Director Chris Nelson has joined bicoastal HSI Productions for representation in the U.S. He is handled in the U.K. by London-based Tribe International. Nelson was formerly repped stateside by Little Minx….New York-based production house Collective has signed director Margee Challa who’s known for her work in lifestyle, fashion and beauty. She joins a directorial roster that also consists of Jeremy Warshaw and company founder David McNamara….Grey Amsterdam has added Tim Sajdak and Oscar Asmoarp as digital directors. The two Swedes will report to executive creative directors Colin Lamberton and Seyoan Vela. Sajdak is a veteran interactive producer whose experience spans such notable agencies as Farfar and Forsman & Bodenfers. Asmoarp is an interactive creative with both art direction and front-end development skills He has worked on campaigns out of interactive agencies in both Europe and the U.S….Los Angeles-based production collective Deek has been launched, under the aegis of directors Dan Reid and Brinton Jaecks….Utopic, a hybrid production/post/digital company, has been launched in Chicago by editors Jan Maitland and Tom Kloehn, digital artisans Tony Passero and Shannon Kemp, and veteran ad agency executive producer Michael Antonucci….
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