Mod/Op Films, the brand-building content house founded two years ago by EPs Rossi Cannon, Steve Schofield and Anke Thommen, has brought on board creative technologist David Cullipher, and digital content producers/strategists Greg Goldner and Brie Campbell. The addition of these new partners provides a seamless 360 team for agency clients under one banner. Cullipher bridges Mod/Op Film’s broadcast-quality, live-action content with digital and technical capabilities including VR, experiential, gaming, app, and web development to help realize any creative vision with efficiency and depth. Goldner and Campbell have strong relationships in the social media influencer world. Among Mod/Op’s recent projects are Ballpark’s “World Record Grillathon” with Y&R New York, Suntrust via Strawberry Frog, Hyundai and Nutrish directed by Paul Goldman, and Subaru directed by Dana Christiaansen. Mod/Op Films’ Steven Antin recently won a Gold Addy for the Branded Entertainment musical “Why to stay at a Disney Resort Hotel” that he directed via Disney Yellow Shoes. To date, it’s received over 1.7 million views…..
Digital production company MediaMonks, with U.S. bases of operation in NY and L.A., opens its newest office in Sao Paulo. Brazilian digital technology company Cricket has become MediaMonks’ eighth international office. The partnership with Cricket follows MediaMonks’ acquisition of Stopp in LA and Stockholm in December 2015. With the move into Brazil, MediaMonks grows its in-house production team to 450 Monks worldwide. It also strengthens its capabilities in physical computing and installations, for which Cricket is internationally renowned through over 100 awards including eight Cannes Lions. Most importantly, it brings MediaMonks closer to the talent and creativity in Brazil, according to MediaMonks CEO Victor Knaap. Cricket’s Alex Fittipaldi, Rafael Fittipaldi, André Tatiyama and Daniel Magnanelli will all remain with the new MediaMonks São Paulo team as partners….
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting — quite literally — into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat — who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival — has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive — a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
The one rule to follow is that... Read More