Larry talks with KPCC film critics Jean Oppenheimer and Henry Sheehan about the week’s new movie releases including Iron Man 2, Mother And Child, Babies, The Human Centipede, Casino Jack And The United States of Money, Behind The Burly Q, OSS 117: Lost In Rio, Mercy, and The Lightkeepers. When DreamWorks was founded in 1994, it was the first new Hollywood studio in 60 years. Headed by director Steven Spielberg, music mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, and ex-Disney executive David Geffen, the company set out to build a media empire dedicated to talent and where employees didn't have titles. DreamWorks had its share of successes – American Beauty, Gladiator, Shrek. But it also had numerous, costly failures, and by 2005 the studio was sold to Paramount. In The Men Who Would Be King, reporter Nicole LaPorte tells the story of the company's flare-ups and failed ambitions. Live tweeting this week's reviews:
Guests:
Jean Oppenheimer, FilmWeek critic Henry Sheehan, FilmWeek critic Nicole LaPorte, author of The Men Who Would be King: An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies and a Company Called DreamWorks (Houghton Mifflin). She is the West Coast reporter for the Daily Beast and a former film reporter for Variety