Director Laszlo Kadar, known for his car commercials, is now available through Los Angeles-based production company Instant Karma. His work for Audi, VW, Jeep, BMW, Mercedes Benz, Alfa Romeo, Porsche and Lexus has been honored at the Cannes Lions, Clio, New York Festivals, London International Awards and ADC competitions. Kadar began his career in features as a DP before settling into the director’s chair….
Nice Shoes has launched a full service studio in Toronto opening with the talents of creative directors Gary Thomas and Matt Greenwood, design director Stefan Woronko, senior colorist Roslyn Di Sisto, and executive producer Kristen Van Fleet. The new studio will offer directors and clients in the U.S. planning shoots in Canada a convenient and competitive production partner. Nice Shoes Toronto will be integrated with the studio’s Remote Color Grading network, creating opportunities for Di Sisto to work with clients throughout North America, and for clients in Toronto to connect with the company’s full roster of colorists located in New York, Chicago, and Minneapolis. Di Sisto will be working in the same high end color grading environment as all the company’s colorists, equipped with Film Light’s Baselight and with monitors calibrated by Nice Shoes’ expert team of engineers….
Walrus has promoted two senior members of the NY agency’s leadership team to newly expanded roles. Valerie Hope, who was previously head of integrated production, is now director of integrated production and creative services; and Paula Beer Levine has been elevated from head of account management to managing director. Prior to joining Walrus in 2012, Hope was the founder of Backbone Productions, an integrated production company that worked with clients including Nike, ESPN, Reebok, Volkswagen, Avon, L’Oreal, Sharp, New York Life, Coca-Cola, Umbro, among others. Previously she was a partner and the director of production and creative services at Mad Dogs & Englishmen. Levine joined Walrus in 2008 after several years working as a marketing consultant. Prior to that, she was a partner and the director of account management at Mad Dogs & Englishmen….
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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