Multimedia production studio Gentleman Scholar conceived of and produced this spec spot for Aston Martin inspired by the V12 Vantage automobile’s curves and power. A key objective was to show that a luxury car commercial could be achieved mainly with CG.
Flowing between photo reality and heavy stylization, the Gentleman Scholar team–headed by directors Will Campbell and Will Johnson–looked to delve into a central theme: What does a car dream about?
Under a moonlit sky with gathering storm clouds, the car is put through its paces across a bridge, through a tunnel and city street traffic before finally arriving at a showroom which has an art gallery-like feel with the V12 Vantage front and center. The Aston Martin tagline: “Power. Beauty. Soul.”
Review: Director Pablo Larrain’s “Maria” Starring Angelina Jolie
Angelina Jolie glides through the final days of Maria Callas' short life in Pablo Larraín's "Maria," a dramatic, evocative elegy to the famed soprano. It's an affair that's at turns melancholy, biting and grandly theatrical, an aria for a once in a generation star.
Reality is of little consequence on the stage and in "Maria." It's all about the raw feeling, which serves the movie well, more dream than history lesson about La Callas. Early on, she pops some Mandrax and tells her devoted butler Ferruccio (a simply wonderful Pierfrancesco Favino) that a television crew is on the way. Are they real, he wonders.
"As of this morning, what is real and what is not real is my business," she says calmly and definitively, making a feast out of Steven Knight's sharp script. It's one of many great lines and moments for Jolie, whose intensity and resolve belie her fragile appearance. And it's a signal to the audience as well: Don't fret about dull facts or that Jolie doesn't really resemble Callas all that much. This is a biopic as opera — an emotional journey fitting of the great diva, full of flair, beauty, betrayal, revelations and sorrow.
In "Maria," we are the companion to a protagonist with an ever-loosening grip on reality, walking with her through Paris, and her life, for one week in September 1977.
The images from cinematographer Ed Lachman, playfully shifting in form and style, take us on a scattershot journey through her triumphs on stage, her scandalous romance with Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer) and her traumatic youth. In the present, at age 53, she sleeps till midday, drinks the minimal calories she ingests, goes to restaurants where the waiters know her name looking for adulation and has visions of performances staged just for... Read More