If you know horror at all, you know Roger Corman’s low-budget but often brilliant works of high-class camp. You also might know that Corman is responsible for giving directing and acting opportunities to the likes of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich…the list goes on and on. Now Corman is getting his own biopic, called The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes, with none other than Quentin Tarantino in the lead role.
Joe Dante will be directing The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes, a comedic take on the director’s life that focusses on the making of The Trip, a 1960s slice of weirdness centering around an LSD trip. The original film starred Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern and Peter Fonda, with Corman behind the camera. Corman himself will have a cameo in Dante’s film, as a film producer trying to stop Roger Corman from making the movie. How’s THAT for self-reflexive postmodernism?!
So, Quentin Tarantino as Roger Corman; what do we think about that? Tarantino regularly appears in his own films, and has had cameos and even major parts in films like Sukiyaki Western Django and From Dusk To Dawn. I’m not certain that he’s capable of anchoring an entire by himself, though. He usually plays an extreme version of himself, which just won’t be appropriate for The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes. Granted that this is a comedy – by Joe Dante, nonetheless – I still don’t know that Tarantino will be able to give a convincing performance as Corman. It will be interesting to see him try, though.
We’ll be certain to keep an eye and ear out for the next casting news to come out of The Man With The Kaleidoscope Eyes. It’s early days yet, but with a lead more or less in place and a director set, we can expect to hear a bit more in the coming months.
Do you think Quentin Tarantino will make a good Roger Corman? Let us know in the comments below.
