That’s it. The way I understand it, the movie brought new meaning to the words bad film. I have even seen a far side cartoon titled “Hells video store” showing a guy wandering a video store with nothing to rent but copies of Ishtar. Now I have seen * crappy * films in my day, (Star Ship Troopers), and wasn’t (oscar winning?) Dustin Hoffman in Ishtar, If so, how could it have been so bad? I found many references to the film, calling it disastrous, horrifying etc. Also an Ishtar fan club, and an overview of a movie about two loser musicians. But nothing explaining * why *it was so bad. So that’s it, since I don’t intend to rent the film (and Block buster here in São Paulo doesn’t seem to have a copy) – Please tell me what the heck makes this such a stinker of a film.
There was an Ishtar Appreciation Thread in Cafe Society last week. You might want to look that up to see why it was mostly panned when it was released. Lots of good points/reviews/discussion. Personally, I loved the movie. It was marketed as an action/high budget blockbuster/thriller when it is very much a comedy in the spirit of the Bob Hope “On the Road to…” movies. I recommend a viewing.
Cool.
I never said I couldn’t have heard wrong.
I’ve never seen Ishtar, but I think the problem was not so much that the movie was bad in and of itself but that it wasn’t as good as a movie that had two big-name stars and cost a bundle to make could have been. I know it got a lot of pre-release bad buzz about how much money it cost and how it wasn’t good enough to justify the price tag. Since a lot of the cost was due to extensive editing and re-editing, there isn’t even anything onscreen that looks like it should have been all that expensive.
It isn’t a terrible movie. It isn’t a good movie, either. It’s a thoroughly mediocre comedy.
So why the legendary reputation? Because it was such a tremendous flop. It cost $40 million to make - which doesn’t sound like much now, but this was an era when the typical comedy cost $10 million. And Ishar only pulled in $14 million at the box office.
Contrast this to the similar Dan Ackroyd/Chevy Chase vehicle Spies Like Us, which came out the year before Ishtar. It cost $22 million to make, and earned $60 million at the box office. (These are all IMDB numbers, by the way.)
Combine the fact that Ishtar was a flop with the fact that it involved two big-name stars (Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman), and you have something that the media could poke fun at for a long, long time. Which they did - for more than a decade, “Ishtar” was synonymous with “flop.”
Now that Gigli has come along as the newest Most Famous Flop Of All Time, it’s likely that Ishtar will fade into obscurity.
That’s pretty much the size of it. “Ishtar” was a mediocre comedy that cost a bloody fortune to make.
“Waterworld” was basically a mediocre drive-in postapocalypse adventure movie that cost a bloody fortune to make.
Now if you want BAD, I’d recommend “The Postman,” or “Heaven’s Gate.”
“The Postman” didn’t cost THAT much money, but it was quite bad, and cemented Kevin Costner’s reputation as an egomaniac who should not be allowed to make movies.
“Heaven’s Gate” sucked beyond suck… and it DID cost an insane amount of money, and lost most of it, and devastated the studio that bankrolled it, and pretty much ended the era of “Great Movies By Great Directors.” Never again would any director or producer be trusted with that much studio money.
Or, at least, not until James Cameron made “Titanic.” Which made a profit, by the way.
First: Ishtar is far from a failure. There’s an old adage that one should never overestimate the American public. Ishtar overestimate the American public.
While supposedly a comedy the film is actually about some pretty serious stuff. Much like Joe Vrs. The Volcano and Lord Love a Duck, this is a seeming comedy that has another purpose.
I doubt very seriously if the film makers cared about the reputation of the film. Today it would be an independent film and make a small fortune as an independent film. (I.e. the same amount it made back then) but you can’t drive a jet plane through a fence without some costs. . .Well you can now, with CGI.
Get a copy. And by the way, Heaven’s Gate is also a very nice film. Not as serious as those I’ve mentioned above; but nicely done. It was one of those things people decided they’d pan, because they couldn’t devote a little time.
Now if you want to talk failure: Titanic!
Yes, Titanic was a collossal failure, with nearly $1 billion in worldwide revenue… :rolleyes:
Sorry, Ishtar did not have any underlying message in it. The filmakers were not primarily concerned with proving a point. There were no archetypical characters undergoing some massive revelation. It was a poorly marketed movie that misinterpreted its fanbase and audience. Joe v. the Volcano was also a poorly marketed movie that misinterpreted its fanbase and audience, but it also happened to contain all those things I mentioned previously in this paragraph.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…
Looks like we have a debate.
What is the film about, what happens. I cant rent it a I am in South America and can’t find a copy.
Yay! What hroeder says. I love Ishtar; I own a copy. I also own Lord Love a Duck! I LOOOOVE that movie.
And Munch, since you put it that way, you’re flat out wrong. Ishtar has plenty to say about a number of serious issues, and you obviously just missed it. Titanic, on the other hands, has a whole LOT of nothing to say, mostly about bad dialogue, though it has a pretty good deal to say about good special effects.
And many MANY good movies have been mismarketed and never found their audience. I kind of “collect” those kinds of movies, and believe me, none of the titles mentioned here is unique.
Since you requested some spoilers.
[spoiler] Part of the reason it’s so painful to watch is that Hoffman and Beatty are supposed to be pathetic wanna-be song writers with an excructiating lounge act thing. They did it way too well, meaning that it is actually painful to watch their music scenes. It’s not funny bad, it’s just unwatchable, nail-on-a-chalkboard bad.
[/quote]
D’oh! Oh well it probably didn’t need to be spoiler boxed anyway.
lissener, if you’re trying to say that Ishtar and Joe v. the Volcano are absolute equals in the “I, the director, am trying to prove a point about humanity” category, you’re mistaken. Because that’s what I was getting at*.
Did Ishtar have social commentary? Absolutely. Did Ishtar bring political climates to light? Betcher bottom dollar. Did Ishtar do this as its primary purpose as a cinematic experience? Fuck no.
Also, did I say anything about Titanic other than it made nearly $1 billion in revenue? Nope.
*I retract my “Sorry, Ishtar did not have any underlying message in it” comment. I was being too broadly overgeneralizing.
I saw Ishtar in the theater. It was just boring to me and unremarkable.
Um, I haven’t seen Joe, so, nope, that’s not what I was saying. I wasn’t comparing Ishtar to any other movies–though I might be willing to compare it to Elaine May’s other films, of which Ishtar fourth favorite (she made four films before baying bandwagoneers ended her career)–I was judging it on its own merits.
Ishtar has some pretty dark things to say about American politics, some darker things to say about American popular music, and some pretty touching things to say about friendship; and it says them all, if you ask me, pretty funnily.
Let’s not get carried away. The social commentary in Ishtar pretty much amounted to “The US government, its foreign policy, and the CIA are baaaaaaad.”
That might be mildly unusual to see in a big budget movie now, but it was not at all unusual back in 1986. The idea that the government was a bunch of evil puppetmasters was pretty much a standard plot feature in movies of the post Watergate/Vietnam era. It was found even in innocuous mass-market buddy comedies like, well, Spies Like Us.
Had Ishtar been released in, say, 1970, it might have been mildly subversive. As it was, it was behind the curve of Chevy Chase movies.
It was a decent movie.
The “problems” were:
- It ran way over budget, with no hope of recovery
- It took way too long to film
So, it was declared a “loser” before it was even done being edited.
The same thing happened to “Waterworld” with Kevin Costner (when he could still do no wrong) and Jeanne Tripplehorn who was a really talented stunner.
It became a financial loser before it opened, and everyone in Hollywood hates losers, because they “drag down the industry” and keep all the rich farmers from Indiana too scared to invest on faith in a name star.
It was a decent movie.
The “problems” were:
- It ran way over budget, with no hope of recovery
- It took way too long to film
So, it was declared a “loser” before it was even done being edited.
The same thing happened to “Waterworld” with Kevin Costner (when he could still do no wrong) and Jeanne Tripplehorn who was a really talented stunner.
It became a financial loser before it opened, and everyone in Hollywood hates losers, because they “drag down the industry” and keep all the rich farmers from Indiana too scared to invest on faith in a name star.
** wolfman ** wrote:
No problem, thats exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.
I still wonder how the CIA comes into it, thought I could guess.
Ahem.
2 lounge lizards hope to make it big one day, but they suck royally. They somehow get mixed up with the government and sent off to a foreign land with the idea that it will some how further their careers. It doesn’t, and soon the loveable losers realize that the government is just using them, and is out to screw everyone else as well. Somehow they expose the government entity, give every one a shot at revenge – then somehow make it back to the states, realizing just how much they suck at their trade, they get married, open a doughnut shop in lower Manhattan and live happily ever after.
Am I way far off the mark here? Well… * I * think it would be a good movie.
I think I’ll ask my mom to mail me a copy.
I must point out that while H2Oworld didn’t do well in the US, it did make a profit in international release. (I personally didn’t think it was that bad of a movie either)
Brian