Dave Mellott has been promoted to sr. creative director at creative agency, commercial and branded content production company Stun Creative. In his expanded role, he will help lead creative work across Stun for all network, studio and consumer brand clients. Stun founders/principals Mark Feldstein and Brad Roth announced the news.
Mellott joined Stun in 2012 as a creative director, bringing a wealth of experience from both the agency and network side. He honed his craft at agencies like FCB Chicago/LA and Dentsu in Los Angeles, working on a wide range of brands including Coors, SC Johnson, Canon and Universal Studios. On the network side he held creative leadership roles for Fox Sports, Current TV, Harpo Productions and Discovery Communications. A lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, Mellott created and directed the award winning MLB Postseason campaign “You Can’t Script October” for Fox Sports.
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