Ishtar

ishtar1987part5-0101

What do you do what you have a lot of money and haven’t ever failed? Yes, you fail.

This movie gets a lot of hate. It’s 1987 and made about $14m from a $55m budget mainly because it wasn’t funny. Its about two shitty singers that somehow get dragged into being part of some middle spy story. The plot is irrelevant. Nothing happens in the movie anyways. The fun stuff is all the crap that surrounds this movie.

Sony probably went to Dustin and said “Hey buddy, you wanna make some money? Lets make Tootsie, but in a desert. We’ll throw in that guy that wins all those awards for movies that don’t go anywhere. Whats his name? Beatty.”

But I think I’ve cracked. See, back then, there was this 55 year old woman. She was a great director, she doctored a ton of scripts that resulted in the movies getting nominated for a ton of awards, she even acted and in great movies. Her name was Elanie May. She was known at the time for The Graduate, Tootsie, Mickey and Nicky and The Heartbrak Kid. All popular movies with good reviews and a lot of money. So she had this idea, of shitty singers in sand. She took it ot Columbia/Sony and they probably saw dollar signs because she’s never put a wrong foot forward. Then she goes on to call Dustin and Warren to call in some favours to act in these movies. She is successful in guilting them into working on it. The movie gets made. Its not great but its good enough. Some studio executive wants to get famous and starts telling people about how bad its doing. That becomes the story and in 1987, people had nothing in their lives so if they hear one idiot shout about a lousy return, thats all that gets recorded. So now this poor lady has a shitty reputation and never directs another movie again. The movie gets called the worst movie ever and its not entirely true.

So poor Ishtar. Its a case of using the best ingredients to cook a meal and that meal is only mediocre. I also think its a bit of a mistaken audience. The makers is really old and if the audience was people around her age, they would probably enjoy it. Its like an old-timey type of comedy. But the movie goers and critics where around the 20s and 30s. That’s half Elaine’s age.

Poor Ishtar. We’ll watch you again in 20 years. And we might enjoy it.