David Vining's Blog, page 43

Oscar

This is the one film that John Landis has made since The Blues Brothers that has felt in alignment with his anarchic beginning, and it’s a screwball comedy/gangster homage to the films of the 30s based on a French play and written by the same Saturday Night Live writers who wrote Coming to America. In its embrace of conventions first brought to the screen by people like Hawks, Lubitsch, and McCarey, Oscar is a delight of a film, a light entertainment that pushes forward at all times in a sma...

Coming to America

John Landis attaches his star once again to that of Eddie Murphy, directing a film conceived of by Murphy, produced by Murphy (though, did he? credits are unclear), and starring Murphy at the height of his popularity. This is a Murphy movie first and foremost, and Landis is there to manage the set and keep things moving. He does that well enough, leaving the spotlight on Murphy while the script does an admirable job of a tight three-act structure, giving its star the space and proper narrati...

Amazon Women on the Moon

So, I actually watched this when I went through Joe Dante‘s work, but while he direct some (it seems like most) of the skits, he didn’t direct them all, it is a series of skits, and the primary mover seemed to be Landis who not only directed some but produced the film. Well, now that I’m at this point in Landis’ career, I’m watching it again, and I’m wondering what I should do with it? I mean, The Kentucky Fried Movie is barely a movie, but at least Landis was there on set every day actually...

Three Amigos!

Produced by Lorne Michaels and Landis’ regular producer George Folsey, written by Michaels, Steve Martin, and *checks notes* Randy Newman, and starring Martin, Martin Short, and Chevy Chase, Three Amigos might be the most Landis has been pushed aside by stronger personalities on his own movie so far in his career. Throw in the fact that the studio ordered edits after Landis submitted his final cut without Landis’ involvement, and it was all happening right around the time Landis’ trial for t...

Spies Like Us

This is the most generic comedy that John Landis has made. The anarchic attitude of his early films is gone, replaced by a more sedate, sitcomy feel where Landis is taking a backseat to his performers. It’s also a bit odd because Dan Aykroyd has both story and writing credits, and there’s precious little of the insanity he put into the early drafts of things like The Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, or the final product of Nothing But Trouble. I mean, it’s fine. It’s not hilarious, but it’s als...

Into the Night

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more boring, aimless, and generally dull thriller than John Landis’ Into the Night. I was thoroughly bored throughout this tedious journey through a Hitchcockian mystery that never felt like a mystery and just could not even keep to its central conceit of taking place in one night. There’s no real good reason for the male protagonist to be involved, in fact most of the film is the female protagonist begging him to stick around. There’s no fire to anything that ...

Twilight Zone: The Movie (A Second Look)

Okay, fine. I should have written about this again when I did Joe Dante’s filmography. I watched it, but I just kind of forgot about writing about it. I mean, it’s not going in any list. Neither he nor Landis (nor Spielberg nor Miller) have sole directing credit, just making short films in an anthology. Still, they are mile makers in their careers that need mention.

And no career needs more mention of Twilight Zone: The Movie than John Landis.

It probably should have completely deraile...

Trading Places

John Landis’ complete lack of care about subtext and theme rears its head here in Trading Places, based on a script by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod. A film purportedly about the difference between nature and nurture when it comes to character and success ends up just using it as an excuse for a fun movie. I mean, that’s not a terrible thing, but when you have characters bring it up repeatedly, it’s the core reason for the plot to even happen, and then it doesn’t really matter or even...

An American Werewolf in London

After four anarchic comedies of varying degrees of quality, John Landis gets back to writing for himself and comes up with a shockingly restrained horror/comedy mesh and homage to the Universal Horror franchise, in particular The Wolf Man. I mean, it’s the restraint of tone that’s really interesting in the context of Landis’ career. It feels like he’s trying to grow cinematically while finding other ways to provide homages to the films he grew up with and loved. There are moments that feel l...

The Blues Brothers

Animal House was John Landis’ first real success as a filmmaker both artistically and commercially (mostly commercially, it was a big hit), and he was able to take the relationship he had made with John Belushi to launch the first Saturday Night Live inspired film, taking the titular brothers from the small screen and a musical tour to the cinematic realm. Born from Dan Aykroyd’s insanity and tempered somehow by Landis’ own questionable writing skills, The Blues Brothers is a celebration of ...