Paul Matthaeus, Digital Kitchen founder, CEO and chief creative officer, has stepped down as DK’s ranking creative visionary to pursue new creative endeavors outside the company, and has delegated day-to-day creative leadership to DK’s creative managers under the supervision of Mark Bashore as head of creative. Matthaeus will remain a major DK interest holder, board member and creative consultant. Matthaeus explained, “It’s been an amazing ride, but I grew to renew my need for greater intimacy with the creative work. So it’s time to break new ground again- I intend to take my experience founding and building DK and apply it to entirely new initiatives. The opportunity to build something wildly creative is what inspired me to start DK, and that’s what I intend to do again.” “Paul is a visionary,” commented Don McNeill, Matthaeus’ partner since 2000. “For the nine years we’ve built DK together, he’s never lost sight of the importance of great creative work and great talent. But he always keeps a keen eye on what’s next. So I’m excited to see Paul embark on another creative journey. Whatever he decides to pursue will undoubtedly be cool. He’s a great partner and great friend.” Since DK’s inception in 1995, it grew from a three-man shop adjoining the kitchen of Matthaeus’ regional advertising agency into a bicoastal creative design-driven network with over 90 full and part-time employees with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle. Matthaeus noted, “If appropriate, I fully intend to deploy the resources and infrastructure of DK in my new ventures.” DK has worked for clients including Nike, adidas, AT&T, Microsoft, GM, Ferrari, HBO, Showtime, Dreamworks, Sony Entertainment, and all the major networks. Matthaeus is probably best known for his creative approach in television entertainment- which includes the opening creative direction for Six Feet Under, Nip/Tuck, House, Rescue Me, Ghost Whisperer, The Path to 9/11, The Company and Dexter. His latest contribution was in the creation of the opening sequence for True Blood, the highly anticipated HBO series that broke this fall by Oscar-winning creator/writer/director Alan Ball. Over the years, Matthaeus has mentored hundreds of young digital filmmakers, many of who have gone on to found their own firms. He also has evangelized the creative process at numerous design conferences, marketing and broadcast media events.
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