Director Ulf Johansson, who left the directorial collective Traktor (repped by bicoastal/international Partizan) this past summer, has teamed with executive producer Philippa Smith to open Smith and Jones Films, with offices in North Hollywood, Calif., and London.…Jason Watts, a former Flame artist from The Mill, London, and Justine White, formerly at Soho 601 (now called One), London, are in the process of setting up Finish, a Flame-based post house in London, according to Discreet. Finish is expected to open formally in January, and offer Discreet’s Flame SD & HD compositing services to clients in commercial, film and TV production….Cine/DRSA International, New York, has signed an exclusive agreement for the U.S. general market with the directing team of Bosco & Jojo. The duo is based in Buenos Aires….Spontaneous, New York, has added design director Jory Hull, producer Kelley McDermott, designer Masayoshi Nakamura, and animator Tamir Diab….Executive producer Gina LoCurcio and editors Jean Kawahara, Ed Feldman, Jessica Congdon and Matt Graham have teamed to form Umlaut Films, a San Francisco-based editorial house. LoCurcio, Feldman and Graham recently came out of now defunct Bob ‘n’ Sheila’s Edit World. Kawahara and Congdon worked at Bob ‘n’ Sheila’s before leaving to pursue independent film and documentary work….Tom McCullough has been promoted to visual effects supervisor at R!OT Manhattan. He will also retain his shop post as senior Inferno artist….Editor Adam Schwartz has come aboard Company X, New York… Audio mixer Mike Greenberg, formerly of CBS Television City, Los Angeles, has joined Eleven, Santa Monica. Also coming aboard audio post house Eleven is studio manager/executive producer DJ Fox-Engstrom, who also heads sales. She was formerly at POP Sound, Santa Monica….New York production company Naked Project has changed its name to Identity….Animation/visual effects house Computer Café, Santa Monica and Santa Maria, Calif., has been renamed CafeFX. Along with Santa Monica-based telecine/spot effects shop The Syndicate, the two divisions will operate under a new corporate umbrella, ComputerCafe Group. The parent company launch paves the way for the formation of additional specialty shops down the road….
Review: Writer-Director Mark Anthony Green’s “Opus”
In the new horror movie "Opus," we are introduced to Alfred Moretti, the biggest pop star of the '90s, with 38 No. 1 hits and albums as big as "Thriller," "Hotel California" and "Nebraska." If the name Alfred Moretti sounds more like a personal injury attorney from New Jersey, that's the first sign "Opus" is going to stumble.
John Malkovich leans into his regular off-kilter creepy to play the unlikely pop star at the center of this serious misfire by the A24 studio, a movie that also manages to pull "The Bear" star Ayo Edebiri back to earth. How both could be totally miscast will haunt your dreams.
Writer-director Mark Anthony Green has created a pretty good premise: A massive pop star who went quiet for the better part of three decades reemerges with a new album — his 18th studio LP, called "Caesar's Request" — and invites a select six people to come to his remote Western compound for an album listening weekend. It's like a golden ticket.
Edebiri's Ariel is a one of those invited. She's 27, a writer for a hip music magazine who has been treading water for three years. She's ambitious but has no edge. "Your problem is you're middle," she's told. Unfortunately, her magazine boss is also invited, which means she's just a note-taker. Edebiri's self-conscious, understated humor is wasted here.
It takes Ariel and the rest of the guests — an influencer, a paparazzo, a former journalist-nemesis and a TV personality played by Juliette Lewis, once again cast as the frisky sexpot — way too much time to realize that Moretti has created a cult in the desert. And they're murderous. This is Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" crossed with Mark Mylod's "The Menu."
It's always a mistake to get too close a look at the monster in a horror... Read More