Starship Blogbook

Intermarche’s new ad, C’est Magnifique, is a short film where an old widower poignantly remembers the dead through food — and the help of the supermarket. Via The Stable:

An ad agency called Romance should create beautiful love stories. The French ad agency called Romance has been doing so since 2017. Creating beautiful love stories, fro French supermarket chain, Intermarché.

The emotional power cells all have the same aim, to encourage people to eat better and cook healthier food. This one is the three-minute story of a widower who undergoes a quest to recreate his wife’s pasta sauce when he finds her old recipe book – replacing the processed ham and cheese sandwiches he has been eating.

Adding to the film’s magic is a cover of Cole Porter’s famous American song, C’est Magnifique, by French singer, Benjamin Biolay. The gorgeous, cinematic quality of the film, and evocative product scenes, comes from director, Katia Lewkowicz, via Grand Bazar.

What we’re watching: The rise and fall of Theranos is getting a lot of renewed interest recently, what with a HBO documentary and a podcast out. Via Vox:

Modern grifters and con artists manifest a certain vampiric quality. The hipster grifter, fraudulent socialite Anna Delvey, the fake Saudi prince, Fyre Festival (and maybe, if you squint, even college admissions fraud) — they all have one thing in common: A sexy, alluring cast to the con that makes the feeding off the (metaphorical) blood of the conned even more seductive to those of us sitting on the outside, munching popcorn as our eyes widen.

So perhaps what makes the story of Theranos and its founder Elizabeth Holmes so compulsively interesting is that it’s the rare double grift, subtext and text: Holmes, who promised that technology her company had supposedly developed would change the world of medical testing forever, fed the con through sucking the metaphorical blood of wealthy people’s bank accounts and through, well, actual blood. Even the poster for Alex Gibney’s upcoming HBO documentary about the fallen entrepreneur, The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, boasts some ominously vampiric undertones.

Theranos turned heads with its signature invention — a blood testing machine about the size of a home breadmaker named the Edison, after Thomas and (perhaps in a stroke of dramatic irony) the many failures he endured en route to success. The Edison would have, by all accounts, radically shifted how we approached health care. The vials and vials of blood required to run medical tests would be reduced to just a “nanotainer” of blood, drawn from a prick on a fingertip. The nanotainer would be deposited into an Edison, and thorough analysis could be run inexpensively, quickly, and seamlessly. All at your local Walgreen’s.

Dora the Explorer has a live action film, to absolutely nobody’s surprise. What we didn’t anticipate is that it looks like YA Tomb Raider. Via Polygon:

The live-action Dora the Explorer is not the Dora the Explorer you knew. A first trailer for the late-summer movie explains it all.

The hit Nick Jr. show premiered in 2000 and lasted until 2006, making it one of the longest running Nick Jr. shows of all time. It followed a plucky 7-year-old Latina girl named Dora and her monkey companion Boots, and eventually a spinoff centered around animals and Dora’s cousin Diego aired as well.

The live-action adaptation of Dora sees the little explorer all grown up, about to take on the scariest adventure of her life: high school. Dora’s life is anything but mundane, however, and soon she leads a group of teens to rescue her parents and discover the mystery of a lost Inca civilization. The trailer shows off Tomb Raider-style action and adventure — Dora pulls out a knife! She has a knife!

Oh what, Danny Trejo is the monkey? Along with Eva Longoria and Michael Peña in the film, this is shaping up to be a great show. We’re looking forward to it. Apparently it premieres in August. Hopefully Australia picks it up too…

Colonel Sanders is the Godfather of Chickentown in this vaguely threatening, weirdly hilarious KFC (UK) ad which points out knockoffs. Via the Drum:

KFC has launched a campaign that reminds the public that there is only one place to get the Colonel’s Original Recipe.

Created by Mother, the spot sees the original chicken Don, Colonel Sanders, hit the streets of the UK.

As he cruises down the street in a big red saloon, with the Godfather theme (in this case, a specially-commissioned Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performance of Love Theme by Nino Rota) playing over the action, the Don spots chicken imitators along the way. As he heads down the chicken shop road, neon-lit chicken shops appear before him, from ‘QFC’ to ‘Lip Lickin’ and ‘Houston Fried Chicken.’ The ad hints that the chicken pretenders are just an imitation of KFC and won’t be able to match its ‘iconic’ taste.

After hand-breading his iconic Original Recipe chicken, the Colonel drives away and we’re reminded that KFC chicken is only available at KFC.

Discussing the new campaign, KFC UK’s chief marketing officer, Meghan Farren said: “It’s flattering to have this entire legion of imitators, and we wish every chicken shop out there the best of luck.

“But there’s nowhere else you can get the Colonel’s Original Recipe. We invest time, effort and skill into freshly hand-breading Kentucky Fried Chicken in our kitchens – all day, every day – and that’s why you can only get KFC at KFC.”

Hermeti Balarin, partner at Mother added: “There’s only one colonel in Chicken Town. And his name is Harland Sanders. Capice?”

Fox is celebrating its “fresh start” with this ad campaign, after that mega-merger Disney-Fox $71.3 billion dollar deal finalised. Via Deadline:

“The company that we knew and loved is changing,” says a prophetic Terrence Howard tonight in a clip from Empire used in sizzle spot celebrating the birth of a new era at what is a slimmed down and new Fox. Running during the latest episode of theLee Daniels and Danny Strong co-created hip hop drama that is one of Fox’s all time biggest hits, the one-time only 90-second “new chapter” video was full of big names and big shows from the network’s more than 30 year history. “This is a now or never opportunity,” proclaims Beat Shazam host Jamie Foxx in the mash-up of The Simpsons, sports, unscripted and some past and current faves like Empire, 9-1-1 and Seth MacFarlane’s The Orville.

Airing with that typical Rupert Murdoch flare for promotion, the spot (watch it above) for the now Charlie Collier run Fox Entertainment comes just hours after the mega-merger Disney-Fox $71.3 billion dollar deal became a Hollywood game changing reality this morning at 12:02 AM ET.

Or as the sizzle spells out: Get Ready For A Fresh Start.