Global independent creative agency GUT has appointed Christian Buer as executive creative director and Natalie Street as head of accounts in its Toronto office. Buer will lead the creative team alongside ECD Brynna Aylward. Both Street and Buer will be based in Toronto and will report to managing director and partner Ryan O’Hagan. Juan Javier Peña Plaza also oversees the office as partner and North America CCO. Buer has spent the last 12+ years working to bridge the disciplines of design and advertising, and has worked at leading agencies in Canada for brands including McDonald’s, Toyota, HomeSense and KFC. Over Street’s nearly 15 years of experience, she has built her career at Toronto agencies including DDB and TAXI. Additionally, she has been a partner to some of Canada’s biggest brands, including Canadian Tire, Boston Pizza, Rogers Canada, Manulife and now, Tim Hortons. In 2022, GUT Toronto also won a Cannes Lion award for the “TimBiebs” campaign, which was the first-ever Lion for both the agency and Tim Hortons. The campaign also received the Grand Effie at the Canadian Effie Awards, among other top honors. GUT’s global independent creative network has offices in Miami, Buenos Aires, São Paulo, Toronto, Mexico City, Los Angeles and Amsterdam….
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