Leonardo DiCaprio took the stage at CinemaCon to promote Quentin Tarantino’s new film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. DiCaprio praises the screenplay as one of Tarantino’s best. The film will star DiCaprio.

First opened to the public 125 years ago – on May 1, 1893 – the World’s Columbian Exposition covered almost 2.5 sq km of Chicago with about 200 exotic-looking buildings, parkland, water features and other marvellous tourist attractions. Two years under construction, the so-called White City attracted more than 27 million visitors in the six months that it was open.

Also known as the Chicago World’s Fair, it was the first event of its kind to feature national pavilions (from 46 countries) and amusement rides, which included the original Ferris wheel and the first moving walkway.

It was a spectacular event by any measure (and culminated in the assassination of the city’s mayor, Carter Harrison Snr) but it is less remembered today than the man most often associated with it – the hotelier, and America’s first serial killer, H.H. Holmes.

Whether his World’s Fair Hotel, located a few kilometres from the event site, was ever actually open for business is unclear, but a significant number of Holmes’ victims (estimated at between nine and 200 in total) were apparently murdered there in unusually unpleasant ways.

Many books have been written about Holmes, but the most reliable are probably The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America (2003), by Erik Larson, and H.H. Holmes: The True History of the White City Devil (2017), by Adam Selzer.

A film based on Larson’s book, to be directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is supposedly in pre-production, but in the meantime visitors can check-in at The Hollow Hotel, in southeast London.

Promising “an immersive interactive psychological horror that draws inspiration from the historical events surrounding America’s first and most terrifying serial killer”, this new immersive theatre production doesn’t actually involve an overnight stay, but is clearly not for the squeamish. Nor is it for anyone who might think that 125 years on is perhaps still too soon to be trivialising Holmes’ horrifying crimes.

Grand illusions
Although described on its website as “an example of regency architecture”, the Grand Metropark Hotel Xian doesn’t exactly epitomise that early 19th-century English style. The fact that the property was previously a Hyatt Regency probably has something to do with the crossed wires.

Newly opened across town, the Grand Hyatt Xian’s very modern architecture is almost equally unconvincingly claimed by Hyatt to be “inspired by a palatial mirage in the desert”, while the walkway to the office block next door “represents the Ancient Silk Road connecting East and West”. More credibly, it “also forms a letter ‘H’ for Hyatt”.

You can find out more about the new hotel and its opening offers at xian.grand.hyatt.com.

Kingo, the decentralized facilitator of clean electricity for communities without power, has brought Hollywood star and environmental campaigner Leonardo DiCaprio on board as an investor and advisor.

The news was announced in an April 26 press release from Kingo. Founder and CEO Juan Fermín Rodriguez said: “We are honored to have Leonardo DiCaprio, someone who is seriously committed to addressing climate and environment-related causes, invest in Kingo and join our board of advisers.

“Leo will help advise Kingo as we work to achieve growth through expanded R&D capabilities and new market entry strategies. We remain committed to developing innovative solutions to the 1.2 billion people who currently live in the dark.”

Kingo, which was founded in Guatemala in 2013, claims to be creating the largest clean energy user base in history – with an ambition of reaching to reach 500 million people by 2035, by offering decentralized prepaid energy services to families and businesses in off-grid villages across the world.

The company targets households at ‘the bottom of the pyramid’, providing solar energy technology at accessible prices. Customers do not pay installation fees or maintenance costs, further reducing their financial burden, Kingo said.

“Solar power is key to a future without fossil fuels, and Kingo’s technology will help enable broad use of clean energy across the developing world,” said Leonardo DiCaprio in a statement. “I am proud to invest in Kingo as they seek to eradicate energy poverty, and I look forward to serving as an advisor to the company.”

According to Kingo’s press release, the company now services more than 60,000 households across the developing world, installing around 7,000 new systems each month. It also states that 92 percent of its customers say they save money with Kingo, while 81 percent report improved educational performance for children, and 86 percent say productivity has increased.

After demonstrating its ability to generate socially responsible value for its customers and stakeholders, Kingo said it is now extending internationally and investing to enhance energy generation and storage technologies. The company said it is also integrating emerging exponential technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence and the internet of things.

This past August, it was announced that Leonardo DiCaprio would get meta and play the legendary Leonardo da Vinci. The role is quite an appropriate fit, as the two share much more than a name: while Da Vinci was dedicated to studying nature, including botany, fossils, and anatomy, today’s Leo is pretty much known as much for his dedication to environmentalism as he is for the prolonged saga of his finally winning an Oscar.

Now, the noted Jane Goodall fanboy, who’s recently even partied with the legendary primatologist, is once again upping his environmental cred and going a step further with his reinventions. In between dating a seemingly nonstop supply of 20-something models, and before playing a Hollywood has-been alongside Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino’s upcoming film, DiCaprio is testing out a new identity, adding “Malaysian water beetle” to the list of official titles, along with Oscar winner and U.N. ambassador.
This interspecies rebranding wasn’t originally DiCaprio’s own doing; a group of Malaysian scientists decided to name a new species of water beetles that they discovered in a remote basin of the island Borneo Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi as, according to the Daily Mail, a “tribute of the star’s environmental activism, not a comparison of their looks.” (His association with a money laundering scandal in the country seems to now be in the past.) Still, DiCaprio has embraced being associated to the three-millimeter insect, which the Guardian described as having slightly protruding eyes and a retractable head, with aplomb; he clearly seems to appreciate, and even identify with the bug, as evidenced by his changing his Facebook profile picture to a photo of his eponymous beetle on Tuesday.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Facebook profile, as of May 2nd, 2018.

Courtesy of Facebook
Predictably, the change has prompted quite a response from a good portion of his 16.5 million followers; so far, the photo has garnered nearly 1,000 comments, including “Damn, you looked so much better while you were younger,” and “Hummm….. It seems that you have become in the spirit of nature! You look like awesome, and environmental!” Iva Njunjic, the founder of the firm which made the discovery, chose to weigh in via The Guardian: “In this case, we didn’t name the beetle because it looks like Leonardo DiCaprio. We wanted to highlight that even the smallest creature is important, such as this tiny beetle that nobody knew about before now.”

“No one is more knowledgeable, more committed, or draws more inspiration from the film art form that I know of than Scorsese,” says DiCaprio.

Leonardo DiCaprio has made five movies so far with Martin Scorsese, so it’s not surprising to hear the Oscar-winning actor has nothing but praise for his most iconic collaborator behind the camera. Presenting Scorsese with the inaugural Robert Osborne Award at this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival (via Entertainment Weekly), DiCaprio explained how his work with the director made him realize the real importance of film and filmmaking.

Read More:Martin Scorsese Slams Rotten Tomatoes and CinemaScore: ‘They Reinforce the Idea Every Image Is There to be Instantly Judged’
“As a young actor standing beside him during the creative process of making a movie, I discovered that just like a painting, a sculpture, music or theater, film was just as essential, relevant, as a matter of fact, the most integral art form of our time,” DiCaprio said. “I felt I could truly own the term artist by working alongside him.”

DiCaprio went on to explain that “no one is more knowledgeable, more committed, or draws more inspiration from the film art” than Scorsese. “There is almost no aspect of his life, creative or personal, where he doesn’t reference the history of movies,” the actor said.

DiCaprio first worked with Scorsese on 2002’s “Gangs of New York” and has earned Oscar nominations for his performances in “The Aviator” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” “The Departed,” which starred DiCaprio in the lead role, won Scorsese his first Oscar for best director. The film also won best picture.

Scorsese is currently in post-production on his Netflix gangster drama “The Irishman,” but his plan is to return to working with DiCaprio sometime in the future. Scorsese and DiCaprio have two projects in development at the moment, both of which involve serial killers: “The Devil in the White City” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.” DiCaprio will next star opposite Brad Pitt in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

A Who’s Who list of Hollywood celebrities have filed objections to the Weinstein Co. sale, saying they’re owed money by the bankrupt studio — though the murky accounting makes it difficult to know exactly how much without conducting an audit.

RelatedWeinstein Co. Looks To Depose Unsecured Creditors About Conversations With Dark-Horse Bidder…
Meryl Streep, George Clooney, Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bill Murray and Quentin Tarantino were among those filing documents raising concerns about outstanding payments ahead of the court-supervised auction of the studio.

Tarantino has had a long collaboration with The Weinstein Co. and its disgraced co-founder, Harvey Weinstein. He made four films for the studio — Grindhouse/Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight.

The writer-director estimates he’s still owed nearly $4.6 million for these films: $300,000 for Grindhouse, $575,000 for Inglourious Basterds, some $1.3 million for Django and $2.5 million for The Hateful Eight.

Tarantino is asking the court to forestall the sale until The Weinstein Co. lives up to its contractual obligations and provides assurances of future payments.

The Weinstein Co. says it owes Lawrence $102,623 for her work on Silver Linings Playbook, though the actress says she can’t be sure if the amount is accurate because the studio only provided financial details through the end of December.

Streep found her name among the more than 2,000 pages of lists containing some 10,250 contracts — sometimes, misspelled as “Street.” She said she has been unable to get an accurate accounting of outstanding payments in connection with her work on the motion pictures August: Osage County and The Giver — though the Weinstein Co. claims it owes $168,611.

“Unless and until Ms. Streep is given such an opportunity and/or conducts a proper audit, the Debtors should not be permitted to unilaterally select cure amounts while withholding the information necessary for Ms. Streep to verify or contest those amounts,” Streep wrote in her filing.

The Weinstein Co. said it may owe Clooney $250,000 for August: Osage County, though the producer on the film said this amount does not take into account back-end participation.

Both Lawrence and Streep criticized co-founder Harvey Weinstein for taking their statements out of context as he sought to defend himself against sexual misconduct lawsuits.

Streep described as “pathetic” Weinstein’s use of her statement that he was not sexually transgressive or abusive as evidence that he had not abused other women. Lawrence echoed that sentiment, adding that she supports the women who have come forward seeking justice.

A group of film production companies — Studiocanal (Paddington I), Gaumont (Ballerina aka Leap!), Wild Bunch (The Artist), Delta Last Legion (Hannibal Rising),and Orange Studio (The Artist, Paradise Lost) — raised concerns about The Weinstein Co.’s lax bookkeeping. The studios claims that on some films, there has been no accounting for a year. On others, the records are up to seven years delinquent.

The Wild Bunch said an audit conducted for the reporting period ending in December of 2014 revealed a $293,00 payment shortfall for the Academy Award winning film, The Artist. Studiocanal believes it’s owed a share of profits on Paddington I, ditto for Gaumont on The Intouchables and Ballerina. They’re looking for the court’s assurance that a proper audit will occur and they’ll get paid.

Deadline previously reported that the list of the thousands of people owed money by the studio reads like a red carpet gala in Hollywood, including Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Dame Judi Dench, David Bowie, Michael Bay, Malia Obama, Boris Becker, Ryan Coogler, Daniel Radcliffe, Robert De Niro and Darlene Love.

A new species of water beetle found in Borneo has been named after the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

The 3mm-long black insect, called Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi, was named after Oscar-winning actor to mark his 20 years of environmental campaigning.

The water beetle was discovered by citizen scientists at a waterfall in the remote Maliau Basin in Malaysian Borneo.

The trip was initiated by Taxon Expeditions – an organisation which arranges scientific surveys for non scientists with the aim to discover previously unknown species.

The new water beetle species Grouvellinus leonardodicaprioi (Hendrik Freitag/Taxon Expeditions)
The DiCaprio beetle is the latest new species to be named after a prominent figure.

Earlier this year, a fly from the Brazilian Amazon was named after Arnold Schwarzenegger, while last year a moth was named after Donald Trump.

Dr Iva Njunjic, founder and entomologist at Taxon Expeditions, said: “Tiny and black, this new beetle may not win any Oscars for charisma, but in biodiversity conservation, every creature counts.”

DiCaprio launched the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation in 1998 to help protect threatened ecosystems around the world.

The findings are reported in the journal ZooKeys.

We’re all terribly excited by Leonardo DiCaprio’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood teaser – a Tarantino-directed take on the notorious Charles Manson murders.

Despite the seventies setting, DiCaprio’s look on the promotion circuit is very much of this decade – and it’s shaved at least 10 years off for him, too.

At the CinemaCon 2018 Gala Opening Night in Las Vegas, the 43-year-old dressed himself young with a menswear classic: the bomber jacket. A perennially popular move, the shape and cut is a far-cry from stuffy tailoring or a structured overcoat, and DiCaprio proves that any man south of 50 can pull it off – providing you follow the rules.

The Revenant star swerved mid-life crisis territory with a neutral palette. No statements, and no risk of looking too try-hard. What’s more, a bomber jacket is a fail-safe way to introduce some texture. Suede, leather and wool are three fabrics easily grappled with, and they’re best finished with similarly-colored pieces elsewhere.

Source: Esquire