Lovelace Opened Oct. 17Biography. Drama. Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. Linda Lovelace (Amada Seyfried) is manipulated by her abusive, domineering husband Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard) into entering the porn industry. Despite her protests, she stars as the main character of a hardcore porn film “Deep Throat.” The movie is the first of its kind to gain much popularity and is screened all over the country, turning Linda into a famous porn star. Behind the glamorous fame Linda is u

Awash in blood and tears, a woman howls in unspeakable anguish as she gives birth in the harrowing opening moments of “Carrie.” She is ashen and alone, her face gnarled with fear. Believing the child to be the devil’s spawn, she grabs a pair of scissors to stab the infant to death. Only the baby’s soft mewling, the pureness of its gaze, spares it from the knife.Director Kimberly Peirce summons up the bracing thematic subtext of her stylish remake in that deeply disturbing scene. It’s masterful f

BUSAN (AP) ― The South Korean Christians kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2007 returned home to not just relief but outrage, rapped for engaging in zealous missionary activity in the Islamic country in defiance of government warnings and forcing South Korea to negotiate for their release. A new drama by director Lee Jang-ho, well-known in South Korea for his commercial movies in the 1970s and the 1980s, borrows from those true events to examine religious conviction in a country that se

BUSAN (AFP) ― A new format that gives moviegoers a panoramic 270 degree view will be rolled out by Korea’s biggest cinema chain this month, using the walls of theaters as additional screens. Screen X, developed by cinema chain CJ CGV, was on show at the Busan International Film Festival last week in the premiere of a 30-minute spy thriller “The X,” directed by Kim Jee-woon, a film commissioned to showcase the expanded three-screen format. Kim, who directed this year’s Arnold Schwarzenegger actio

Actress Song Hye-kyo will make a comeback to the big screen with a film based on leading writer Kim Ae-ran’s celebrated novel, “My Palpitating Life,” the movie’s production company announced on Sunday. “Song Hye-kyo has always wanted to work with the director Lee Jae-yong. The casting would not have been made possible without her respect toward the director and trust in the original book,” said an official. Song is to play an affectionate mother of a son who is suffering from a rare disease that

Korean director Gina Kim’s ‘Final Recipe’also invited to Sao Paulo International Film Fest

Ahn Seon-kyoung’s ‘Pascha’ wins New Currents Award

Hwa-yiOpened Oct. 9Action. Thriller. Directed by Jang Joon-hwan. A five-member crime organization lives on a deserted farm in the middle of a forest. A plan-gone-wrong leaves the gang with a kidnapped boy, and the five members -- Seok-tae (Kim Yoon-seok), Ki-tae (Jo Jin-woong), Jin-sung (Jang Hyun-sung), Dong-beom (Kim Sung-kun), and Beom-soo (Park Hae-joon) -- raise the boy as their son. The boy, named Hwa-yi (Yeo Jin-goo), longs for an ordinary life but is deprived of his childhood, forced to

It’s a moment rife with dread, surprise, panic, suspense. In “Captain Phillips,” Paul Greengrass’ white-knuckle re-enactment of the 2009 hijacking of a U.S.-flagged freighter in the Arabian Sea, four Somali pirates take the bridge of the Maersk Alabama.It is the first time that Muse, the lean, stone-eyed leader of the marauders, and Richard Phillips, the mariner in charge of the giant container vessel, meet.And for Greengrass, it was a doubly crucial moment. He had cast Barkhad Abdi, a Somali-Am

Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, one of the world’s most acknowledged animation houses, will give a dual lecture on cultural content and its role in the creative economy with Korean film director Bong Joon-ho on Oct. 18. As part of CJ’s Global Creative Forum held at Daeyang Hall of Sejong University in Seoul, Katzenberg will talk about DreamWorks’ “Kung Fu Panda” series and its strategy of mixing Asian characters with Western philosophies. He will also discuss the use of cutting-

BUSAN (AP) ― How much would it cost to hire Asia’s biggest movie stars to host the region’s largest film event? Hong Kong star Aaron Kwok opened this year’s Busan International Film Festival for a mere 500,000 won, or $465, according to Yang Heon-kyu, who oversees the festival’s budget. In 2012, Chinese actress Tang Wei accepted the same amount. The goodwill from big-name stars is one indication of how important Busan has become to the Asian film industry in less than two decades.It is not just

BUSAN (AFP) ― Two major Asian adaptations of classic Westerns have hit screens at the Busan International Film Festival, in a revival of a genre that drew some of its early inspiration from the cinema of the East. Japanese-Korean director Lee Sang-il’s “Unforgiven” is a remake of the 1992 Clint Eastwood classic of the same name, starring the Oscar-nominated Ken Watanabe. “Once Upon a Time In Vietnam,” directed by Vietnamese-American director Dustin Nguyen takes its inspiration from Sergio Leone’

BUSAN (AFP) ― Korean director Bong Joon-ho on Monday played down controversy over the international release of his English-language debut “Snowpiercer,” saying he would accept any final cuts Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein made to the film.“For me, the important thing is that it reaches an audience,” said Bong, a king of the box office in Korea, where his sci-fi thriller has been a hit with takings so far of more than $61 million.Weinstein has picked up the rights to the apocalyptic cliff-hange

BUSAN (AFP) ― Six-time Oscar-nominated Irish director Jim Sheridan said Sunday that Hollywood’s fixation with making money from the international box office had moved drama off the big screen and onto television.“We’re in a transition period worldwide,” he told a press conference on the sidelines of the 18th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), the largest in Asia.“I think Hollywood is making movies for China and India and Brazil and Russia. So they don’t want dialogue movies. They don’t wa