Category Archives: Leonardo DiCaprio

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio testifies in money laundering and bribery trial

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At the heart of the case is Jho Low, a fugitive accused of being the mastermind behind the Malaysian 1MDB scandal

Leonardo DiCaprio testified in a federal court on Monday morning as part of a trial involving international money laundering, bribery and a prominent rap artist.

Prakazrel “Pras” Michel – a founding member of the iconic 1990s hip-hop group, The Fugees – is accused of funneling money from a fugitive Malaysian financier through straw donors to Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. Five years later, prosecutors say he tried to squelch an investigation into that same financier under Donald Trump’s administration.

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FBI grilled Leonardo DiCaprio over ties to Malaysian fugitive financier – report

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Files show actor had relationship with Jho Low, on the run over links to 1MDB scandal, and Kim Kardashian was also interviewed

New details have emerged of the actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s ties to Jho Low, the Malaysian financier turned fugitive currently wanted by international authorities over his links to one of the world’s largest corruption scandals.

On Thursday, Bloomberg revealed previously undisclosed details from FBI documents in which authorities interviewed DiCaprio in 2018 about his relationship with Low, who is accused of involvement in a money-laundering scheme of over $4.5bn being siphoned from the Malaysian state investment fund, also known as 1MDB.

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Apocalypse nowadays: the new wave of films about the end of the world

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Armageddon once delivered thrills and megabucks spectacle. Now it’s the unnerving backdrop for satires and family drama

Which films kept you entertained over the holidays? Was it Silent Night, the sweary festive Britcom starring Keira Knightley? The courtroom drama Naked Singularity, with John Boyega as a crusading lawyer? Or did you watch Leonardo DiCaprio as a dorky astronomer in Don’t Look Up, a slapstick political satire? Whichever it was, I hope you poured yourself a large one, because none of those films are quite as light as they seem. All take place in the shadow of imminent Armageddon.

That’s right: the end of the world is nigh, and it’s no longer the preserve of megabudget disaster movies or bleak survivalist thrillers. These days the looming obliteration of our species can just as readily form the backdrop to some governmental mockery or a boozy country-house drama.

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Look away: why star-studded comet satire Don’t Look Up is a disaster | Charles Bramesco

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Adam McKay’s celeb-packed Netflix comedy aims to be a farcical warning of climate change but broad potshots and a smug superiority tanks his message

When persuading someone to change their mind on a major topic, what’s being said isn’t always quite as important as how it’s said. If a person feels attacked or disrespected or condescended to, they’ll turn off their brain and block out the most rational, correct arguments on principle alone. Homo sapiens are odd, emotional creatures, more amenable to a convincing pitch than poorly presented rightness. It’s why we vote for the guy we’d gladly have as a drinking buddy over the somewhat alienating candidates with a firmer grasp on the issues. It’s why we feel heartbreak when the worst person we know makes a great point.

Adam McKay’s new satire Don’t Look Up, a last-ditch effort to get the citizens of Earth to give a damn about the imminent end of days spurred by the climate crisis, appears to be at least somewhat aware of this defect in human nature. It’s all about the difficulty of compelling the disinterested to care, in this instance about a gargantuan comet hurtling toward the Earth on a collision course of imminent obliteration, an emphatic if rather ill-suited, metaphor. (Everyone’s blasé about global heating in part because it’s so gradual, because it isn’t a force of instant destruction with a due date in an immediate future we’ll all live to see.) Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence portray astronomers Randall Mindy and Kate Dibiasky, flummoxed to find that no one’s all that alarmed about the “planet-killer” they’ve discovered – not the grinning daytime cable-news dummies played by Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett, not the White House led by Trump-styled president Meryl Streep and not the American people.

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Adam McKay: ‘Leo sees Meryl as film royalty – he didn’t like seeing her with a lower back tattoo’

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After politics in Vice and finance in The Big Short, director McKay is taking on the climate crisis in his star-studded ‘freakout’ satire Don’t Look Up

Adam McKay calls it his “freakout trilogy”. Having tackled the 2008 financial crash and warmongering US vice president Dick Cheney in his previous two movies, The Big Short and Vice, McKay goes even bigger and bleaker with his latest, Don’t Look Up, in which two astronomers (Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio) discover a giant comet headed for Earth, but struggle to get anyone to listen. It is an absurd but depressingly plausible disaster satire, somewhere between Dr Strangelove, Network, Deep Impact and Idiocracy, with an unbelievably stellar cast; also on board are Meryl Streep (as the US president), Cate Blanchett, Timothée Chalamet, Tyler Perry, Mark Rylance, Jonah Hill and Ariana Grande. It has been quite the career trajectory for McKay, who started out in live improv and writing for Saturday Night Live, followed by a run of hit Will Ferrell comedies such as Anchorman, Step Brothers and The Other Guys. “The goal was to capture this moment,” says McKay of Don’t Look Up. “And this moment is a lot.”

Was there a particular event that inspired Don’t Look Up?
Somewhere in between The Big Short and Vice, the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] panel and a bunch of other studies came out that just were so stark and so terrifying that I realised: “I have to do something addressing this.” So I wrote five different premises for movies, trying to find the best one. I had one that was a big, epic, kind of dystopian drama. I had another one that was a Twilight Zone/M Night [Shyamalan] sort of twisty thriller. I had a small character piece. And I was just trying to find a way into: how do we communicate how insane this moment is? So finally, I was having a conversation with my friend [journalist and Bernie Sanders adviser] David Sirota, and he offhandedly said something to the effect of: “It’s like the comet’s coming and no one cares.” And I thought: “Oh. I think that’s it.” I loved how simple it was. It’s not some layered, tricky Gordian knot of a premise. It’s a nice, big, wide open door we can all relate to.

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Don’t Look Up review – an A-list apocalyptic mess

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Adam McKay’s star-studded climate change satire with Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence et al lands its gags with all the aplomb of a giant comet

A comet is on a collision course with Earth. The targets in this shrill, desperately unfunny climate change satire directed by Adam McKay are more scattershot. According to stoner PhD student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and her professor, Dr Randall Mindy (a self-consciously tic-y Leonardo DiCaprio), the asteroid is the size of Mount Everest and due to hit in six months.

The pair try to warn Meryl Streep’s President Orlean about the impending “extinction-level event”, only to find her preoccupied by the midterm elections. They attempt to raise awareness on breakfast TV, but anchors Jack and Brie (Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett) can’t help but give their bad news a positive spin. The only person with enough money to intervene is tech entrepreneur Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance), who wants to mine the comet for its “$140tn worth of assets”. Party politics, celebrity gossip and social media memes are swiped at too. It feels cynical, then, when Timothée Chalamet shows up with no real narrative purpose other than to snog Lawrence.

In cinemas now and on Netflix from 24 December

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‘I’d stop stockpiling toilet paper’: Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance and Tyler Perry on their end-of-the-world plans

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The stars of Adam McKay’s apocalypse satire Don’t Look Up discuss their worst fears, their favourite conspiracy theories and their final moments on Earth

If a massive meteor were expected to collide with Earth in six months’ time, what would our leaders do? Everything in their power to stop it? Or everything possible to leverage it for political and financial gain?

How about the rest of us? How would we cope with the prospect of impending apocalypse? By facing the end of the world with sobriety and compassion? Or drowning ourselves in sex, drugs and celebrity gossip? Might some of us even enjoy the drama?

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Leonardo DiCaprio pledges $43m to restore the Galápagos Islands

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Environmentalist actor, with other conservation groups, aims to rewild the entire archipelago and other Pacific islands in Latin America

Leonardo DiCaprio has announced a $43m (£30.4m) pledge to enact sweeping conservation operations across the Galápagos Islands, with his social media accounts taken over by a wildlife veterinarian and island restoration specialist.

The initiative, in partnership with Re:wild, an organisation founded this year by a group of renowned conservation scientists and DiCaprio, the Galápagos National Park Directorate, Island Conservation, and local communities, aims to rewild the entire Galápagos Islands, as well as all of Latin America’s Pacific archipelagos.

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The Wolf of Wall Street’s Jordan Belfort sues film’s producers for $300m

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Former stockbroker sues scandal-hit production company Red Granite for fraud and breach of contract

Jordan Belfort, the former stockbroker whose story inspired the Martin Scorsese-directed hit The Wolf of Wall Street, is suing the film’s financiers for fraud and breach of contract, and claiming $300m in compensation.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Belfort’s legal action arises directly from the financial scandal surrounding Red Granite, the production company that put up the film’s $100m budget but was subsequently linked to a multimillion-dollar embezzlement in which huge sums were siphoned from 1MDB, a Malaysian state fund. Riza Aziz, Red Granite’s co-founder and stepson of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, is currently under arrest in Malaysia on money laundering charges.

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Golden Globes: who will win and who should win the film awards? | Peter Bradshaw

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Will The Irishman clean up? Or Marriage Story? And how will Once Upon a Time in Hollywood fare? Peter Bradshaw offers a lowdown of the main categories and his predictions and omissions

The best film category is dominated – just like everything else in the cultural conversation around movies – by Netflix, which has the majority of the nominees: Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story and Fernando Meirelles’s The Two Popes.

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Brazil’s president claims DiCaprio paid for Amazon fires

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Jair Bolsonaro falsely accuses actor of funding deliberate destruction of rainforest

Brazil’s president has falsely accused the actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio of bankrolling the deliberate incineration of the Amazon rainforest.

Jair Bolsonaro – a populist nationalist who has vowed to drive environmental NGOs from Brazil – made the claim on Friday, reportedly telling supporters: “This Leonardo DiCaprio’s a cool guy, isn’t he? Giving money for the Amazon to be torched.”

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Leonardo DiCaprio calls Greta Thunberg ‘a leader of our time’

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Environmentalist actor says first meeting with teenage climate activist was ‘an honour’

Leonardo DiCaprio has praised teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg as a “leader of our time” following their first meeting.

DiCaprio, a prominent environmental campaigner, said 16-year-old Thunberg’s message should be a “wake-up call to world leaders everywhere that the time for inaction is over”.

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Leonardo DiCaprio urged to end support for Indian river project

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Charities warn actor that Cauvery tree-planting scheme could harm endangered waterway and its environs

Leonardo DiCaprio has been urged to withdraw support for a controversial tree-planting programme in India, which could result in catastrophic environmental damage.

An open letter, signed by more than 90 Indian environmental and rights groups, warned that the Hollywood actor and activist’s endorsement of the Cauvery Calling campaign was ill-advised. The signatories said the campaign could lead to the “drying up of streams and rivulets, and destruction of wildlife habitats”.

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Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood review – Tarantino’s dazzling LA redemption song

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With Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt playing a TV actor and stuntman who cross paths with the Manson cult, Tarantino has created outrageous, disorientating entertainment

Quentin Tarantino’s exploitation black-comedy thriller Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood finds a pulp-fictionally redemptive take on the Manson nightmare in late-60s California: a B-movie loser’s state of grace.

It’s shocking, gripping, dazzlingly shot in the celluloid-primary colours of sky blue and sunset gold: colours with the warmth that Mama Cass sang about. The Los Angeles of 1969 is recovered with all Tarantino’s habitual intensity and delirious, hysterical connoisseurship of pop culture detail. But there’s something new here: not just erotic cinephilia, but TV-philia, an intense awareness of the small screen background to everyone’s lives. Opinions are going to divide about this film’s startling and spectacularly provocative ending, which Tarantino is concerned to keep secret and which I have no intention of revealing here. But certainly any ostensible error of taste is nothing like, say, those in the much admired Inglourious Basterds. And maybe worrying about taste is to miss the point of this bizarre Jacobean horror fantasy.

Quite simply, I just defy anyone with red blood in their veins not to respond to the crazy bravura of Tarantino’s film-making, not to be bounced around the auditorium at the moment-by-moment enjoyment that this movie delivers – and conversely, of course, to shudder at the horror and cruelty and its hallucinatory aftermath.

Our first non-hero is Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, a failing cowboy actor and alcoholic going to seed in the autumn of his career and in moments of bad temper beginning to resemble Jack Black. His best friend – pathetically, his only friend – is Cliff Booth, played by Brad Pitt in his Ocean’s-Eleven mode of easygoing competence and imperturbability. Cliff is Rick’s stunt double and has an awful secret in his life: a grisly event for which he may or may not be guilty. Cliff has to drive Rick everywhere because he has lost his licence, and he is Rick’s best pal, assistant, factotum, and the person who has to straighten Rick when he bursts into boozy tears of self-pity.

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Behind the bloodshed: the chilling untold stories about Charles Manson

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Tarantino’s epic is the big draw at Cannes. But there are other Manson movies around – including one about what ultimately happened to the young women who fell under the murderer’s spell

Over the last half century, one villain has loomed large over Hollywood. The gruesome murders committed by Charles Manson and his followers in the summer of 1969 have filled countless films and documentaries about stardom and the debaucheries of the 1960s. But his malign influence extends far beyond the screen. Aside from murdering eight people, Manson and his disciples – the Family – have been blamed for wiping out the counterculture, free love, communes and hippies.

Three new films are making fresh attempts to reckon with “the symbol of animalism and evil”, as Rolling Stone magazine called him. The biggest is Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, about to premiere at the Cannes film festival. Set in Los Angeles during the Manson era, the film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a fading TV western star and Brad Pitt as his stunt double, both attempting to make the leap to the big screen. Margot Robbie plays Sharon Tate – the actor and wife of director Roman Polanski – who was brutally murdered by the Family. Manson, a background figure in the film, is played by Damon Herriman.

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Leonardo DiCaprio hands over Marlon Brando’s Oscar, a Picasso and more to U.S. government

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In November 2012, Leonardo DiCaprio - at the time, three months into filming "Wolf of Wall Street," which would later further his legacy of almost-Oscars for a fourth time - received Marlon Brando's best actor statuette for 1954's "On the Waterfront" as a 38th birthday gift. The gift-givers were DiCaprio's business associates at Red Granite Pictures, the production house behind "Wolf of Wall Street."

Leonardo DiCaprio Backs Out of Hillary Clinton Fundraiser

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The actor-activist says he won't host the event at his L.A. home due to a scheduling conflict and Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel have stepped in as hosts. The Clinton campaign denies the decision is connected to questions DiCaprio and his foundation are facing over ties to a $3 billion embezzlement scheme.