Soviet Sci-Fi Cinema. Russia’s Soviet era (1917-1991) was a difficult time, especially for artists, who worked under heavy state censorship. Many artists during this time were stifled, fined, imprisoned or even executed for daring to challenge the Soviet status quo through their works. That said, Soviet-era science fiction cinema still managed to produce some truly…
Tag: #RogerCorman
San Diego Comic Con 2020 has been cancelled. Here’s to Comic Cons past…
San Diego Comic Con 2020 is cancelled. It’s only been a little over a month since my state went on self-isolation status during the pandemic, and remembering things like going to the movies or going out to eat are beginning to look like grainy silent footage of flapper parties and speakeasies from the 1920s. As…
“Battle Beyond The Stars” (1980); Roger Corman’s scrappy, campy answer to Star Wars turns 40…
The Clone Wars. Following the unexpected success of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” in 1977 (“A New Hope” wouldn’t be added to the title until years later), studios big and small were scrambling to create their own space operas. Some were embarrassingly obvious in their mimicry (Luigi Cozzi’s “Starcrash”), others gained their own cult followings (Glen…
Retro-Musings: 1966’s “Queen of Blood” shares plenty of hemoglobin with “ALIEN”…
In the 1960s, legendary guerrilla-filmmaking producer Roger Corman (whose protégés would include Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, Jonathan Demme, Gale Ann Hurd and James Cameron) imported several high-end Soviet-era science fiction movies, which he recut using American-shot scenes, actors and English-language dubbing. This was a practice similar to what was done to Ishiro Honda’s 1954 atomic-bomb allegory…