Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films
Following Not Quite Hollywood, his 2008 documentary about the Australian exploitation cinema of the 1970s and 80s, writer-director Mark Hartley returns to profile more outrageous movies from around the same time. Electric Boogaloo looks at the rise and fall of Cannon Films under the rule of Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who forced their way into the Hollywood game with low budget, sometimes bizarre genre films with an apparent lack of quality control and savvy new ways of getting films financed (going to Cannes with posters promising stars they hadn’t even contacted, yet alone contracted).
Thanks to the sheer number of films featured, Electric Boogaloo is never dull, but it rarely feels like more than a lengthy clip reel, lacking Not Quite Hollywood’s less broad contextual analysis; the absence of both Globus and the just-departed Golan definitely hurts it. And while it’s fun revelling in Death Wish sequel shlock, more curious projects from Godard and Cassavetes that inexplicably ended up at the studio get too fleeting a look. [Josh Slater-Williams]