The Go Go Boys: The Inside Story of Cannon Films.
Directed by Hilla Medalia. 80 mins. Showing as part of the Jewish Film Festival.
The story of how two Israelis, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, for a brief period in the eighties became the world's most powerful film makers has been largely wiped from history. Two and a half decades on, the rise of Golan Globus Cannon Group is just a creepy bedtime story told to slipping Hollywood executives to warn them of what may come and eat them up if they don't make hit movies. After becoming Israel's most successful film makers, the two cousins moved to LA in the mid 70s to break into Hollywood. Their Cannon Group became the Primark of film production, making and selling films as quickly and cheaply as possible. For example, Breakin', their pre-emptive exploitation of a breakdance scene that had barely begun took 12 weeks from conception to getting in the theatres.
Of course the pair of them were look down on by the West Coast establishment. Not only were they foreigners but their films were rubbish. The only voice that Medalia's bright and breezy film can find to defend the 80s Cannon output is Hostel director Eli Roth (though he does namedrop seeing one of their films round Tarantino's house.) Not only did Golan pay Stallone $12 million to star in an arm-wrestling epic Over The Top, but he practically created the entire Expendables cast for him. Their door was always open to Michael Winner, Charles Bronson, or anyone else with a line in gratuitous, and often quite nasty, sex and violence. They put into the mainstream thing that had no right to be in the mainstream, things that would be best served hidden away in some speicialist dungeon.
They are the classic odd couple. Globus looks like a cross between Alan Sugar and piano player in ABBA. He was the quiet practical one, the money raiser, still a little in awe of his older cousin's showmanship. Golan, the film maker and showman of the pair, comes across as having been (he died this year) a monster diva. He is almost pathological optimistic. When the interviewer tries to quiz him on some of his less successful films and flies into a rage. “Who are you to ask me such questions?”
But flop they did and their empire collapsed as dramatically and as quickly as it had appeared, thankfully I think. Their story is a case of Superman really saving the world – it was their disastrous involvement in Superman 4 that help push them to the wall. The film tries to paint them as being in the spirit of the Jewish entrepreneurs who had been studio heads that built Hollywood. The film demonstrates that the pair had enormous passion for movies but it was undiscerning love and though Golan quested after the respectability of an Oscar, most of their films really were contemptible trash. I still physically wince at the memory of when Cannon took over my local cinema. They took my beloved sleazy, tatty establishment and gave it a slick paintjob, divided it up to have an extra screen (to show only Cannon products) and took it careering down market. It was an ugly job but at least they didn't get away with it.
For screening info visit http://ukjewishfilm.org
Directed by Hilla Medalia. 80 mins. Showing as part of the Jewish Film Festival.
The story of how two Israelis, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, for a brief period in the eighties became the world's most powerful film makers has been largely wiped from history. Two and a half decades on, the rise of Golan Globus Cannon Group is just a creepy bedtime story told to slipping Hollywood executives to warn them of what may come and eat them up if they don't make hit movies. After becoming Israel's most successful film makers, the two cousins moved to LA in the mid 70s to break into Hollywood. Their Cannon Group became the Primark of film production, making and selling films as quickly and cheaply as possible. For example, Breakin', their pre-emptive exploitation of a breakdance scene that had barely begun took 12 weeks from conception to getting in the theatres.
Of course the pair of them were look down on by the West Coast establishment. Not only were they foreigners but their films were rubbish. The only voice that Medalia's bright and breezy film can find to defend the 80s Cannon output is Hostel director Eli Roth (though he does namedrop seeing one of their films round Tarantino's house.) Not only did Golan pay Stallone $12 million to star in an arm-wrestling epic Over The Top, but he practically created the entire Expendables cast for him. Their door was always open to Michael Winner, Charles Bronson, or anyone else with a line in gratuitous, and often quite nasty, sex and violence. They put into the mainstream thing that had no right to be in the mainstream, things that would be best served hidden away in some speicialist dungeon.
They are the classic odd couple. Globus looks like a cross between Alan Sugar and piano player in ABBA. He was the quiet practical one, the money raiser, still a little in awe of his older cousin's showmanship. Golan, the film maker and showman of the pair, comes across as having been (he died this year) a monster diva. He is almost pathological optimistic. When the interviewer tries to quiz him on some of his less successful films and flies into a rage. “Who are you to ask me such questions?”
But flop they did and their empire collapsed as dramatically and as quickly as it had appeared, thankfully I think. Their story is a case of Superman really saving the world – it was their disastrous involvement in Superman 4 that help push them to the wall. The film tries to paint them as being in the spirit of the Jewish entrepreneurs who had been studio heads that built Hollywood. The film demonstrates that the pair had enormous passion for movies but it was undiscerning love and though Golan quested after the respectability of an Oscar, most of their films really were contemptible trash. I still physically wince at the memory of when Cannon took over my local cinema. They took my beloved sleazy, tatty establishment and gave it a slick paintjob, divided it up to have an extra screen (to show only Cannon products) and took it careering down market. It was an ugly job but at least they didn't get away with it.
For screening info visit http://ukjewishfilm.org
