preppy-3 Great documentary about writer/producer/director Roger Corman who has been making low low LOW budget films since the 1950s..and always turned a profit. He also gave a lot of actors and directors their first big breaks. Mostly all of them are interviewed for this film--Peter Bogdanovich, Joe Dante, Jonathan Demme, Bruce Dern, Robert DeNiro, Peter Fonda, Pam Grier, Ron Howard, Jack Nicholson (who breaks down in tears at one point), Martin Scorsese and William Shatner. It also chronicles how his movie changed how movies were marketed, how he did risky films no one would touch and changed the face of independent filmmaking. There's also some humorous behind-the-scenes footage. My favorite parts had to him laughing while discussing "The Terror" and how his favorite film ("The Intruder") actually lost money. There's surprisingly not much footage from the films themselves. Most of it consists of interviews. It's fast and funny and I must-see for film lovers. A 10 all the way.

room102 A documentary about legendary director/producer Roger Corman, covering his career of over 400 movies. Beside starting the career of many famous directors and actors (Jack Nicholson in particular), it shows the influence of his films on cinema and that even exploitation movies are OK as long as you like what you do and give the audience what they want.Watching this documentary really got me thinking that there's no huge difference between Roger Corman and Ed Wood: Both did "commando" low budget movies with minimum budget and shooting. So is it a matter of talent? Some of the scenarios described by the people involved really sound like scenes taken from "Ed Wood".This documentary features lots of clips from his entire career and interviews with lots of famous actors and directors.

poe426 If nothing else, Roger Corman has been a blue collar filmmaker- a man who got things done. Sure, the Hits and the Misses were often indistinguishable from one another (at least, BEFORE the receipts were counted), but Corman keeps plugging away. CORMAN'S WORLD gives us a rare (nay, long overdue) look at The Man Himself and there ARE some interesting insights along the way. One of my first attempts to sell a script to someone in Hollywood was a monstrosity titled BEAST WORLD, which had a giant alien bat living in a cave on another world humans were trying to colonize. It was, to its CORE, a Corman-type of scenario; i.e.;one part Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, one part IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE and one part Christian Nyby's THE THING (with, by default, a touch of ALIEN in the mix). The script never sold, but, man, what a Corman movie it could've been!

Paul Mathie Hail! Hail! King of the B's Cannes favourite 'Corman's World' is a heart-warming portrait of one of the true greats of American independent cinema, the champion of outlaws, freaks and fools and the master of the macabre. All the more touching as numerous interviews and testimonies paint a picture of a curious man indeed: not a dark twisted soul but a warm and genteel man with a wonderfully warped and fertile imagination. What's more astonishing is the dazzlingly array of aspiring filmmakers and actors he mentored during the 60's and 70's. Reading like a Who's Who's of the golden age of the American auteur, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Fonda, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Ron Howard, Robert De Niro and David Carradine, amongst many others, all pay tribute here, including a tearful Jack Nicholson.Beginning in the 50's as a story analyst at 20th Century Fox, Corman moved into writing, eventually selling scripts to fund his own productions for the burgeoning American Independent Pictures. His debut 'Monster From the Ocean Floor' in 1954 was the start of a prolific production output, with increasing forays into directing, notably 'Little Shop of Horrors' shot in only 2 days! Corman really made his mark in the 60's. A series of classic Edgar Allan Poe adaptations featuring the splendidly cast Vincent Price define his legacy but the maverick Corman was often making use of down time and vacant sets to pursue other projects during this period. Most notable was the 1963 piece of Gothic absurd-ism, 'The Terror', using sets from 'The Raven'. Proceeding with barely plot, nor script, a shoe string cast including Nicholson and an ageing Boris Karloff, the disparate visions of four different directors contributed to this chaotic opus, including a young Francis Ford Coppola and even Nicholson, who recalls this curious episode.The 60's also saw critical acclaim for Corman, tackling themes such as racism in the segregated south in 'The Intruder' and counter culture movements in the 'The Wild Angels' and 'The Trip' but the 70's heralded changes for Corman and he looks back on this era with a hint of melancholy. With the release of 'Jaws' and then 'Star Wars' the big studios finally caught up with the B's. Schlock horror from the deep and invaders from space were now big budget and Corman was once more an outsider and destined for the straight-to-video market in the coming decade but before taking a back seat, Corman's masterstroke was to spot the black comedy of the rubber shark and raise the stakes with 'Piranha' in 1978.The denouement sees Corman still active today, well into his eighties, on the set of the self-explanatory gore-fest 'Dinoshark'. His output has barely abated since the 70's but he takes an increasingly hands-off executive role these days. He remains ever philosophical, contented and visibly touched by the receipt of an honorary Academy Award in 2009. His calm and collected bizarre genius is deeply uplifting and I'd recommend anyone take a trip into Corman's World.