It’s hard to believe no one has done a film tribute to Roger Corman before “Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel,” Alex Stapleton’s loving time-capsule of the career of one of the true independent filmmaking sensibilities of all time.
Still active at a spritely 85, Corman is shown shooting a deathless bit of horror for the Syfy network, “Dinoshark” (not to be confused with his equally enthralling “Sharktopus”). But as a who’s who of Oscar-winning actors and directors testify, Corman ran one of the great film schools available to the aspiring director: a low-budget independent company that gave untried talent the chance to direct for the first time.
Ron Howard, John Sayles, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Jonathan Demme and Peter Bogdanovich are among the familiar faces singing the praises of Corman and his work at both American International Pictures (where he worked for a decade) and his own New World Pictures in the 1970s (which he also used to release films by Fellini, Kurosawa and others in the U.S.).
This review continues on my website.