London-based production company FRIEND has signed director Dax Martinez-Vargas, formerly one-half of the comedy duo Sniper Twins. Having co-founded Sniper Twins at film school in Texas, Martinez-Vargas went on to spend five years writing and directing multi-award winning promos in the MTV On-Air Promos department. Since then, he has gone on to create notable work with such agencies as Droga5, Grey, Mother, and BBH. Martinez-Vargas has directed for brands including Carling, Coors, Burger King and Mentos, helping to establish a reputation for cinematically stylized comedy spots. Martinez-Vargas continues to be handled in the U.S. by production house m ss ng p eces….
Production house Ruffian has opened in Los Angeles under the aegis of founder/EP Robert Herman whose extensive industry experience includes having run global house Stink as managing director/COO for 16 years. Ruffian is repped on the West Coast by Bueno and on the East Coast by RepresentationCo….
Cast & Crew Entertainment Services, a provider of technology-enabled payroll and production-management services to the entertainment industry, has promoted entertainment payroll expert Durressa Powers to VP of payroll operations for Burbank. In her new position, Powers will continue to oversee the company’s Burbank payroll-processing department, client onboarding team, account management and specialized staff of payroll coordinators. Powers also will be helping to lead the implementation of Cast & Crew’s new Payroll+ Suite technology designed to digitize production management. Powers, who joined Cast & Crew in 2014, has more than 15 years of experience in the payroll industry, with nine of those years specializing in entertainment payroll. She has managed payroll accounts and departments, as well as the implementation of new software….
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