Scorsese + Leo: With Six You Get Body Counts...

We knew they would work together again and now we have confirmation:  Leonardo DiCaprio will headline Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Erik Larson's bestseller The Devil and the White City. That's a true crime novel about serial killer Dr. HH Holmes who murdered dozens or possibly hundreds in Chicago in the late 19th century. H.H. Holmes was born just a couple of years before the events in Gangs of New York so they're returning to roughly the same time frame of their first collaboration (hello Oscar nominations in craft categories) 

This will be Leo's first serial killer role (if not his first villain) though it's always amusing to remember that Hollywood intended him to be our Patrick Bateman in American Psycho before history course-corrected and gave us the one we needed: Christian Bale. But let's not get sidetracked.

The Devil in the White City will be the sixth collaboration between the director and star. DiCaprio is still well behind Robert De Niro as Scorsese's foremost muse both in number of films and quality of films, but maybe some day he'll catch up to him? Scorsese turns 73 in November. Though he's definitely not Clint (85) or Woody (79) with the indefatigable prolificness neither is he all that slow. He averages about 5 movies a decade and Silence, currently in post, will be his fourth this decade already. By the time they release this one (2018?), we'll have our five for the decade unless Marty squeezes one more in somehow. But don't hold your breath. We first heard about this project way back in 2011 when they hired a screenwriter so there's finally a little bit of movement on it (presumably the script is written now) 

In honor of Marty & Leo's partnership, their five movies together ranked in four ways just because...

THE MARTY & LEO FILMS

In Order of Release	Quality  (Best to Worst)	Global Box Office Success	According to Oscar (Most Loved to Least)
Gangs of New York (2002)	The Departed great	Wolf of Wall Street $392 million	The Aviator  (11 noms | 5 wins)
The Aviator (2004)	The Aviator underappreciated at this point	Shutter Island $294 million	The Departed (5 noms | 4 wins incl BP so really it's #1)
The Departed (2006)	Wolf of Wall Street divisive for a reason	The Departed $289 million	Gangs of New York (10 noms | 0 wins)
Shutter Island (2010)	Shutter Island meh	The Aviator $213 million	Wolf of Wall Street (5 noms | 0 wins)
Wolf of Wall Street (2013)	Gangs of New York ugh	Gangs of New York $193 million	Shutter Island (zero noms)

Have you read this novel? Do you look forward to a Marty/Leo reunion or do you wish they would move on?

Early "Revenant" Chatter: Or, how Grantland kickstarted Oscar Season way early

David Upton on an unexpectedly early Oscar campaign kickoff - Editor

It’s only July, but this stuff starts earlier every year: barrels are loaded and sights are set on Oscar season. No one has started earlier than the team behind The Revenant. The recent buzzy Grantland piece on the film harks back to a kind of promotion that is somewhat out-of-fashion: long form, detailed reporting that really digs into what the movie might be. By sheer existence, the piece becomes part of the hype machine, now rolling towards the end of the year when The Revenant sees a release on 25th December.

This is prestige movie promotion at its most precise; why else, you might wonder, would anyone want to see a film that sounds so utterly depressing on Christmas Day? 

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Teasing "The Revenant"

I ain't afraid to die anymore. I done it already."

We don't yes no maybe so teasers but if we did this would be a YES with the small NO of "can already tell we won't be able to tell all these bearded sweaty fur clad men apart during action sequences and mayb even some closeups" 

Question 
As our Oscar charts have suggested all year we expect this one to go over well but this very gripping teaser makes you wonder: Could Inarittu win Best Director back-to-back? It has only happened twice before and that was several decades back  (John Ford won for Grapes of Wrath and How Green Was My Valley (1940/1941) and Joseph L Mankiewicz for A Letter To Three Wives and All About Eve (1949/1950). No one has ever won Best Picture back-to-back... though David O. Selznick would have in 1939 (Gone With the Wind) and 1940 (Rebecca) if they had awarded Best Picture to producers back then as they do now. Four men have won Best Cinematography twice consecutively including Emmanuel Lubezki(Gravity & Birdman) and since he's lensing this one in what looks like continuous shots with only natural light, he could conceivably break the record and be the sole most consecutive Oscar winning DP. 

Thoughts I Had...From Leo On the Set of "The Revenant"

abstew here. We might be in the midst of the current Oscar season, but it's never too early to start thinking about...next year already. Now, I can hear you all saying, "Good god, man! The ceremony is still a month away! Can't we at least hand out the statues for 2014 before thinking of 2015?!" Blame these just released pictures from Entertainment Weekly from the set of current Best Director nominee Alejandro González Iñárritu's next film set to come out on Christmas, The Revenant, because they are already screaming, Oscar! The film is based on the novel by Michael Punke and is a grizzly story of revenge! Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Hugh Glass, a fur trapper in the 1820s Wild West that is left for dead after a bear attack. He miraculously survives but seeks out vengeance on the men that left him for dead. The film is being shot by Oscar-winning Cinematographer (and current nominee for his work in Birdman) Emmanuel Lubezki, who is trying to shoot it all in natural light. How could we not share our thoughts from these first pics?

• Bearded Mountain Man Leo! With Tom Hardy and Domhnall Gleeson co-starring as well, I expect a lot more burly, manly beards in the film. It may have to be retitled Beards: The Movie! And people keep saying the beard trend has reached its peak...
• I hate myself for asking, but is this the film that wins Leo an Oscar? We all know Oscar likes to make men wait, but he turned 40 this past year (that's right, Jack Dawson, is all growed up now) and he's already been nominated 4 times previously in the acting categories. How long will they make him wait? And working with Iñárritu, hot off of Birdman seems promising.
• That coat and hair look pretty gnarly. I guess he doesn't have time for hot shower in his quest. Maybe he wouldn't be so angry if he had time for a nice relaxing bubble bath?
• I'm kinda loving the fact that both Leo and Kate have revenge themed films coming out at Oscar time. Kate has the Australian-set, 1950s fashion revenge The Dressmaker coming out in the Fall. I would love to see the two of them reunited at awards shows again. Never let go!
• So his name is Hugh Glass? Doesn't sound very menacing. I wonder if he's related to George...
• Are we certain this isn't just a still from Cold Mountain?

• After Birdman showed that not all his films have to be so heavy, I'm guessing from the film's plot and those ominous grey clouds that Iñárritu is back to bleak.
• As an actressexual, I have to ask - are there are any women in this at all? Iñárritu has previously directed 4 women to Oscar nominations, hopefully there's a nice female role as well. Like a kindly widow played by Natalie Portman that takes him in and...wait, that's Cold Mountain again.
• It's nice to see that Leo is allowed to work with directors other than Martin Scorsese occasionally.
• Who is that mystery man that Leo and Alejandro are looking at? They both look leery of him. Perhaps there's a bear in the distance and they are not in the mood to deal with their own potential revenge-type, bear related escapade. [Exit, pursued by a bear]
• If anything, those trees are giving me a good feeling that Lubezki is gonna have some gorgeous nature shots in this. He's worked with Terrence Malick many times before, so the man definitely knows his way around a dreamy landscape.

Your turn: what do you think of Leo's rugged new look? Is this a 2015 Oscar contender or do you want to seek revenge against me for even asking?

Interview: "Virunga" Producer Joanna Natasegara

 Here's Jose with an interview with a PGA nominee on her Oscar finalist in Documentary

Virunga chronicles the battle being fought in the beautiful Virunga National Park in Congo, where a British oil corporation is putting in peril the lives of the world’s last mountain gorillas. The gorillas are defended only by a group of brave rangers, led by Prince Emmanuel de Merode, who dedicate their whole lives to defending the cause. Shot with urgency by first time feature filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel, few other films last year felt as alive as this, as it combined thriller elements with an important call to action. It's available on Netflix.

The film continues earning mentions in non-fiction categories this awards season. First it was shortlisted among the documentary films that made it to the last round before Oscar nominations are announced, and now it has also earned a Producers Guild of America award nomination. We spoke to one of its producers, Joanna Natasegara, about working in the jungle, the role of a producer and why it’s essential for us to help Virunga National Park.

JOSE: How did you get involved in the project?

JOANNA NATASEGARA: Originally Orlando had been working on the film for about a year with Emmanuel, and based on their discussions they realized that their ambitions around the objectives of the film, meant they had to bring someone on board who could make sure all their goals could be achieved and I have a history of working in social impact films, so we were introduced at an event in the UK, and at the time we talked about it and Orlando realized he wanted me to be the producer, because the scale of the film meant he needed an extra pair of hands.

JOSE: I’m sure this was one of those projects that made you go “I have to do this”...

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