June 24, 2016

Cheapskate Film Festival: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO


Remember yesterday, when I said that King Solomon's Mines as a "sneak preview" of today's post?

Sure you do, and you watched the film and wondered....how did that get made?

Today's entry is a movie you may have heard of elsewhere - a great documentary called Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. It's probably one of the most fascinating documentaries I've seen (right up there with The Damned: Don't You Wish That We Were Dead and Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me).

In all honesty - I'm a sucker for behind-the-scenes documentaries about music, films, and television. In the 1980s, Cannon films was known for making....well, a lot of movies. Many were low budget, many played in secondary markets, but Cannon became a key player in spite of - and not because of - Menachem Golam and Yorum Globus.

All I want to know is....has Roger Corman seen this film, and what's his reaction? Because that would be worth seeing.

Electric Boogaloo is also fascination even within the context of our current media culture: at a time when movies are bigger and presold overseas, some audiences (especially those who have hissy fits over gendered casting and plot changes) may not understand how Cannon Films' made an immediate impact on the then (and current) filmmaking industry. (At one point, Cannon owned all of the movie theaters in England).

There's plenty of behind-the-scenes insight, but this is a documentary that is just plain fun to watch. And definitely worth your time.





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