Tobe Hooper at MoMA: Lifeforce

When the European Space Agency gets in trouble, NASA is there to rescue them. Unfortunately, everyone was already dead on the ESA shuttle, except for the space vampires in suspended animation. However, there is a survivor heading home in the escape pod. Of course, he was the one American crew-member. Perhaps that is why naked “Space Girl” (as fans refer to her) forged a telepathic connection to Col. Tom Carlson, but that link works both ways in Tobe Hooper’s cult classic Lifeforce, which screens again Tuesday as part of MoMA’s retrospective of Hooper’s 1980s films.

You would think screenwriter Dan O’Bannon (who also penned Alien and Dark Star) would have made Carlson a “Major Tom” instead. However, he was certainly on solid ground describing an unexpected encounter with a dangerous race of space aliens. Ironically, the early scenes of the space vampire’s lair on Halley’s comet have serious Prometheus and Covenant vibes. Understandably, most of the Churchill’s crew assume the three good-looking humanoids are dead—since they are not breathing. Yet, the comatose bodies still exert a strange disruptive influence over the humans.

Things will go very badly on the Churchill, but Carlson’s explanation must wait for a later flashback. Frankly, by the time he reaches Earth Dr. Hans Fallada of the ESA and Col. Colin Caine of the SAS have already figured out the aliens consume people’s lifeforce. Like vampires, their victims also turn into lifeforce-suckers, but they are not as powerful. Apparently, Space Girl ditched her conspicuously naked body, having assumed control over a chin of hosts, but Carlson can now detect her influence with even an incidental touch.

Admittedly, it is hard to explain Lifeforce, even though it obviously layers science fiction elements over the narrative bones of Dracula. However, Hooper’s film is still an under-heralded genre gem. In some ways, it represents a once-in-a-lifetime genre collaboration, including Hooper (the director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist), narrator John Larroquette (who also supplied the voice-over intro to Texas Chainsaw), O’Bannon, special effects artist John Dykstra (notable for Star Wars in 1977 and Spider-Man in 2002), a grand symphonic score composed by Henry “Pink Panther” Mancini, and it even features Patrick Stewart in a supporting role, as Dr. Armstrong. Plus, it was produced by Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, of Cannon Films, who contracted Hooper to a three-picture deal.

Despite some excesses, like Space Girl walking through the city of London without a stitch of clothing, Lifeforce holds up nicely as a hybrid sf-horror production. Arguably, many of the scenes aboard the Churchill have a look and texture that evoke the vibes of earlier Dykstra films, such as Star Wars and Silent Running, which is very cool.

Peter Firth and Frank Finlay also develop intelligent, crisply professional chemistry in the Peter Cushing-Christopher Lee tradition, as Caine and Fallada. They embody smart, coolly competent characters, who admittedly have an awful lot on their plates. As Col. Carlson, Steve Railsback has terrific freakouts and fully commits to some over-the-top sex scenes, but if there had been a sequel, Firth’s Col. Caine would have been the one to carry it.

Self-Quarantine Viewing: In Search of Last Action Heroes

In times like these, we could use some heroes. It makes us nostalgic for the 1980s, the golden age of action heroes. That was the decade action really came into its own as a distinct genre. Back then, even our president, Ronald Reagan, was an action hero. At a time when we’re self-quarantining and social-distancing, we will try catch up on some DVD/VOD releases we missed when they released earlier in the year. Oliver Harper’s In Search of Last Action Heroes, (co-produced by David A. Weiner, director of In Search of Darkness) is a particularly good viewing choice, because as an entertaining documentary survey of 80’s action, it also gives viewers plenty of good ideas for subsequent films to watch—and it is indeed available on DVD and VOD.

Of course, it is hard to chronicle 80s films without referencing some films of the 70s that they built on. This is particularly true of Death Wish and Alien, whose sequel Aliens is considered an action film rather than horror movie (that is a debatable but defensible position). Two stars come to define the era for Harper and co-writer Timon Singh: Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, which makes sense.

As was the case for In Search of Darkness, Harper follows the development of 80s action in roughly chronological order. Along the way, he and his many talking heads cover the rise of Cannon Films and the influence of Hong Kong action auteurs. Fans will be thrilled to hear director Sam Firstenberg look back on the American Ninja franchise, but they will be disappointed the late great Steve James is overlooked during the discussion. (Honestly, I would argue James is sufficiently significance to warrant his own documentary. Email me if you agree.)

None of the really big stars like Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, or even Michael Dudikoff (the American Ninja) appear in Last Action as interview subjects, but Harper talks to some really cool character actors and bad guy specialists, like Al Leong (Lethal Weapon), Bill Duke (Predator), Ronny Cox (Robocop), Vernon Wells (Commando), and Jenette Goldstein (Aliens), as well as Eric Roberts, who is in a class of his own. However, he gets a good deal of commentary from two contemporary action stars: Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White.

FCS ’15: Electric Boogaloo—the Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films

They were decades ahead of the curve, making profitable films about terrorism long before it became an overriding concern for Americans. Of course, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus happened to be Israeli, so they understood how dangerous the world could be. Unfortunately, they were not as canny judging the American marketplace with the releases that followed Invasion U.S.A. and The Delta Force. Mark Astley compiles a breezy oral history of their rise and fall in Electric Boogaloo: the Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films (trailer here), which opens this year’s 2015 Film Comment Selects.

Yes, Hilla Medalia’s Cannon doc The Go-Go Boys just played the New York Jewish Film Festival, but there is always room for more Cannon. Reportedly, Go-Go is considered the B-movie moguls pre-emptive attempt to tell their side of the story. Hartley’s film even acknowledges the competition, comparing it to the dueling lambada films the former partners rushed to the marketplace after their contentious split. While Medalia spends more time on their early days in Israel, Hartley delves further into the early history of Cannon before Golan and Globus acquired it to serve as their Hollywood beachhead.

Plenty of the executives, writers, and directors associated with Cannon fondly remember the duo’s eccentricities, but there is not a lot of nostalgia coming from Frank Yablans, the former MGM studio head, who was contractually obligated to distribute their mid-1980s output. Hartley, who previously documented the Australian exploitation cinema of the 1970s and 1980s in Not Quite Hollywood and surveyed the low budget foreign and domestic action movies filmed in the Philippines with Machete Maidens Unleashed, not surprisingly shows an affinity for the nuttier movies in their filmography, like the notoriously spaced out futuristic rock opera The Apple and Tobe Hooper’s sci-fi grand guignol, Lifeforce.

Of course, it was their ill-conceived bids for Hollywood blockbuster respectability with the peacenik Superman IV and the Sylvester Stallone arm-wrestling epic Over the Top that would be their undoing. Frankly, it seems they never really understood their true comparative advantage: action cinema. Cannon really did take Chuck Norris to the next level and they substantially prolonged Charles Bronson’s career. They also discovered a Belgian waiter named Jean-Claude Van Damme. Unfortunately, they never really figured out what to do with their potential breakout star Michael Dudikoff, beyond the completely awesome American Ninja franchise and never recognized the untapped star-power of frequent supporting player Steve James (who frustratingly goes unmentioned again, after being overlooked by The Go-Go Boys).

Hartley marries up generous helpings of off-the-wall clips with some hilarious commentary (it is especially nice to see Catherine Mary Stewart remembering The Apple with self-deprecating humor). However, some of his talky head witnesses suggest some of the Hollywood resentment of Golan and Globus was a dark product anti-Israeli, anti-immigrant sentiments, which is a place Medalia’s film never treads. Boogaloo (taking its title from their ill-advised break-dancing sequel) also gives the almost-moguls credit for successfully backing a number legit art films, but it is less interested in this side of their business than Go-Go Boys.

Go watch The Delta Force (with Chuck Norris, Lee Marvin, and the late Steve James) and try to pretend it doesn’t hold up today. The best of Cannon really defined the 1980s. Even after two documentaries, the full importance of those action movies still has not been fully explored. For instance, James may well be the first African American cult actor whose fan-base at the height of his productivity was nearly entirely white (and probably right-of-center). That seems culturally significant, but nobody wants to pick up on it. Regardless, Electric Boogaloo delivers plenty of entertaining nostalgia and attitude. Recommended for genre fans, it kicks off the 2015 edition of Film Comment Selects this Friday (2/20), at the Walter Reade Theater.

NYJFF ’15: The Go-Go Boys

Turning Superman into a bomb-banning peacenik was an idea destined to fail. Nobody should have understood that better than the men who brought the world the American Ninja franchise. Unfortunately, they got caught up in the deal and the predictable failure of Superman IV: the Quest for Peace spelled the beginning of the end for scrappy Cannon Films. The rise and fall of the self-made, 1980s defining moguls Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus are chronicled in Hilla Medalia’s The Go-Go Boys: the Inside Story of Cannon Films (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 New York Jewish Film Festival.

While working in his native Israel, Menahem Golan attained a level of international respect for films that combined popular appeal with critical respectability, such as his Oscar nominated Operation Thunderbolt. His first English language productions were not so successful, but he kept trying until he found the right formula. Indeed, formula would be the right word. With his cousin, Yoram Globus, Golan acquired Cannon Films, turning it into the little studio that could, by releasing a series of cheaply produced but highly satisfying action movies.

With a regular stable of stars that included Chuck Norris (including the Delta Force and Braddock: Missing in Action series), Charles Bronson (especially the Death Wish sequels), Michael Dudikoff (the American Ninja), and a Belgian waiter named Jean-Claude Van Damme Cannon became the action house of its era. Any guy who remembers the 1980s will have found memories of Cannon. When Golan and Globus respected their competitive advantages, they were wildly profitable. In fact, Cannon became notoriously successful pre-selling films they had not yet made (a standard practice these days), largely on the strength of the stars they had signed and a bankable concept.

Even dabbling in art cinema did not doom the Cannon empire. The same team behind Ninja III: the Domination (a longstanding fan favorite) also scored an Academy Award for foreign language film for the Dutch WWII drama The Assault. In some cases, they even leveraged distribution for prestige pictures with their signature action movies. Unfortunately, when the more artistically ambitious Golan convinced the fundraiser-extraordinaire Globus to start bankrolling traditional studio level budgets, the box office results were disastrous.

Anyone who loves martial arts films and B-movies will inhale Go-Go Boys. Medalia scored long in-depths sit-down interviews with the late Golan and the surviving Globus, even capturing their reunion after years of estrangement. She also talks to most of the principle supporting players, including a highly animated Van Damme and a more reflective Dudikoff. It is also nice to see Andrei Konchalovsky get his due as a Cannon artist (most notably for Runaway Train). However, the oversight of the late great cult action star Steve James, who played an important role in many iconic Cannon hits, is frankly inexcusable.

Clearly in retrospect, Cannon never should have never bothered with the middling middle ground. Their bread-and-butter action films like Avenging Force and Bloodsport still hold up to this day, while their art house releases, such as Norman Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance and Godard’s King Lear remain distinctive for their idiosyncrasies. For the most part, Medalia gives them their due in a breezily affectionate profile. Even though the absence of James will annoy fans, The Go-Go Boys is still recommended for cult film connoisseurs when it screens twice this Thursday (1/29) at the Walter Reade Theater, as part of this year’s NYJFF.