Bicoastal production studio CVLT continues to expand its reach and capabilities in full-service production and post, hiring sr. editor Joe Simons as lead editor. He will be tasked with growing CVLT’s editorial department, further strengthening CVLT’s soup-to-nuts offerings under one roof.
Simons joins the CVLT team after three years at The Mill, where his editorial skills were utilized to craft several highly regarded projects, including the “It’s What Connects Us” campaign for HBO, the “Top Artist of the Year” campaign for Spotify and several major campaigns for Ralph Lauren, among many others. Simons launched his career at PS260 before spending four years at Cut+Run, a creative editing studio.
Simons’ addition represents CVLT’s rapid lateral growth as a concept-to-completion creative studio, launching campaigns for luxury and fashion brands including Lexus, Peloton and Louis Vuitton.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More