Directing duo The Queen–consisting of Dan Lumb and Crinan Campbell–has joined bicoastal The Famous Group for spots and branded content. The Queen just wrapped its first job for the production company, a comedic social media campaign for YETI coolers out of McGarrah Jessee in Austin, Texas…
Great Guns has signed director Ricky Staub to its international roster. He is with Great Guns exclusively worldwide except for the Paris and Amsterdam markets where he will repped by Insurrection. Great Guns was initially drawn to Staub’s short film The Cage, which he directed and edited. The Cage is an intense and ultimately transformative story with exceptional performances and captivating visuals. More than a tale of redemption, The Cage is a story of survival. Philly’s streets try to bring down one young man and entangle him in a web of violence, anger, and death, and it’s up to him to find a way to break free. His only escape may appear to come from the basketball court, but make no mistake, this is not a game. More than a skilled young director, Staub has proven to be an artist with a social conscience. While working with Oscar winner M. Night Shyamalan on several projects in Philadelphia, Staub felt a need to give something back to the community he’d spent more than two years getting to know. He launched a production house, Neighborhood Film Co, in a renovated factory in North Philly with the sole purpose of creating an apprenticeship program to employ the formerly incarcerated. Staub’s commercial directing credits span such brands as Nike, Coca-Cola, Jeep, Cadillac and Anthropologie…
Luke Colson has joined Elastic as executive producer, bringing extensive experience from both sides of the Atlantic to the Santa Monica, Calif.-based shop. Early in his career, he worked at Soho Images and Soho 601. After five years at Wild Track Studios in London, Colson joined start-up company UNIT as studio director and helped grow the company from three employees to a fully operational, award-winning VFX and design studio. In 2009 he joined The Mill as head of design and exec producer. He was responsible for starting the first design studio with The Mill London and went on to help implement similar design departments throughout The Mill studios in the U.S. In 2014, Colson co-founded Mill+, The Mill’s creative content offering. He has assorted awards to his name for VFX, design and animation work, including Clio, D&AD, British Arrows, LIA, Webby, VES and most recently an Emmy nomination for executive producing the main titles for the Netflix show Fearless. Colson joins Elastic’s management team as EP, alongside managing director Jennifer Sofio Hall and head of production Kate Berry….
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