I cannot even believe I am typing these words but:
Roger Corman is getting an Oscar.
The maestro of cheapie genre films is finally being recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for a lifetime of work that I guarantee to you is more influential than probably ten other random Oscar winners put together. If you just want to go ‘serious,’ Corman started the careers of people like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese (both of whom will hopefully be on hand), but if you want to go ‘film geek,’ Corman is a giant, churning out low budget feature after feature that blazed the imaginations of generations of kids. Were all of these films ‘good?’ Hell no. But they were all Corman.
Corman is among a bunch of notables getting honorary awards this year; Lauren Bacall is getting an Oscar, as is the amazing cinematographer Gordon Willis. Get this: Willis, who DPed all the Godfather films, All the President’s Men, Annie Hall and other indelible films that defined 70s filmmaking, has only been nominated for TWO Oscars. Never won any.