Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese Reunite for The Devil in the White City
There aren't many guarantees in Hollywood, but the duo of Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese has proven their successful longevity over the years. Now, the The Wolf of Wall Street duo will reunite for a new thriller based on a true story.
DiCaprio and Scorsese's next joint project will be The Devil in the White City, a film adaptation of Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America about America's first serial killer, H.H. Holmes, and the purported 27-200 people he killed during the 1893 Chicago World Fair. DiCaprio will depict Holmes based on a script written by Billy Ray (Captain Philips).
While the film won't begin production for awhile, you can read the book's synopsis below:
Not long after Jack the Ripper haunted the ill-lit streets of 1888 London, H.H. Holmes (born Herman Webster Mudgett) dispatched somewhere between 27 and 200 people, mostly single young women, in the churning new metropolis of Chicago; many of the murders occurred during (and exploited) the city’s finest moment, the World’s Fair of 1893. Larson’s breathtaking new history is a novelistic yet wholly factual account of the fair and the mass murderer who lurked within it.
[via Collider]
The '70s Music Industry is Explored in Teaser for Martin Scorsese's Vinyl
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You can always count on HBO to churn out an interesting show or two. But if this latest program doesn't get you interested, I don't want to be friends anymore. From the minds of Martin Scorsese, Terrence Winter (The Sopranos), and Mick Jagger, Vinyl is a series set in 1970s New York as record exec Richie Finestra (Bobby Cannavale) is fighting to keep his label in the spotlight now that punk and disco are on the uptake. It's got a hell of a cast all around too: Ray Romano, Olivia Wilde, Juno Temple, Andrew "Dice" Clay, and P.J. Byrne.
Although this teaser trailer is way too brief, it's kind of perfect. It gives us all we need to know about the series (it's going to be an electrically erratic showcase), it visually striking, and I can't wait for Cannavale to show everyone he can hold down a show all his own. The man has put his time in, and I'm confident he's ready for a leading role. If this doesn't become the starring vehicle needed to make him an even bigger star, then it'll at least be worth tuning in to see how it turns out anyway.
Vinyl premieres on HBO sometime next year.
Martin Scorsese to Reportedly Direct The Ramones Biopic
What happens when you combine an iconic director with an iconic punk rock band? We'll find out in a few years as it's being reported that Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street, The Departed, et al) will be directing a biopic on none other than legendary New York punk band The Ramones. No concrete information is available right now as Scorsese has a plethora of other projects currently in production. However, the prospect of a Scorsese-branded biopic on the godfathers of American punk rock is too good to pass up.
As noted by The Playlist, the biopic is part of some type of modern revival of the band that also coincides with "a book, a theatrical play, fashion tie-ins and much more." Nothing is sacred, especially when it comes to the commercialization of music genres. Then again, The Ramones have always represented almost every young kid's first entry into the punk rock spectrum, and Ramones shirts have been emblazoned across suburban Hot Topics for years.
I'm excited to see what Scorsese can do with this project, but keep me sedated until somebody picks up a biopic on Fugazi.
[via The Playlist]
The 86th Academy Awards Winners
An Oscar is undoubtedly the biggest honor any filmmaker could receive for their hard work in creating a cinematic work. While I may hear amongst many of the people in my life just how much they don't care about the evening's victors, I treat my viewing of the Academy Awards almost like the average American treats the Super Bowl. Growing up in an extremely small town, a lot of the nominated films weren't accessible to me and my predictions really reflected my sheltered viewings. Now that I'm in actual civilization, I've been able to catch a lot of the films, and I must say that I have become quite a professional at guessing who will be taking home the big prize of the evening. Last Friday I wrote a post on my predictions for the major categories of the evening, and I am proud to say I was pretty much eight for eight with my guesses. Perhaps I should say 7.5 for reasons of my Best Picture award, but I highly doubt anyone cares too much about that. With that said, here are this year's winners...
The 86th Academy Awards Winners Predictions
The early months of any year are full of awards and recognitions for all of those filmmakers who worked hard in the previous year to produce a form of entertainment that will have the capability to transcend the decades. While a variety of these award nights seem to take precedence throughout these first few weeks of the year, they all seem to merely be leading up to the largest of filmmaking honor ceremonies: The Academy Awards. The night on which the golden Oscar is distributed seems to always be the hype, and these smaller ceremonies just add to the predictions that film fanatics everywhere are making for the late winter celebration. 2013 brought a lot of excitement for filmgoers around the world, and this Sunday could be the test of whether a viewer's favorite film executed just the right amount of excellence for the Academy to spread cheer. So, without further blabber on my part, here is what I think will be receiving each honor this weekend.