Most audiences today won’t have heard of the name John Landis. They would have heard of “Coming To America” and “The Blues Brothers” but it’s unlikely they recognise the talent behind the lens. That’s because Landis has become one of Hollywood’s forgotten star directors. Legal troubles and a decade of poor work has put the director out in the wilderness. Forgettable films from a forgotten filmmaker.

Yet, you ask anyone if they’ve seen Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and most will reply “Damn right I have – best music video ever made!” Well, that was the brainchild of Jackson and John Landis.

Throughout the decade we were wowed by fantasy, thrilled by action, and frightened by horror, all the while being annoyed by remakes and endless sequels. We had everything turned on its head with numerous twist endings and welcomed new and old Superheroes. New directors entered the scene (Christopher Nolan) and others were finally recognised by mainstream audiences (Peter Jackson, Alexander Payne), while older pros continued to make great movies (Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg).

In the eighties, the high-concept movie was in vogue, its number increasing. Thanks largely to blockbusters “Jaws” and “Star Wars”, the eighties saw what was tried and trusted in the decade before it and simply repackaged the thrills for an audience wanting exactly the same entertainment.
The industry was drastically changing from the top down. Huge, multinational conglomerates who, quite rightly, viewed their acquisition as a profitable arm of the company bought a number of studios. United Artists merged with MGM in 1981, while 20th Century Fox was bought by oil …

The vampire: that harbinger of everlasting life and eternal damnation. From the cloaked gothic majesty of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” to the down and dirty night-crawlers of Kathryn Bigelow’s “Near Dark”, vampire’s have formed the basis for more literary and cinematic horror than any other fictional creature.
Early cinematic incarnations of the blood-sucking sun-haters were based on Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. Infamously, Friedrich Murnau made “Nosferatu” in Germany without acquiring the rights to film the novel. After a lawsuit, all copies of the film were ordered to be destroyed. The film …

“Are you telling me you built a time machine out of a DeLorean”: The Magic of Robert Zemeckis

Robert Zemeckis was once asked if television was a bad influence on children. He answered, emphatically, “television isn’t an education, but I see no reason to turn it off.” What would so many television-starved children give for Zemeckis as a babysitter, or indeed a father: ‘Can I pur-lease watch more TV?’/’Of course you can!’ He was a product of the television generation – this new visual medium that found its way into most …

The tiny territory of Hong Kong has been responsible for producing some of the greatest action movies the world has ever seen. Here are ten of the very best from before the digital age; a time when often the only thing an actor had to save him from a painful trip to the hospital was a thin straw mattress or a small cushioning pad under the shirt! In reverse order, I give to you:
10. CRIPPLED AVENGERS
Director: Chang Cheh
Starring: Phillip Kwok, Lo Meng, Chiang Sheng, Sun Chien, Lu …

Clint Eastwood may be to many casual filmgoers the gun-toting authoritarian Harry Callahan from the “Dirty Harry” movies, or perhaps the man with no name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, or more recently Frankie Dunn in “Million Dollar Baby. He’s an iconic Hollywood figure who has embodied some of the world’s most recognisable characters in many of the most prominent films of the last fifty years. But he’s also as accomplished behind the camera as he is in front of it, directing such classics as “Play Misty For Me”, “The …

Whimsical, feel-good festive fun. Sing-a-long musicals and family entertainment. Bumbling cartoon characters, flying reindeer, talking animals, elves making toys, angels getting wings, they are all part of the Christmas movie. But there’s another side to a Christmas sat in front of the telly. The Dark Side. Pitch black film noir, offbeat comedy, sadistic horror. Killer snowmen, drunk Santa’s, capitalist in-fighting, sex fetishes and rampant orgies, terrorists, lunatics, Christmas tree robbers, murderers hiding in the attic, marriage breakdowns and the curse of the mother-in-law. No songs in sight, no talking animals …