BUSINESS
October 17, 2009 | Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Shares of Mattel Inc. rose 92 cents today after the company announced that its third-quarter profit dropped 3.5% as the global economic downturn hurt sales of its Barbie dolls and Fisher-Price toys. Investors pushed the stock to $20.50, up 4.7%, because of Mattel's wider profit margins, lower commodity prices and effective cost cutting, analysts said. "They've been able to successfully raise prices and aggressively shave operating expenses," said Chris White, an analyst with Wedbush Securities Inc. "So the thinking is, with these improvements in place, there's a lot of earnings leverage and earnings can grow."
ENTERTAINMENT
September 14, 2008
The Earrings of Madame De . . . /La Ronde/Le Plaisir Criterion, $39.95 each Director Max Ophuls fled Europe just ahead of the Nazis and spent a few frustrating years in Hollywood before moving to France in 1950 and making four consecutive masterpieces. Three of those are now available in sterling Criterion editions: the scandalous 1950 romance "La Ronde," about a chain of men and women who fall in love with each other; the comic anthology "Le Plaisir," based on three Guy de Maupassant short stories; and the sophisticated drama "The Earrings of Madame De . . .," about a society dame who cheats on her husband.
ENTERTAINMENT
May 15, 2008 | Pete Metzger, Special to The Times
Ah, May! The weather gets a little warmer, high school kids nervously attend their proms and the movie studios begin to release their would-be blockbusters, eager to start the summer box-office rush early. And do you know what that means? (Besides, of course, the promotional giveaway toys at Burger King and McDonald's.) That's right: the dreaded movie tie-in video games.
BUSINESS
May 12, 2008 | Ryan Nakashima, The Associated Press
"Speed Racer" was lapped in its opening weekend at the box office as "Iron Man" continued to fire its jets with $50.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday. The anime-inspired race movie edged into the No. 2 spot with $20.2 million, slightly ahead of the 20th Century Fox comedy "What Happens in Vegas," which premiered at $20 million. "Our tracking was stalled toward the end," Dan Fellman, president of Warner Bros.
ENTERTAINMENT
May 11, 2008 | Cristy Lytal, Special to The Times
FOR MOST people, the worries associated with helmets involve their protective qualities and what they'll do to the wearer's hair once removed. Australian native Kym Barrett wraps her head around helmets for entirely other reasons.
ENTERTAINMENT
May 9, 2008 | Carina Chocano, Times Movie Critic
It's hard to imagine a movie better suited to the aesthetic tastes of an addled 8-year-old boy than "Speed Racer," or one worse suited to his attention span. Unless, of course, he enjoys speechifying. For a movie about speed and forward momentum, "Speed Racer" provides very little of either, though it does explode into spurts of frenetic, confusing and hard-to-follow action -- and that's just on the racetracks.