The Go Go Boys: The Inside Story Of Cannon Films (2014) Before I finish out the 2022 posts, I thought I'd fulfill the promise I made yesterday.......to review the official, authorized documentary bio of Israeli producer-director Menahem Golan and his cousin and financial partner Yoram Globus.
Known with both affection and mockery as 'The Go Go Boys', the tireless Cannon Films moguls famously (and notoriously) pumped out countless junk movies throughout the 1980's.....(and even a few prestigious films with major directors and stars)
Golan and Globus neither cooperated nor appeared in what they considered an unauthorized account of their career, the sharply boisterous and funny "Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story Of Cannon Films" (which BQ covered in yesterday's post....)
I'd say about 85 per cent of each competing doc covers the same ground.....and all of the familiar well known (and well derided) filmography .....this misbegotten musical "The Apple" and on to the 'Breakin' movies, the 'Ninja' action-packers, the woeful costly flops "Superman IV" and "Over The Top", the onslaught of Chuck Norris, Charles Bronson and Jean Claude Van Damme. So there's no need to cover them again. (For example, both films draw heavily on Ed Bradley's "60 Minutes" story on Cannon and its founders)
What 'The Go Go Boys' does offer as a plus - a much deeper dive into the cousins' origin story in Israel, where they began as youngsters besotted with movies who went on to make their own......(including a brief rare clip from Golan's slapdash, bootleg version of "Fiddler On The Roof") Sprinkled in are fascinating, entertaining interviews with the Israeli stars of their first films.....as well as much more candid revelations from their own children and wives.
Once the American/Hollywood part of their saga begins, the film treats all of the Canon shlocky output with a far more kinder, gentler attitude than "Electric Boogaloo" which was constantly peppered with bemused, snarky soundbites from a large assortment of former stars and crew. 'The Go Go Boys' only features a few such remembrances from Cannon folk, but there's a riotous corker of an anecdote from Van Damme about his first encounter with Golan.
The other advantage 'Go Go' has, of course, are the exclusive interviews and narration of Golan and Globus themselves. Even as you smile and shake your head at their wild, crazy and profitable glory days, you can pick up invaluable insights on every aspect of the film industry.....the deal-making, the marketing, the light-speed pace of crafting and making low budget exploitation movies. And sadly and finally, the film offers a tutorial on all the bad decisions that led to the collapse of the Cannon empire...and the estrangement of the two cousins, who devoted more of their lives to making movies and raising the cash for them than to their own wives and children.
I'd like to believe that the film's final poignant moment is genuine - a fleeting reunion between the cousins who hadn't spoken to each other for years. But even if it's a calculated, staged, reality-show fiction, it's a perfect summing up of the two men and what made them such a formidable force as a duo. Apart from each other for decades, they're still the same guys.......Globus remains a film business wheeler dealer and Golan still only lives for making movies and more movies, always dreaming his Academy Award winner waits around the corner in the next script to hit his desk. (He passed away not long after 'The Go Go Boys' and 'Electric Boogaloo' were released.
All cinema history buffs and Cannon fanatics will want to watch both these films, each spinning out an incredible epic of art and commerce combined.....only told from two very different viewpoints. "The Go Go Boys" (4 stars ****) overall celebrates the successes of Golan and Globus while "Electric Boogaloo" enjoys a good amount of rueful fun at the expense of their obvious failures. BQ says check 'em out as a double feature whenever you've got the time.
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