ROGER CORMAN (April 5th, 1926 – May 9th, 2024) – Many words have already been said about the passing of this film industry legend and I’m sure many, many more are yet to be said. From the 1950s to the current year – and with projects still in production – Roger William Corman was a Hollywood fixture.
I’m in no way qualified to give a comprehensive overview of the impact of this entrepreneur or his influence on some of the biggest directors, producers and actors in American cinema. Most people at first think you’re exaggerating when you mention the exhaustive list of people who figuratively learned at the knee of this Grand Old Man or who were given their first shot via a Corman Production. Often in one of his B movies!
Roger was never known as someone who lacked talent, he was just in it for the money most of the time, and therefore kept his budgets tight and his schedules tighter. From 50s monster movies to Raging Youth films to whatever horror trends were ascendant to big-screen soap operas that could be more explicit with their content, Roger Corman was there, raking in bucks and working with future giants of the industry.
Francis Ford Coppola, John Carpenter, James Cameron, John Sayles, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Joe Dante and countless others got some of their earliest directing experiences on Corman productions. Screenwriters like Robert Towne got early “real industry work”, as did actors like Jack Nicholson, Sally Kirkland, Bruce Dern, Sylvester Stallone, Pam Grier, Peter Fonda, etc. When you watch just about any theatrical release from America made over the last several decades the chances are at least one of the professionals involved got their start working on a Corman picture. Continue reading
If you are heavily into films and hearing from directors and actors offering comments on their work long ago when those movie projects first came out you may enjoy the old Matt and Greg Podcasts. The pair listen to and comment on 1990s to early 2000s radio junket interviews. 
Daniel Craig has been the face of James Bond since Casino Royale’s 2006 premier 
With the news that Steven Spielberg will no longer be directing the bizarre film project Indiana Jones 5, a few readers asked me for Balladeer’s Blog’s take. 
One of the main things I hate about keeping Harrison Ford as Indy is the fact that Ford’s age requires the setting to be the 1950s or 1960s. Those decades are far too late for the “homage to 1930s pulp and serial heroes” charm of the original Indiana Jones trilogy. 
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away … 
Even people who hate the way the soulless Disney Corporation has damaged the Star Wars franchise have been letting me know how excited they are about this particular rumor. Word has it that J.J. Abrams and possibly George Lucas have come up with a way of rising from the ruins of Rian “Man-Baby” Johnson’s ineptly directed and poorly written Last Jedi AND make Rey less of a Mary Sue. 
*** Maz, the collector of Force Relics, had Luke’s light saber that fell with his severed hand in Empire. Remember her saying in The Force Awakens that how she got it is “a story for another time?” Whoever she got it from may have used tissue samples from Luke’s hand to create the Rey clone. 
THE BLOOD DRINKERS (1964) Also released as The Vampire People and Kulay Dugo Ang Gabi, this was the very first COLOR horror film made in the Philippines. 
February 16th to 17th is when the 2019 Boston Sci-Fi Marathon will happen. 
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