The directing duo of Brian and Melanie–a.k.a. Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky–has secured its first spot representation, signing with New York-based Washington Square Films. Brian and Melanie have already wrapped their first job under the Washington Square banner, a multi-spot campaign for Liverperson.com. The directing team is perhaps best known for the poignant short God Provides, which explores Southerners affected by Hurricane Katrina. God Provides debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival….Oil Factory, the Los Angeles production house headed by president Billy Poveda, has signed director Drew Antizs, known for his viral work. Antizs is crossing over to commercials via Oil Factory….Epoch Films, New York, has hired Mamta Trivedi as production manager. She will oversee the needs of each production, and report to Charlie Cocuzza, executive producer, New York. Trivedi previously worked as a unit production manager on various feature film sets including Dare, The Vicious Kind, Untitled, Wake Up Call, The Father Game, and A New Normal. Dare and The Vicious Kind both premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and are slated for release in 2009/10. Trivedi also worked in television as a production manager and UPM on the sets of Into the Night and Great Directors…..Frantic Films VFX, a division of Prime Focus Group, has brought on board Neil Huxley, an art director and motion graphics supervisor who joins the company from yU+co, where he was key in bringing to the screen the main title sequence for “Watchmen.” In his new role, Neil will be working on a stereoscopic 3D feature film currently in the Frantic pipeline. Frantic maintains studios in L.A., Winnipeg and Vancouver….
Review: Director Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” Starring Robert Pattinson
So you think YOUR job is bad?
Sorry if we seem to be lacking empathy here. But however crummy you think your 9-5 routine is, it'll never be as bad as Robert Pattinson's in Bong Joon Ho's "Mickey 17" — nor will any job, on Earth or any planet, approach this level of misery.
Mickey, you see, is an "Expendable," and by this we don't mean he's a cast member in yet another sequel to Sylvester Stallone's tired band of mercenaries ("Expend17ables"?). No, even worse! He's literally expendable, in that his job description requires that he die, over and over, in the worst possible ways, only to be "reprinted" once again as the next Mickey.
And from here stems the good news, besides the excellent Pattinson, whom we hope got hazard pay, about Bong's hotly anticipated follow-up to "Parasite." There's creativity to spare, and much of it surrounds the ways he finds for his lead character to expire — again and again.
The bad news, besides, well, all the death, is that much of this film devolves into narrative chaos, bloat and excess. In so many ways, the always inventive Bong just doesn't know where to stop. It hardly seems a surprise that the sci-fi novel, by Edward Ashton, he's adapting here is called "Mickey7" — Bong decided to add 10 more Mickeys.
The first act, though, is crackling. We begin with Mickey lying alone at the bottom of a crevasse, having barely survived a fall. It is the year 2058, and he's part of a colonizing expedition from Earth to a far-off planet. He's surely about to die. In fact, the outcome is so expected that his friend Timo (Steven Yeun), staring down the crevasse, asks casually: "Haven't you died yet?"
How did Mickey get here? We flash back to Earth, where Mickey and Timo ran afoul of a villainous loan... Read More