By Ken Liebeskind
NEW YORK --MyDamnChannel.com, a site that will play a variety of original video content from established comedians, filmmakers and musicians, launched yesterday on its own site and YouTube.
“We saw the opportunity to bring professional content made by established artists to the web and build a business around it,” said the company’s chief operating officer Warren Chao.
The company is aligning with the artists to produce original programs that will run in weekly installments, like a TV season. Each episode will run from three to five minutes.
Among the first shows to be presented is a political comedy starring Harry Shearer, who plays Vice President Dick Cheney in the first episode. David Wain, a comedian who directs films, has produced a romantic comedy set in Brooklyn. Don Was, a music producer, created two channels, a music documentary series in which he will interview musicians and a channel that will play new music from artists he knows.
There are just a few channels running now, but Chao said many more will be introduced, with the possibility for branded channels that are advertiser related, “as long as the content is entertaining.”
A variety of advertising options will be presented, from pre-rolls and post-rolls to sponsorship deals and product placement opportunities.
The content will be syndicated on YouTube and other web portals, which will be valuable to advertisers, “because we can guarantee millions of impressions,” Chao said.
He distinguished My Damn Channel from YouTube. “We’ll create a dozen episodic shows that will run every week, like an MTV experience on the web.” The episodic nature of the programming is also valuable to advertisers, “because they know the audience will be tuning in every week.”
Chao said the company will sell advertising and work with a few partners, including Middleshift, a consulting firm and some ad networks.
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.
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