He was certainly the most influential comedy director from 1978-1989, give or take. Think: Animal House, Blues Brothers, Trading Places, Michael Jackson's Thriller, Coming to America. And of course the inimitable An American Werewolf in London.
His career needs some serious rehab.
Don't forget "The Kentucky Fried Movie" and "Amazon Women on the Moon," a pair of hit-and-miss sketch comedy movies that both have some absolutely pee-your-pants hilarious moments.
I think it's fair to say that his career was affected by the tragedy during the filming of "Twilight Zone: The Movie." And, really, "Coming to America" is the only hit that he's had post-tragedy.
I'm not sure if he truly has another great film in him.
Coming to America is a great movie. Just makes me sad that Eddie is the "family funny man now". Beverly Hills III was stupid though.
I still like Spies Like Us a lot. That movie still cracks me up. Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd are also 2 I wish I saw more of, as they both were hilarious.
Oh, right,...Landis...sorry...well, I like those movies, but more cause they make me laugh than anything. Trading Spaces is pretty funny though, and Animal House is sorta a given.
*a funny quote (http://64.58.47.63/Movies/Coming_To_America/reallife.wav) that for sum reason reminds me of here...
Quote from: aclockworkjjTrading Spaces is pretty funny though
They redecorated his room?
"What are you doin' here? I thought you promised never to do this sort of thing again!"
"I never promised you any such thing!"
"Not you, ya twit -- her!"
"But I've never seen you before in my life..."
"Oh, sorry."
see you next wednesday
I liked Animal House and Blues Brother on minor terms. All the rest didn't do much for me. His filmmaking career were for general films that at best, could be above the average comedy or genre movies in the most general sense. I don't see much identity with him as a filmmaker. I see identity though in Animal House and Blues Brothers more for who was acting in them and what they stood as for a lot of people. If any director was given the scripts for both movies, all he'd have to do is film the material to get the same results. He easily could do much better.
~rougerum
He had quite a bit of identity. There's myriad references running through his films. His sense of composition and timing were impeccable. He basically created what I consider the modern mainstream comedy. I think he was to comedy what Spielberg/Lucas were to adventure and fantasy in the late-70s/early-80s.
Landis Keeps it REAL
Dan O'Dowd's story centers on a small-town football game that pits gay against straight.
John Landis next directing effort will be an adaptation of Dan O'Dowd's Real Men, a football comedy which the Mount Film Co. has just optioned. Mount will turn serious attention to the project once the Ernest Hemingway biopic Papa, starring Nick Nolte, nears completion.
The plot revolves around an impromptu small-town football game pitting gay against straight, and it attracts worldwide attention. Mount and O'Dowd are producing, while Chris Kobin and David Jones will co-executive produce.
Landis has directed such classic comedies as Animal House and The Blues Brothers. His most recent effort was the documentary Slasher for the IFC Channel, about a man known as the world's greatest used-car salesman.
Quote from: mutinyco"What are you doin' here? I thought you promised never to do this sort of thing again!"
"I never promised you any such thing!"
"Not you, ya twit -- her!"
"But I've never seen you before in my life..."
"Oh, sorry."
AHAHHA.
Sorry, I'm ho'ing it up on dead threads again.
John Landis might be one of the most underrated filmmakers of the 80's and possibly all time. An American Werewolf In London alone makes him underrated. That is the only movie that has ever scared me.
He pretty much sums up the shitty decade that was the 80's. Yes, it was really shitty, but more importantly it was fun.
It's like there was no intelligence allowed in the 80's. It was just one fun ass time. And Landis led the pack as far as movies go. Maybe that's why he wasn't able to make it post 80's??
Well, he's one of the best interviews I have ever seen. He truly loves movies and comedy and it shows when he talks about them. He seems like an alright fella.
I wish he'd make another great film. He deserves it.
Though it's a documentary, 'Slasher' is the best film he's done in... well, a really long time. Definitely worth tracking down.
They show it on IFC a lot...
That's because it was made FOR IFC... that movie could have been a lot better, but he wasn't given enough money to complete his "vision".
it seemed pretty complete...What'd IFC screw him out of..
The opening scene with the news footage was supposed to be a running theme of the film, but they couldn't afford the news footage.
oohhh, yeah, that would have been pretty good...
John Landis Preps New Horror Film!
by Monika Bartyzel; Cinematical
Forget the potential film about Mad Magazine man William M. Gaines. It looks like John Landis is heading back to the thrills and chills. Dread Central reports that the man behind Thriller and An American Werewolf in London is gearing up to direct Burke and Hare, and that zombie butt-kicker Simon Pegg will star.
Unlike many of the usual horror films, this true story takes murder into the money-making realm. Back in the 1820s, two men in Edinburgh, Scotland -- William Burke and William Hare -- had schemed up a new business venture. Cadavers were in high demand, so they got in the business of selling dead bodies to anatomist Dr. Robert Knox. At first, it was just a stolen body, but soon they began murdering to bring in the cash (£7 to £15). Tenants, prostitutes, friends, relatives, and even an old woman and deaf boy. But they grabbed one too many well-known victim, and were ultimately caught.
Based on the death and life masks found earlier this year, I'll guess that Pegg will play Hare, and that this classic story is going to get a comedic twist. Then again, anything is possible. Laughter, chills, seriousness, silliness -- who cares? Landis is finally getting back to horror!
Fisher, Serkis, Wilkinson in 'Burke and Hare'
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Isla Fisher, Andy Serkis and Tom Wilkinson have joined Simon Pegg in "Burke and Hare," a horror comedy that marks John Landis' return to feature directing after more than 10 years.
Written by Piers Ashworth and Nick Moorcroft, "Hare" is based on the true story a pair of the U.K.'s earliest serial killers, William Burke and William Hare, gravediggers who lucratively sold the corpses of their victims to a medical college for dissection.
Serkis, fresh off a leading actor BAFTA nomination for "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll," will play Hare opposite Pegg's Burke. (David Tennant was tipped for the role but bowed out when he joined the NBC pilot "Rex Is Not My Lawyer.")
Fisher will play Pegg's girlfriend, an actress looking for a patron who might or might not be an accomplice to the murders.
Wilkinson will play Dr. Robert Knox, an anatomy lecturer looking for fresh corpses.
The movie begins shooting Jan. 31 in Edinburgh and London, bringing Landis back to the scene of his 1981 hit "An American Werewolf in London."
Barnaby Thompson is producing; Ealing Studios' James Spring is executive producing.
Fisher, repped by CAA and Mosaic, most recently appeared in Disney's "Confessions of a Shopaholic."
Serkis, repped by Lou Coulson Associates and Principal Entertainment, is best known for his work as Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" movies and in "King Kong." He is portrays Captain Haddock in Steven Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn."
Wilkinson next appears in Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer" and recently wrapped shooting Michel Gondry's "The Green Hornet" for Sony.
i feel sorry for Landis.
he should've been one of the greatest of all time based on Werewolf alone., but instead he pretty much died by the end of the 80s (MJ videos notwithstanding), and spent most of the 90s reviving or rather shitting on what he and others had built before (blues brothers 2000, Beverley Hills Cop III). and who the hell even knew he made a film in 1998?!
what i get from reading about his decline is that he just couldn't get over a kind of early 80s mentality. he had fresh ideas at the start of that decade which sort of made him a prophet of the shitty genres that exploded after him, but it seems that he just ran out of good ideas.
as far as i know he can't even use the Bogdanovich excuse of being in the midst of any shit that went down, drugs or sex or murders.. or orson welles.. he just kinda lost it. maybe the last 12 years he's spent in TV purgatory will hav inspired him.. doubtful.
John Landis Rails Against Studios: 'They're Not in the Movie Business Anymore'
At the Mar del Plata fest, the "Animal House" director decried "vampire" tech giants and the state of the industry: "Now if a movie doesn't make money its first two days, you're f---ed!"
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina -- "The studios are not in the movie business anymore," said filmmaker and producer John Landis to a group of reporters in the Mar del Plata Film Festival, which is holding a retrospective selection of his work. "Some of us were very lucky. I started to make movies for the studios in the '70s. They were dying, but at least they were still studios."
When asked if Hollywood's response to a lack of original ideas is to rely on remakes, the Three Amigos director replied: "There are no original ideas. What there is -- and this is something no one understands -- is that it is never about the idea, it is about the execution of the idea."
"The film studios are all now subdivisions of huge multinational corporations," he stated. "Time Warner, British Petroleum, Sony -- these aren't companies, they are f---ing nations. They are these giant international things that don't pay taxes! It's ridiculous. They're like pirates. It really has to do with desperation, because they don't know how to get people into the theaters, so they bring back 3D and make all this kind of shit."
"It's very common now to spend more money selling a movie than making a movie. So the reason they make remakes and sequels is because they're brands, like Coca Cola. They remake movies because they have presold titles. It's tragic, because you have things like Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is a brilliant movie, and yet the remakes have made a lot more money," he added.
Landis, who also directed Animal House, contrasted the current state of the studios to counterparts in an earlier era.
"When I did Animal House, I could point at the studio and tell you who owned it: Lew Wasserman was Universal, David Begelman was Columbia, Arthur Krim was United Artists, Steve Ross was Warner Brothers," Landis recalled. "I don't know who owns these companies now. There are no individuals who say, 'Sure, I'll take a risk.' Because the risks are now huge! I'm not that old, but many of my movies made more money the second, third, or fourth week, because we used to have what we call word of mouth. Now if a movie doesn't make money its first two days, you're f---ed!"
The director stated that piracy was another major issue. "One of the problems with the Internet that no one has solved is that for YouTube, Google, Yahoo to exist, they thrive on piracy. They must steal intellectual property; they're like vampires. So how do you fight that?" he asks, adding: "Now there are generations worldwide who believe that when they're downloading something for free, it's not theft. It doesn't even occur to them, so intellectual property has become nothing. You used to be able to write a book, or do a piece, and it was yours, but now you're raped continuously. It's very complicated, and I don't have any answers."
On a more positive note, Landis assured that quality films can still be made. "There will always be good movies being made. It's just harder and harder to see them," he said. "And the studios are no longer interested in making good movies -- they're interested in movies that will bring you in. So you have movies like Avatar, or Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity. It's wonderful to look at. Now, is it a good movie? No! But it's entertaining, and it's a spectacle and technically astonishing."
TV programming, in his view, is an oasis for quality fiction for a simple reason: "There are a lot of interesting things being made in cable TV now because they can afford to take the risk."
"Everything is changing. Steve Jobs destroyed the music industry. He decided a song is worth 20 cents, just like that. (Snaps his fingers.) Boom. Destroyed," Landis commented. "So everything has changed. There are no villains here. No one has the handle on it. I understand why they're scared. All their decisions are based on fear."