{"id":2980,"date":"2011-05-31T13:10:09","date_gmt":"2011-05-31T17:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/?p=2037"},"modified":"2011-05-31T13:10:09","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T17:10:09","slug":"the-corman-touch-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=2980","title":{"rendered":"The Corman Touch: Part II"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

"Contrary to one's immediate reaction, there are deep social mores beneath those Lycra-cradled buttocks."<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When his first and only genuine effort to make social drama, a superb adaptation of Charles\u2019 Beaumont\u2019s novel The Intruder <\/a><\/strong>(1962), flopped and lost money, producer \/ director Roger Corman gave up on so-called message films, and stuck with bug-eyed monsters, Poe adaptation, and eventually became the<\/em> premiere producer of B-movies.<\/p>\n

Now in his eighties, Corman\u2019s producing credits span more than 350 titles, which is frankly insane, yet he remains the same affable yet frugal producer beloved by former prot\u00e9g\u00e9s like Joe Dante.<\/p>\n

Whether it was the 1978 Piranha<\/strong>, the 1995 Piranha<\/strong> (aka Piranhas<\/strong>), or the recent Dinoshark<\/strong> (2009) and Sharktopus <\/a><\/strong>[M<\/a>] (2010) productions, Corman served as mentor to the craft of \u2018efficient\u2019 filmmaking. None of the films qualify as art, yet their makers went from editors, production managers, and special effects whizzes to directors \u2013 something typical of the old studio system, but largely absent today except with producers who enjoy productive associations with major studios.<\/p>\n

That Corman continues to make movies is a wonder simply because he\u2019s weathered the demise of drive-in theatres, the death of major indie outfits like AIP and Avco Embassy, his own releasing firms New World and Concord, and the lack of theatrical releases.<\/p>\n

Around the nineties, Corman settled into making exploitation fodder for cable TV, which allowed more gore and boobery, but mandated formulaic product. The disposable nature had to be offset by brand recognition, so Corman reached back into his back catalogue and remade A Bucket of Blood<\/strong> (1995), Piranha<\/strong> (1995), and The Wasp Woman<\/strong> (1995).<\/p>\n

He also riffed on the 1958 Woolner production, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman<\/strong>, making Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds<\/strong> (1995), and during the eighties he also remade Not of This Earth<\/strong> (1988) and Masque of the Red Death<\/strong> (1989).<\/p>\n

His nineties remakes are more interesting because of the casting and virtual scene-for-scene retention of the original scripts. Piranha<\/strong> doesn\u2019t need to exist, but has a minor curiosity value in seeing scenes from the \u201978 Dante version replayed with slight tweaks, new faces, and the integration of effects footage from the original film.<\/p>\n

Again, it has no reason to exist, but it made for an easy cable TV sale, filled the rental shelves, and if examined with critical eyes, shows the stylistic shifts within a 16 year period \u2013 namely faster editing, snappier dialogue, and a shorter running time for a 90 minute time slot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dinoshark <\/a><\/strong>[M<\/a>], available in a swanky Blu-ray edition from Anchor Bay, is similarly brief, but unlike its unofficial sequel, Sharktopus<\/strong>, it takes itself too seriously and lacks the necessary fromage factor that was effectively maintained in Piranha <\/a><\/strong>[M<\/a>] (1995). Corman\u2019s millennium era product is sometimes amusing, but like all good B-level cheese, it requires a special blend of the right elements (Eric Roberts always helps), and luck.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll have reviews of the BBC\u2019s Human Planet <\/strong>(Warner Home Video) and a pair of Mimsy Farmer gialli up shortly.<\/p>\n

This past weekend was devoted to Doors Open Toronto, and between film and soundtrack reviews I\u2019ll interpolate a few posts and photo essays on some of Toronto\u2019s more intriguing buildings I managed to visit, some tethered to related docs.<\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviews of Roger Corman’s productions of Dinoshark (Anchor Bay) on Blu-ray, and Piranha (aka Piranhas), the all-but-forgotten 1995 cable TV movie that replays all major events from the ’78 original with William Katt and Alexandra Paul…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[500,501,4212],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-M4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}