If there's anything that movie lovers love, it's learning about movies. This has become easier in the past 15 years thanks to the extra features offered on DVDs and Blu-ray Discs. But, as someone who watches a lot of these home video releases, I can tell you that many, if not most of these making-of featurettes don't deliver the kind of information that we want. Why? Because they are basically acting as an extended advertisement for the movie, and they typically focus on the positive. We want the truth and want to see an honest portrayal of the filmmaking process. So, we turn to documentaries like Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel to get this.

Corman's World presents an overview of the life and career of Roger Corman. After studying at Stanford, Corman decided that he wanted to work in Hollywood and took a job as a script reader at 20th Century Fox. When he didn't receive credits for suggestions he made on a western, Corman decided to start making his own movies. He began directing and producing very low-budget B-movies focusing on westerns and teenager movies, eventually moving into horror and sci-fi. Basically, Corman followed the trends (and created a few) supplying movies to audiences to which Hollywood typically didn't cater. With his Edgar Allen Poe adaptations in the 1960s, Corman began to get a growing reputation as someone who could make a quick movie on a dime, but still had some tatlent. During this period, Corman began working with some future Hollywood heavyweights, both in front of and behind the camera. Talents like Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, David Carradine, Jonathan Demme, Ron Howard, and Bruce Dern all worked with Corman in some capacity. Even as the movie industry changed and alliances fell apart, Corman never lost his desire to make movies and to make them as cheaply as possible.

Director Alex Stapleton has created an interesting piece of work with Corman's World. Through both modern and archival interviews, we hear a lot directly from Corman himself and learn that he's a thoughtful and soft-spoken man who is clearly a shrewd negotiator. We also hear from Julie Corman, who is not only Roger's wife, but has worked as a producer on many of his films. As one would expect, there are clips from many of Corman's films, which help to illustrate the sort of product which he has churned out over the years. The best part of Corman's World are the celebrity interviews. Corman must have had a big impact on the lives of Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, and Ron Howard for them to take the time out of their busy schedules to talk to Stapleton about Corman. The interviews are very candid and Peter Fonda speaks openly about how Corman's tight-purse kept him from retaining some of the talent he'd cultivated. The emotional way in which Nicholson talks about Corman really shows how much the man influenced those around him.

So, why does he only get half a documentary? The film takes a very in-depth look at Corman's career in the 1950s and 1960s. It also examines how the changing face of Hollywood in the early 1970s begin to change Corman's outlook, and then it suddenly jumps to Corman receiving his honorary Academy Award in 2009. So, the movie basically skips 35 years of Corman's career. Clips form Piranha and Humanoids from the Deep were used extensively in the marketing of Corman's World and these two films don't even get mentioned in the documentary. The Roger Corman that I know, the one from the mid-70s on, made his money by making low-budget rip-offs of big-budget hits. Where is the information on that? The movie talks about how Jaws changed the landscape of movies, which simply like the perfect lead-in to discuss Corman's answer to Jaws, Piranha. Corman's World then points out how Star Wars forced Corman to change his approach to movies, but doesn't bring up how Corman was able to cash in the success of Lucas' film with Battle Beyond the Stars. And it completely glosses over how Corman adapted to the changing times by cranking out direct-to-home video titles.

When viewed as a whole, Corman's World comes off as decidedly disjointed. It's clearly well-researched and Stapleton did a fantastic job getting many of Corman's cohorts to do interviews. But, the fact that the story peters out in the mid-70s makes it sound as if Corman simply gave up. We see Corman on the set of one of his horrific Syfy Channel movies, so we know that he's still working, but if you were unfamiliar with his entire career, you would think that he'd cut back on his work. Maybe Corman's World is the first entry and we'll see a sequel sometime soon. Otherwise, we aren't getting the whole story here.

Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel has no problem showing some of the naughtier parts of Corman's movies on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Anchor Bay. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains an AVC transfer which runs at an average of 20 Mbps. Being a documentary, the movie is comprised of footage from multiple sources. The modern interviews with Corman and his devotees look very good, as they are sharp and clear, showing no grain or defects from the source materials. The footage from Corman's films varies in quality, but this doesn't reflect poorly on this transfer. The Disc carries a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 2.0 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. We never have any trouble understanding those being interviewed, and the movie clips sound fine, with some providing stereo effects and mild surround sound.

The Corman's World Blu-ray Disc contains a few extras. "Extended Interviews" (13 minutes) offers additional comments from Eli Roth, Penelope Spheeris, Ron Howard, and Martin Scorsese. In "Special Messages to Roger" (15 minutes), the interviewees are asked, "If the Camera was Roger, what would you like to say to him?", so we get some heartfelt comments and some funny ones. This really shows how these filmmakers and actors feel about Corman. The final extra is the TRAILER for the film.