NYC-headquartered creative design, animation and mixed media studio LOBO has expanded its sales team, adding Nathan Skillicorn of Heart, Brains & Nerve to handle the Midwest and James Bartlett of Mr. Bartlett to help cover the East Coast. Bartlett will work alongside LOBO’s existing East Coast sales team, Minerva, led by Mary Knox and Shauna Seresin. Heart, Brains & Nerve’s roster also includes Believe, Hound, Friends Electric, Schrom and Seed. Mr. Bartlett’s roster also includes Diktator, Jump Editorial, The Marmalade and Strike Anywhere.
HERO: Creative Management and Strategy has launched in Los Angeles, providing independent sales and talent management to the commercial production industry in the West Coast and Texas markets. Founded by Harrison Elkins, HERO represents shops across live action production, VFX and animation, editorial, and music and audio. Current roster clients include Spark & Riot, Fancy Content, Gentlemen, and Ring the Alarm. Elkins has a decade of talent management and sales experience across major U.S. markets, most recently serving as head of sales at bicoastal studio Humble + Postal for over three years, setting new sales benchmarks and positioning the company for direct-to-brand partnerships. Recent client work booked through HERO includes a new Jaguar campaign for Spark & Riot with Spark44, M&C Saatchi’s new campaign for the San Diego Zoo with Gentlemen, and ongoing work with Beats by Dre for Ring the Alarm.
AWS (Amazon Web Services) Thinkbox has added Will McDonald as head of business development. Based in Seattle, McDonald now leads client relationships for AWS Thinkbox, working closely with the business development team to help studios manage on-premises resources and rendering on the cloud. McDonald comes to AWS Thinkbox from Conductor Technologies, where he served as VP of product and helped launch the company’s cloud-based rendering platform. He has also spent more than four years at Autodesk as sr. manager of interactive and emerging technology, and has held various art, TD and R&D roles at Electronic Arts, ILM and Pixar Animation Studios…
Review: Director James Watkins’ “Speak No Evil”
Quick. Has there ever been a horror film set in a country home with a decent cell signal?
Nope, and there's no signal at Paddy and Ciara's house, either, deep in the English countryside. Soon, that land line will be cut, too, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Paddy and Ciara are that fun-but-somewhat-odd British couple whom Louise and Ben, early in "Speak No Evil," meet on their idyllic Tuscan family holiday. Americans based in London, Louise and Ben are at loose ends, with both job and relationship issues. And so, when the new acquaintances write to invite them for a country weekend, they decide to go.
After all, how bad could it be?
Don't answer that. There are many such moments in the first two-thirds of "Speak No Evil," a Hollywood remake of the 2022 Danish film, here starring a deeply menacing James McAvoy. Moments where Louise and Ben, out of mere politeness and social convention, act against their instincts, which tell them something is wrong – very wrong.
Director James Watkins and especially his excellent troupe of actors, adult and children alike, do a nice job of building the tension, slowly but surely. Until all bloody hell breaks loose, of course. And then, in its third act, "Speak No Evil" becomes an entertaining but routine horror flick, with predictable results.
But for a while, it's a way more intelligent film. And the jumpy moments work — I'll confess to literally springing out of my seat when someone uneventfully turned on a power drill.
We begin in stunning Tuscany, where Louise (Mackenzie Davis, in the film's most accessible and empathetic performance) and Ben (Scoot McNairy, all nerves and insecurity) are vacationing with 11-year-old daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler). At the pool, they... Read More