As the LFF shakes off its opening-night hangover and gets down to the serious business of morn-to-midnight screenings, why not get in an early one with the UK premiere of Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films? This is from the same team that brought you Not Quite Hollywood, the story of Australia’s zero-budget Ozploitation movies.
This time Mark Hartley and his team turn their attention to Cannon Films, the Israeli film company which almost ate the world in the Eighties and early Nineties. And, while the story may not be quite untold – another, gentler Cannon doc screened at Cannes this year – it sure is wild.
Giving audiences “what they wanted” – action, aliens, the odd art movie, sex, war, breakdancing (Hartley’s movie takes its title from an early Cannon film about the then-new craze) – the company churned out the pix at the rate of up to 50 a year, more than any Hollywood studio.
There was one catch: audiences turned out not to want their films after all and the whole edifice eventually toppled. Still, like the Eighties, it was fun while it lasted. Or maybe it wasn’t, but looking back we can still chuckle. Of course, the films of the 2010s may not look so great from 2044…
Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films, BFI Southbank, Thu Oct 9, 11.30am; also Sat Oct 11, Vue Islington, 1pm, bfi.org.uk/lff
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