Today on AirTalk, Larry Mantle and a panel of guests discuss the impact of Apollo 11 on Southern California and commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the landing before a live audience at KPCC’s Crawford Family Forum; and more.
AirTalk Special Event: Apollo 11 — One Small Step, 50 Years Later
Fifty years ago on July 20, 1969, more than 600 million people worldwide tuned in to watch astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin become the first humans to set foot on the moon.
Armstrong’s famous words as he took those first steps were no exaggeration; the moon landing was unquestionably a “giant leap for mankind.” That momentous day changed science, technology and culture in ways that are still being felt today.
Host Larry Mantle and a panel of guests discuss the impact of Apollo 11 on Southern California and commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the landing before a live audience at KPCC’s Crawford Family Forum.
Full Video Broadcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qQTR-LCBtk&feature=youtu.be
Panel Highlights
On what this anniversary means:
When I think about Apollo 11, I really think of what some people refer to as the "Apollo effect"...when the country announced its intention to put a man on the moon and return safely in 10 years, it really created a tremendous interest among the whole country but young people especially, and then the effect with that was that a lot of people switched career[s] and became interested in science, technology, engineering and math — STEM. And that really started the whole STEM movement...that's what I think most about.
— John Casani, pioneering engineer for JPL, NASA
On the technical achievements:
It's probably one of the most complicated engineering feats of humanity...the complexity of being able to design something for an environment that you've never been to before and have it work the first time is just tremendous in terms of having to understand the physics behind everything that you're doing — whether it's from the design of the engines, to the navigation of the spacecraft, to what the environment was going to be for the human beings to be able to survive there for that time. So I actually can't think of a greater engineering accomplishment for our species than Apollo.
— Anita Sengupta, rocket scientist and aerospace engineer
On the aerospace industry's impact on Southern California:
When you talk to people in the street and they say, 'What's the industry in Southern California LA?' The industry is Hollywood right? That's the first thing most people think about. But in this period from World War II through this early part of the Cold War in the Space Race especially, I mean the industry was aerospace. And I think most people who grew up here like myself understand that everybody had family members, neighbors, friends who worked in the industry — it was zero degrees of separation. So many people were in the business and it was really central. Apollo poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Southern California and that was really what fueled this tremendous growth of Southern California in this period.
— Peter J. Westwick, aerospace historian
Featuring a pre-recorded interview with Poppy Northcutt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuG2piVegP8&feature=youtu.be
Guests
John Casani – veteran JPL chief engineer who joined the early Pioneer moon program and went on to lead several of NASA’s missions to deep space, including the designs for the Ranger and Mariner spacecrafts; in 2009, he was honored with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's prestigious lifetime achievement award, the museum’s highest honor
Peter J. Westwick – director of the Aerospace History Project at the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West; he’s a research professor of history at USC and the editor and author of several books, including “Blue Sky Metropolis: The Aerospace Century in Southern California” (2012 Huntington Library and University of California Press) and “Into the Black: JPL and the American Space Program, 1976–2004” (2011 Yale University Press)
Anita Sengupta – rocket scientist, aerospace engineer and research associate professor of astronautics at USC; she was an entry, descent and landing (EDL) engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 16 years and responsible for the supersonic parachute system integral for the Curiosity Rover landing on Mars in 2012; she tweets
Frances “Poppy” Northcutt, the first woman to work in an operational support role at NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston during the Apollo program; she tweets at
and is also featured in the new documentary film “Apollo 11: First Steps Edition,” which is currently playing across the country, including at the California Science Center until Oct. 3
FilmWeek: 'The Lion King,' 'David Crosby: Remember My Name,' 'The Great Hack' and more
Larry Mantle and KPCC film critics Peter Rainer, Amy Nicholson and Charles Solomon review this weekend’s new movie releases:
"The Lion King" in wide release
"David Crosby: Remember My Name" at The Landmark & ArcLight Hollywood
“The Frame” host John Horn talked to director A.J. Eaton and producer Cameron Crowe earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, where the documentary premiered. You can listen to that interview here.
"The Great Hack" at the Laemmle’s Monica Film Center & Netflix on Wednesday July 24th
"Sword of Trust" at the Nuart Theater
"Rosie" at Laemmle's Monica Film Center
"Rojo" at Laemmle's Royal
"Apollo 11" in select theaters on Saturday July 20th only
"Bottom of the 9th" at the AMC Universal CityWalk & on video-on-demand
"Above The Shadows" at the Arena Cinelounge Sunset
"A Bigger Splash" at Laemmle’s Music Hall
FilmWeek critic Peter Rainer is hosting a film series centered around the work of French female directors at the Norton Simon Museum. You can find more information about the screenings here.
Correction: During the FilmWeek radio broadcast, Larry Mantle identifies Karim Amer as the sole director of "The Great Hack." The film was co-directed by Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim. We apologize for the error.
CRITICS' HITS:
Charles: "Apollo 11"
Amy: "David Crosby: Remember My Name" & "Rojo"
Peter: "Rosie" & "Bottom of the 9th"
MIXED FEELINGS:
Peter: "The Great Hack" & "A Bigger Splash"
Amy: "Sword of Trust"
MISSES:
Charles: "The Lion King"
Guests:
Amy Nicholson, film critic for KPCC, film writer for The Guardian and host of the podcasts ‘Unspooled’ and the podcast miniseries “Zoom”; she tweets
Peter Rainer, film critic for KPCC and the Christian Science Monitor
Charles Solomon, film critic for KPCC, Animation Scoop and Animation Magazine
Sony Pictures Chair Tom Rothman Talks “Once Upon A Time…in Hollywood” And The Ever-Shifting And Consolidating Film Studio Landscape
The last several years have been ones of change and some uncertainty for the landscape of the major Hollywood film studios.
AT&T bought WarnerMedia, Disney bought Twentieth Century Fox, and the “Big Five” film studios (Universal, Paramount, Warner Bros., Disney, and Sony) are starting to feel the pressure from a sixth heavyweight, Netflix. Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group chair Tom Rothman has watched it all happen from his various positions as a film studio executive. Over the course of three decades he’s been with Columbia Pictures and Samuel Goldwyn and spent 18 years in various roles at Twentieth Century Fox and Fox Searchlight.
He came to Sony Pictures in late 2013 to head up TriStar Productions before being promoted to chair of Sony’s Motion Picture Group. He oversaw Sony’s most profitable movie slate in over a decade in 2018, including “Jumanji: Welcome To the Jungle,” a film that became Sony’s highest-grossing, wholly-owned film ever, and the critically acclaimed “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” one of only a handful of non-Disney films to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
Ahead of Sony’s release next week of the Quentin Tarantino-directed film “Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood,” Rothman joins Larry Mantle on FilmWeek to talk about the successes and challenges he’s faced guiding a major film studio, how the shifting studio landscape changes the way he approaches his job, and how he plans to keep Sony competitive in a world where franchises and reboots dominate at the box office.
Guest:
Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Pictures Group