Production company Mutt Film, headed by EPs and owners Beth George and Shannon Lords-Houghton, has secured Emily Friendship of the newly opened firm Commonwealth for East Coast representation….
Yacht Club, a full-service Brooklyn, NY-based production company with in-house VFX and CGI, has set its new U.S. sales lineup: Sharon Lew of Lew & Co handles the East Coast; Dave Campbell of Rogue Rep covers the West Coast; and Jack Reed of Jack Reed Reps takes on the South and Texas. The Yacht Club roster is comprised of director/DP Jake Ladehoff and director/DP/editor Matt Morgan along with non-exclusive relationships with directors Michael Lukk Litwak and Fidel Ruiz Healy….
Stephen Arnold Music has promoted Noelle Alanis to VP, sales & licensing. Alanis will oversee all sales and licensing efforts for original music, sonic branding, syndicated music packages and production music. She will lead the studio’s national sales team, direct new business strategy and manage client relations. Alanis has been with Stephen Arnold Music since 2010 and previously served as director of sales and licensing. Her expertise encompasses music licensing for advertising, enterprise, broadcast, digital and entertainment media. During her tenure, she has been instrumental in more than doubling the studio’s number of clients and driving revenue growth. A graduate of Butler University, she began her career in sales with WXIN-TV, Indianapolis….
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