Electric Boogaloo

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS is a documentary about the infamous film company known for their bizarre and often terrible films in the 1980s. It gives a descriptive history of the company and its two owners, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus.

It’s not surprising ELECTRIC BOOGALOO was made; many film fans now enjoy watching unknown films simply because they are so bad, they are good. Cannon was responsible for a lot of these ‘funny-bad’ productions and the documentary certainly capitalises on this. It shows a lot of fantastic and hilarious clips from various films whilst several people who worked with Cannon explain how these films came to be.

The film doesn’t just make fun of the filmmaking duo; it does go into great detail about some of Cannon’s successes – such as the break dancing film Breakin’. It also gives a great insight into their perception of the US film market and what they believed was relevant to Americans at the time.

ELECTRIC BOOGALOO also talks about the very quick boom and ultimate bust period of the company. This documentary is very funny but also very factual. It is certainly not all montages of ninjas, Chuck Norris, car explosions, and gratuitous female nudity. However, it does discuss some of the controversies surrounding Cannon, such as their films tendencies to show a lot of women naked and – disturbingly – a lot of rapes. The documentary does all of this with a purely unbiased approach and simply highlights all of these issues alongside the comments from various film makers, writers, and assistants involved.

Overall, ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS is a really great documentary about a certain corner of the film industry. It is great if you are a fan of their films but it is also pretty interesting even if you have never heard of any of them. It will also give you a brief insight into why the B-movie industry today is the way it is.

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