Archive for May, 2010

Tom Munro gets paid to make it all look easy. If you occasionally leaf through magazines like Elle, W, Details and Vogue, you’ve already seen his work: He’s the man behind the camera for many of the moody, glam celebrity portraits featured there.

Munro’s new book of A-list pictures, simply titled “Tom Munro” (Damiani, $75), features the famous faces he’s photographed over the years — Madonna, Courtney Love, Jude Law, Leonardo DiCaprio, Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman, Justin Timberlake, Christian Bale and, of course, Lady Gaga.

In contrast to the oversized personalities he captures, “I’m an introvert,” says the reserved Brit. “I’m studious in the way that I work. Madonna always teases me, calls me a bit of a nerd, which I confess to being.”

Tom Munro

Johnny Depp, who was shot “as is.”

Photos: Freeze fame

tom munro

Leonardo DiCaprio looks at ease, but this “candid” shot was carefully staged.

Photos: Freeze fame

tom munro

Christian Bale, shot against a white wall 10 years ago for “budgetary” reasons.

Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t do diva fits — even when people don’t recognize him and order him out of his seat. The star, hiding under a hat, and girlfriend Bar Refaeli were asked to move four times at a showing of “Iron Man 2″ Saturday in LA’s Century City. A source said, “He clearly didn’t realize you could reserve seats. During the previews, Leo and his group were asked to move three times. Then, as the trailer for his new movie, ‘In ception,’ began playing, they were asked to move again. They were gracious, [and] Leo was smiling at the irony of it.” They finally sat in the front row.

UPI

Leonardo DiCaprio with his girlfriend, Bar Refaeli

So what do we know? According to the newly released official synopsis, Leonardo DiCaprio is a sexy, and swanky looking dream thief. With the aid of scifi tech Leo has made a living stealing things from peoples dreams. But apparently in the new world this sort of occupation is frowned upon, naturally. So he’s given “one last job” the will set him up for good and give him a chance at turning around his bad reputation with the law. But this job is different, he has to implant an idea into someone’s dreams. A world changing idea, at that. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, and Cillian Murphy are all presumably members of Leo’s Ocean’s 11-type gang of good-lookin thieves. Ken Watanbe is the bad guy, or perhaps the mark, which we’re guessing from his furrowed expression in most of the released Inception pics. Meanwhile Marion Cotillard plays Leo’s wife, who may or may not be only in his dreams.

The first image we see in Nolan’s trailer is of rushing waves, but more importantly it’s water. Water is ann ever-present image throughout the Inception trailers and stills. The general assumption is that water is a helpful gateway in or out of the dream world. Here we see Leo with a face full of it, beaten an bloody laying in the sandy bank of an ocean. Like the dream world has turned on him.

Cut to a much more dapper Leo pitching Cillian Murphy in a fancy lounge. Sounds like he’s trying to get Murphy on his team by “softening” what he really does. “I specialize in a very specific type of security. Subconscious security.” Our guess, he’s showing off his skills right now, in Murphy’s mind, only because they both look so darn clean and well kept.

We mentioned the way he looks only because the lighting and Leo’s street wear is entirely different when approaching yet another member of his hopeful team Ellen Page. This makes us think that the shots with Leo and his crew all decked out in their business suit best, are in the dream world. Plus most of the amazing up-the-wall fighting and floating scenes happen in this sort of professional attire as well. Granted this isn’t ALWAYS the case, but more on that later.

But the dream world isn’t all business suits and fancy haircuts. Cut to a bunch of violent chase scenes and a off-the-tracks train careening down a main street, Joseph Gordon-Levitt [who is rumored to be Leo's muscle] shooting from a bashed out taxi cab, and guns guns guns. The life of a dream thief is hard.

But then again they get to do awesome things like fight on the walls of a hotel and fold a city on top of itself, with their mind.

But how does one get inside a dream, supposedly with a Portable Automated Somnacin Intravenous Device PASIV. Which you can see pictured many times in the trailer, here’s two shots of the inside of the PASIV case.

UGO pointed out the PAVIS website which is full of instructions for the device, which is inserts an IV into the dreamer at some point or another.

So who gets to carry these highly evolved pieces of machinery? From the looks of the trailer, and the new Inception movie site, Ken Watanabe, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt each have a case…or they stole it from one another. But this instruction manual makes us feel like there is more than one PASIV, at the least.

Presumably, this is what the machine does to the user, makes you hover in a dream state. At least in a dream world where everyone wears expensive suits and sleeps in designer hotels. But one has to wonder, why do they need to sleep in the dream world, aren’t they already sleeping. So then how are they floating? Ugh Nolan, you win again.

With all this all this dream stealing it’s no wonder the trailer showed a tiny old man in a little hospital bed, sleeping in a safe. Keep the bad men out of your mind. Is he being held hostage, or is this merely preventative?

But anyways, moving on with the trailer. Leo explains that he, “creates the world of the dream, then you bring the subject of that world into the dream, and they fill it with their secrets.” Then this gated image is shown, which we think we’ve seen the other side to in a previous still. Could this be more of Leo’s secrets?

Secrets about his personal life maybe, his wife, and were those his kids?

But there’s no time for that, more violence and JGL being a bad ass. For some reason Leo has to break into a snow fortress, and it’s a dangerous task.

Really dangerous. Also, guns are huge both with dream thieves.

Then we see this strange little PASIV room again. But this time we know it’s where Ken and Leo meet, kind of. Is Ken keeping Leo hostage, or is he helping him?

Meanwhile JGL continues to mess with people hovering while attached to their PAVIS machines, hovers over an elevator shaft with people tied up inside, and then contemplates activating this detonator. And if you remember the earlier picture with Ellen Page dressed in her business suit, it looked like JGL was stuffing this backpack in his lap with C4.

And of course, like all good heist movies, the shit hits the fan for the crew. Looks like little Ellen is hurt, and JGL did not stick to the plan. Notice Leo is yelling at him after the windows have all been bashed in. Probably after the big shoot out.

Final hunch, I’m still kind of suspicious of anytime I see the whole dream stealing gang in nice clothes. Perhaps they travel asleep as well, so they can ride in style? Either way, the bottom picture is gorgeous even though it looks like the whole crew is sleeping through danger.

Even though most of it is a mystery, it’s still a beautiful trailer that we just can’t wait to see more of.

Leonardo DiCaprio puffed away on a cigar while watching the Lakers-Jazz game at an LA sports bar with buddies on Saturday night. He’s a proud supporter of the city’s athletic teams, recently sporting a UCLA hat while running errands with Bar and sitting courtside during the Lakers playoff games. Yesterday, however, it was all about his favorite women as he and Bar paid a Mother’s Day visit to his mom in Malibu. Leo’s entering the final stretch of downtime before he hits the road this Summer promoting Inception — Buzz has a new trailer for the mind-bending movie which has most of you more excited than ever for its July 16 release.

Source: PopSugar