dear Ishtar,

I love you. I hope one day everyone else does too.

Sincerely,
willow

A predestined failure that has emerged, 25 years later, as an orphan worth adopting-- awkward at times, with leads that work hard to redeem their miscasting, but winning and sweet and full of inspired silliness. The film handles the far outskirts of show business with a knowing wit that the Moroccan mayhem cannot quite equal (though the blind camel is never not funny), but its overall affability wins the day for me.

Songwriters of Arabia
On a ledge of sanity.
Patsies for politics
Blind as a camel.
Honest and popular
Don't go hand in hand.

Anyone who calls this a bad movie is a smuck.

"Whatever you think it's worth."

When we describe something as "going over budget" there's an odd presumption of guilt on the part of the filmmaker and innocence on the part of the studio. Maybe the budget offered to Elaine May for Ishtar was insufficient for her vision. I want to see an accusatory headline, "Studio underfunds genius woman." Leave Elaine alone!

Best only tangentially related bit of IMDB trivia: "Director Donald Cammell had also tried to set up a production titled 'Ishtar' with Mick Jagger and Norman Mailer, but it appears to have been a mystical sci-fi tale." One ticket to the universe in which that got made, please.

Femtember #7

I doubt anything from the challenge will top this as the most baffling film of the month.

Wie so oft, wenn spöttische Leute meinen, hämisch über einen der größten Flops und schlechtesten Filme aller Zeiten ablästern zu müssen, ist das Quatsch.

ISHTAR ist goutierbarer Durchschnitt, dessen Schwächen aber dennoch deutlich zu sehen sind. Vor allem die beiden Hauptdarsteller sind fehlbesetzt. Warren Beatty versucht verzweifelt nicht Warren Beatty zu sein und scheitert. Dustin Hoffmann hat man wiederrum vergessen zu sagen, dass es sich hier um eine Komödie handelt, und so spielt er steif und zu ernst, als wär das hier ein ernstes Wüstendrama.

Dazu noch die Tatsache, dass die Handlung ohne wirklich erkennbare Richtung höhepunktslos vor sich hinplätschert und dann ist der Film vorbei.

Alles nicht sonderlich gut, aber halt auch keine atemberaubende Vollkatastrophe. Dafür hat es dann doch zu viele recht amüsante Momente, vor allem wenn die beiden Hauptfiguren im letzten Drittel in die Wüste gehen.

To label Ishtar one of the worst films ever made is laughable. For me, the comedy duo of Beatty and Hoffman never achieved more than slight amusement (the Lennon and McCartney songwriting bit their strongest) so once the political satire starts rolling very little is of interest.

lol

I cant help love this despite its weirdness; its endlessly funny and wildly misunderstood.

This movie is much better in its original English.

[6/10-Above Average]

I’m on the fence with this one. It’s really sloppy (and kind of racist) but I did laugh quite a bit. It’s definitely a better movie than the legend led me to believe.

First 30 minutes or so are really funny, culminating with a one-man attempt at a Simon and a Garfunkel cover show. Gets lost in the next 60 but gets fun again by the end once the CIA is established as the big bad guy.