Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners (BSSP) has appointed Lauren Trojan as its new business development director. Within this role, Trojan is charged with generating new business leads and ultimately building new relationships for BSSP–particularly with brands that would benefit from the agency’s expertise in the automotive, health & wellness, sports and entertainment, and CPG categories. Trojan will be directly reporting to BSSP’s president, Patrick Kiss. As a 15-year veteran of the industry and accomplished business development professional, Trojan has worked for a variety of ad agencies, big and small–including, McKinney, CP+B, Vladimir Jones, Sterling-Rice Group and Fortnight Collective. Throughout her time at these agencies, some of her most valuable wins include but are not limited to, Hotels.com, Jimmy Fallon, Infiniti, Slimfast, Bolthouse Farms, P&G, PetArmor, Ulta, Crocs and Suja….
Advanced Systems Group, LLC (ASG), a technology and services provider for media creatives and content owners, has brought Kelly Fox aboard as a strategic account executive. In her new role, Fox will focus on the development of business relationships with key accounts in the Central, Rocky Mountain, and Pacific Northwest regions of the U.S. Fox will be part of ASG’s sales team, reporting to Tyler Berry, sales director, Central Region. Fox joins ASG after spending the last 16 years working with broadcasters, Fortune 500 companies, video service providers, production companies, and event venues as an account manager at Grass Valley. While there, she worked closely with Sam Craig, now ASG’s VP of cloud production engineering, on the adoption and sales of Grass Valley’s AMPP (Agile Media Processing Platform) SaaS, and other live production, asset management, and on-prem solutions….
Riedel Communications–which designs, manufactures, and distributes real-time video, audio, data, and communications networks for broadcast, pro audio, event, sports, theater, and security applications–has appointed Sjoerd Klinkers to the position of sales manager for the Benelux region. An experienced information technology specialist, Klinkers is skilled in AV solutions design, account management, and project engineering. He will report to Wilbert Kooij, regional sales director, Northern Europe, and Benelux, as he strengthens the company’s relations throughout Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Before joining Riedel, Klinkers served as brand manager for Legrand AV, where he developed, managed, and supported the company’s sales channels while assisting in the design of AV and IT systems for hardware, software, and connectivity. He had also served as technical account manager for Grass Valley, a Belden Brand, where he was involved in technical account management for key customers, as well as service and support operations….
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