Los Angeles-based DUCK Studios has signed French-Swiss directing and art directing duo Ben & Julia. The duo, who run Ben & Julia Studios in Berlin, are multidisciplinary talents whose work spans mixing animations, shooting live footage, producing drawings, and manufacturing puppetry for commercials, virals, music videos and animations. Ben & Julia first joined forces in 2006. Prior to this, Julia spent time as an associate producer and graphic designer for MTV and as an art director for TV and press. Ben worked as a director, editor and VFX artist for various agencies in Paris….Toronto-based production house Brown has signed director Scott Otto Anderson. The up-and-coming Sydney-based filmmaker, artist and designer directs music videos, television and commercial programming. Recently Andersen completed a feature-length documentary entitled Hairtales which is currently on the festival circuit. His experience as a spot director spans such clients as MTV, Honda, Lexus, Canon and Cadbury while also directing the cult music show, Alchemy, on SBS TV in Sydney. He also directs music videos for popular bands and musicians including Lady Sovereign's “Those Were The Days.” Anderson is a founding member of the directing collective Family and in 2009 he formed the company Photoplay Films with long-time collaborator Oliver Lawrence. Anderson's work for Wateraid was recognized in 2006 with a Bronze Lion at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. He is repped by Saville Productions in the U.S. and Les Producers in France….Milla Stolte has joined goodness Mfg., a Trailer Park company, as director of strategy & planning, a newly created position at the agency. Stolte will oversee goodness' now combined planning and social media groups. Stolte spent the past two years at Tribal DDB N.Y. as head of planning & strategy across all accounts–Reebok, H&R Block, Disney, Nickelodeon, et al. She also led Tribal's social media arm, Radar. Prior to that, Stolte was a planner at Modernista!, focusing on accounts such as Hummer, Napster and Product (RED). Stolte is currently involved in several new business pitches for goodness, in addition to projects in development for LucasArts and Coda….
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