Bicoastal production house Honor Society has launched with Megan Kelly as EP/managing director and Eli Rotholz as EP/head of sales. Honor Society opens with a roster of directors which includes Inside Amy Schumer co-creator Daniel Powell, Cooties directors Cary & Jon, Billy on the Street and Comedy Bang Bang director Stoney Sharp, Gina & Mark who maintain NYC-based VFX, design and post boutique Hey Beautiful Jerk, Robert Boocheck, Adam Donald, KEZIA, Lara Shapiro, Simon Burrill, and Zeke O’Donnell.
Upcoming projects from Honor Society directors include spots launching this month for brands like WSJ, Target, Oral B and Verizon.
Rotholz will be supported in sales on the East Coast by Katie Northy and Jessica Millington and Midwest representation by Matthew Bucher of Obsidian.
Kelly brings nearly two decades of experience on both the agency and production sides of the business. Prior to founding Honor Society with Rotholz, she led production teams for such shops as Savage, Shilo, The Sweet Shop, Public Domain and Czar. Most recently Kelly started the live action division at Click 3X. Kelly’s work has garnered honors from One Show, the AICP Show and Cannes Lions.
Eli Rotholz honed his sales skills while working at Ziegler/Jakubowicz and Moustache. He teamed with Kelly to build a diverse roster of directors at Click 3X.
Honor Society will operate as a stand-alone production resource, or can produce fully integrated projects in affiliation with companies Fluid Editorial, Butter Music + Sound, Mr. Bronx Audio Post and Scout Design and Animation.
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