of JYPE, one of the top three Korean entertainment agencies. The film will be about a K-pop star-wannabe who gets tangled up in a mo...

Three big-name stars ― Jang Hyuk, Park Hee-soon and Ha Jung-woo ― have worked together to create what’s reportedly the first courtroom thriller in Korea. “The Client,” which is anticipated to be released in late September, aims to combine both drama and suspense with its character-driven narrative surrounding a murder trial where the dead body is missing. “This is a courtroom thriller and the t...

The Korean film industry’s production capabilities are extraordinary, but it is unfortunate that the content is still being made for Korean people, an American visual effects expert said at a forum Tuesday. Scott Ross, co-chairman of inDSP USA, a company specializing in converting 2-D motion pictures to 3-D, said content business is the future of all economies, including Korea. Ross is former c...

A has-been filmmaker who now teaches cinema in Daegu visits Seoul. He meets up with his long-time buddy, visits his old girlfriend, drinks and dines, gets talking with some people he’s just met, and falls for an attractive bar owner who strikingly resembles with his ex. Hong Sang-soo’s 12th film, “The Day He Arrives,” offers an interesting cinematic portrait of a frustrated and often pathetic ar...

ROME (AP) ― Filmmaker Sofia Coppola went back to her roots for her wedding, marrying rocker Thomas Mars in the remote, southern Italian town where her great-grandfather was born. Coppola’s famous filmmaker father, Francis Ford Coppola, escorted the 40-year-old Sofia down the aisle Saturday to a waiting Mars, lead singer of the French band Phoenix and the father of their two young daughters. The...

Hindsight (Blue Salt) (Korea) Opening Sept. 1. Drama. Action. Directed by Lee Hyun-seung. Doo-heon (Song Kang-ho), once a legendary figure in Busan’s organized crime scene, now wants to live a quiet life while hoping to run a restaurant of his own. One day, he meets Sebin (Shin Se-kyung), a daring and spunky young girl in his cooking class. She is a secret agent and a former shooting champion, ...

Emmy the Great “Virtue” (Close Harbor) Emmy the Great’s sophomore album “Virtue” shows the continuing expansion of Emma-Lee Moss’ songwriting abilities. Her tender approach and frisky wordplay make her easy on the ears. Moss and her backing band begin with “Dinosaur Sex,” a song two minutes too long but a fun track nonetheless. It’s either fossil fuels and the demise of Western civilization, ...

Linus’ Blanket “Show Me Love” Sony Music Indie band Linus’ Blanket has finally released its first studio album, 10 years after forming. The duo, consisting of singer-songwriter Yeongene and guitarist Lee Sang-jun, debuted with their EP album “Semester” in 2003 and released another EP “Labor in Vain” in 2005. With just two EPs, the band has made a meaningful impact on Hongdae indie music scene....

Jaurim “Conspiracy Theory” Neowiz Internet Rock band Jaurim, led by vocalist Kim Yoon-ah, released an eighth album “Conspiracy Theory” on Aug. 18, three years after “Ruby, Sapphire, Diamond” in 2008. With the album release, the band announced on its homepage, Twitter and Facebook that there will be hidden signs on its album cover serving as hints for solving a “conspiracy.” The “secret bullet...

Not a lot of love affairs, real or cinematic, can have it said of them that they end better than they begin. But “One Day” ends with a heartfelt flourish that was sorely missing from its first 90 minutes. This episodic romance works in fits and starts, and captures a bittersweet faux British turn by Anne Hathaway, plainly mismatched in being paired with real-life Brit Jim Sturgess (“The Way Back”...