John Belushi
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The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone and Continental Divide: Jim Hemphill’s Home Viewing Recommendations
From Apocalypse Now Redux to The Cotton Club Encore, Francis Coppola has never been reticent about reworking past directorial efforts, so it was probably inevitable that he would get around to revisiting The Godfather Part III. Although by any normal standard Godfather III was a respectable success – conceptually bold, rich in visual and emotional textures and literary depth, and a financial hit with seven Oscar nominations – the fact that it wasn’t a flat-out masterpiece like its predecessors left the film with a lingering reputation as a disappointment, and Coppola was always unhappy with the manner in which it […]
by Jim Hemphill on Dec 4, 2020 -
“His Materials and His Letters Were Just Sitting in Boxes in the Basement of Her House”: R.J. Cutler on Belushi at DOC NYC
From the mid to late 70s John Belushi was a multimedia meteor, seemingly destined to be an inescapable part of the zeitgeist for years to come. The outsized and ubiquitous talent — original cast member on late night TV’s SNL, scene-stealing star of the big screen (National Lampoon’s Animal House, The Blues Brothers), and hit record maker (again with The Blues Brothers) — was so inescapable that when in 1982, at the age of only 33 and the peak of his career, his life crashed to a drug-fueled end at L.A.’s Chateau Marmont, the shock to the world was seismic. So how […]
by Lauren Wissot on Nov 13, 2020 -
“It’ll Never Make a Movie:” Animal House at 35
“No one wants to make this movie.” That’s what studio chief Ned Tanen told John Landis in the mid-70s about this vulgar frat house comedy called Animal House. Thursday night, Landis was reminiscing at the movie’s 35th anniversary at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox with producers Ivan Reitman and Matty Simmons, plus co-stars Stephen Furst (Dorfman) and Martha Smith (Babs). Based on stories that ran in The National Lampoon magazine, Animal House pits a dysfunctional fraternity against an uptight university administration. Made for $2.7 million in 1978, Animal House was a box-office smash that made a star of John Belushi and […]
by Allan Tong on Jul 22, 2013
