THE BLUES BROTHERS is part of eight-film BAMcinématek tribute to John Landis
BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
November 21-30
212-415-5500
www.bam.org
Film enthusiast, historian, theorist, actor, and writer-director John Landis made some of the seminal comedies of the 1970s and ’80s, particularly a five-film streak that began in 1977 with The Kentucky Fried Movie and continued with National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), The Blues Brothers (1980), An American Werewolf in London (1981), and Trading Places (1983), followed by the underrated Into the Night (1985). He’s also made such guilty pleasures as 1986’s ¡Three Amigos! (you know you don’t change the channel when you find it on cable) and the 1992 vampire flick Innocent Blood, but he’s directed only one feature film since 1998, the 2010 comedy Burke and Hare. BAMcinématek is honoring the Chicago-born, L.A.-raised auteur with an eight-film tribute in conjunction with the release of his latest book, Monsters in the Movies (DK Adult, September 2011, $40), that begins today with two screenings of Animal House sandwiching a 6:50 showing of Into the Night that will be followed by a Q&A and book signing with Landis, who will be back tomorrow for a Q&A and signing after the 7:00 screening of The Blues Brothers, which is still a riot after all these years. The tribute continues on Wednesday with the very funny — and currently extremely relevant yet again — Trading Places, with one-percenter-wannabe Dan Aykroyd changing positions with ninety-nine-percenter Eddie Murphy. The series concludes next week with a pair of double features, ¡Three Amigos! and Coming to America (1988) on November 29 and the always welcome An American Werewolf in London and the 1982 documentary Coming Soon on November 30. Oh, and keep an eye out for a reference to “See you next Wednesday,” which makes a Hitchockian appearance in nearly every one of Landis’s films.