Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Impressionistic Aussie-financed documentary about the rise and fall of Cannon Films, the unconventional American company run by Israeli immigrants Menachem Golan and Yoram Globus that unleashed dozens of B-movies on an unsuspecting public, along the way pioneering international co-production and financing, and helped revive or extend the careers of stars like Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris.The film unfolds almost exclusively as a series of talking head interviews, edited in short bursts. This is more a long stream of anecdotes strung together chronologically, inter-cut with ample footage from the Cannon canon and a few archival interviews with the gregarious Golan, than it is a rigorous retelling of the Cannon story. It doesn't pay too much attention to names and dates, so if you aren't terribly familiar with Cannon's legacy you could get a bit lost. While I wish the film would have slowed down its breathless pacing occasionally, it is nevertheless vastly entertaining and features an impressive array of people who worked on Cannon films on both sides of the camera, including actors like Bo Derek, Dolph Lundgren, Richard Chamberlain, Michael Dudikoff, Molly Ringwald and Sybil Danning. It's also a reminder that Cannon managed to produce a few genuine masterpieces like Konchalovaky's "Runaway Train" and Shroeder's "Barfly" and to work with some amazingly talented filmmakers like Jean-Luc Goddard, Franco Zefferelli (who appears in the film), Tobe Hooper and John Cassavetes.This is a must-see for fans of low-budget action films. Beyond that, anyone interested in the process of movie-making and how the industry has changed can learn a reasonable amount about the surprisingly important role Cannon Films and its improbable leaders played in reshaping the landscape.

Informative and enjoyable documentary about the rise and fall of Cannon Films, a beloved part of my youth. Cannon made many cheesy and low-brow movies and this doc covers most of them and, yes, insults them...a lot. I admit as a Cannon fan it bristled a bit at first but I know that their films were, more often than not, trash. But they were also, more often than not, entertaining trash. The tone of the documentary is lighthearted, with many people sharing their funny anecdotes about the crazy antics of Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus (particularly Golan). There are some nasty jabs here and there, with the Most Sour award going to former MGM exec Frank Yablans, who pulled no punches in what he thought of Cannon's output (Mr. Yablans passed away shortly after this was released). Most of the talking heads are behind-the-scenes types but there are many actors and directors also interviewed, including Molly Ringwald, Catherine Mary Stewart, Alex Winter, Franco Nero, Dolph Lundgren, Richard Chamberlain, Franco Zeffirelli, and Sybil Danning. Not a lot of time is spent on many of my favorite Cannon movies but that's to be expected given the amount of films they had to cover in the time they had. They did an admirable job of covering the major Cannon films and they told the story of Golan-Globus well. The ample use of film clips is appreciated, as is the brisk pace. I think it's something every Cannon fan should see, although be warned if you're sensitive or protective about their films you may be put off by some of it, such as "Bill S. Preston, Esquire" acting as though he has a leg to stand on commenting on Charles Bronson's acting ability. Minor annoyances aside, it's a fun look back at Cannon with some interesting trivia for those who may not be familiar with what went on during the making of some of their favorite '80s B movies.

In the late 70s through the 1980s, Cannon films churned out a huge number of films...mostly extremely low-budgeted, schlock at that. So, if you remember a terrible but exciting movie from this era, there's a very good chance it was made by the geniuses(?) behind this studio, Mecahem Golan and Yoram Globus. And their films often were designed to appeal to the lowest sorts of audiences--with ample nudity, violence and tasteless scripts. A sampling of their products include the "Happy Hooker" franchise, all the "Death Wish" sequels, Chuck Norris films, Ninja films and the worst picture of the era, "The Apple" (my favorite bad film of all time). This film is the Golan-Globus story which explains their pairing, the growth of the studio as well as its eventual demise.It's actually very interesting that this film about Cannon is much better and much more enjoyable than any of the studio's films! It's told by many insiders...though Golan and Globus themselves did not participate in the making of the film because they reportedly are working on their own documentary on the subject (though Golan recently passed away)!

A one-of-a-kind story about two-of-a-kind men who (for better or worse) changed film forever.Anyone who love cult or genre films knows Cannon. They were huge, especially in the 1980s, and made some of the finest action films out there. As this documentary shows, they were not afraid to use Chuck Norris to his fullest potential.I absolutely love all the behind-the-scenes tidbits on this. We see that Cannon never really knew what they were doing, but just kept going over the top and got lucky. The connection such figures as Michael Milliken is interesting, and it makes one wonder if some shady business was going down (apparently the SEC thought so).