Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (2015)

The Age of Commercialism

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Love this movie for the overview of one of my favourite schlock companies and while they do a good job of talking to everyone, the lack of Chuck Norris's and Charles Bronson's words (tough since he's dead) means you miss out on some alternative insights. I think a detailed book is in order. Or maybe a three hour cut of the movie that allows for more exploration into some of the crazy making of stories and lets more people talk. Still love the movie, just wish there was more here.

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS is a documentary that does exactly what it says on the tin. That is, to celebrate the wild heydays of Cannon Films, a 1980s production house who put out some of the biggest, silliest, cheesiest, and most effects-fuelled films of that decade.It's a rise-and-fall tale, brought to live via copious clips and lots of interview footage with various stars, directors, and producers who were involved with the films themselves. Thus for a cinema fan - especially somebody who's seen a lot of the films, like myself - it's a real visual treat. The film is a celebration of the Golan and Globus approach - which is to churn out film after film, hoping one or two of them will be a success - and the eventual hubris which saw the company's downfall. It's constantly funny as well, which really helps.

For the life of me, I can't name at least a dozen Cannon films (Golan/Globus years) I ever liked. I don't think I can even name at least six. Oh well, here is my list of Cannon Films I ever liked. In no particular order, Barfly, Runaway Train, 10 to Midnight, and yes, even Masters of the Universe. Okay, that's four. Hopefully by the end of this review I might come up with a total of five titles. I waited for Electric Boogaloo: The Untold Story of Cannon films with baited breath. I especially liked the fact the makers of Not Quite Hollywood, and Machete Maidens Unleashed were responsible for this documentary. I loved those two documentaries. I finally got my copy of Electric Boogaloo: The Untold Story of Cannon Films in the mail. I sat and watched the title, and was I impressed? Did I have fun remembering the long gone days of the eighties? Uh, No! There wasn't anything interesting about the documentary that was worth putting on film. I already knew about the excesses of the megalomaniacs Menacham Golan and Yoram Globus, and how they would (un)intentionally destroy a film. To watch a group of actors, writers, and directors trash the Cannon Films may have seemed like entertainment, but it became boring after awhile, My favorite was Martine Beswicke trying to convince anybody she didn't know what she was signing onto when she made Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood. I nearly busted a gut laughing when the Cannon cousins thought Michael Dudikoff had screen presence. A stick of wood has more screen presence than Mr. Dudikoff. What I remembered most of the Cannon films is, during the eighties, they would release two-three sometimes five movies a the same time, and almost everyone of them bombed. You would have thought after a few megaton bombs, they would have learned. If anything, this documentary might be considered a cautionary tale for new film distributors that quantity does not mean quality. Oh wait a minute! I came up with a fifth title from the Cannon Library I liked- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. There! Now I got five titles.

For the most part, there are two kinds of Cult Films: really bad cheap ones that get a following for being so fun and campy, or solid, classic blockbusters that simply won't go away, spawning sequel after sequel and endless conventions and, you know, all that jazz. In this, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS, instead of celebrating (ironic or otherwise) b-movies or motion pictures that tried for greatness and failed, there's an endless hammering of really irritated people talking down the two men who made up the surprisingly successful CANNON company, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, wheeler-dealer Israelis who loved spawning movies so much they just couldn't stop. It was like an addiction. A craze. One that, beyond anyone's opinion herein and simply fact, did eventually bring down an immense empire.Between the lines, there's a feeling that the boys always wanted to create greatness on the big screen, so their cinematic turkeys probably did make them look pretty awful, at the time. In other words, if they set out to make money on junk, they succeeded (and were obviously extremely difficult to work with, or understand... verbally). But yearning to be the next, say, Orson Welles, and winding up, at times, digging themselves beneath Roger Corman or Troma... at least according to most of the interviews... does put some of the gripes into perspective. Wannabe Kings who turned out Jesters is an intriguing premise.The main problem here is that some of the better "b" action pictures, like exciting vehicles starring Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris, are thrown into a trashy collage of film clips without differentiating the good from the bad from the ugly of the Cannon film legacy. After a while, every scene shown from any and every movie are horrendous and embarrassing. Martin DiBergi didn't even make SPINAL TAP look this awful, and he was trying! In truth, and told solidly by a few of the bona-fide interviews... mirroring Icarus, what killed Cannon was reaching too far beyond low-budget success. Enter their ultimate disaster, SUPERMAN IV, blasted for the awful special effects since the duo didn't want to spend the money to make it... you know... actually good. But in truth, that movie's script, a preposterously dated (even at the time), overly obvious political anti nukes message, is what made it stink to high heaven. If $100 million were put into QUEST FOR PEACE, there would be no difference. The ship would have sunk if Spielberg directed.All in all, BOOGALOO is a "talking head" documentary, showcasing more ticked off, anti Cannon haters than movie fans being able to (without constant interruption) enjoy longer clips of the eclectic movies that, as bad as some might be... like Lou Ferrigno as HERCULES throwing a bear into outer space... are what make cult films so memorable and beloved. And that's not including the risk involved in making a movie at all, no matter what the turnout.On the lighter side, Golan/Globus did back a few great "art appreciated" movies like BARFLY and RUNAWAY TRAIN, and in one nice moment, the latter film's director, Andrey Konchalovskiy, admits he couldn't have made his project without Cannon. But this compliment is quickly followed by someone else saying if, for example, an Orion produced the movie, it would have been a hit and not bombed. So even their successes are blasted: the Fairness Doctrine in reverse. For the subjects at hand (under heavy foot) just can't win with ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, which, by the way, is the name of an extremely bad sequel to an otherwise entertaining and successful film, BREAKIN', liken to calling the biography of Henry Ford THE EDSEL.If BOOGALOO only got more in-depth with history and facts instead of forgotten actors like Alex Winter, who compared Bronson's acting to playing a lazy round of golf, or by far the most annoying and biased interviewee, tubby Cannon music supervisor Richard Kraft, whose closing line, which is the second to last sentence uttered in this overly bitter, monotonous documentary, goes like this: "Cannon's legacy will be the insane stories about how that many movies got made during a very specific period of time by two guys who had no business doing any of it." Well for starters, there weren't any insane stories at all. Not even a sane story. Not one single actual story with a beginning, middle and end! That would have been just fine, and interesting, in-depth, and what a documentary should be. Instead we have a rushed jigsaw jumble of angry, spiteful comments and particularly banal film clips to fit within whatever trash is being uttered. And as for Mr. Kraft... Your bosses did a lot of business, and at least you made money, and a chance to, for some strange reason, completely headline a documentary that featured Tobe Hooper, Robert Forster, Sybil Danning, John Frankenheimer and other genuinely talented folks who, like Cannon itself, are at least has-beens as opposed to a never-was (famous or remembered) grump like Mr Kraft: It's too bad the biggest nothing had to be pretty much everything here.