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.

As 'Electric Boogaloo' tells it, Cannon Films was established by two Israeli wheeler-dealers, who came to the United States, established a film production company, and managed to make a huge quantity of low budget, low class movies before eventually their wild ambition caught up with them and they ran out of money. What makes the story more interesting is that this ambition was not just to establish a film-making giant, but also to make movies of at least some distinction: but a combination of unavoidable financial constraints and an inherent belief they could do it on the cheap inevitably sank their grander ambitions. This could make for a riveting film, but in fact, all we get are a succession of clips coupled with talking heads asserting ad nauseam just quite how crazy the company was. How do you actually make a low budget movie? How did the company stay in business for as long as it did, when (according to what we're told), its every film was a disaster? What is the evidence that the founders did, as we're repeatedly told, genuinely love cinema in spite of their abysmal product? We never really learn these facts. Instead, 'Electric Boogaloo' promotes a legend of Cannnon in a way that the studio's own bosses (whose talent for self-promotion is repeatedly attested to) might have envied. In fact, there's an irony here: asked to participate, the two of them made their own movie (and true to their past record, made it first). Without their involvement, there's a hole at the heart of the film they chose to spurn. Although based on the evidence presented here, I'm not sure I'd expect too much of their own effort, either.

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.

Colorful documentary on Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, cousins from Israel who forged a filmmaking partnership in 1970s Los Angeles after breaking ground in their homeland with local dramas directed and often written by Golan. Taking over Cannon Films, the duo had some early successes before succumbing to B-movies, cut-rate sequels, ninja flicks and gory screamers. A distribution deal with MGM/UA goes sour when Golan and Globus deliver the company nothing but junk, further cementing the wildly enthusiastic producers' reputation for quick, cheap trash. Looking back, Golan and Globus had the right attitude for making movies--no bull, cut to the chase, film the script--but without good judgment in the filmmaking world, and the folly of newcomers with money but nothing decent to film, they became the bane of '80s Hollywood. Cannon did attract directors like Franco Zeffirelli and John Frankenheimer, but mostly names on the wane (an amusing phone call has Golan trying to lure Peter Bogdanovich's people into having the struggling director work with Cannon: "He a loser. He needs to work with winners."). Cannon's legacy is, sadly, Chuck Norris action movies, "Death Wish" sequels, 1984's dated hit "Breakin'" and the critically-acclaimed "Runaway Train"--but with so much garbage clogging its resume, the film group was bound to go down in flames. It ain't "That's Entertainment!" **1/2 from ****