Director Camille Marotte has expanded his representation with the global boutique production company The Sweet Shop to include North and South America and parts of Asia, with a focus on China and Japan. The move comes in the wake of increasing demand in these regions for the Paris-based director’s distinctive work which spans such brands as Under Armour, Maybelline, Marc Jacobs, Samsung, Piaget, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Bose and Ralph Lauren….
Benchworks, a marketing services agency headquartered in Chestertown, Maryland, has named Chuck Heinz to serve as its executive director of strategic planning. His professional experience encompasses marketing and differentiation consulting, business strategy development, new product marketing and global commercial development for pharmaceutical and consumer clients including Spherix Global Insights, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Pfizer Inc. Benchworks currently represents more than 25 pharmaceutical/life science brands on the East Coast, from Atlanta to Boston, with offices in Maryland and Pennsylvania. In his new position, Heinz will work primarily in the New England market….
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