FilmTecknarna, Stockholm and N.Y., has finalized a deal to represent Stockholm-based director Arvid Steen for exclusive spot representation in both the U.S. and European markets. This past winter Steen directed a music video with the London band The Guilty Ones for its debut single. He also recently wrapped commercials for the Swedish grocery store chain Coop and pharmacy chain Apoteksgruppen. Currently he is working on a music video that combines live action with 2D animation….Industry vets Mark Larranaga and Zach Kinney have launched SAINTS LA, a boutique specializing in the creation and production of visual effects and motion graphics for film, TV and the web. The new venture has wrapped a three-spot Kodak Printer campaign for Deutsch N.Y. shot by the Thomas Cobb Group, with Larranaga and Kinney serving as VFX supervisors…..R/GA has opened an office in São Paulo, Brazil, a move prompted by the agency being named MasterCard’s global digital agency of record. R/GA has appointed Paulo Melchiori as executive creative director and promoted Paola Colombo from R/GA New York to group director, production. Both will lead the new office and are responsible for hiring a multidisciplinary team to build it, with an expected growth of 10 to 15 people by year’s end. Melchiori and Colombo are also tasked with generating new business throughout Latin America. Melchiori had previously been senior VP/creative director at Publicis Modem, San Francisco….Nick Sasso has joined Outside Edit+Design, New York, as senior Flame artist. He comes over from Manic, where his client roster included Maybelline, L’Oreal, Chase, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Bank of America, Smuckers, Bacardi, and Absolut Vodka….
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