The scripts weren’t very complex, the characters were about as cliche as you could get, and the budgets were shoe-string. The films, however, were iconic and created a movie experience that many studios tried to copy, but never duplicated.
“Enter The Ninja”, no matter how bad you might think it is, launched the ninja movie craze in the early 80s. Enter the Ninja, Revenge of the Ninja, and Ninja III: The domination were all favorite movies of mine, during my teen years. In our household, we had both a VHS machine and a subscription to First Choice Super Channel (Canada’s version of HBO). Most, if not all, of the Cannon movie library made it to FCSC at one time or another and I recorded many of them. I watched them over and over and over again. Then, my high-school buddies and I would talk about them ad nauseam, quoting movie dialog and analyzing each and every scene and plot point. I tell you, I watched those tapes so many times that the playback quality was becoming just about unwatchable by the late 90s.
It was a shame when Cannon Studios shuttered it’s doors, in the mid 90s. Without them, many movies that I enjoy now probably would have never made it to the big screen. Cannon took chances and had a style to their movies that no other studio could ever duplicate. In the 80s, many of my favorite movies were produced by Cannon; Missing In Action, Delta Force, Death Wish (II, III and IV), Lifeforce, Cobra, King Solomon’s Mines, were just what a young teen like me was looking for in a movie. Lots of action, rough and tumble stunts, high adventure, creative special effects, and every so often some scantily clad lovely ladies – what else could teenager ask for? I wonder how many other similarly entertaining movies got passed over because Cannon wasn’t there to take a chance on them.
Now-a-days, I think that many action movies take themselves far too seriously and are much darker and disturbing. Those low budget, B-type movies that Cannon was famous for are just much more entertaining to me and great for those nights you just want to sit back with your gal, a bowl of pretzels and peanuts and just unwind watching an action flick together.
Okay, sure, the Indiana Jones movies are entertaining enough (besides “The Crystal Skulls” fiasco), but I find Richard Chamberlain’s Allan Quartermain more fun to watch. And the tongue-in-cheek gags and quips just make the movie more fun, in general.
I’m glad that I’ve been able to hold on to many of my Cannon films in one form or another, which I continue to enjoy today. Of course, I still keep my eyes open for copies of the ones I don’t have in the collection, but those don’t show up very often anymore. As I make progress on my project to backup my video collection to DVD-R, I’ve been gathering my Cannon films together and making special “Cannon Collections” discs. Having them altogether like this is really fun to see on the shelf. I should have done it a long time ago.
So, here’s a tip of the hat to all of those campy B-movies out there some of us appreciate and enjoy, and many others love to hate. Thanks for the laughs, Golan and Globus! 
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[tag]movies, history[/tag]