After Rachel Maddow praised Gary Rizzo's Oscar winning speech for Inception's sound-mixing because he gave a nod to his "union" crew in tribute to the Wisconsin union protests, I started to think about all of the great non union Roger Corman flicks. Why? Not because they're great or Oscar worthy, or even good for that matter. No I thought about all of the young directors and actors cutting their teeth on film for the first time on one of Corman's no-budget, non-union, exploitation films.

Maybe you've heard of some of these young talented folks given the opportunity to take risks and work for practically free. They include Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Francis Ford Coppola, Joe Dante, James Cameron, Jonathan Demme, Jon Sayles, etc.

And actors? How about Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Talia Shire, and Peter Fonda just to name a few.

Oscar nominated director John Sayles said of Corman and his company, New World "I wrote three screenplays for Roger and all three got made into movies. That's why he is really so incredible. You get the learning, the writing, the story conferencing, and all that. But you also see the whole thing translated into a movie."

Now imagine if you will the liberal wet dream of equality. Equal pay, workers rights, and righteous power in the hands of the exploited worker against the profit hungry vampires that are out to make their duckets on the back of the little man. Would we have a Godfather, Raging Bull, Apocalypse Now, Silence of the Lambs, Titanic, or even a Gremlins? You don't have to answer that as the directors of each have stated that "No", without Corman and the experience on his films it would be likely that they would not have had the chance to be noticed.