At press time (3/21), the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) had stopped accepting applications for new H-1B visas this current fiscal year. That’s because the INS reached the annual allotment of 115,000 such visas. The allocation was supposed to last a full year, from October 1999 through this September. Two years ago, the allocation was raised from 65,000 to 115,000 H-1Bs to help U.S. high-technology firms—including visual effects and CG houses—cope with a shortage of qualified American workers. Talk has begun on Capitol Hill regarding drafting new legislation that would further increase the number of available high-tech visas….Bicoastal Cylo, with an office in London, has signed director Mark Valentine….Curious Pictures, bicoastal, inked a deal to represent Stockholm-based animation studio Filmtecknarna F. Animation (directors Jonas Odell and Jonas Dahlbeck) in North America….Colin Brown has been named CEO of Cinesite, worldwide, and COO of its European subsidiary, Cinesite (Europe) Limited, based in London. He has headed Cinesite (Europe) since it was founded in ’94. Additionally, Ruth Scovil, who was formerly in corporate strategic planning at DreamWorks, has become president and COO of the U.S. subsidiary, Cinesite Inc., based in Hollywood. Cinesite is the digital motion imaging division of the Eastman Kodak Company….Robin Shenfield has been appointed CEO of London-headquartered The Mill Group, which encompasses post/effects facility The Mill, effects shop Mill Film and Mill Motion Control. Shenfield was one of the original founders of The Mill….
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