Los Angeles Times
By Mark Sachs
October 24, 2001

With more than 600 movies under his belt, it goes with the territory that 
producer Dino De Laurentiis has his share of admirers and detractors peppered 
across the landscape of international cinema.

What's a bit more unusual in his case is that both perspectives often come 
from the same colleague.

While essentially a valentine to the 82-year-old movie maker, tonight's PBS 
special, "The Last Movie Mogul," (8-9 p.m. on KCET) offers enough biting 
balance to keep things lively. A veteran De Laurentiis collaborator, director 
John Milius, had this to say about the producer's vast output: "Some were 
good. Some were bad. All were overblown."

But later, Milius offers gruff admiration for the producer's white-knuckle 
determination to see projects through from concept to conclusion, a sentiment 
echoed by such luminaries as Sydney Pollack, David Lynch and longtime friend 
Anthony Hopkins.

>From De Laurentiis' early days in the Italian cinema, where he won foreign 
language Oscars with director Federico Fellini for "La Strada" (1954) and 
"Nights of Cabiria" (1957), to this year's "Hannibal," it's a hugely 
impressive body of work.

As the program points out, for every "Orca" or "Flash Gordon" fiasco along 
the way, there were pictures such as "Serpico," "Three Days of the Condor" 
and "Blue Velvet" to remind the filmmaking community of his instincts.

In March, Hollywood paid homage to his durable vision by presenting De 
Laurentiis with the Irving G. Thalberg Award.

It would have been a fitting career capper, but as he says in "The Last Movie 
Mogul," there are still movies to be made.