An ode to Roger Corman

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Always good to see the versatile filmmaker get some of his much-deserved space on the Internet -

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=128873305

Days after someone else bashed him in another website, it's good to read something nice and appreciative about the man, however descriptive it might be.

To Corman, a filmmaker's first order of business is to entertain the audience. If there's any social commentary involved, it should never be too intrusive to the plot.

"We then try to make as intelligent a story where we can, off of something that is maybe a little bit outlandish," he says. "We try to bring a little bit of logic to film."

Corman's other chief rules: Make it fast, and make it cheap. He's known, not to say notorious, for being unwilling to spend more than he absolutely must. He'll reuse movie sets: He shot the 1960 horror comedy Little Shop of Horrors — which featured Jack Nicholson in a bit part — in two days and a night on a borrowed set built for another movie entirely. He didn't pay a dime for it.

"I had an office at a small rental studio in Hollywood, and somebody had built a rather good set for a picture there," he explains. "And I said, "Well that's a really good set you have there. And if nothing's coming in, I'd like to experiment.' "

Years later, the filmmaker still has warm feelings when he thinks about Little Shop.

"For many years after it was made, it was shown at midnight screenings. And Warner Brothers made a multimillion-dollar bigger version of it, which was a good picture but wasn't quite as funny," Corman says. "Our picture was certainly not as good or big as a Warner Brothers picture, but there was a spirit to it. We were all young people. ... We were all just fooling around."

...

For Corman, horror is a genre that appeals to the masses for reasons going back to early childhood. Kids are frightened by monsters under the bed, and when they get older, they tell themselves it was all part of their imagination.

"I think the task of the filmmaker is to break through and hit that horror that still remains in the unconscious mind," Corman says. "And there's a certain amount of catharsis there. And I think that's one of the reasons — if not the main reason — why horror films, novels, even plays, are so popular."

[neverending]

Nice article.

But the Little Shop remake WAS hilarious.

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Roger and Julie Corman will be awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at Fantastic Fest, Austin, TX, alongwith a special screening of his latest movie "Sharktopus".

Tribute article and details -

http://www.austin360.com/movies/roge...inglePage=true