During a period I personally consider Fellini’s creative prime, De Laurentiis co-produced two of the director’s most powerful films, the classic tearjerker “La Strada” with Anthony Quinn and the great Giulietta Masina, and “Nights of Cabiria” also with Masina, a great tragicomedy and a huge personal favorite of mine. He also produced two now somewhat obscure adaptations, a version of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” with Audrey Hepburn and “Ulysses.” Fortunately, the latter was not an adaptation of the James Joyce stream-of-consciousness meganovel, but Homer’s “The Odyssey,” and starred Kirk Douglas in the heroic title role.

No snob, De Laurentiis had a gift for commingling arthouse fare, quality middlebrow entertainment, and complete schlock — some of it fun, some it merely schlocky. Geeks cried foul when he eschewed stop-motion for an unworkable animatronic monstrosity and, mostly, Rick Baker in a monkey suit for his silly mega-blockbuster remake attempt, “King Kong,” but that movie was a classic when compared to something like the hugely regrettable killer-whale flick “Orca.”

Though “Flash Gordon,” directed by Mike Hodges (the original “Get Carter” and “Croupier”) with music by Queen, was declared DOA by audiences and most critics, it was praised by the great contrarian Pauline Kael and remains a fairly popular cult film. “The White Buffalo,” a sort of Western Moby Dick starring Charles Bronson, however, has no such cult. The potboiler, “Mandingo,” was dismissed as racially suspect garbage but also has been championed recently by more than one intelligent cinephile.

No stranger to financial problems, he even managed to produce commercial and critical disappointments with the greatest directors of his day. “The Serpent’s Egg” with David Carradine was Sweden’s Ingmar Bergman’s only Hollywood film and no one’s favorite. “Buffalo Bill and the Indians” with Paul Newman is not high on anyone’s list of the best of Robert Altman. Roman Polanski’s “Hurricane” is only remembered because of how it figured in Polanski’s rape case. The young David Lynch’s version of “Dune” has its fans today, but at the time…

On the other hand, De Laurentiis also produced some of the biggest American films of his day from top-flight directors, including Sidney Lumet’s “Serpico,” Sidney Pollack’s “Three Days of the Condor,” and David Cronenberg’s “The Dead Zone.” And then there two critically hated but immensely popular movies. One sold sex and fantasy — that would be “Barbarella” starring the very young Jane Fonda. The other sold violence and urban paranoia, “Death Wish” with Charles Bronson. Both films helped turned their leads into superstars. His involvement was more or less minimal, but De Laurentiis also was executive producer on “Army of Darkness” — I’m sure Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are both grateful for that.

De Laurentiis last shrewd call was becoming involved with the film version of a little airport thriller called “Red Dragon.” That became the spiffy Michael Mann film, “Manhunter” and featured Brian Cox in a small role as a certain Dr. Hannibal Lecter. When a sequel to that novel became Jonathan Demme’s blockbuster, “The Silence of the Lambs.” several years later, he was well positioned to capitalize on with a Thomas Harris’s sequel adaptation, “Hannibal,” a remake/prequel, “Red Dragon,” and another prequel “Hannibal Rising.”

I can remember hearing directors who worked for him speak of him with a combination of affection, irritation, and awe, but whatever was true of Dino De Laurentiis, he sure could pick ’em.

As always, there is a lot more from David Hudson at MUBI.

It’s been nearly 15 years since producer James L. Brooks bankrolled a feature version of a short film made by some Texas youngsters, and that movie (“Bottle Rocket”) introduced the movie world to director Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson, and his brother, Luke. Since then, Dallas-born Luke Wilson’s movie-star handsome likeness has become a highly familiar to filmgoers, playing both leading men and supporting roles mostly in comedies like “Legally Blonde,” “Old School,” and Mike Judge’s criminally maltreated “Idiocracy,” as well as “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums,” and a classic cameo in “Anchorman.” (He was the anchor who — spoiler alert — got his arm was sliced off with a sword by Tim Robbins.)

To this day, Wilson has a habit of turning up in odd and interesting places, like a series of well-known commercials for AT&T or in the uneven but entertaining “Middle Men,” in which Wilson very credibly stars as a Texas businessman who gets much more than he expected at the intersection of e-commerce and adult entertainment. He is also preparing to play the part of Laura Dern’s flaky ex-husband on “Enlightened,” a new TV series from cult writer-producer Mike White (“Chuck and Buck,” “School of Rock“) with episodes directed by Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme.

At the risk of creating an embarrassing but perhaps partially correct impression of a man-crush, in person Luke Wilson is a highly charismatic guy. Behind his highly colloquial speech — I’ve left out a lot of “likes” — is an intelligence that, without giving away much of anything, dispenses with a lot of the usual show business interview platitudes. Now in his late 30s, he also appeared thinner than his slightly chunky appearance on “Middle Man” or his recent AT&T commercials. That was because Wilson had deliberately gone over his normal weight by about 25 pounds for the role of a hard-driving businessman and family guy.

What was that like?

“It was great. Pasta, Mexican food, beer — all the things you kind of avoid. Obviously, as an actor you kind of look up to all the people who push themselves and it’s not like it was a super-important part of the role but…you get a little older, stop exercising, and you don’t eat very well and in a week you can have 12 pounds. It’s not like I did a De Niro,” he said referencing the actor’s astounding 1980 transformation from near-perfect human specimen to fat slob and back again as boxer Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull.”

How about taking those 25 pounds off again?

“More difficult! Still working on it. Of course I tried the stuff of ‘Well, I’ll just eat right but I won’t start jogging,’ but you gotta really do both. I played sports growing up so I got to be in shape but, definitely, as you kind of pass 30, pass 35…I thought I might be immune,” he added, getting some laughs from the table.

How did Wilson approach playing a character loosely based on his producer, Christopher Mallick.

“I always kind of envied actors who got to play a real person or got to do research. I always had these roles where it was pretty much just right there on the page. You read about somebody playing Dian Fossey, or Hunter S. Thompson and Johnny Depp going to live with him, you think ‘God, that would be incredible.’ I just thought that now was the perfect time to do this and it was helped by me being not computer savvy at all. I wanted to learn about that. I liked that fact that Chris…was there every day, every shot…We’d eat lunch with him, go to dinner with him. He was a cool guy. He wouldn’t give straight-on advice but you could ask him any questions you wanted to. I just found that really interesting.”

“It helped kind of relax me because it was a different role for me. It’s not that I didn’t think I could do it but you just get told enough ‘Well, this is a really different role for you’ and you start to think, ‘Wow, it is. Should I be doing “Legally Blonde 3″?’ So it was great to have the chance to see that this is a real guy, and he’s just a businessman that actually did get in over his head.”

Then, came a question about, of all people, Bill Murray and his unorthodox approach to promoting his current film, “Get Low,” which led to him bailing out of two press days in Los Angeles but going to a film festival in Poland and dumpster diving on David Letterman. The justification for even asking Wilson about this was that he appeared with Murray in “Rushmore” and “The Royal Tenenbaums.” Was his attitude towards promoting those Wes Anderson films in any way similar?

“No, I think he might have had a more traditional approach back on those movies but he’s always been a totally different guy. Like I heard he doesn’t have an agent anymore, he has a 1-800 number. I hear that and I think ‘This guy’s a genius.’ Also, what you forget about him is that he’s now been in the business over 30 years, so I can see him getting a little tired of, ” Wilson paused, probably not wanting to say something along the lines of “idiots like you guys.” Fortunately, he came with something more diplomatic. “He probably doesn’t want to go on ‘Entertainment Tonight’ or something…”

Then, quizzed about his involvement with AT&T, Wilson volunteered that people were actually coming up to him to discuss the service provided by the telecommunications giant.

“The first time it happened to me, I was making a connection in the Denver airport. Some guy said something to me about ‘service.’ I was [thinking] ‘What the hell does that have to do with movies?’ and ‘What movie was I in the service industry?’ I had not seen the ads. All of the sudden they were on all the time. I had friends say, ‘Hey, if I wanted to watch the football game with you, I’d have had you over at my house.’ It shows the power of the medium — you’re making movies for 15 years and then people are saying ‘Hey, you’re the AT&T guy!’ ‘I guess I am!'”

His role as a commercial spokesman doesn’t limit the kind of roles he can take in any way, does it?

“I honestly like to be busy. It’s how I’m the most happy… It makes me want to write my own stuff. I like being on the set, like the guy who directed those AT&T ads was Errol Morris who did ‘The Thin Blue Line’ and all these incredible documentaries. To get the chance to be around him day-in and day-out was really incredible. And, yeah, it’s interesting to work for a big company like that.”

In person, one other thing you notice about Luke Wilson is that his Texas drawl is a bit more pronounced than it is in most of his movies. Noting that my favorite Wilson film, Wes Anderson’s underrated debut, “Bottle Rocket,” was in many respects almost a modern-day western, was there any chance of Wilson appearing in a real western?

“Somebody asked me today ‘Is there anything you’d like to do?’ That’s definitely at the top of the list. I’d like to do a sports movie too, but being from Texas and being a big Eastwood fan, last night I was watching ‘High Plains Drifter’ for, like, the fiftieth time and I would definitely like to do a western. Those kind of themes, simple stories, and just the idea of being on location in New Mexico or Montana just seems like it would be incredible.”

How about working again with his brother, Owen?

First he’d have to catch up with his peripatetic sibling, who is currently shooting a film with Woody Allen and he would also include the other acting Wilson brother, Andrew. “It’s just a matter of getting us all together and buckling down and trying to write a good script. Which I think we’d like to do.”

What about the fact that “Middle Men,” in something of a mini-“Bottle Rocket” reunion, reunited Luke Wilson with James Caan? Caan gave one of his best later-career performances as the only real criminal in the 1996 comedy.

“He was the first big star that we worked with. We would always kid around that we were high-fiving ourselves back then. ‘This is incredible. James Caan!’ Then you’d look at him on the set and he’s like ‘What am I doing here? I was working with Coppola. I was working with Michael Mann’… And, really, that’s how he was the first two days. We were [thinking] ‘God, this poor guy.'”

“He thought we looked weird. We sounded weird. There’d be takes where I’d say something and he wouldn’t even do the line. He would just look at the director… He really [adjusted] after a couple days. Maybe he just admitted defeat,” Wilson said to some laughter. “He was really nice to us and a really good guy. I’ve kept in touch with him over the years. So, yeah, 15-16 years later to get the chance to work with him again was really, really cool.”

Does Caan still think Wilson talks weird?

“Yeah. I’m sure he does. We had a real funny take one night where we’d been working all night. It was four in the morning. We had the scene where he opens his door and [says], ‘What’s this?’ and I say ‘It’s 150 grand.’ They said ‘action,’ he opened the door and I said ‘It’s 150 grand.’ He goes like, ‘No, see, I say “what’s that?,” you say “It’s 150 grand,” and then he slams the door and I think, ‘This could be 1995. This is like old home week.'”

I haven’t been paying quite as much attention to the cinephile end of the movie blogosphere as I should lately, so we’ll start there.

*  It’s never too late to check out the Brian DePalma blogathon that wrapped up yesterday at Tony Dayoub’s Cinema Viewfinder.  I’m actually not a member of the DePalma cult that includes everyone from the late uber-critic Pauline Kael to Quentin Tarantino and probably 70% of the male cinephile population. I dig a few of his movies a great deal and the oddball horror/suspense musical satire, “Phantom of the Paradise” has a special place in my heart. On the other hand, I have serious problems with even some of his most well-regarded films including, or perhaps especially, especially “Blow-Out.” There’s a cheapness to his films and tendency to wallow in despair that I can’t support.

Of course, that’s just me and Dayoub wrapped up yesterday in grand style with a fairly personal piece about “Scarface” (vastly overrated by many; I’ll take the Howard Hawks “Scarface” over it any day) and “Carlito’s Way” (which I think is underrated and overall just a solidly good movie). Anyhow, stroll around the site and you’ll see pieces by some of the true superstars of cinephilia.

* Speaking of great film lovers, you won’t find detailed appreciations of DePalma coming from The Self-Styled Siren — nor of Michael Mann or Sam Peckinpah.  Her bailiwick is classic era films (ending roughly around 1965) with an eye towards melodrama and comedy. Though her identity remains a secret, her fans are legion and definitely includes your humble host.

Her latest post is an attention grabber: “Ten Melos the Siren Would Watch Instead of Mad Men” which is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a fascinating list that males who want to expand their minds beyond the usual guy movie obsessions should definitely contemplate. And, yes, there’s a vigorous debate over “Mad Men” in comments, as well as an unsolicited cocktail recipe from me. If you’ve been looking for the inevitable backlash over the acclaimed series, which I personally love as much as anyone, there’ll be no more enjoyable place to find it.

Some news after the flip….

* When Oprah meets Sam (and writer Christopher Hampton of “Atonement” and “Dangerous Liaisons”) Oscars are on everyone’s mind. But will the movie they all make be any good?

* Wanna see a “futuristic robot boxing movie” from the director of “Night at the Museum“? THR says your lucky day may be coming.

* Variety also has a look at the first day of the ongoing 3-D summit. Basically, most agree that the big problem right now is that there simply aren’t enough seats to support the number of success the format has had. Today, however, we learn that keynoter Jeffrey Katzenberg wants more, more, more. Personally, I suspect there’s a limit and I’d hate for every major film to be in the format.

* Speaking of Variety and THR, aka the Hollywood Reporter, Nikki Finke has an apparent scoop that could affect the content of what I do around here. She reports that Variety will be going behind a “paid wall” next year and that THR will be scrapping its print edition later this year and then going behind a similar wall.

Finke thinks it’s a reasonable model, but the move will also make her own growing online power all the more formidable as the number of sources of hard industry news for the general public decreases substantially. Oh, and she’s also going to be name-checked on Entourage later this month. Now La Finke has really arrived.

With the ongoing box office behemoth that is “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” seemingly devouring everything in its path, the studios are nevertheless allowing two potentially vulnerable major productions to venture out of the nest a couple of days ahead of the big July 4th holiday weekend.

For the family trade, we have a 3-D CGI animated sequel, “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs,” which will be showing on a record number of 3-D screens. (Which I guess means that if you haven’t seen “Up” in 3-D by now, which I finally managed just last night, you may be SOL until at least such time as we start seeing 3-D retrospectives.) In a saner world, this would be the #1 movie this week because of family appeal, I think it’s safe to say. Carl DiOrio of The Hollywood Reporter is calling it at between $45 and $50 million for Friday through Sunday (not counting weekdays), which he thinks will be somewhat below the “Transformers” take based on a very modest 50% drop-off.

Is the word of mouth on this film, despised even by many who liked the first film (which I couldn’t even sit through) really that good? I’m not a twittering teen, so who knows. Though, to be honest, the “Ice Age” sequels reviews are hardly much better, at 34% “fresh” according to the mighty Tomatometer. Critics sound seriously bored this time around, though kids’ attention spans are often better than adults when animated animals are involved.

Variety, which apparently hasn’t read Carl DiOrio, says the following:

No one is willing to call the Fourth of July race, with the “Transformers” sequel looking like a powerhouse. There’s also the issue of timing. July 4 falls on Saturday, which could dampen returns on what is generally the busiest moviegoing day of the week.

Damn those national holidays with their picnics and fireworks and other non-moviegoing pleasures. But, yes, there is another very major release this week which, in any normal world, would be the film to beat. I obviously speak of the Michael Mann-directed Johnny Depp/Christian Bale vehicle, “Public Enemies.”

As I wrote a couple of days back, however, concern is widespread that this one doesn’t really have the mass appeal — or non mass appeal, even — to really make the grade. A film of this type, from a highly regarded director and with two widely-admired master thespian-style superstars in the lead and which appeals to grown-ups with other things to do than head lemming-like to the ‘plex, really should break 70% on the Tomatometer. 56% is disappointing and this is the kind of film which may not be entirely critic proof — or rather it might be the kind of film where the word of mouth might more closely follow the reviews because of the nature of the audience, if you follow me. DiOrio’s call, which I really have no reason to question, is for $25 million for the actual weekend and as much as $40 million for the five day extended period. That should about cover the salaries of Mr. Bale’s eye-line protection team.

* There seems to be some concern out in the world about just how well Michael Mann’s new Johnny Depp/Christian Bale vehicle, “Public Enemies,” will fare when it’s released on Wednesday. Mixed reviews, like the one posted today by Den of Geek’s Michael Leader seem fairly typical and it’s possible audiences will feel mehish on the project. (The Tomatometer is currently at a fair-to-middling 64%, but even some of the “fresh” reviews don’t read as outright positive.) Anne Thompson specifically wonders about just how Depp’s huge star power will register and Mann’s decision to shoot a period film in digital, though it’s not the first period action film to be shot that way (“The Last Samurai” comes to mind). Those still reasonably jazzed about the nouveau-gangster flick (and that includes me, even though I’m not a super big Michael Mann fan), may want to check out our “Between Good and Evil” feature over at Bullz-Eye.

* Speaking of Anne Thompson, she has a festival wrap-up posted (looks like we saw a pretty different selection of films). I’ll be writing about it one-more time tomorrow.

* Nikki Finke has the “actuals” in from “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” It’s $390 million worldwide. I guess that’s enough. She’s also upset over some impending Oscar changes, including a rule that might limit the number of “Best Song” entries and having a separate, non-televised dinner for the humanitarian awards like the Thalberg, which I’ll personally miss, because I’m weird.