Caviar in Venice, Calif., has signed directors Jason Woliner and Jake Szymanski. The latter is known for his steady diet of original content on the Funny or Die website, including “Forehead Tittaes” with Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard. Szymanski has also helmed Funny or Die fare starring Rachel Bilson, Denise Richards, Heidi Montag, Will Ferrell and Paris Hilton. Szymanski recently wrapped his first commercialmaking endeavor, a campaign for Vitamin Water. Meanwhile Woliner is the non-performing member of the comedy group Human Giant and directed the bulk of the sketch comedy series that the group produced for MTV. As of late, Woliner has directed multiple episodes of the NBC show Parks and Recreation, as well as the live-action Adult Swim pilot Eagleheart starring Chris Elliott. Woliner also helmed several segments of the HBO series Funny or Die Presents (including the miniseries titled Designated Driver) and the improvised Spike single-camera comedy Players. Woliner also has Comedy Central specials to his credit such as Aziz Ansari’s Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening….Designer/creative director Nando Costa has joined Superfad. He will be repped by Moxie Pictures under the Superfad directing banner. His recent credits include the Modest Mouse music video “Whale Song”, produced by Nervo/Bent Image Lab. Costa has held creative director positions at Modernista!, Digital Kitchen and at his own shops, Nakd (in Rio de Janeiro) and Nervo….U.K.-based director Simon Cracknell has secured representation in Canada, joining the roster of Toronto-based production house Brown. He remains repped in the U.K. by Th2ng, in France by Vingt3, stateside by Instant Karma, and in Asia by Bullet….
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