Commercial production company Good Times has signed filmmaker Rob “Whitey” McConnaughy to its directorial roster. McConnaughy’s specialties include comedy, hidden camera/man-on-the-street, action, and celebrity-driven projects. He’s a multifaceted director whose skill set includes shooting, editing, and writing.
“I’ve been happily independent for years, but I couldn’t resist the chance to get down with Good Times,” said McConnaughy who’s known the company’s executive producer/co-founder Eric McCasline and EP Bernadette Spear for many years. He described them as “great at what they do, and just as important, they’re fun to be around. I think enjoying your work is how you get the best results in this business. Funny commercials should be fun to make!”
A lifelong skateboarder, McConnaughy began his filmmaking career in true punk rock fashion when he started his own DIY production company at 21 years old. He’s produced and directed 16 best-selling skateboard and snowboard films and was instrumental in launching the Jackass franchise, including shooting material for the TV series pilot and shooting and writing on the first two feature films.
McConnaughy has successfully taken the youthful, off-the-rails spirit that he gleaned from Jackass and a lifetime of skateboarding into his two decades of directing commercials for Nike, Nissan, Burger King, Honda, Sprint, Mountain Dew, Coors, State Farm, Coca-Cola, Progressive, Farmers, Activision, Sprint, EA Sports, Domino’s, and many more. One of McConnaughy’s many talents is working with celebrities; he intuitively knows how to make everyone feel comfortable on set, setting the stage for memorable performances, whether scripted or not.
“Rob can take a dull idea and make it razor sharp, then execute that idea in a smart, organized manner,” shared McCasline. “We’re stoked to bring his unique energy to Good Times and leverage his talents in a wide range of projects.”
In addition to his commercial work, McConnaughy has written and directed shorts for the Late Late Show with James Corden, and Funny or Die, and helmed the Chris Fairbanks standup comedy special Rescue Cactus for Amazon Prime. McConnaughy’s inventive and comedic music videos have racked up hundreds of millions of views and sparked record deals for emerging artists. He won a Bronze Cannes Lion for an outrageous spot where he placed the legendary band ZZ Top in a beer cooler and surprised the living daylights out of unexpecting customers, and also directed one of the world’s first viral videos for Nike via Wieden+Kennedy featuring Kobe Bryant appearing to jump over a speeding Aston Martin.
Review: Writer-Director Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain”
It's part comedy, part tragedy. It's part road-trip saga, part odd couple-buddy flick, and part Holocaust film. What could possibly have gone wrong?
Yup – everything could have gone wrong. So the first miracle about "A Real Pain," writer-director Jesse Eisenberg's remarkably accomplished film about mismatched cousins on a somber trip through Poland, is how it pulls off the most delicate of balancing acts.
That it does so while also asking intriguing questions about the nature of pain – personal vs. universal, historic vs. contemporary – is all the more impressive. So is the fact that it showcases an Oscar-worthy performance.
That stunning performance comes from Kieran Culkin, and what's striking is that it doesn't overpower the rest of the ensemble. That's a testament mostly to the careful way Eisenberg, who co-stars in the less flashy role, has constructed and paced his film. And as for Culkin, well, if you needed proof that his searing, Emmy-winning work as tortured live-wire Roman Roy in "Succession" wasn't a fluke, here you have it.
The movie, which is only Eisenberg's second directorial effort, stems from a trip the "Social Network" star took some 20 years ago to Poland. There, he found the tiny house his aunt had lived in before the Holocaust uprooted the family. He wondered what his own life would have been like had World War II never happened.
And that's one of the many conversations that David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Culkin) have as they travel through Poland on a mission to visit the house where their grandmother, who has recently died, once lived. (Eisenberg used the exact same house, which tells you just how personal this film was for him.)
It's a poignant but also awkward reunion for the cousins, who were... Read More