The Worst Film Ever

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Sorry, I just couldn't fully get behind this film; Canon group littered video stores of the 80's with bad taste action, horror and camp teen-comedy B-movies, a few of them will stand the test of misty nostalgia (if you were fourteen when you saw American Ninja, or Barbarian, or whatever) but the films are mostly garbage. This documentaries third act gets all sentimental about Canon's rise and demise but, honestly, the only thing the producers were interested in was money; they raised enough money to run overseas distribution, invest in cinema chains and also obtain the rights to a classic film library, but then it all collapsed because, like the bad filmmakers they were, they made the classic bad business decision of over- investing, over-expanding and over-predicting how well their (terrible, embarrassing, sexist, cheap looking) movies were going to do at the box office.It DOES stand to reason that Canon are sometimes hilarious, and their one surprise mega-hit of a one million dollar budget earned about 74 million worldwide. This is unusual, and is a success story, but then the film was also nasty, derivative, mindless and probably more sexist than most other video releases of it's year. Why the interviewees claim at the films end that the Canon legacy is important is unclear; they paved the way for lowest-common denominator interests over intelligence and substance, and of course pre-sales, a concept that means a film will usually be generic in type, but the rights to distribute a movie are sold before it's actually made. Typically Menahem Golan would make up strings of improbable rubbish at meetings to try and please anyone anywhere that would finance a picture, based on the evidence of a gaudy poster and the "star quality" of people like Chuck Norris, or Michael Dudikoff. Time wastey.

In the late 70s through the 1980s, Cannon films churned out a huge number of films...mostly extremely low-budgeted, schlock at that. So, if you remember a terrible but exciting movie from this era, there's a very good chance it was made by the geniuses(?) behind this studio, Mecahem Golan and Yoram Globus. And their films often were designed to appeal to the lowest sorts of audiences--with ample nudity, violence and tasteless scripts. A sampling of their products include the "Happy Hooker" franchise, all the "Death Wish" sequels, Chuck Norris films, Ninja films and the worst picture of the era, "The Apple" (my favorite bad film of all time). This film is the Golan-Globus story which explains their pairing, the growth of the studio as well as its eventual demise.It's actually very interesting that this film about Cannon is much better and much more enjoyable than any of the studio's films! It's told by many insiders...though Golan and Globus themselves did not participate in the making of the film because they reportedly are working on their own documentary on the subject (though Golan recently passed away)!

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning Israeli friends Menahem Golan and Yoren Globus came to America with a passion to make movies, drawing their motivation from cherished childhood memories of trips to the theatres and seeing the great American films on show. The only trouble was, they'd had no formal training in the art of filmmaking, and as such had no idea what they were doing. The result was a succession of ultra low budget, 'cheesy' (as they say!) shlockfests during the 1980s that made names out of stars such as Michael Winner, Chuck Norris, Michael Dudikoff, Dolph Lundgren and Jean Claude Van Damme. But their overkill and reckless desire to make more and more films, without even writing scripts or getting the funds necessary to make them, saw their film studio, Cannon, take a massive crash into extinction at the end of the decade.I must be one of the curious cult that found an interest in the Cannon franchise growing up, and appreciated the cultural impact they left on the 80s, in their own, distinctive little way. It seems they made quite an array of different pictures, only a few of which I was really interested in, mainly the action films of Norris, of whom they made quite a big star, but that's not to say films such as Death Wish 2 and King Solomon's Mines escaped my notice with their awfulness. There was a knack for making terribly lit films with would be massive special effects that highlighted the ultra low budget, which even more so many years on, gives them even more of an unintentional comedy feel.The film presents a quick fire succession of talking heads, recounting their involvement with the company, without providing much in the way of any background researched information and allowing the story to develop any true sense of a solid base. That's not to say the talking heads don't give us enough of an account of these two bull headed men coming from their homeland to dominate Hollywood, just not in the most effective way. Depth may not cross the mind of some aficianados such as myself, happy to lull back and relive the nostalgia these wonderfully awful films invoke, and as such you may still have a good time.It certainly is a nice trip down memory lane, and highlights just how seriously cheap and cheerful some of your favourites were. ***

'ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF CANNON FILMS': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)Documentary flick, about the infamous B-movie making cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus; and their studio Cannon Films. It was written and directed by Mark Hartley; who also helmed such other B- movie documentary flicks as 'NOT QUITE Hollywood: THE WILD, UNTOLD STORY OF OZPLOITATION!' and 'MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED!'. The film features interviews with several different actors, and former associates of theirs; including Dolph Lundgren, Michael Dudikoff, Franco Nero, Robert Forster, Richard Chamberlain, Molly Ringwald, Bo Derek, Olivia D'Abo, Lucinda Dickey, Elliot Gould, Alex Winter, Franco Zeffirelli and Tobe Hooper. It's a very informative, and extremely entertaining, documentary flick.The film explores how two movie obsessed Israeli cousins (Golan and Globus) followed their dreams; and moved to America, to make movies. They started Cannon Films; which was notorious (in the 80s) for making really low-budget B-movie exploitation flicks. Most of them contained lots of explicit sex, nudity and violence. Most of them were also really bad movies, and Box Office failures. They did have a few hits, on occasion though, and some (a few) were pretty good movies too. The cousins were also infamous for being really cheap, somewhat abusive and extremely prolific. I grew up on so many Golan and Globus produced movies; seeing their logo now, is extremely nostalgic for me. They discovered action stars like Jean Claude Van-Damme (one of my favorite actors as a kid) and Michael Dudikoff; they also made several action vehicles, for the likes of Chuck Norris and Charles Bronson. I watched most of them, and I loved them as a kid. So I really enjoyed this movie. I especially liked learning how they were made; and hearing several comical stories, about the process, from many actors (and other filmmakers) involved. Being a movie lover myself, I can definitely relate to Golan and Globus's passion, and obsession for filmmaking. It's a really fun movie to watch!Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: https://youtu.be/41q3ZuWGdEE