Variety:
9/29/00
Latest Hollywood script deals

Universal Pictures has tapped Jamie Vanderbilt to adapt Isaac Asimov's "Caves of Steel," the first of the novelist's robot trilogy, with Simon West ("The General's Daughter") in final negotiations to direct. Vanderbilt's payday will be well over seven figures since Universal has hired the young USC grad to retool two other projects at the studio: "Bombshell," to which Leonardo DiCaprio is attached to star, and "Pursuit." The other two novels in Asimov's robot trilogy are "Naked Sun" and "Robots of Dawn." Vanderbilt's script "Basic" is moving toward a greenlight at Phoenix. West is directing "Tomb Raider," which stars Angelina Jolie, for Paramount.
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The Star:
9/28/00
LEO’S DOUBLE ROLE

Titanic heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio’s new role is actually two. He’s signed on to play twins in “Johnny Eck,” reports Daily Variety. The story follows the life of John Eckhardt, a man born without lower limbs who spent much of his life exploited in a circus sideshow. He was born in 1911 and had a twin, Robert, who had no physical abnormalities.
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MSNBC:
9/28/00
DiCaprio plays famous carnival ‘freak’

‘Johnny Eck’ focuses on twin brothers, one of whom was born without legs Is there such a thing as too much Leo? Having already played identical twins in “The Man in the Iron Mask,” Leonardo DiCaprio is set to play twin brothers again in “Johnny Eck.” Except this time there’s a twist. Or maybe a half twist. The “Titanic” heartthrob has, according to Daily Variety, signed on to star as real-life siblings Robert and Johnny Eckhardt, the latter of whom was born without legs and achieved a modicum of fame for his appearances in carnivals, movies and TV shows. BILLED AS Johnny Eck, he was best known as the half-boy hero of Tod Browning’s 1932 cult horror classic “Freaks.” His brother, Robert, turned out to be completely normal. It’s expected to be a very demanding, physical role for DiCaprio, who has always preferred tackling more offbeat characters (see “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?”) rather than larger-than-life types. The movie, which is being produced by Hollywood vet Mark Gordon, charts the relationship between the brothers and how they successfully overcame the exploitation of Johnny to lead normal lives. CAREER BUILT ON DISABILITY Born 20 minutes after his twin brother in 1911, Johnny Eck stood only 1 foot 6 inches tall and had no lower torso or legs. He joined the sideshow circuit, was “discovered” by talent scouts at a Canadian exhibition and soon found himself in Los Angeles with his first role in “Freaks.” Shocking the world when it was released in 1932, Browning’s film billed itself as “the strangest, the most startling human story ever seen.” The movie explored the lives of sideshow carnival “freaks” and a love affair between a dwarf named Hans and a “normal” trapeze artist named Cleopatra. Eck played Johnny the Half-Boy in the film that costarred such memorable characters as the Human Torso, Hercules, Pinhead Girl, the Siamese Twins and Frances the Turtle Girl. MOST REMARKABLE MAN Despite his birth defect, Eck became a successful artist, living a long life with his brother in Baltimore, where he died in 1991 at the age of 79. In the late 1930s, Eck had unbilled roles in two Tarzan movies and found himself the centerpiece of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Odditoriums, where he was displayed as “The Most Remarkable Man Alive!” He even had a, um, small role in the 1960s sitcom “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Despite his birth defect, Eck became a successful artist, living a long life with his brother in Baltimore, where he died in 1991 at the age of 79. Audiences last saw DiCaprio pulling double duty as King Louis XIV of France as well as his imprisoned twin brother in 1998’s “The Man in the Iron Mask.” He is currently in Italy shooting “Gangs of New York” for director Martin Scorsese
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USA Today:
9/28/00
AtomFilms in deals with DiCaprio, Jonze

Academy Award-nominated director Spike Jonze has joined the advisory board of AtomFilms in a deal that gives the company exclusive rights to short films directed by Jonze for two years. Jonze directed last year's Being John Malkovich, and has also directed music videos and short films. One of his films, the four-minute How They Get There, will debut later this year on the AtomFilms Web site. AtomFilms, based in Seattle, acquires and distributes short films on its Web site and through DVDs, television, airlines and other outlets. The company made the announcement Wednesday at Digital Hollywood, a trade show being held this week in Beverly Hills. Jonze will receive an unspecified amount of stock in the company and licensing fees for his films. He will advise the company on working with and recruiting new filmmakers and be available to mentor selected promising filmmakers. ''My role is to come at it from a filmmaker's point of view, giving any input I can and to be able to learn about entertainment on the Internet,'' he said. ''I like the idea of some kid being able to make something with their video camera and being able to distribute it around the world.'' The company also announced this week a partnership with a company formed by actor Leonardo DiCaprio to host The Savage Sideshow — an online short film festival. Contestants can submit films under 30 minutes, which will be reviewed by a panel of judges. Winners will receive cash prizes, equipment and meetings with industry professionals. ''Birken Interactive Studio and Leonardo DiCaprio share Atom's vision that many, many talented artists are waiting outside of the traditional entertainment industry for access to an audience,'' said Heather Redman, AtomFilms' senior vide president of strategy and development.
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Mr. Showbiz:
9/28/00
Leo, Spike Lend Hand to Online Filmmakers

Following on the heels of the "make your movie with Matt and Ben" Project Greenlight contest comes news that Leonardo DiCaprio is throwing his hat into the Web ring by joining up with online short films specialists AtomFilms. Last November, the Titanic star announced an online film festival by the name of LeoFest, which has now evolved into something called the Savage Sideshow. DiCaprio, through his Birken Interactive Studio, will co-produce the online film fest with AtomFilms. Leo, along with new board member and contributor Spike Jonze, may also serve as a judge of the shorts submitted to the site. Leo's further involvement with the hot site is yet to be determined, but his environmental nonprofit organization, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, will reap the profits from the festival proceedings, according to the company's press release. Whether it's actually Leo or Spike judging the submissions of novice filmmakers remains to be seen, but the actor promises that the panel of judges will be made up of Hollywood insiders, an AtomFilms representative tells Mr. Showbiz. Each week, the judges will select the best short films in the following categories: narrative, documentary, animation, and alternative. There will be a judge's choice award, an award voted on by festival viewers, and a best of festival award. Winners will receive cash prizes, equipment, and, perhaps best of all, a chance to hobnob with real industry professionals. Video auteur Spike Jonze, who got an Oscar nomination for his first feature film, Being John Malkovich, is also joining up with AtomFilms to make short films exclusively for the site and to serve on the company's advisory board. "I'm excited to be working with a company that helps filmmakers show their work without having to go through traditional distribution channels," he said. "I like the idea of some kid being able to make something with their video camera and being able to distribute it around the world."
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Premiere Magazine:
9/28/00
The E*List

Forget the A list. Here is PREMIERE's exclusive ranking of the Internet's biggest stars: the ten actors and ten actresses whose cool roles, edgy talent, and, let's face it, sheer sex appeal make them the Web's most wanted
About Our E-Stars Methodology: To produce our twin top-ten lists of the most popular movie stars on the Internet, PREMIERE polled Yahoo!, Go, Excite, Lycos, and Ask for the actors and actresses who got the most search -requests in May. We limited our list to stars with substantial movie credits (that's why Pamela Anderson didn't make the cut). It's impossible to say exactly how many websites a star has, but we did searches on Go, Lycos, Fansites, CelebSites, and Yahoo! to come up with the approximate numbers of fan sites devoted to our top 20 e-stars. E-star profiles are by Al Weisel.

Leonardo DiCaprio AGE: 25
WHY HE'S AN INTERNET STAR: The Titanic heartthrob has inspired more websites than there are stars in the heavens. Fans also mention his efforts for the environment.

NUMBER OF SITES DEVOTED TO HIM: More than 270

OFFICIAL SITE: The Official Leonardo DiCaprio Site (www.leonardodicaprio.com)

QUIRKIEST SITE: The Church of Leonardo DiCaprio(members.tripod.com/~Claire_1979). Includes "Ten Commandments" about the "God of the Screen" ("Thou shall not commit adultery, unless with Leonardo DiCaprio") and a filmography titled "The Miracles Leonardo Has Performed."

SAMPLE ONLINE ACCOLADE: "In like all of his films that he dies in he always does this completely adorable dying thing. He has his eyes open and then one single tear rolls down his cheek and he dies. It makes me weep."

ODDEST "FACTS" CIRCULATING ON THE NET: Collects $5 sun-glasses. Wouldn't leave home without his Game Boy.

FAN DREAM: "I was in this really dark room; sorta like a club. The crowd split in two and out came Leonardo wearing tight jeans on, cheap black sunglasses, and a black leather jacket that said 'Luscious Jackson' on the back. He started to do the moonwalk and breakdance. Then me and him were on the Internet talking about copyright laws. . . . "

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: Has Leo gained weight? Does he only date models?

Full Story
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The Sun:
9/27/00
Leo's mullet

HERE'S Leonardo DiCaprio looking more Seventies footballer than Hollywood hunk in what can only be described as a well dodgy MULLET. But don't panic, girls. The pin-up's tragic haircut, short at the front and sides and stupidly long at the back, is strictly for his new film Gangs Of New York. Confusingly, Leo is shooting the gangster flick, directed by legend Martin Scorsese, in Rome. In it DiCaprio stars opposite the gorgeous Cameron Diaz. Can't see her going for the barnet myself, Leo

Picture link

Caption "Locks awful ... Leo with dodgy barnet"
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Entertaindom:
9/27/00
TITANIC APPETITE

"Titanic" star Leonardo DiCaprio has put on so much weight that Martin Scorcese, the director of his new movie, has forced him on to a strict diet and exercise plan. The once hunky star has put on nearly 7 pounds since he started filming "Gangs of New York" on location in Rome. And now the "Goodfellas" director, according to Britain's Sunday Mail newspaper, has told Leo he is just too fat after scoffing down huge amounts of pasta, washed down with red wine. "The Beach" star now faces two hours a day on an exercise bike to try and shed the extra pounds. One Italian fan who spotted Leo on a rare excursion from his luxury hotel says, "I hardly recognized him. He really does seem to have a serious weight problem."
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TV Guide:
9/27/00
DICAPRIO'S DARING NEW ROLE

Leonardo DiCaprio has signed a deal to star in Johnny Eck, a true story about twin brothers Robert and Johnny Eckhardt — the latter of whom was born without the lower half of his body, Variety reports. Johnny may be best remembered as the half-boy hero in Tod Browning's 1932 cult classic Freaks. DiCaprio played identical twins in 1998's Man in the Iron Mask.
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People Magazine:
9/27/00
DiCaprio: Seeing Double Again

Leonardo DiCaprio fans will get two for the price of one in an upcoming film. The actor has signed to star in dual roles in the upcoming movie "Johnny Eck," based on the real-life story of twin brothers Robert and Johnny Eckhardt, reports Variety. While Robert was fully formed, Johnny was born without a lower torso. (He appeared in the 1932 cult film "Freaks," which was so horrifying that MGM pulled it from release.) The story is said to focus on how both boys triumphed over the exploitation. As for the high-profile Leo, 25, he has played dual roles before. His "Titanic" smash was followed by the release of "The Man in the Iron Mask," in which he played identical twins. He is now said to be preparing to shoot "The Gangs of New York" for "GoodFellas" director Martin Scorsese.
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NY Daily News:
9/27/00
Leo 'Ecks' Out a Living

Leonardo DiCaprio is doing double duty again. The actor, who played twins in "Man in the Iron Mask," has signed on to star in "Johnny Eck," a film based on the story of Robert and Johnny Eckhardt, Variety's Michael Fleming reports. The role may prove more challenging (and bizarre) than DiCaprio's "Mask" men. Johnny Eckhardt was born without the lower half of his body; Robert was born normal. The disabled twin was best known for his role in the 1932 cult classic, "Freaks"; the new flick, will focus on his triumph over exploitation.
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Excite News:
9/27/00
AtomFilms and Leonardo DiCaprio's Birken Interactive Studio Join Forces to Produce International Online Short Film Festival -- The Savage Sideshow

Birken Interactive Studio today announced its partnership with AtomFilms to host and produce an online short film festival -- The Savage Sideshow. The festival's goal is to level the playing field for filmmakers and increase awareness worldwide for short form entertainment. Savage Sideshow will launch in November as a spotlight on www.atomfilms.com. Submission information is available now at www.savagesideshow.atomfilms.com. Filmmakers are invited to submit their films for review by a team of judges with expertise in the entertainment industry -- from actors and agents to producers and directors. Savage Sideshow will offer visitors the opportunity to interact in a made-for-Internet film festival. Winners will receive cash prizes, equipment and meetings with entertainment industry professionals. "Birken Studios and Leonardo DiCaprio share Atom's vision that many, many talented artists are waiting outside of the traditional entertainment industry for access to an audience," said Heather Redman, AtomFilms' senior vice president of strategy and development. "This partnership will give artists both direct access to an audience and, through Birken and DiCaprio, a powerful advocate and voice inside of Hollywood. The commitment of Birken and DiCaprio to bringing down the barriers to new talent is tremendously exciting." "For over a year, AtomFilms has brought short films beyond Europe where moviegoers have long enjoyed this form of entertainment," said Alexis Magagni-Seely, Birken's senior vice president of business development. "When searching for a partner to produce Savage Sideshow, AtomFilms was the obvious choice because of its success in bringing next-generation entertainment to life on the Web." Novice and experienced filmmakers alike are asked to submit their short works for consideration in one of four Savage Sideshow categories: narrative, documentary, animation and alternative. To encourage the new revolution in digital filmmaking, entrants may submit films in 1/2" tape or digital video. More details on submissions are available at www.savagesideshow.atomfilms.com. About Birken Interactive Studio, Inc. Birken Interactive Studio is an online entertainment company established by actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio. Birken has launched DiCaprio's official Web site www.leonardodicaprio.com and a virtual 3-D art gallery which exhibits works from the world of underground art. Currently under construction is the online environmental information channel aimed at educating the public on the often complex environmental issues in a creative way. All profits from these ventures will be directed to the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to making a difference for the future of our planet. About AtomFilms AtomFilms is a leading next generation entertainment company focused on redefining the way entertainment is created, distributed, marketed and consumed. AtomFilms has the largest catalog of award-winning animation and live-action entertainment available. A loyal supporter of independent filmmakers and animators, AtomFilms has built a platform for artists seeking worldwide distribution. AtomFilms markets and distributes high-quality short form entertainment to more than 80 partners and to audience's worldwide, with significant presence on major Internet sites, broadband services, television, airlines, home entertainment companies and more recently, handheld and wireless devices. A popular Web destination that is ranked among Media Metrix's top twenty entertainment sites, the two time Webby Award winner in Film and Broadband, AtomFilms was recently selected as the "Forbes Magazine Favorite" short film Web site. AtomFilms was also sited as one of the top ten most trafficked movie-related sites by Entertainment Weekly, and was rated "Best of the Web" for online entertainment by U.S. News & World Report. An independent company founded in 1998, AtomFilms has offices in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York and London. More information about AtomFilms can be found on the Internet at http://www.atomfilms.com.

Contact: Sunshine Consultants for Birken Ken Sunshine, 212/754-6750 smk775683@aol.com or Imagio for AtomFilms Kari Swartz, 206/625-0252 karis@imagio.com
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Jam Showbiz:
9/27/00
DiCaprio to play two brothers

Leonardo DiCaprio's fan base is so large, he's having to divide himself in two for his next film. DiCaprio will play brothers Robert and Johnny Eckhart in "Johnny Eck," Variety reports. The "Titanic" and "The Beach" star will portray both Johnny -- who was born without the lower half of his body and played a hero in the 1932 film "Freaks"-- and his brother Robert, who was born intact. The film follows the pair as their overcome the exploitation of Johnny. "Johnny Eck" will not be the first time DiCaprio has played two characters in one film. The young actor portrayed twin brothers in 1998's "The Man In The Iron Mask". DiCaprio is currently filming "Gangs Of New York," with Martin Scorsese.
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Mr Showbiz:
9/27/00
Leo does freak show

Leonardo DiCaprio may have horrified fans by playing long-haired French twins in The Man in the Iron Mask, but he aims to right that wrong with Johnny Eck, a new film in which he'll portray real-life twins who astounded the medical and film community. Robert and Johnny Eckhardt were born in 1911. Robert was born anatomically correct, but Johnny was born a "half man," meaning that he did not have a body below his waistline. He led a normal childhood despite the deformity. The Eckhardt brothers wowed audiences in a traveling magic show (in which the magician would pretend to saw Johnny in half) and at circuses and "freak shows." In 1932, Johnny appeared in the then-shocking film Freaks, about a group of angry circus performers seeking revenge against a beautiful trapeze artist. He died penniless in Baltimore on Jan. 5, 1991. DiCaprio, who garnered an Oscar nom with his portrayal of autistic Arnie in the 1993 film What's Eating Gilbert Grape, may do well to return to less pretty-boy roles. He's currently in Rome filming Martin Scorsese's gritty Gangs of New York — where sources say his love for the local cuisine is padding his once-trim waistline.
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E! Online:
9/27/00
Leo pulls double duty

You can never have too much Leo. Having already played identical twins in The Man in the Iron Mask, Leonardo DiCaprio is set to play twin brothers again in Johnny Eck. Except this time there's a twist. Make that a half twist. The Titanic heartthrob has, according to Daily Variety, signed on to star as real-life siblings Robert and Johnny Eckhardt, the latter of whom was born without legs and achieved a modicum of fame for his appearances in carnivals, movies and TV shows. Billed as Johnny Eck, he was best known as the half-boy hero of Tod Browning's 1932 cult horror classic Freaks. His brother, Robert, turned out to be completely normal. It's expected to be a very demanding, physical role for DiCaprio, who has always preferred tackling more offbeat characters (see What's Eating Gilbert Grape?) rather than larger-than-life types. The movie, which is being produced by Hollywood vet Mark Gordon, charts the relationship between the brothers and how they successfully overcame the exploitation of Johnny to lead normal lives. Born 20 minutes after his twin brother in 1911, Johnny Eck stood only 1 foot, 6 inches tall and had no lower torso or legs. He joined the sideshow circuit, was "discovered" by talent scouts at a Canadian exhibition and soon found himself in Los Angeles with his first role in Freaks. Shocking the world when it was released in 1932, Browning's film billed itself as "the strangest, the most startling human story ever seen." The movie explored the lives of sideshow carnival "freaks" and a love affair that emerges between a dwarf named Hans and a "normal" trapeze artist named Cleopatra. Eck played Johnny the Half-Boy in the film that costarred such memorable characters as the Human Torso, Hercules, Pinhead Girl, the Siamese Twins and Frances the Turtle Girl. In the late 1930s, Eck had unbilled roles in two Tarzan movies and found himself the centerpiece of Ripley's Believe It Or Not Odditoriums where he was displayed as "The Most Remarkable Man Alive!" He even had a, um, small role in the 1960s sitcom The Beverly Hillbillies. Despite his birth defect, Eck became a successful artist, living a long life with his brother in Baltimore, where he died in 1991 at the age of 79. Audiences last saw DiCaprio pulling double duty as King Louis XIV of France as well as his imprisoned twin brother in 1998's The Man in the Iron Mask. He is currently in Italy shooting Gangs of New York for director Martin Scorsese.
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Our final adventure takes us to Fox Studios Baja

Titanic, the movie that built a studio. We hope that you all have enjoyed our adventures in the past weeks. We had a wonderful time sharing them with you and wanted to thank you all for your comments.

Click on the graphic below to find out more. Give the page time to load all the graphics if you have a slower connection.

IMDB.com:
9/26/99
Scottish Star Overlooked For Rollers Movie

Scottish hunk Ewan McGregor has been rejected for the lead in a film about the original Scots boyband, The Bay City Rollers - in favor of an American star. Ewen was widely expected to win the starring role but it now seems likely that Keanu Reeves or Leonardo DiCaprio will be favored for the lead. The decision was made by the film's director Courtney Love who owns the rights to the book Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair with the Bay City Rollers, by journalist Caroline Sullivan. Former Roller Les McKeown, an advisor on the film, has backed Courtney's decision saying, "I would like to see some Scottish actors in the film, but I think Keanu would give it even greater appeal."
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The Mirror:
9/26/00
HE'S PILING ON POUNDS WITH PASTA AND VINO

IS the lovely Leo DiCaprio losing it ... large? Some worrying reports have leaked out from the set of Leonardo's new film in Rome. Things have got so bad, we hear, that the baby-faced star has reached Brandoesque proportions and put on 28lbs since he arrived at the start of summer to make The Gangs Of New York. It has become such a crisis that director Martin Scorsese has slapped a 'No alcohol or pasta' ban on him. He's also had a gym installed in Leo's hotel room to get the actor to lose the spare tyres from the mountains of pasta and vats of red wine. But Leo has hit back in a worrying way. As well as sporting a pot belly and several double chins which will horrify his fans, the Titanic star also sports a creepy beard when he's not filming. And we hear that instead of handing in his clothes to the hotel laundry service, Leo just chucks his threads away when he's finished with them. Leo has been hauling himself out of bed at 11am every day and then stuffs himself on American cereal and coffee which he has specially flown over. He is then taken by limo to the film studios where the movie - about Italian immigrants in 19th Century New York - is being shot. The once-gregarious star eats every meal in the Hilton and hardly ever ventures outside - except to go to a games arcade. Strange boy. Italian women who have caught a glimpse of the porky actor - and let's face it, how can they miss him - have said how repelled they are by his pasty white and lardy physique. If this is what falling in love with supermodel Gisele does to a once-gorgeous actor, then all the better for those of us with less-than-perfect figures. Talking of which, the Brazilian model is the new face - or rather body - of American underwear company Victoria's Secret. Maybe she can teach her bloke a thing or two about sticking to lettuce leaves.
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Variety:
9/26/00
Twins pique the interest of DiCaprio

Leonardo DiCaprio, who played identical twins in the Randall Wallace-directed "Man in the Iron Mask," has signed on to go the that route again, but in a far more daring manner. He'll star in "Johnny Eck," a film that is being put together by producer Mark Gordon and Pelagius Entertainment principal Joe Fries, based on the story of Robert and Johnny Eckhardt. The latter of that duo was born without the lower half of his body, and is somewhat famous for playing the half-boy hero of Tod Browning's 1932 cult film classic "Freaks." His brother was completely normal. The story focuses on the brothers and their triumph over the exploitation of one of them, with DiCaprio in both roles. DiCaprio, who last starred in "The Beach" and who is just starting work for director Martin Scorsese in "Gangs of New York," signed on after he and his Artists Management Group manager Rick Yorn heard a pitch meeting with Gordon and Fries. "Johnny Eck" marks the second alliance between Gordon and Fries with a star-attached true story. The pair recently set up "Petey Greene's Washington," a film to star Martin Lawrence.
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LA Times:
9/25/00
O'Reilly's Ridiculous Factor

"The Rosenberg Factor." I'm writing this column in the ridiculous style of "The O'Reilly Factor," a ridiculous new book written by Bill O'Reilly, ridiculous host of "The O'Reilly Factor," a ridiculous interview series on the Fox News Channel. Ridiculous!...

....Calling O'Reilly opinionated is like calling a hemorrhage a slow drip. This is the Joe Isuzu of books, 214 pages reading like they were written by someone who had spent the night drinking 214 cups of coffee. As if all humankind were breathlessly waiting, O'Reilly uses his book to unburden himself of everything in his brain--some of it appearing as "notes" or "bulletins" or "time out" responses to listener comments--as he miraculously stretches this rubber band of self-adoring thoughtoids into something the length of a book...

..."While tattoos are silly enough, piercing is ridiculous." Just how silly are tattoos, by the way? Find out in "The Bad Factor," where O'Reilly discloses also why he's teed off about, in this order, U.S. airlines, rice cakes, sport-utility vehicles, Roseanne, NFL gear, steak tartare, Leonardo DiCaprio, onion-flavored potato chips, Warren Beatty and abortion before reaching the fertile topic of Barbra Streisand as an actress.

Full story
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USA Today:
9/25/00
Ace model Gisele throws runway curves

The ''girly'' look was the rage this week during the Spring 2001 Fashion Week in New York. And who better to present Oscar de la Renta's new line of feminine clothing than the world's hottest supermodel, Gisele Bundchen, above, who has been credited with bringing curves and cleavage back to the runway. The 20-year-old Brazilian cover girl, who commands about $7,000 an hour and numbers Leonardo DiCaprio among her admirers, was dubbed the most beautiful girl in the world in Rolling Stone's recent ''Hot Issue.'' She also strutted her stuff on the runway at a showing of Anna Sui fashions.
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From MegaStar (UK)
9/22/00
Blowing a fortune on clothes

MOVIE star Leonardo DiCaprio is blowing a fortune on clothes - because he insists on brand new outfits EVERY DAY. The Titanic star is spending at least £1,000 a day because he throws away the things he wears each night. A pal revealed: "He doesn't want to see an old pair of his jeans being auctioned on a movie memorabilia website."
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Could it be?

As our search for DiCaprio continues and our vacation nears it's end. We take a drive through the famous houses of the Hollywood Hills.

Click on the graphic below to find out more. Give the page time to load all the graphics if you have a slower connection.

Look for more stories and pictures from our adventures.

E! Online ~ Ted Casablanca:
9/21/00
The Eyes Have At It

is Leo jealous of Toby's new pal? Let's poke around, shall we? Tobey Maguire, looking like a fashion model (from the House of Cider, that is). Leonardo's good pal was at the too-chic Sunset 5 in West Hollywood, coming down the escalator--which has really become the descent to make in town, what with Crunch's perfect specimens and stars from Angelina to Gwyneth to Calista along for the ride. Drab tee and shorts. Mussed everything. Tobe-doll was with a dude pal, around whom T.M. was sweet enough to put his arm
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MSNBC:
9/21/00
DiCaprio puffs up in pasta land

Italy’s pasta seems to have gotten the better of one-time heart-throb Leonardo DiCaprio. The “Titanic” star is filming Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York” in Rome, where, according to various reports, he’s been enjoying the local cuisine a tad too much. “HE HAS PUT on weight, I hardly recognized him,” a local told the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero after seeing DiCaprio in a video arcade. “Before, he was a sweetie, but now, with his beard, dark glasses and a few extra kilos, he looks like a gangster.” According to various sources, Scorsese has installed a gym in his room to make sure that DiCaprio slims down. DiCaprio’s physical size isn’t the only thing that’s grown too large; his ego and various eccentricities seem inflated, too. Reports coming from the hotel staff where he’s been staying have depicted him as a modern-day Howard Hughes. “When he is finished with his clothes for the day, he throws them away,” one hotel staffer told the paper Corriere della Sera. “He even throws away the scissors he uses to trim his beard.” “We don’t engage in answering any of these nonsensical rumors,” says DiCaprio’s spokesman. “He’s in great shape and works out all the time. Beyond that, I’m not going to comment.”
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JAM ShowBiz:
9/21/00
Spielberg, Scorsese to work together

Two film icons -- one representing big-budget effects, commercial appeal, and big box office grosses and the other gritty, stylized and violent reality -- are joining forces. Although film-goers might not be able to see common ground, Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg are good friends who plan to collaborate on an upcoming project, Variety reports. Scorsese will direct "Into The Setting Sun", which Spielberg will produce. "The Perfect Storm" writer Bill Wittliff will pen the script about the birth and creation of the transcontinental railroad. The two famous directors have expressed interest in the same projects before. Spielberg was originally attached to "Cape Fear" but later passed it on to Scorsese. Then, Scorsese was considering "Schindler's List", which later became an Oscar-winning film directed by Spielberg. Both directors have other projects to finish before teaming on "Into the Setting Sun". Scorsese is currently shooting "Gangs Of New York," starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, in Italy. "Gangs" is about the conflicts between white Anglo-Saxons and Italian immigrants in New York during 1846 to 1863. Spielberg is working on "A.I.", a sci-fi project written by the late Stanley Kubrick. "A.1" will star Haley Joel Osment ("The Sixth Sense", the upcoming "Pay It Forward") and Jude Law ("The Talented Mr. Ripley"), and features Robin Williams in a small role. "A.1." (Artificial Intelligence) is about a childless couple who adopt a robot boy. The couple then has a baby of their own and neglects their robot, who goes off in search of a family of his own
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Philadelphia Daily News:
9/21/00
Web gives parents a preview

Attention, MPAA ratings board: The Internet has become the latest way for parents to keep tabs on which movies are fit for their children. "Trying as a parent to keep up with all the stuff that's out there is difficult," said Mike Mann of Minneapolis, a professional children's storyteller. That sentiment could grow in the wake of a Federal Trade Commission report released last week concluding that the entertainment industry is marketing adult-rated movies, music and video games to children, sometimes testing products on children as young as 10 years old. Several nights a month, Mann, a father of three, and about 60 other parents fan out in small groups at Minneapolis-area movie theaters. The parents are armed with scorecards and are looking for examples of silver-screen violence, gratuitous sex, glamorized drug use or foul language that might influence young children or teens. They are paid about $9 an hour for their observations by the National Institute on Media and the Family. Their scores are the basis for the institute's Family's KidScore program on its Web site, www.mediafamily.org, which receives up to 7,000 hits a month. Some of the other sites cater to religious consumers. The 2-year-old www.Movieguide.org considers the "moral and theological content" of movies, said site editor Tom Snyder, who sends a staff of about nine reviewers to watch various movies. At its Family Entertainment Center, Hollywood.com gives a brief synopsis breaking down the story, acting, direction and bottom line. It also lists a "Sex and Gore Score." Screenit.com probably offers the most detailed breakdown of movies. The site rates last year's "The Beach" starring Leonardo DiCaprio as "heavy" in the drinking/drug use category with an "extreme" blood/gore factor. A 1999 study by the NIMF showed that 69 percent of 600 randomly surveyed parents said they check a movie's rating before sending their kids to the theater. A third said the ratings system doesn't give enough information. "I simply try and tell parents, 'Here's what's in a movie,' " said Nell Minow of her site, www.moviemom.com. "It should be something they talk to their child about and make their own decisions." Her site ranks movies on a check-mark scale and suggests an appropriate age for films. MovieMom.com gets about 25,000 hits a week.
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CalLaw: Male model Berto Luna's lawsuit against Playgirl magazine is over, but the misery lingers. Luna's attorney, solo practitioner Jeffery Rubenstein, says he chose to be candid with the court about his own health problems and opposing counsel took advantage of it. For his part, federal Judge A. Howard Matz says Rubenstein subjected him to "vexatious, rule-violating misconduct" that was "disastrous" for a possibly legitimate complaint. Given that the Los Angeles judge dismissed the suit in April -- and in June sanctioned Rubenstein $41,000 and his client $69,000 -- Playgirl was technically the winner. But Playgirl's attorney, Kent Raygor of Los Angeles' Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton says he and his client were damaged beyond any compensation he expects to collect...

...Playgirl, which is based in New York, removed the suit to federal court and filed a counterclaim. Judge Matz's order recounts a series of incidents in which Rubenstein failed to appear or to take steps ordered by the court, even after his "expression of contrition" led the court to extend deadlines. Rubenstein responded that his behavior was an "embarrassment" but didn't amount to bad faith. Representing Playgirl in photo flaps is familiar ground for Raygor, who heads Sheppard, Mullin's intellectual property and technology section. Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio are among the plaintiffs he's routed on Playgirl's behalf. He's good-natured about suggestions his specialty is Beefcake Defense but quickly translates that appellation to First Amendment lawyer.
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Premiere:
9/20/00
Billy Elliot

There's a good reason that the saying "I never work with animals . . . or children" is a part of Hollywood lore: Not only can child actors sometimes be a precocious pain, but they have also been known to blow their more experienced peers off the screen. (It was Haley Joel Osment, after all, who got an acting nomination for The Sixth Sense, not Bruce Willis.) Now comes another wunderkind threat: Jamie Bell, the 14-year-old star of Billy Elliot, an alternately funny and poignant story of a motherless schoolboy in northern England who trades in his boxing gloves for ballet slippers-to the delight of his dance teacher (Julie Walters) and the chagrin of his miner dad (Gary Lewis), who's out on strike. The film is a remarkable calling card for its young star, who after the Cannes premiere found his name being bandied about for the role of Harry Potter ("I'm too old," Bell concedes)...

...Although his first taste of filmmaking was an often tedious experience-"The waiting was very boring," he says-he wants to keep at it. "It was great," Bell says. "I want to make more films." That much seems -likely. "Jamie Bell is a star," Daldry says. "[The media] is saying, 'This is the new Leonardo DiCaprio.' " Yeah, but can Leo dance?
Picture link
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West Hollywood, a stop at Mann's Chinese Theater and Luna Park are among some of the sites we see in our continuous search for DiCaprio.

Click on the graphic below to find out more. Give the page time to load all the graphics if you have a slower connection.

Were getting close but time is running short. Look for more stories and pictures from our adventures.

USA Today:
9/19/00
Stars on the mend

Liam Neeson is walking tall again, even though he's on metal crutches after his July motorcycle collision with a deer. He has mingled at several New York parties as the fall season gathers speed, and he got a big welcome kiss from Donna Karan at the launch of her men's fragrance at the Four Seasons. "Another five weeks on the crutches," the 6-foot-4 star told me, but "motorcycles and I are finished." He's not exactly in pain, but "nerve endings in my foot are coming back into play, and it's just like electrical shocks during the night." Wife Natasha Richardson " bought me the motorbike. She was feeling quite guilty." But he says he won't miss his Harley-Davidson. He went up to only 50 mph and was at 25 mph when the deer appeared. Yes, he was wearing a helmet, "and a huge motorbike jacket Steven Spielberg (his Schind ler's List director) sent me a few years ago as a birthday present." He doesn't join Martin Scorsese 's Gangs of New York till mid-January in Rome (playing a young Leonardo DiCaprio 's dad). At Karan's event last week, Peter Gallagher quipped of Neeson, "We were saying, between the two of us, we've got more broken bones than anybody in this room!" Gallagher recently was thrown from a horse while shooting Anne Rice 's Feast of All Saints , suffering two broken ribs and a punctured lung. "They were saving a little money on the stunts and thought they wouldn't rent the double. So they had me on a Thoroughbred that was terrified of crops, and he almost fell on me. I'm lucky to be alive." Feast is a Showtime movie with Gallagher as a French plantation owner in Louisiana. He also made The Last Debate , with James Garner , to air on Showtime the Sunday before the Nov. 7 elections.
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NY Daily News:
9/19/00
Surveillance

Cuba Gooding Jr. and Gisele Bundchen are to preside at this year's VH1/Vogue Fashion Awards. Bundchen, girlfriend of Leo DiCaprio, had better gird herself for some costume changes. Last year's hostess, Heather Locklear, endured seven of them
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ENN:
9/19/00
Olympics no competition for backpacker paradise

Heather was a financial director in London. Now she is a diving instructor on the Great Barrier Reef. Horst from Switzerland is taking a year off to see the world. Next stop, on his return home, will be a stint of national military service. Irish, Norwegians, Italians, New Zealanders — all have discovered that Australia is a backpackers paradise and that Airlie Beach on the sunny Queensland coast is the perfect place to party. For many, this is a trip of a lifetime, taken in the year before they go to college or as a conscious decision to drop out of the rat race and see the world. First stop on their round-the-world adventure often is Thailand. If Leonardo DiCaprio can go hunting for nirvana on "The Beach" then so can they. But it is Australia that proves to be the irresistible lure for thousands of young visitors every year because this laid-back land really knows how to welcome them with open arms — whether or not there is an Olympic Games. And their pockets are deeper than some might think. Backpackers account for about 10 percent, or more than 400,000, of all visitors to Australia and a lucrative $1 billion a year. Airlie Beach, one of Queensland's enticing gateways to the Great Barrier Reef, has grown phenomenally in the last 10 years; much of that success must be put down to the backpacker boom.
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Premiere:
9/19/00
GROWING PAINS

Dispatches from the road to adulthood All the Pretty Horses THE PITCH: Two young Texans (Matt Damon and Henry Thomas) mount up and head south of the border in search of adventure, circa 1949. After hooking up with a young wannabe cowboy (Sling Blade's Lucas Black), they are taken in by a rancher (Ruben Blades), whose daughter (Penélope Cruz) falls for Damon's Old West idealist. Things take a violent turn as the two lovers struggle to stay together. THE BIG PICTURE: The script, written by Ted Tally (The Silence of the Lambs), was initially developed by Mike Nichols (Primary Colors). But when Nichols decided to give up the director's chair-he stayed on as a producer-offers went out to Billy Bob Thornton (Sling Blade) to direct and Leonardo DiCaprio to star. "We were at a Pittsburgh Pirates game," Damon recalls, "and my agent called and said, 'Leonardo's passed on All the Pretty Horses,' and I just said, 'Yes, I want to do it.' My negotiation took under 15 seconds." (And his $5.5 million payday was $14.5 million less than DiCaprio's would have been.) Cofinanced by Columbia and Miramax, the $45 million production shot in Texas and in New Mexico, where the famously reclusive Cormac McCarthy- author of the prizewinning novel on which Horses is based- visited the set. "Henry and I had read the book so many times that it turned into 'The Chris Farley Show' from Saturday Night Live," Damon says. " 'Remember that passage? That was awesome.' " Last fall, Thornton delivered a four-hour cut, and since then has been arguing with studio brass over the movie's length, necessitating several release-date postponements. "Why does a major studio buy this book if all they're going to want in the end is a damn hour-and-a-half chase movie?" asks the frustrated director, who at press time was whittling his film down to about two and a half hours. "I can't turn this into Patriot Games. I pray to God audiences will sit with this movie and get inside it, because that's what you have to do with it." (Columbia, October)
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London Times:
9/18/00
DiCaprio is the subject of fierce media

Leonardo DiCaprio is the subject of fierce media scrutiny in Italy, where hotel staff have revealed the star's eccentric habits to the respected newspaper Corriere della Sera. "When he is finished with his clothes for the day, he throws them away," confides one worker. "He even throws away the scissors he uses to trim his beard." That's showbiz.
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Hollywood Reporter:
9/18/00
Musicians, actors sing DNC priases

The worlds of politics and entertainment merged in a far more harmonious fashion than they have in recent weeks during a gala star-studded benefit concert for the Democratic National Committee at Radio City Music Hall. Candidates Al Gore and Joseph Lieberman and their wives were treated to a concert Thursday featuring some of the biggest names in baby boomer rock. The event was organized by Harvey Weinstein of Miramax, Rolling Stone magazine publisher Jann Wenner and VH1 president John Sykes -- the self-proclaimed "three divas of Democratic showbiz" --Êand raised a reported $6.5 million in "hard" money contributions. In recent days, the Democratic ticket has come under fire from the Republican opposition for taking money from the entertainment industry even while criticizing them. Indeed, mere hours before the event, Republican national chairman Jim Nicholson stood outside Radio City and denounced the Democrats for their "hypocrisy." The issue was not skirted at the benefit, with jokes made by the celebrity hosts and more serious comments coming from Gore, who told the crowd, "I'll be straightforward: It's wrong to market inappropriate material for children." Lieberman, usually the more vocal critic of the entertainment industry, was comparatively light-hearted, saying, "I never dreamed I'd be the opening act at Radio City for Bette Midler." The candidates kept their remarks to a minimum, but the slack was taken up by the celebrities onstage, who delivered harsh and comical attacks on the Republican ticket. The hosts included Michael Douglas, Julia Roberts (publicly endorsing a political candidate for the first time), Matt Damon, Salma Hayek, Jessica Lange, John Leguizamo and surprise guest Harrison Ford. Some absent celebrities -- including Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Paul Newman and Ben Affleck -- sent letters that were read to the crowd. Among the more colorful observations were those made by Damon, who said "W. (Bush) is kind of like Fredo in 'The Godfather.' ...ÊThey wouldn't even let that guy run the family business." Midler, between a passionate rendition of "The Rose" and a series of her trademark "Sophie" jokes, said, "It's going to be a bigger thrill on Nov. 7 when the tribal council speaks and George Bush is voted off the island." Leguizamo seemed to take a particular delight in shocking the crowd, at one point delivering a joke so off-color that it could inspire a new senatorial hearing. A gallery of major musical stars performed, including Crosby, Stills & Nash, Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett, k.d. lang -- who joked, "Blame Canada. I cannot vote" -- Lenny Kravitz, Jon Bon Jovi, Sheryl Crow and Eagles Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Timothy B. Schmidt. Most performed only a couple of songs -- all major hits -- with fairly little political resonance, though Bon Jovi, Crow and Kravitz teamed for a spirited rendition of the Beatles' "Revolution" and some of the singers playfully changed their lyrics, such as Kravitz's "Are you gonna go Al Gore's way?" and Buffett's "All of you Democrats covered in oil." The finale featured the entire lineup singing the thematically appropriate "Teach Your Children," after which they were joined onstage by the Gores, Liebermans and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
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RAV:
9/18/00
OKAY Girls, take your pick

Brad Pitt and Leo DiCaprio are set to square up in a new movie about two brothers who fall in love with the same girl. They start filming next year but can’t find a female lead. I’m sure there’s a few girls out there who’d volunteer.
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LA Times:
9/18/00
Sculptor Stanislav Szukalski exhibition

The works of Polish American avant-garde sculptor Stanislav Szukalski arrive at the Laguna Art Museum on Nov. 12. Curated by Tyler Stallings, the exhibition, "Struggle," is a retrospective of the artist's legacy, showcasing more than 25 bronze sculptures, drawings, scrapbook pages and sketchbooks. The collection is sponsored by actor Leonardo DiCaprio and his father, George, friends of the artist who died in 1987. The show runs through Jan. 7.

Information: Laguna Art Museum: (949) 494-8971
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Washington Post:
9/18/00
Bombshell Blondes

Why, at any age, do people choose to go blond? "The drama, the glamour, the attention, the change of personality, the fun," says "The Vogue Book of Blondes" author Kathy Phillips, a natural blonde who gets help from a colorist. "Look at Dennis Rodman. He's just playing with outrageous hair color as a statement of the day." So are other pop-cult icons: Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore, Lil' Kim, just to name a slew. The Favorite New Female Singer among Nickelodeon watchers is yellow-haired Hoku, the 19-year-old daughter of Hawaiian crooner Don Ho. Hoku's hit song? "Another Dumb Blonde." Hollywood is forever enamored of golden-haired gods and goddesses. Leonardo DiCaprio. Brad Pitt. Michelle Pfeiffer. This fall we'll see a movie version of the '70s TV show "Charlie's Angels." Two of the angels, Drew Barrymore and Cameron Diaz, will be sporting blond blond hair, reminiscent of the ur-blonde and original angel Farrah Fawcett. We'll see the blindingly blond Gwyneth Paltrow in "Duets." We'll even see a blonded-up Grinch in the film version of Dr. Seuss's holiday classic. "We live in a time when anybody can be blond," Bushnell says. "At one time, being blond had an iconic feel to it. Fifty years ago it wasn't very easy to change hair color. They used lye, and a lot of people's hair fell out. Today anybody can change their looks. Changing your hair color is a way to change yourself and how other people see you and your place in the world." But, she adds, it doesn't always work. That irony is at the fulcrum of the great debate over blondes. Do blondes have more fun? Or more frustration? Does being blond help folks get ahead in life? Or does it hinder? Blondes who were interviewed for this story answered these questions "yes." So do all the new books. Bushnell explores the questions in her new fiction. Though several of her protagonists lighten their locks, she says, "they're still dissatisfied with their lives." Bushnell's blondes are not stupid, but some act that way. The dumb-blonde image, she says, "works incredibly well for American women. Look at Pamela Lee. People make jokes about dumb blondes. At the same time, we worship them." What's up with that? For nearly 100 years, blondes in America have been the target of widespread ridicule, worship, envy, disdain, scrutiny and bad jokes galore. You know, like: Why can't a blonde apply Chap Stick while reading this story? Her lips are moving. You've heard them. (Why are all of them about women? The public Tab Hunter and Troy Donahue were no candidates for Mensa.) A blonde and a brunette were driving. The brunette says to the blonde, "Go check my blinker!" The blonde goes to the back of the car. Brunette: "Does it work?" Blonde: "Yes. No. Yes. No." Their pop-cult stock rises and falls and rises and falls. And rises.

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JAM Showbiz:
9/18/00
Roberts signs up for murder mystery

Hot off working on the upcoming "The Mexican," Julia Roberts has signed on to work again with that film's writer and director, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Roberts will star in a new project to be written by J.H. Wyman and directed by Gore Verbinski, tentatively titled "Project 3." Although few plot details are known, the movie is set in New York and described as being like the 1944 murder mystery "Gaslight". Roberts, Verbinski and Wyman collaborated on "The Mexican," which opens early in the new year and co-stars Brad Pitt and "The Sopranos'" James Gandolfini. "Project 3" will begin shooting in mid-to-late 2001, once Verbinski finishes directing Leonardo DiCaprio in "Catch Me If You Can," according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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flim.movie-mistakes.com:
9/15/00
Movie mistakes

More Friday fun stuff, this site looks at movies mistakes listed here is a link to Titanic

Titanic film mistakes
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E! Online:
9/15/00
Who do you do?

Click here to play
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Today in our travels we stop by Birken Interactive Studios, and the Los Feliz Neighborhood .

Click on the graphic below to find out more. Give the page time to load all the graphics if you have a slower connection.

Look for more stories and pictures from our adventures in the weeks ahead.

E! Online ~ Ted Casablanca:
9/14/00
The chicks in Rome

Leo DiCaprio can't escape the babes, no matter where he goes--the chicks in Rome have been practically stalking the divine Mr. D. while he films Martin Scorsese's Irish mob flick Gangs of New York. Gaggles of girls have been staking out hotels and restaurants and the like, but not all of them are looking for an autograph from their big-screen dream. A few misguided darlings actually believe lovely Leo is going to handpick them to costar in his future flicks. Night-mint missy, is more like it.
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NY Post:
9/14/00
Liam Neeson

The other big private "do" was Tina Brown's Talk magazine celebration at home on East 57th Street for the fabulous Ralph Fiennes and the cast of "Richard II" and "Coriolanus." The guests were gorgeous in their VIP-dom: Diane Sawyer, Tom Brokaw, Barry Diller, Karena Gore, Richard Holbrooke, Walter Isaacson, Julianne Moore, Natasha Richardson, Harvey Weinstein, Diane von Furstenberg. People are always getting Mr. Fiennes, mixed up with another great actor, Liam Neeson. And so there was Liam, who is recovering from his motorbike encounter this summer with a deer in upstate New York. Liam was on crutches but wearing a great designer suit. He told FOXNews.com's Roger Friedman that he will indeed play a role in Martin Scorsese's "Gangs of New York." "I go to Italy in January to play Leonardo DiCaprio's father. Leo's character will only be eight at the time. I am too young to be his father now." Neeson is vocal on wandering wildlife. "They should all be shot. They're disease-carrying and dangerous!"
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NY Post:
9/14/00
The Celebrity Olympics

The athletes aren't the only celebrities assembled in Sydney for tomorrow's Olympic Games opening ceremony. Chelsea Clinton is scheduled to host a party for the American Olympic Committee, while Prince Albert is waving the flag for Monaco, and horsey Princess Anne is leading the British charge. Calista Flockhart is expected, along with Leo DiCaprio and his model du jour, plus Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, Elle Macpherson, Paul Hogan, Bill Gates, Fidel Castro and Henry and Nancy Kissinger
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NY Daily News:
9/14/00
Liam on the Mend

Liam Neeson is still way more handsome than Frankenstein's monster. But yesterday, looking thinner and supported by crutches, the "Phantom Menace" star had to admit: "I have so many pins and bolts in me I feel like Boris Karloff." Neeson dropped by the Four Seasons restaurant to celebrate the launch of Donna Karan's fragrance for men, DKNY, as well as the reincarnation of Details magazine. This was one of Neeson's first forays into the public since he broke his pelvis after he and his motorcycle collided with a deer upstate in July. Recalling that moment, the Irish actor told us: "I wish I could say I saw a light at the end of the tunnel. I was praying afterward. Out loud. I was thanking God for being able to move and hoping someone came along. I felt my head and spine were okay. So I crawled up an embankment and sat on the road for 15 minutes. A wonderful man [Hermann Staats] finally found me and called the police." During the next few months, "my full-time occupation is rehab. I'm working out everyday." But he'll be off to Italy in November. First will be Sicily, where he'll co-star with Andie MacDowell in a thriller about a U.S. cop and the Mafia. Come January, he heads to Rome for "Gangs of New York," in which he'll play Leonardo DiCaprio's father. Neeson was at the Four Seasons to be honored as one of New York's 100 Most Dynamic Men. Also at the lunch were Peter Gallagher (mending some broken ribs after being thrown from a horse), Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook, Rob Morrow, Details editor Dan Peres and hosts Leonard Lauder, Patrick McCarthy and Karan.
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Rolling Stone:
9/13/00
Yahoo Celeb. Jeans Auction Top sellers

It wasn't even close to the multi-millions that a businessman reportedly offered to get into Britney Spears' pants, but a bidder did pony up $7,000 for a pair of the pop princess' jeans in the "Undress for MS -- Yahoo Celebrity Jeans Auction." Top sellers included jeans from Leonardo DiCaprio ($22,700) and Hugh Jackman's Wolverine costume from X-Men ($19,240). Britney's britches trounced fellow popster Faith Hills' 501s, which pulled in $1,510. All told, the auction pocked more than $114,000 for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society
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Salon ~ Amy Reiter:
9/13/00
A thing for pain

Kate Winslet plans a drug-free birth -- no problem after all her "Titanic" suffering So what if people say that giving birth is one of the most painful things in the world? The way Kate Winslet sees it, it couldn't possibly be as painful as, say, starring in "Titanic." That's why she's planning to just say no to drugs when she gives birth to the little baby she's expecting any week now. "Giving birth is what we're designed to do so we should bloody well get on with it," Winslet bloody well tells the Scottish Daily Record. Besides, she reckons she's a natural for natural childbirth, because "I'm stoical and have a pretty high pain threshold." And while she allows that, if things get really bad, she'll call her acupuncturist for a little shot of relief, she figures she's more than proved her fortitude by appearing alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in that big boat film. "I've had a good training for labor with some of my film roles, especially 'Titanic,'" she says, "when I was immersed for days in freezing tanks of water." With preparation like that, who needs Lamaze?
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FOX 411:
9/13/00
Liam Neeson on the Mend, in Gangs

Liam Neeson made a surprise appearance Monday night at Talk magazine editor Tina Brown’s swell gathering in her East Side garden. The event was to celebrate the opening of Shakespeare’s Richard II and Coriolanus starring the mesmerizing Ralph Fiennes at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. But among the swells who turned out — including Ralph’s End of the Affair co-star, Julianne Moore — none was more the star than the recovering Neeson. Back in July the Schindler’s List star stared down a large deer while on a small motor bike near his upstate New York home. The deer won, and Liam broke his pelvis. On Monday night Neeson came with crutches, but don’t worry: he was draped in the best looking designer suit ever seen on a human being. He told me that he will indeed take a cameo role in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, already shooting in Europe. "I go to Italy in January, and I’ll play Leonardo DiCaprio’s father. Of course, it’s when his character is about 8 years old," he joked, "because I’m too young to be his father now." And Liam’s experience in the woods has not made him a fan of our horned friends. "They should all be shot. They’re disease carrying and they’re dangerous." Oh deer! (Please, no one call PETA.)
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Excite News:
9/13/00
Firm Victorious in Magazine Litigation

A federal court in Los Angeles has entered a complete defense judgment in favor of Playgirl magazine in a case brought by a former model in the magazine. The magazine was represented by Kent R. Raygor of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP in Los Angeles. Berto Luna, a self-described lifeguard/bodyguard who posed for the November 1993 issue of Playgirl magazine, sued the magazine in October 1998 claiming that Playgirl had violated his privacy and appropriated his likeness without compensation by using his nude photographs in subsequent issues...

...Playgirl magazine attorney Kent R. Raygor is Chair of Sheppard Mullin's Intellectual Property & Technology Department and practices extensively in the area of First Amendment, privacy, and libel law. In the First Amendment area, he has represented Playgirl in cases involving actors Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio , Jennifer Aniston and others
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Detroit News:
9/13/00
Leo's jeans worth 2.5 million -- yen

Leo's jeans worth 2.5 million -- yen Yahoo! announced the results of the Yahoo! Celebrity Jeans Auction, a two-week global online charity auction that featured more than 70 celebrities from Harrison Ford and Drew Barrymore to Mariah Carey and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The auctions in the United States and Japan raised more than $114,000 for the National MS Society, Southern California Chapter. Some highlights: If you had a yen for Leonardo DiCaprio's signed Levis, you had to have 2,501,000 of them (yen) in Japan -- $22,700. Topping the celebrity chart in the United States were Hugh Jackman, David Letterman and Britney Spears. Jackman's screen-worn and signed Wolverine costume from the movie X-Men brought $19,240, Late Show host Letterman's vintage jacket brought in more than $8,000, and Spears' custom-designed pants were worth $7,000. Some other prices: Mariah Carey's Levis 501 blue jeans ($3,030); Jennifer Love Hewitt's red Paris Blue Originals ($2,500); Bruce Willis' Ralph Lauren pants ($2,190); Sean Connery's Levis Red Tab jeans ($2,109); Harrison Ford's Wrangler denims ($1,710); Antonio Banderas' GAP blue jeans ($1,572); and Faith Hill's Levis 501 blue jeans ($1,510).
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NY Daily News:
9/12/00
A Bash and a Half

The "M" in "MTV" must stand for mayhem. As if it weren't enough that Tim C. of Rage Against the Machine was busted after his scuffle with security people during MTV's awards telecast, Interscope's after-party at Lotus got so crowded that fire marshals shut it down, provoking some fisticuffs. Standing outside the meatpacking district restaurant, model Gisele Bundchen looked like she was ready to rumble. Jostled by revelers, Leo DiCaprio's Brazilian girlfriend griped: "What the bleep is going on? Bleep this, I'm out of here." Those who did get into the bash, thrown by music honcho Steve Stoute, included Eminem, Puffy Combs, Jennifer Lopez, Dr. Dre, Howard Stern, Bono, Sting, Jakob Dylan, Macy Gray, Jay Z. and Veronica Webb. A few blocks away, at Jane Magazine's party at Rhone, Red Hot Chili Pepper Flea left his MTV Vanguard award on the bar and talked politics. He told us he thinks George W. Bush is "a bad man. He's death-penalty happy, terrible on the environment, and [has] no funding for education."
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NY Post:
9/12/00
JULIETTE LEWIS I WANT TO BE A MOM

IN her new movie, "The Way of the Gun," Juliette Lewis plays a nine-months-pregnant surrogate mom who is kidnapped by two out-of-their-league gunmen.Does the hot, 27-year-old actress want to be a real-life mom? "I am so interested, but not because of this movie," Lewis told The Post yesterday during a visit to New York. "I'm very inclined toward motherhood. And in the last year particularly, I think about it on a monthly basis. It's a really wild feeling. I love children." But parenthood will have to wait for Lewis and her husband, champion skateboarder Steve Berra, also 27, who mark their first wedding anniversary today. She has two new movies to make, and she wants "to build up a nest egg." Lewis asked her sister, Brandy - a married mother of two - for help in preparing for her role in "Gun," which is directed by Christopher McQuarrie and also features Benicio Del Toro, Ryan Phillippe and James Caan. "I talked to her a lot. She's what I used for all my research." Lewis doesn't mind admitting that she had some drug problems in 1996, but she denies published reports that she checked into a $20,000-a-week rehab center. "That's totally not true," she declared. "This nice lady came to my house - I was living with my sister in Clearwater, Fla. She stayed with me for a month, and I had lots of vitamins and stuff." Lewis had a high-profile romance with Brad Pitt, but as for reports that she publicly declared her love for him even after they split, the slim actress told us: "That never happened. I'm not that open. I'd never even say something like that." She also denies rumors that she has had affairs with Leonardo DiCaprio and Johnny Depp. "Brad's the only famous actor I ever dated." Lewis appeared in Woody Allen's "Husband and Wives" in 1992, and was pleasantly surprised by the director. "I had just seen him in movies, so I thought I was going to have this director who was sort of a babbling, weaselly guy. He's not like that at all. He's super-intelligent, he's funny and he's straightforward. He's real cool." And Martin Scorsese, who directed Lewis in "Cape Fear" (1991), the movie that gained her an Oscar nomination? "He's just lovely." Some of Lewis' movies - especially Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers" (1994) - have been blamed for inciting young people to violence, leading to calls to ban such films. The actress rejects such talk. "Back in the days of that horrible [Son of Sam] David Berkowitz, he was saying that the barking dog next door told him to kill the girls. Should we now lock up pets?" she reasons.
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Today's stop includes a little rest and relaxation on our search for DiCaprio as we stay at the Mondrian hotel on Sunset and drink and dine at the famous SkyBar.

Here's an article that appeared in the papers about the SkyBar recently.

Daily Express:
Bar wars have broken out between Hollywood's top hotelier and his protege for the right to serve Leonardo DiCaprio, Rod Stewart, Jennifer Lopez and their chums.
Cindy Crawford's husband Rande Gerber has crossed swords with billionaire Ian Schrager over who should run glitzy bars frequented by the rich and famous. The former business partners - who launched Hollywood's hottest celebrity nightspot, the Skybar on Los Angeles's Sunset Strip - fell out when hotelier Schrager learned that Gerber was planning to open Skybars across America.Gerber already has his own celebrity bars in big US cities. Both men claim to own the Skybar name.

Click on the graphic below to find out more. Give the page time to load all the graphics if you have a slower connection.

Look for more stories and pictures from our adventures in the weeks ahead.

Thanks and we hope you enjoy the ride.

LA Times:
9/11/00
New Life for Old-Time Health Therapy

While everyone in the beauty industry is searching for the next big thing to titillate pampered clients, the folks at Kneipp are happy to rest on the laurels of their decidedly not-new wellness formulations and regimens. Kneipp therapy is based on the teachings of the 19th century cleric, Sebastian Kneipp (pronounced Kuh-nipe), known as the "father of wellness" or the "father of preventive medicine." The pillars of Kneipp's teachings combined water and plant therapies with exercise, nutrition and emotional harmony as solutions for health and longevity...

..."In Europe, we're quite large," said Joella M. Bury, managing director for Kneipp Corp. of America, a fully owned subsidiary of Kneipp-Werke of Germany. "But in the U.S., we're smaller." That could change soon. Some big celebrities are already familiar with Kneipp herbal remedies, including Leonardo DiCaprio, George Hamilton, Cindy Crawford and Claudia Schiffer.


LA Times:
9/11/00
The George and Al Show: Must See TV?

After initial feuding over George W. Bush's proposal to hold the presidential debates "in a wide range of locations and formats" including "Larry King Live," handlers for Al Gore and Bush have now agreed to a variety of television confrontations. Here's a look at the fall lineup: 'This Week' The candidates threaten to walk out until moderator Sam Donaldson is replaced by Leonardo DiCaprio . In the opening round, Gore reminds all seven of the show's viewers that he's "not Bill Clinton. Seriously." Meanwhile, in one of his best attempts at a complete sentence, Bush promises "to restore honor and character, and character and honor and other things to the Lincoln bedroom like my dad did. Except better." 'The McLaughlin Group' Now, the duo gets to mix it up. At stake is the elusive and prized "rage-aholic" demographic. "ISSUE ONE!" declares host John McLaughlin, "CAPITAL PUNISHMENT!" Gore and Bush immediately spring to their feet and start screaming in capital letters. At one point, Bush refers to Gore with a term usually reserved for a New York Times reporter. Fortunately for Bush, the shouting makes it impossible to understand anyone. Later, the vice president's team claims victory, arguing that Gore's screaming looked more presidential. 'The Charlie Rose Show' Cooling down from the McLaughlin conflagration, the candidates agree to a civil discussion on the late-night PBS talk show. Tension fills the studio as Rose calmly welcomes each candidate. Both men respond that they are "glad to be here." After that, they don't get a word in edgewise as Rose rambles on about a boyhood summer vacation in Texas. The segment ends abruptly when Quentin Tarantino arrives. 'ER' NBC's blockbuster drama affords the candidates their first foray into a scripted format (not counting their parties' conventions). The Bush camp proposes a storyline in which Gore is shot repeatedly by a gay pro-choice welfare mother and then is saved from going to hell--for now--by Bush's faith-healing prayer (as Dr. Benton breaks down and says "Praise the Lord!"). The Gore staff counters with a plot in which Bush goes berserk, grabs the defibrillator and chases after a defenseless Medicare patient, shouting "Clear! Clear!" In an alternative plot, the Gore camp has "Dr." Bush trying to inject a wounded cop-killer with a hypodermic cocktail prepared by the Texas Department of Corrections. The show's producers reject both proposals and use the candidates as extras in a hospital cafeteria scene. 'Monday Night Football' Bush and Gore fill in as guest commentators in a matchup between the Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys. During the play-by-play, Bush decries Washington's "bloated coaching staff" and "weak defense"; Gore asserts Dallas' injury-plagued roster would fare better under his prescription-drug plan. 'The Man Show' Subbing for the regular hosts, Al and George unleash their machismo by burping their campaign slogans, beating up congressmen and challenging a pair of "juggy" babes to a game of "strip international diplomacy." In the show's finale, ex-frat boy Bush drinks Gore under the podium. 'This Old House' In the most heated debate yet, Gore and Bush blast each other's color scheme choice for the restoration of a Victorian townhome near Alexandria, Va. After hours of bickering with Bush over curtain treatments, Gore storms off the stage muttering, "Am I the only one with taste around here?" 'Antiques Roadshow' The two candidates submit their budget proposals to the show's team of world-renowned appraisers. After a brief examination, the experts pronounce both plans "totally worthless." 'Jeopardy!' Gore takes an early lead with a clean sweep of the categories "Famous Jewish Vice Presidents" and "Buddhist Theology." But Bush battles back by running the category "What the definition of 'is' is." After the show, the third contestant, Ralph Nader, complains that he couldn't get on the board because his buzzer was defective and should have been recalled. 'Friends' Chandler discovers that "the naked guy" in the apartment across the street is actually Bush. Meanwhile, Rachel goes on a date with Gore, who seduces her with his seven-second "convention special" and promises that she can safely let him sleep over because he'll appoint Supreme Court justices who support Roe v. Wade. 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' While listening to the candidates blather about Social Security and education, Buffy becomes convinced they are members of the undead and drives stakes through their hearts. 'Soul Train' In an attempt to court black voters, George and Al get funky. Before boogieing down the Soul Train dance line, Bush makes numerous references to his "homeys, Colin Powell, J.C. Watts and Gary Coleman." Meanwhile, Gore puts to rest his stiff image by actually swiveling his hips a millimeter while singing a new rendition of the theme from "Shaft": "Who's the honorary black private veep that's the sex machine to all the chicks? Gore!"
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The next stop on our search for DiCaprio takes us to the Standard hotel.

Located on the famous Sunset strip.

Click on the graphic below to find out more. Give the page time to load all the graphics if you have a slower connection.

Look for more stories and pictures from our adventures in the weeks ahead.

Thanks and we hope you enjoy the ride.

Variety:
9/7/00
Boyle to direct pair of BBC telefilms

It's a long way from directing Leonardo DiCaprio on a Thai beach to the slums of Manchester, but Danny Boyle is returning to his roots. In his first outing since ``The Beach,'' Boyle has signed up to direct two gritty, personal TV movies for the BBC, both based on screenplays by Jim Cartwright. ``Vacuuming Nude in Paradise'' and ``Strumpet,'' which will shoot back to back, are both set in Manchester, the northern English city where Boyle grew up. This will be the first time since his debut movie ``Shallow Grave'' in 1996 that Boyle has worked separately from writer John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald, who teamed with him on ``Trainspotting,'' ``A Life Less Ordinary,'' ``Alien Love Triangle'' and ``The Beach.'' Indeed, this seems to signal a new phase in Boyle's career after his rapid ascent from slick Brit pics to the Hollywood heights. ``I think Danny really wants to do something raw, powerful and emotional,'' said David Thompson, head of BBC Films. Though not short of big-budget offers after ``The Beach,'' which grossed $200 million worldwide, Boyle has chosen instead to revisit not only his own background but also the kind of work that characterized his earlier stage career with London's Royal Court Theater, a hotbed of political radicalism and artistic experimentation. Cartwright comes directly from that tradition, establishing himself as one of Britain's leading dramatists with such working-class plays as ''Road'' and ``The Rise and Fall of Little Voice,'' which subsequently became a hit movie. ``Vacuuming Nude'' and ``Strumpet'' were both written directly for the small screen. They are described by Thompson as ``extraordinary, surreal pieces, with vivid, visual scripts.'' Few details are available about the plotlines, with the first described as ``about music'' and the second ``about high-profile selling.'' For BBC Films, this is part of a longstanding policy to make TV movies with feature talent alongside its movie output. Indeed, some of the pubcaster's biggest theatrical hits have started this way, from Roger Michell's ``Persuasion'' and Stephen Frears' ''The Snapper'' to John Madden's ``Mrs. Brown.'' The BBC is currently touring the fest circuit with another example of this crossover genre, Frears' latest pic ``Liam.''
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NY Post:
9/7/00
How much would you pay??

So how much would you pay to get into Leonardo DiCaprio's jeans? In Japan, there is a mad Internet bidding war over a pair of denims signed by the movie star - bidding has passed $30,000 and there's no end in sight. But this dickering over Leo's pants is all for a good cause. Money raised for DiCaprio's well-worn trousers, as well as jeans once owned by the likes of Sharon Stone, Antonio Banderas, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, go to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. So far, Leo is hands down (pants down?) the top bid-getter. You might say the Japanese have a real yen for Leo.
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During the next few weeks Richard and I will be posting some stories and pictures from our adventures in California.

They start today with our visit to the Los Feliz Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. This branch houses the Leonardo DiCaprio Computer Center.

The Los Feliz Branch is located on the former site of the DiCaprio family home. Click on the graphic below to view.

Look for more stories and pictures from our adventures in the weeks ahead.

Thanks and we hope you enjoy yourself.

Daily Express:
9/6/00
Masseur who is blind to charms of stars

He has the hottest hands in Hollywood and a career to make him the envy of any red-blooded male. Liz Hurley loves it when he rubs her in oils, Meg Ryan strips for his tender touch and Halle Berry books weeks in advance to ensure that he is free and available. But being master masseur to the stars isn't all it could be for Moeul Neak - because he is blind. Robbed of sight in a landmine explosion 22 years ago, he has overcome ill fortune to set himself up in one of the world's most coveted jobs. Goldie Hawn, Calista Flockhart and even Leonardo DiCaprio are also among the trusting clientele who drop their towels and inhibitions on his salon floor, knowing he cannot sneak a peek. Moeul explained: "The fact that I'm blind makes these people feel more comfortable and relaxed. I'm very honoured they allow me to work on their bodies, but I've never seen any of their films or watched them on TV. I have to take my assistant's word for it that they are famous." Born in Cambodia, Moeul stepped on the landmine as a 22-year-old soldier. As he lay on the ground screaming in pain, one of Pol Pot's soldiers smashed his skull with a rifle butt. He survived his appalling injuries and 10 years ago fled to America where he went on to gain a physiotherapy degree at the California School Of Medical Sciences. Now many a Hollywood agent wishes their client list was packed with as many top names as Moeul has on his books. "I suppose, of them all, Liz Hurley is my favourite," he confessed. "She has beautiful, soft skin and she is always very charming and lots of fun. She suffers a great deal from tension, you know. I have to work really hard to realign her back." Moeul used his special deep-tissue massage techniques to help iron out Liz after her split with Hugh Grant. "There were a great many muscle knots in her body. That session involved her suffering a little pain, but we got them out eventually," he said. "She talks a lot while she's on the table, but I never reveal the confidences of my clients. Liz is a very special lady, she trusts me completely." Leo DiCaprio is also prone to muscle knots, Moeul revealed. "I didn't know who he was until he mentioned he'd been recommended by another famous actor. I sensed he had terrific energy levels, but found it hard to relax properly. A number of pressure points on his body had been blocked off because of his hectic routine." He also told how Goldie Hawn's knees give her gyp, and Meg Ryan is apparently a martyr to back pain. Halle Berry needed help following a recent road crash. "She is quite small and her frame had been jolted out of shape," said Moeul. " I could sense she was in a lot of pain. I had to teach her how to fully relax before I could push her skeleton back into its correct place." Moeul says he was taught healing by his father, a medicine man, in their poverty-stricken village. British actress Alexa Jago, 30, Kevin Costner's co-star in Waterworld, has been a client for more than a year. She said: "Stretching out naked before a strange man takes a certain amount of confidence, but with Moeul it's more like going to the doctor."Moeul, who practises at spa centres on Sunset Strip and in Santa Monica, certainly isn't in awe of his famous clients. He said: "I treat everybody the same. No matter how famous people are or how much money they earn - when they lie on my table, I'm in control and I let my hands do the seeing and the talking."
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Daily Express:
9/6/00
Hollywood tycoons in bar wars

BAR wars have broken out between Hollywood's top hotelier and his protege for the right to serve Leonardo DiCaprio, Rod Stewart, Jennifer Lopez and their chums. Cindy Crawford's husband Rande Gerber has crossed swords with billionaire Ian Schrager over who should run glitzy bars frequented by the rich and famous. The former business partners - who launched Hollywood's hottest celebrity nightspot, the Skybar on Los Angeles's Sunset Strip - fell out when hotelier Schrager learned that Gerber was planning to open Skybars across America. Gerber already has his own celebrity bars in big US cities. Both men claim to own the Skybar name.
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The Sun UK:
9/5/00
Stuffing himself with pasta

I HEAR Leonardo DiCaprio has been stuffing himself with pasta to pile on the pounds for his next role as a gangster in Martin Scorsese's new movie Gangs Of New York.
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Excite Australia:
9/5/00
Big French stars rush to small screen

France's top movie stars, after years of scorning the box in the corner, have suddenly discovered the virtues of television fiction and are lining up to appear in high-prestige productions for the small screen. Gerard Depardieu leads the way Monday in "Les Miserables", a six-hour, 165 million franc (22.5 million dollar) production of the Victor Hugo classic that the main commercial channel TF1 has scheduled over the next four weeks. The same channel says it has signed up two of France's biggest postwar screen icons, Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo, for its forthcoming fiction list, with Delon set to play the role of a hard-boiled cop in the southern port city of Marseille. Meanwhile the traditionally cash-strapped public channel France-2 is preparing to shoot a six-hour 200 million franc production of "Napoleon", also starring Depardieu, although the role of the Corsican corporal who conquered most of Europe goes to Christian Clavier, previously best known as a comedy star. Clavier also plays a leading role in the latest, umpteenth version of "Les Miserables", as do Jeanne Moreau, beacon of the 1960s French New Wave, Virginie Ledoyen, seen recently opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in "The Beach", and the US star John Malkovich. TF1 is counting on its "3-D" formula -- Depardieu in the starring role, Josee Dayan directing, and novelist Didier Decoin providing the screenplay -- to achieve the same success it notched in 1998 with "The Count of Monte Cristo", which drew 12 million spectators -- an audience share of 52 percent. The trio went on last year to produce "Balzac", a four-hour life of the great 19th-century novelist that was only slightly less successful. Since then television executives have been dusting down their childhood copies of the great 19th-century historical dramas, with the result that "Notre Dame de Paris" (Hugo's novel filmed in English as "The Hunchback of Notre Dame") and "The Three Musketeers" (Alexander Dumas) are reportedly soon to be given the small-screen treatment. French television, which Paris intellectuals have for decades regarded with condescension, now finds itself being courted by some of the leading lights in the entertainment industry. Much of the impetus for the trend came from Depardieu, the actor whose presence on French cinema screens has been virtually inescapable for the past quarter-century. "Even 10 years ago it was considered damaging for a successful movie actor to appear in television plays. It was Gerard who removed the barriers," says Christian Clavier, who starred in two of France's biggest comedy hits of recent years, "Les Visiteurs" and "Asterix and Obelix". "Personally, I've always found television interesting for its ability to do things that cinema can't. Take 'Les Miserables' -- you can develop a Hugo novel much more interestingly in four times an hour and a half than you can in just two hours." Jean-Pierre Guerin, producer of all three "3-D" series to date and currently working on "Napoleon", agrees: "Cinema doesn't offer enough variety of roles. Gerard (Depardieu) felt he'd covered all the options available in cinema, and believed that there was more happening in television." Veteran producer Pierre Grimblat notes that "five years ago actors were reticent, but that's changing. Now if they see a good role they go for it," while colleague Jacques Dercourt adds: "Actors have started to change their view now they've seen that television doesn't necessarily harm their image." Guerin warns however that the big-budget productions are likely to drain resources from the bread-and-butter fictions about ordinary life that are already in short supply on French television. "The situation with French fiction is not good. We don't produce enough, there's not enough investment. Four or five years ago we were ahead of Germany in terms of production. Now they're well ahead of us." Germany, jointly with Italy and the United States, has contributed around two thirds of the budget of "Les Miserables" which is to be sold internationally in a shorter, English-language version

NY Post:
9/5/00
ACTOR'S DUAL INTENTIONS

He was supposed to be the next Leonardo DiCaprio. But Ryan Phillippe's movie career hit an iceberg.Two years ago, just before the release of the disco flick "54," Phillippe (pronounced Fil-i-pee) was Hollywood's "it" boy. The star of "Cruel Intentions" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer," he had solid acting chops and positively sizzled with young female moviegoers. But when "54" was eighty-sixed by the public and the critics, Ryan's hope was dashed. He was relegated to the B-list, which currently nets him about $1 million a movie (to Leo's $20 million). He opens Friday in "The Way of the Gun," a scale-budgeted shoot-em-up from Artisan Entertainment, the "Blair Witch" people. "There are a lot of dangers in that rapid ascent thing," Phillippe, 26, tells The Post in an interview at his hotel suite in Beverly Hills. "Who wants that? For me, having it be more gradual and even-keeled, I feel like I've been able to stay on top of it a little bit better." It's not that Phillippe hasn't tried for blockbuster success. He was passed over for the roles of Mel Gibson's son in "The Patriot" and Anakin Sywalker in "Star Wars: Episode II." "They didn't want me," Phillippe says, turning his blue peepers downward for a moment. "But things work out for a reason. I'm glad I did this movie, that's what really matters." Shot for under $10 million by first-time director Christopher McQuarrie (who won an Oscar for writing "The Usual Suspects"), "The Way of the Gun" stars Phillippe and Benecio Del Toro as barely likable thugs who kidnap a very pregnant Juliette Lewis. While "Gun" is not the movie to make Phillippe a household name, it shows he can do more than just teen-heartthrob. "I was dead set against Ryan from the outset," says McQuarrie. "I thought he was a good actor, but I wanted someone who was a brawler." Then an associate reminded the writer of another objection he once raised, to Oscar-winning Kevin Spacey in "The Usual Suspects." "I thought, ‘Maybe I'm wrong here too,'" McQuarrie says, "and that was proven to be the case." In two months, Phillippe packed on 30 muscular pounds and sprouted the wispy beard still with him today. While Phillippe got into the role of a kidnapper who manhandles pregnant women, his own wife - actress Reese Witherspoon - was hundreds of miles away from the Utah shoot, about to give birth to the couple's first child in L.A. "There was a perverse irony to the whole situation," Phillippe says. "But I did this movie conditional to making sure I could be there for the baby's birth." Ava Elizabeth Phillippe was born on the very last day of shooting (which, numerologists may want to note, was 9/9/99). "Every day is like a gift with this child, especially right now because she's learning so rapidly," Phillippe says. "It's changed everything - the way I see the world, the decisions I make." One of those decisions was to take a few months off to look after Ava at the family's Hollywood Hills home, while Witherspoon goes back to work. Fatherhood is a role the Delaware native says he was fully prepared to tackle. "I was ready a couple of years ago," Phillippe says. "My parents were married at 17, my mother had a day-care center. It was just natural to me, it made sense to start a family." Phillippe was discovered at age 17 by an agent while sitting in a barber's chair in his hometown. This led to a role on "One Life to Live," as daytime TV's first gay teen-ager, and eventually to the movies. His first was 1995's "Crimson Tide," with Denzel Washington. Would he like to see Ava follow in her parents' acting footsteps? "I would not encourage her to," says Phillippe. "In this business there are a lot of people who have really screwed-up priorities. If she wants to be an actor, I would be supportive, when she's old enough to make the decision. "But what I would encourage her toward is more the written word or music." Phillippe's last project for a while will be a Silicon Valley thriller, "Anti-Trust," already wrapped, but due out next year. "It's gonna be a good movie that's a lot more commercial," Phillippe says. "There is a point at which you've got to balance (independent) films with something that makes money, so you can get more films made that you find interesting. "It makes business sense."

S.F. Gate:
9/1/00
Grimmer than Grimm

IN "CRIMINAL Lovers," the "Bonnie and Clyde" model of killing-as-erotica gets a shrewd, funny, decidedly French workout. The lethal couple-on-the-lam are Alice (Natacha Regnier) and Luc (Jeremie Renier), a high- school duo who've committed a murder worthy of Vanity Fair - the crime is heinous, the criminals young 'n' hot, the motive complex enough to warrant pages of glossy speculation. But if "Bonnie and Clyde" is the classic text for this kind of youthful malevolence, writer-director Fran§ois Ozon doesn't know any textbook maneuvers. He makes satires that skulk around like Michael Caine in "Dressed To Kill" - freakish without the attendant sensationalism. His favorite target thus far, in films like "Sitcom" and "Water Drop on Burning Rocks," which opens at the Castro next week, is middle-class complacence. His favorite setting is the place in a person's psyche that never sees any light. Rats, fluxing morality and the evaporated line between sexualities are his best toys - those and wily pastiches of existing material. "Criminal Lovers" has cousins in Leonard Kastle's "Honeymoon Killers" and Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers" or, better, Terrence Malick's "Badlands," which, unable to explain its young couple's violence, turned to earthen poetry instead. More a joker than a lyricist, Ozon, who's at a similar loss, forgoes psychological profiling for a wicked children's story that seems ripped right from every kid's primal nightmare: the forest. Alice has taken it upon herself to seduce the young, impressionable Luc into knocking off a classmate (Salim Kechiouche) whom she also seduced - out of boredom or curiosity. They hold up a jewelry shop, then head off to dispose of the body in the woods, where Luc discovers a house. In the owner's (Miki Manojlovic) absence they sneak in and snack on his vittles. He catches them nibbling, locks them in his crawl space of a cellar, where Alice and Luc are reunited with their corpse. The comedy is as outre as the story itself, which gets Grimm and grimmer, particularly with its hysterically funny, if mood-breaking, finale. Delighted to have company, the ogre makes Luc his sex slave after settling down with Alice's diary and getting lost in her cruel drama, which is delivered to us in mercifully well-lit flashbacks. Ozon suggests that Alice may have fallen under the spell of Rimbaud during a school lesson. The poem is his "A Night in Hell," an ode to the futility of the devil, and when Alice is called on in class to recite a passage, it's all Regnier can do to keep the brimstone from drifting off the screen. (Ozon even goes on to corroborate the indulgence by treating Alice and Luc's boat ride with the solemn foreboding of a trip down the river Styx.) You can see the eternally miserable teen poet wigging out to Trent Reznor or getting caught up in the video-game mayhem of "Tomb Raider." This Rimbaud is the very one Leonardo DiCaprio made into a preening rock star in "Total Eclipse," with oscillating sexual interests that appeal to Ozon. Ozon doesn't presume to have an answer as to where Alice's ideas come from. The point is that she has any at all - Regnier, who was similarly overheated in "The Dreamlife of Angels," is all churning obsession and implicit amusement. Murder, in his mocking assessment, is empty as sex. Or maybe it's just as loaded. A superficial wish becomes a visceral, primitive literalization, with a grisly kill delivering the kick of a good orgasm. Ozon practically dares you to find the crime in that.
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Atlanta Journal Constitution:
9/1/00
Trailer pays tribute to 'Star Wars'

A movie trailer for ''Star Wars: Episode II'' created by an anonymous director and posted on the Internet is working fans into a frenzy well before the film's scheduled release in 2002. Using footage from ''Star Wars: Episode I --- The Phantom Menace'' and blending it with scenes from other movies and TV shows, the anonymous artist designed a convincing creation. The trailer, posted on theforce.net, begins with 20th Century Fox and Lucasfilm Ltd. credits. The 1-minute, 52-second clip fades to a nighttime shot (borrowed from the movie ''Dark City'') and then changes to a slow-moving camera shot over a desert. The clip later explodes into sequences that include a horde of Jedi Knights charging into battle, various space scenes and Hayden Christensen --- who will play Anakin Skywalker in ''Episode II'' --- activating a light saber and walking off screen. The clip has been an instant hit with fans. ''It's been really positive. So many 'Star Wars' fans from all over the world have written me. They said they can't wait for the next film if it's anything like my trailer,'' the unnamed director told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The newspaper granted the man's request for anonymity because he used the scenes from the movies without permission. The trailer has been downloaded about 2 million times, said Scott Chitwood, an editor at theforce.net. The project took the 25-year-old director from Hollywood two months to finish, crafting the footage so it blends seamlessly and adding sound effects. His first version used Leonardo DiCaprio as Anakin Skywalker. He redid the video after ''Star Wars'' director George Lucas announced that Christensen was his choice for the role. The trailer features other actors who will be in the next ''Star Wars'' movie, including Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Natalie Portman as Padme, Jimmy Smits as Bail Organa and Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu. Lucasfilm spokeswoman Jeanne Cole said the company has no problem with the movie trailer as long as no one is making money from it. Lucasfilm has no plans to force theforce.net to stop distributing the trailer, Cole said, because it's available for free, and it's in good taste. ''Where would 'Star Wars' be without the fans?'' she said. ''It's a fan homage to 'Star Wars.' Everyone who has seen it has enjoyed it.'' For fans who want to see a real preview, a 10-minute behind-the-scenes peek will be included with a videotape re-release of the original "Star Wars" trilogy, due in stores Nov. 21.