Beef Films, Santa Monica, has added directors Joe Schaak and Danny T. (Trachtenberg) to its roster. The latter is known for his documentary style filmmaking while Schaak’s reputation is in wry, intelligent, comedic work. They join a Beef directorial lineup which includes Pascal Franchot, Todd Heyman, Adam Martin, Michael Pescasio and founding helmer Nick Spooner. Beef and Chop House Edit are sister companies….Imagination continues its growth in North America with the hiring of creatives Brad Dixon and Gino Reyes, who both are in the agency’s N.Y. office. Dixon spent the last two years at Great Works, a Swedish digital agency, where he was lead creative on the Malibu rum global account, while also producing work for such brands as Absolut, IFC and the Sundance Channel. Reyes was most recently a senior designer at Anomaly New York…Transistor Studios, New York, has hired Jesse Kurnit as senior producer. Kurnit produced with Quiet Man, Pure, and was previously the head of production at 1st Avenue Machine…
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