Full Description
This terrific and thoroughly entertaining documentary recounts the larger-than-life story of two Israeli cousins, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who founded and then lost the low-budget independent movie empire, Hollywood’s fabled Cannon Films. Throughout the excessive 1980s, the outrageous Golan and Globus walked a maverick tightrope between the sacred and the profane; releasing ultraviolent Death Wish sequels, breakdancing musicals and ninja Flashdance ripoffs along with John Cassavetes’ final masterwork Love Streams, the Oscar-nominated Runaway Train and Jean-Luc Godard’s artsy King Lear. At their notorious height, Golan and Globus gave Jean-Claude Van Damme his first film role, pumped up Chuck Norris to superstardom and swaggered up the Cannes red carpet with 40 films produced in a single year, accounting for 20 percent of the U.S. box office. The Go-Go Boys’ fall and subsequent personal split was just as spectacular. Director Hila Medalia pulls no punches with jaw-dropping behind-the-scenes footage, glorious clips from some of Cannon’s guiltiest Reagan-era pleasures and loving testimonials with filmmakers like Eli Roth who recalls Quentin Tarantino’s immense pleasure after obtaining a 35mm print of the Golan and Globus 1984 exploitation classic Ninja III: The Domination. Medalia has created a B-movie lover’s dream and also manages to briefly reunite the elderly moguls who can’t resist the opportunity to hustle yet another movie project.
—Thomas Logoreci
