John Landis

Director John Landis is reportedly suing Michael Jackson for not receiving his share of profits for the Thriller music video. You couldn't avoid this video during the 1980s; it was truly ubiquitous and so I can well believe it's still making money somewhere.

The surprise is that Landis has always come across in interviews as one of the most laid back men in the world, so he must have been pretty annoyed to take this action. He's also a reasonably underated director these days. Once upon a time The Blues Brothers (1980) would have been named as one of my top three favourite films and although it's nowhere near this status any more, there are still scenes I would happily watch again. An American Werewolf in London (1981) and Trading Places (1983) are two of the best films of the 1980s, while National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and Three Amigos (1986) are perfectly fine comedies.

The rot set in later on, so that by the time we got to Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) and (even worse) Blues Brothers 2000 (1998) the taste in the mouth had well and truly gone sour.