Publicly traded, Englewood, Colo.-based cable and communications company Liberty Media Corp. has completed its acquisition of Four Media Company (4MC), the Burbank-headquartered, publicly held firm that is parent to several post/visual effects facilities (i.e. Santa Monica-based R!OT; Company 3, Santa Monica; Encore Hollywood; Anderson Video, Universal City, Calif.; 4MC Asia, Singapore)….Actor/director Christopher Reeve has signed with New York-based TAG Pictures for representation as a commercial helmer….Director Joe Chapura has joined Sandbank Films, New York….Venice, Calif.-based Lux Pictures has entered into an agreement with Frontier Pictures, London. Per the deal, Lux will handle Frontier directors Michael Abel, Robert Dowling, Grey Lipley and Aernout Overbeeke in the U.S. Lux’s directorial lineup—including Tom Finerty, April Greiman, Michael Oblowitz, Hugo Pallete and Mitchell Walker—will be repped in the U.K. by Frontier….Animation director Graham Morris has signed with Los Angeles-based Duck Soup Studios for exclusive spot representation….Director Duncan Sharp has come aboard Marina del Rey, Calif.-based spot production house Life of Riley.…Robert Wherry, former managing director and head of East Coast sales for bicoastal HKM Productions, has become a partner in bicoastal Go Film, the shop founded by executive producer Jonathan Weinstein….Tim Cloherty and Peter Klinger have opened Sound of Science, a New York-based music and sound design company….
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