Review: Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

“It’s hard to say the words ‘Cannon Films’ without laughing,” one disgruntled director explains in Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. And indeed, between baroque ’80s dance sequences, Chuck Norris and an intergalactic rendition of Hercules, there is a lot to laugh about in the Cannon catalogue.

The two Israeli cousins behind the infamous production company, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, never seemed quite aware of the downright shoddiness of the films they were responsible for; moreover, as this documentary suggests, they were proud of them. As boys, the pair would loiter endlessly around theatres in Tel Aviv. A love of cinema was born; they relocated to America in the late ’70s; and so unfolded a lifetime of producing Frankenstein-esque cinematic concoctions – a typical Cannon film is equal parts camp, sleaze and misjudgement.

Electric Boogaloo completes a trilogy for director Mark Hartley. His first offering, Not Quite Hollywood (2008), chronicled the glorious Ozploitation chapter of our own national cinema, and in 2010 Machete Maidens Unleashed! was an erotic jungle boogie into the anarchic B-movie culture of the Philippines. While all three films follow an almost identical mould – the narrative is unfurled for us at rapid-fire pace; a series of colourful anecdotes spills from various talking heads – Electric Boogaloo is told with archival interview footage and a steaming treasure trove of film clips (lifted from Cannon’s 2000-plus films). Thanks to Hartley, we are granted the best bits while being spared clunky narratives and eye-gougingly bad dialogue. 

Hartley and his team also have a knack for choosing strong talent to supply stories that propel the story; there are no big-ticket interview subjects here (no Tarantino, Landis or Roger Corman, as the previous films boasted), but the talent chosen is entertaining and uproarious anecdotes are aplenty. The title is lifted from a (typically) ill-fated Cannon film Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, a sequel to one of the company’s rare successes (a pioneering breakdance film, Breakin’). Meanwhile, the company’s brief dalliances with art cinema are skimmed over by the doco – head-scratchingly, Cassavetes and Godard each signed on to make a Cannon film.

Whereas Not Quite Hollywood and Machete Maidens Unleashed! relied on a sense of place to ground their narratives, Electric Boogaloo leans on the characters of Golan and Globus (particularly the fiery Golan, who attracts more than one comparison to Jabba the Hut). The pair, now well into their eighties, appear only in archival snippets, after declining to participate in the film. The storytelling suffers a little bit because of this absence – we are only granted a second-hand sense of their characters. But, their visionary chutzpah is still clearly apparent. (In a hilarious footnote, Golan and Globus proved the Cannon wheeler-dealer ethos is not quite dead by commissioning their own Cannon doc almost immediately after Hartley requested their involvement. It beat Electric Boogaloo to release by three months.)

In typical Hartley fashion, Electric Boogaloo spits out an almost indigestible amount of information. Its pace is as breakneck as the way the cousins operated. Don’t expect anything outside of the Hartley jelly mould, but cinephilic appetites will once again certainly be whet.

Review: I am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story

Caroll Spinney seems like an indisputably lovely man, with an infectious sense of childlike wonder. You would have to have in order to adopt the persona of an eight-foot tall yellow bird for 40 years! I am Big Bird: The Carroll Spinney Story chronicles the life of the puppeteer behind one of Sesame Street’s most beloved characters.

Spinney joined the Jim Henson family after a stint in the military, and spending time on various other puppet shows, including Bozo the Clown. After donning the yellow feathers in 1969, he’s been a faithful resident of Sesame Street ever since and, even at 80 years old, is not intent on leaving any time soon.

Over the past 50 years, Spinney and his wife Debra have been diligent documenters of their family lives, meaning there is some insightful archival footage to draw from. But unfortunately, I am Big Bird struggles — as many biographical docs do — to cogently tell the story of an entire life within a 90-minute runtime. After a brief introduction via TV show clips and some complimentary statements from talking heads, we launch headfirst into pathos: Spinney recounts a tough childhood dominated by a hard-headed father. More time spent celebrating the joy brought by the TV show could have framed the film better.

The score from Joshua Johnson is overwrought and incessant. Dense strings summon more melodrama than a Masterchef finale. This does a disservice to the story; more restraint would have allowed for poignancy without sensationalism.

Indeed, Sesame Street as a show can be poignant, teaching kids how to deal with difficult life problems, such as grief and loss; but first and foremost, it is playful. You get the sense that this is true of Spinney himself. But the film — mainly at the hands of the score — doesn’t allow for this to fully come through.

Sporadic animations are included, detailing things like the logistics of internally operating a giant bird suit. They are undeniably charming and more would have been welcome. More attention to aesthetics in general would have lifted the film. Spinney is an artist in his own right, and we are shown a few of his drawings, but perhaps giving him more creative input in the production process could have been an interesting way to sustain visual interest.

This doc draws inevitable comparisons to 2011’s Being Elmo, the story of Kevin Clash, voice of Elmo, who arrived a little later to the Sesame Street party than Big Bird. I am Big Bird briefly suggests a hint of rivalry between the two characters; as the show became targeted to a younger demographic, Elmo usurped Big Bird as the most popular and recognisable character on the show. Being Elmo more successfully tells the story of a life and engages with the impact of the TV show in an emotional, but less melodramatic way.

I am Big Bird in comparison has fallen folly to a common chink in the armour of biographical docs: it is a hard thing for a film to carve an interesting story from the amorphous block of somebody’s life, sweet as your subject may be; but for the audience, it’s a necessity.