Now That's What I Call Acting: Reporter David Matthews is reading this Variety story about the painstaking measures cast and crew took to produce "The Revenant," the upcoming film epic starring Tom Hardy and Leonardo DiCaprio. The magazine interviewed director Alejandro G. Inarritu and DiCaprio, the latter of whom plays the real-life 19th century frontiersman who was mauled by a grizzly bear and crawled 200 miles to seek revenge against those who left him for dead. The producers battled the weather (subzero temperatures and using only natural light), shot the scenes in chronological order (to give the actors the same sense of time as the audience), imported ants by plane and hastily switched the set from Canada to Argentina to make the movie. DiCaprio, who ate raw bison liver and wore 47 prosthetics to get into the character of a gnarly badass, called it the most difficult performance of his career. The movie opens Jan. 8.
Chocolatier Takedown: Turns out those super fancy — and super expensive ($10) — bars of artisanal Mast Brothers chocolate aren't so artisanal. Reporter Sam Cholke is reading a Quartz investigation revealing that the specially crafted chocolate from Brooklyn is actually mixed with French Valrhona, and the bearded brother owners were never quite accurate when they said they directly source all their cocoa beans — or that they developed their own equipment — or that they figured out the process all on their own. The article is brutal in its takedown of nearly every aspect of the company’s public image as a couple of Amish-looking brothers building a company from scratch.
Big In 2015: Solar Power?: By analyzing data, Chicago Cityscape found that 2015 was a record year for solar permits in Chicago. It's not just big institutions that are installing solar projects either — though the Shedd and the Institute of Cultural Affairs are included in the list. Reporter Mina Bloom was surprised to see the sharp increase in permits depicted in Cityscape's handy bar graph.
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