Creative content company Alkemy X has hired Eli Rotholz as VP of business development. He will be based in the company’s NY headquarters. Rotholz brings more than 12 years of sales/business development, strategy, and production experience, having begun his career as an independent sales rep for firms like Ziegler/Jakubowicz and Moustache NYC. From there, he worked in his first in-house position at Click 3X, where he built and managed a diverse roster of directorial talent, as well as the company’s first truly integrated production offering focusing on live-action, VFX/design/animation, and editorial. Rotholz then parlayed his passion for discovering and developing emerging talent with his vision for content creation to found Honor Society Films. He later joined Hone Production, a brand-direct-focused production company and consultancy, as director of business development/content EP….
VFX and creative studio Ntropic has appointed former head of production Ron Moon to lead business development in Los Angeles. In his new role, Moon will be responsible for expanding and deepening relationships with local agencies and brands. Moon began his advertising career directing fashion films and producing VFX for shops like Zoic and Logan, and brands such as Warner Bros., Nike, and Jaguar. In 2014, he joined Ntropic as sr. producer and quickly moved up the ranks to the L.A. studio’s head of production. Ntropic is represented by Strike Films on the East Coast…
Dattner Dispoto and Associates (DDA) has booked DP Craig Kief on the TV series The Kids Are Alright and costume designer Caroline Cranstoun on season two of the TV show Loudermilk….
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