Global creative studio MPC announced that colorist Houmam “H” Abdallah has joined its global MPC Color team. Abdallah starts his MPC career in London but will later move to Los Angeles, and work alongside colorist Mark Gethin, U.S. creative director/Color, and colorist Ricky Gausis.
Abdallah has spent the past three years coloring as well as directing projects out of Black Dog Films. He has also worked at Electric Theatre Collective collaborating with directors including Andreas Nilsson, Saam Farahmand, directing duo Us, Sam Miller, Nick Gordon and Rollo Jackson. Among the commercial work he has graded is the Gold Lion-winning Women’s Aid “Look At Me” campaign via WCRS London, and spots for Nike, Audi, adidas, Virgin Atlantic, Dyson, Glenfiddich, Intel and McLaren, to note a few.
“Joining MPC in Los Angeles is a golden opportunity to work with the best directors and cinematographers in the world and amongst colleagues I have long admired and been inspired by, Mark Gethin and Ricky Gausis,” Abdallah said. “I’m excited to collaborate with new commercial clients on memorable brand work, and now that I’m in the entertainment capitol of the world, I look forward to getting in the mix of grading films and TV series.”
Abdallah has lent his artistic touch to music videos for artists FKA Twigs, The Last Shadow Puppets, The War On Drugs and Blur, as well as short films including Tomorrow’s Flames are Already Burning. He graded FKA Twigs promo “M3LL155X” (Melissa) which was nominated in 2016 for both Best VFX at the MTV VMAs and Best Color at the UK MVAs. He also graded the Twigs’ “Two Weeks,” a nominee for Best VFX at the MTV VMAs in 2015. And H was the colorist for Clock Opera’s “Once And For All,” which earned director Ben Strebel a Cannes YDA honor.
Recent work from the MPC LA Color team includes Mike Mills’ 20th Century Women (colorist Gethin), FX’s critically acclaimed series “Atlanta” (Gausis), Samsung Surf’s “Snail” (Gausis), Vaseline’s “Wonder Jelly” (Gethin) and The Weeknd’s “Mania” (Gethin).
Review: Director Tyler Spindel’s “Kinda Pregnant”
We have by now become accustomed to the lengths some movie characters will go to keep a good comedy lie going. But it's still a special kind of feat when Amy Schumer, playing a baby-mad single woman who fakes a baby bump in "Kinda Pregnant," is so desperate to maintain the fiction that she shoves a roast turkey up her dress.
You might be thinking: This is too ridiculous. The stuffing, alone. But if we bought "Some Like it Hot" and "Mrs. Doubtfire," I see no reason to quibble with the set-up of "Kinda Pregnant," a funny and often perceptive satire on motherhood, both real and pretend.
"Kinda Pregnant," which debuted Wednesday on Netflix, is a kinda throwback comedy. Like "40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Wedding Crashers," you can basically get the movie just from its title.
But like any good high-concept comedy, "Kinda Pregnant" is predominantly a far-fetched way for its star and co-writer, Schumer, to riff frankly on her chosen topic. Here, that's the wide gamut of pregnancy experience — the body changes, the gender reveal parties, the personal jealousies — all while mixing in a healthy amount of pseudo-pregnant pratfalls.
It's been a decade since Schumer was essentially launched as a movie star in the 2015 Judd Apatow-directed "Trainwreck." But "Kinda Pregnant," which Schumer wrote with Julie Paiva, almost as adeptly channels Schumer's comic voice — the one that made the sketch series "Inside Amy Schumer" so great.
The movie's opening flashes back to Lainey (Schumer) as a child playing with dolls and imagining herself a mother-to-be. So committed is she to the role that Lainey, in mock-labor, screams at her friend and then politely apologies: "Sorry, but the expectant mother often lashes out at her support system."
But as... Read More