Director Mark Pellington and producer Tom Gorai of Los Angeles-based Pellington/Gorai have signed with bicoastal/international Propaganda Films for exclusive representation in spots and music videos. The deal also give Propaganda first-look rights to all Pellington/Gorai’s feature film, television and internet projects. In other Propaganda news, the company has committed to the Hollywood redevelopment push, signing a 10-year lease for a 30,000-square-foot office building in the heart of the city. The interior of the two-story building will be demolished, and a new space will be designed. The company’s four current Hollywood locations will be consolidated into the new site by early fall. The complex will include offices, production suites, editing bays and a state-of-the-art screening room. It will house Propaganda’s commercial, music video, talent management, television, film and new media divisions, in addition to Satellite’s spot and music video divisions…. Word is that director Richard D’Alessio is joining New York-headquartered Shooting Gallery Productions….Director Boris Damast has joined the directorial roster of bicoastal Celsius Films…..Feature filmmaker John Waters (Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, Pecker) is making his spot debut via bicoastal The Industry: a more.com assignment for Citron Haligman Bedecarre, San Francisco….Denver animation studio Celluloid has added directors/designers Dan Yaccarino, Stacey Steers and Cathy Joritz, director Bill Kopp, and designers Aaron Augenblick and David Zweig….Stu Kuby has joined JSM, New York, as director of production….Bicoastal Johnson/Burnett Studios is opening a production office in Toronto this month. Tania Smunchilla, former VP, marketing/sales for The Post Group, Toronto, has been named to manage the new Johnson/Burnett, Toronto, operation….Bicoastal/international marketing communications company Pittard Sullivan has teamed with Goldman Productions, Cincinnati, to launch a joint venture audio company, RipTide Music. Richard Goldman, founder of Goldman Productions, will serve as CEO/president of RipTide Music, which has signed composer David Logan….
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