Director Chris Cottam has joined production company th2ng (pronounced “thing two”), the live action division of th1ng (“thing one”) Group, for U.S. and U.K. representation. Cottam’s TV ad campaign portfolio includes high profile work for brands such as Kleenex, Dove and Rimmel. His experience spans filming beauty icons Kate Moss, Heidi Klum and Elle MacPherson as well as campaigns featuring comedians Robin Williams and Chris Rock. Cottam’s professional aspirations kicked off following his first short film that was nominated as Best of British at the British Film Festival in 1995, sparking his directing career. Today he has been widely recognized for his work, including numerous nominations for his documentary work at the Royal Television Society, Grierson Awards and two Scottish BAFTA nominations, feature film nominations at Locarno, Edinburgh and London Film Festivals for his co-directed feature The Lives of the Saints. He won the Samsung Future Shorts Award for his popular short Maybe One Day, as well as advertising awards and nominations most recently including an ICAD in Ireland….
Editor Brian Gannon will relocate to the Whitehouse Post’s L.A. office from its Chicago facility where he began his career more than a decade ago. He has worked on a variety of campaigns with agencies such as DDB, Y&R, Energy BBDO, Periscope, and mcgarrybowen. Gannon has cultivated relationships with directors including Rodrigo GarcÃa Saiz, Zach Math, and Rocky Morton. Gannon’s comedic editing style has generated laughs for brands as diverse as Skittles, Cars.com, Capital One, McDonald’s, and Bud Light. In addition to his commercial work, Gannon has edited several music videos as well as short documentary films for Wilco and Thomas Keller. His work has been awarded at the Chicago International Film Festival, The Midwest Independent Film Festival, and The One Show….
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