Ishtar

I personally do not understand how anyone cannot like this movie. As a whole I cannot really recall many comedies that I would call great movies, and this is not a "great" movie. It is certainly one of my favorite comedies, though. Come on, you have Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman has bad singer/songwriters. What more can you ask for? And they seem so sincere in the process. Maybe I'm just too big of an Adjani fan.

This is actually a brilliant comedy that utilizes the subtle jab to the funny bone rather than the thundering blow. Unfortunately, this type of humor died out sometime in the middle of the television show NEWHART's run. Why? Read The Wasteland! I don't know! Ishtar works in the same vein as Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges. No, the jokes do not come out and slap you in the face... You have to look for them to find them. Needless to say, do not rent this if you want a cathartic, mindless jolt. However, do not slam this movie just because it isn't slaptick or screwball. (Which are the only kind of comedies made anymore!) Elaine May comes from the comedy team of Nichols and May (Yes, Mike Nichols! [In fact one could argue that the comedy in The Graduate is bad for the same reasons as the comedy in Ishtar is supposedly bad.]). This duo practically perfected the witty, acerbic brand of humor which is now completely missed and misunderstood but was used masterfully in this film. In the age of Saturday Night Live and Ace Ventura, a comedy of this sort most assuredly would bomb and continue bombing. Nevertheless, if you are sick and tired of being force-fed ridiculously bad, hackneyed comedy then I suggest renting Ishtar (then buying some Nichols and May albums and watching the Bob Newhart reruns on Nick at Nite). Oh... Carter was President when I was born by the way... This is not nostalgia!

OK, Warren was on Dave Letterman. He says to Dave: "I still think Ishtar was funny. I don't get it. Why is this movie considered a bomb?" We liked it! OK, so the sled was "rosebud", but we still give this movie a Siskel-Ebert like thumbs up. Oops, Siskel passed away. Well, you know? Thumbs up to Warren and Dustin. Ishtar is funny. Warren is right. He is a highly intelligent guy, after all. So, we concur that to view Ishtar as a "bomb" represents a serious perception-gap on the part of critics and the general movie public. We call for the production of "Ishtar II"! YEAH!

"Ishtar was great," I think defiantly every time by some off chance someone I come in contact with who has actually seen it cites it was the worst movie ever. I suppose it's part of cinematic pop culture to hold that opinion as a safeguard against being called a fool.

The most charming quality of Ishtar is its consistently dry, tongue-and-cheek disposition. It offers brilliant insight to the types of people in the world that, despite the fact that to everyone else their talent is cheesy at best, continue to try and try. Rogers and Clarke are the "Every Men" for that entire segment of the population with their songwriting musical act.

Their third-rate, leisure-suit-wearing manager does his job by getting them a few gigs; the biggest gig of all is in Ishtar, a politically unstable Middle Eastern country. Which, of course, is unbeknownst to Rogers and Clarke, who are just reveling in their love of playing music. Their naivete (and sometimes outright stupidity) is a character unto itself, and plays brilliantly throughout the ridiculous adventure that they experience.

I've seen Hoffman and Beatty in interviews joking about how they knew the movie was so bad that, instead of quitting, they simply got into the spirit by over-acting at parts. But, whether they know it or not, they were very REAL people, and THAT was the best part of all.

The people who rip this movie for being boring and expensive don't understand what its really about. the film has terrible songs featured in it BUT THAT IS THE POINT! the songs are so terrible that they are ridiculously funny. the film's stars, beatty and Hoffman display an incredible talent at being morons, considering at the time they were both sex symbols revered as the coolest of cool. the film is a very funny and witty adaptation of ROAD TO RIO with bing crosby and bob hope. i loved this movie, and you should to if you don't take it seriously.

p.s. And about it being overpriced, it cost $40 million, a large sum for the time yes, but 50 FIRST DATES with Adam Sandler cost more that $40 million. $51 exactly.