There are few Hollywood legends as beloved and bizarre as B-movie kingpin Roger Corman. He’s a director and producer who, through his various entities, was responsible for releasing foreign movies into art houses (things by Godard and Kurosawa). He also cultivated a number of big time directors, giving initial breaks to everyone from Francis Ford Coppola to Jonathan Demme.<\/p>\n
It’s a great story. But now it’s being made into a narrative feature, and, according to an interview with Corman in the Telegraph, the filmmakers found a very unusual choice for his stand-in: Quentin Tarantino.<\/p>\n
The movie is called “The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes,” and it will be directed by Joe Dante, who worked for many years for Corman, first as an editor and then as a director (on his goofy “Jaws” rip-off “Piranha”). The movie details the shooting of Corman’s LSD movie “The Trip.”<\/p>\n
This casting decision is totally insane for a number of reasons. Firstly, Quentin Tarantino? Really? Did anyone see his eyesore cameo at the end of “Django Unchained?” But more importantly, Tarantino is the total opposite of Corman. Corman is a calm, measured personality — a man who rarely raises his voice — whereas Tarantino is a nonstop talking machine.<\/p>\n
Although this weird bit of casting kind of tempers our enthusiasm for the project, we can’t think of anyone better than Dante to bring this particular tale to life. Dante previously dramatized the life of a similarly larger-than-life cinematic figure William Castle in the sorely underrated “Matinee.”