Ishtar

directed by Elaine May (1987)

I watched Ishtar when it was first released.  I was one of the few people who actually saw it in theatres and enjoyed it.  When it started getting harsh reviews,  I didn't understand why this comedy about two mild mannered musicians in a mid life crisis mode who bumble their way through spy games in Morocco elicited such vitriol.  Worst movie ever???  To my mind it was pretty funny and entertaining, not much different than other comedies of the time, but for whatever reason it tanked,  HARD.  It earned a measly 12.7 million, and that only covered the salaries of the two leads. Hoffman and Beatty got 5 million each, and the total budget ran to 55 million.  So yeah, it was a financial disaster, but the film itself is not that epic a failure by any means.

Rewatching it,  I'd say the best part of the movie is the set up in New York, where you meet Lyle, (Warren Beatty), and Chuck, (Dustin Hoffman), and see how they come together. The movie is very silly in terms of the spyjinx plot once the location switches to Morocco, but the backdrops are interesting, and the fact that the same political shell games are still being played in the Middle East, gives a bit of texture and gravitas to the fluff.  It's still not very engaging though. I admit I got a bit bored by the action, but the desert shenanigans are simply the framework for the further development of Lyle and Chuck's relationship.  They are such sweet and deluded doofuses and it's their interactions that make the film worth watching.  I enjoyed seeing Beatty play against type as he's very believable as a simple good hearted hick - Lyle reminds me of Thomas Haden Church some.  Hoffman's Chuck, "call me Hawk",  and his overconfident braggadocio provides great contrast, especially when he switches to jags of piteous crying while bemoaning his lot in life.  His angsty whining provides some hilarious moments where Lyle props his self esteem back up, and Chuck does the same for Lyle in his darker moments.

Lyle to Chuck:

It takes a lot of nerve to have nothing at your age, don't you understand that? Most guys'd be ashamed, but you've got the guts to just say 'to hell with it'. You say that you'd rather have nothing than settle for less, understand? 

It's a sweet relationship, and if you like Dumb and Dumber, this has a similar appeal.

Paul Williams and Elaine May did the music and the tunes they wrote for Chuck and Lyle are really funny.  The two musicians are not great, really they aren't.  Their agent says, "You guys are old, you're white and you got no schtick!"  True dat, but they have big dreams eh?  Probably, if it were set now, they'd be satisfied doing Karaoke.  Also, I think Tenacious D and The Flight of the Conchords owe a lot to this film.

I especially like the scenes where the guys are working on their tunes.  Telling the truth can be dangerous business...

Isabelle Adjani doesn't particularly stand out, she does look good, even in dude drag, but I guess Elaine May had a hard time giving direction to women, and maybe a problem directing in general.

I ganked this from the IMDB forum on May, with thanks to Tom Cruise's Testicles.

"Everyone knew there was a problem with the film during production, most of it because of May. She killed her own career with her behavior. Even she knew she was over her head, removing entire battle scenes because she didn't know how to shoot them. When Beatty and others offered to help her storyboard it, she threatened to quit- refusing to accept help. Most of the crew learned early on that whenever they suggested something, she would do the opposite of what they proposed. So in order to get her to make the right decisions, they had to suggest the opposite of what they wanted her to do. One of the more famous stories is when shooting in the desert, because the sun moves, the light in the morning is different then the light in the afternoon. In order to get shots to match, they move the actors to a different hill and no one in the audience can tell because all areas of the desert look the same. She would not listen when the DP told her this and the result was tons of unusable footage. 

Everyone knew she was an eccentric before hiring her and a bit of a perfectionist. But no one, not even Beatty who produced the film(in fact, he got the film green lit for her because of her help on Heaven Can Wait and Reds, not just for her writing but also her incredible work helping to edit those films) were aware of her major flaws as a director. One of the major ones being she detest actresses, refusing to give any direction at all to Adjani. 

There are plenty of places where you can read about the behind the scenes stories on Ishtar(some made up, like her flattening sand dunes with a bulldozer for the film). The amount of money lost is a very small part of why she stopped directing. The main reason is her own actions and decisions. 

No one wants to work with someone who is out of control and doesn't know what they are doing. Even if they are a genius."


Charles Grodin plays a CIA operative and since he had been one of many options for casting Benjamin Braddock, I kept wondering what The Graduate would have been like if he had gotten the role instead of Hoffman. Another connection to The Graduate - Elaine May had an uncredited role.  She played the university girl who hands the note from Elaine to Benjamin.

I also noticed Max Headroom, (Matt Frewer), in a small role.  I wonder if Max will ever get a reboot?

The Apparition

written and directed by Todd Lincoln (2012)

Horror films have a fairly low threshold to reach in terms of being entertaining.  All they need a premise that puts people in danger and this premise doesn't even have to make much sense as long as the characters are threatened somehow. This flick has that basic apparatus in place and provides serviceable scares, but it's not great by any means.  Spoilers follow...

It starts off with grainy 70's film stock of a seance, then whoosh,  you're in modern times watching some college kids, while they set up an experiment recreating the seance of the 70's.  The leader of the ill advised paranormal ghost hunt is Patrick, played by Tom Felton, aka Draco Malfoy, so you know he's not going to be able to handle what happens eh?  Anyhow, they're trying to contact the same 70's seance entity to PROVE that ghosts are really real.  He's a super spooky looking dude who isn't give a backstory, so I don't even remember his name.   I dunno why they'd want to contact such an evil looking bastard.  I know you can't judge a book by it's cover, but c'mon dude looks straight up EVIL.  Of course, it goes off the rails wrong, and one of them, not Draco, gets sucked into blackness.

Next you're getting acquainted with a couple in some desert city, Arizona or Nevada, maybe it's California, but it doesn't really matter where.  All that matters it's a big ole suburb that Kelly and Ben have just moved into, and it's basically full of empty houses - they have ONE neighbour.  Aside from the product placement purpose of the Costco shopping scenes,  why are all these shots of the Kristen Stewartish girl, (Ashley Greene), and her boyfriend, (Sebastian Stan), doing their just moved in, need to do some nesting chores, taking up so much screen time?  In a good film, stuff like this is character development.  Scenes that show them doing everyday people things, establish the protagonists and clue you into caring about them.  This is an important step, because you need to care about the film folk, otherwise seeing them getting threatened isn't nearly as spooky.  Make connection with audience.  Check...barely.  Now on to the spooks!

The progression of the haunting was slooow and the entity has random abilities.  First it's moving stuff around, opening doors and then it manifests as mold.  Ooooo gross! Mold!  That stuff really is deadly, ya know.  Also the entity manages to kill the neighbour's  dog.  The dog just keels over so it wasn't gross, just sad.  I thought it was mean to kill off a dog, but I guess it made the ghostie seem more threatening.

Actually the worst part of the movie is that the boyfriend Ben KNOWS something bad is happening, but he hides this from his girlfriend.  I was confused actually, because I didn't realize that the boyfriend was the camera guy from the experiment.  I thought it just switched to a random couple with no connection to the opening scenes, because you NEVER saw the boyfriend/camera man's face in the video footage of the seance recreation experiment.

Kinda cheap, but horror is rife with the cheap tricks.  Whatever works eh?  In any case, Ben is a shitty fucking boyfriend.  He saw that girl get sucked into blackness, and you know what?  That was his girlfriend!  OMG what a douchey guy.  He eventually gets found out and tries to explain his douchey behaviour, saying he thought if she didn't know about the experiment, she'd be safe.  Whatever guy, and what a load of paternalistic crap too.

Actually none of the haunting stuff makes any sense, nor the ghostbustery stuff that is supposed to create the monster, or let the entity come through or whatever the bullshit story was.  There was no logic to it.  I think it was likely written backwards -  dude thought of some spooky scenes he could shoot and strung them together with the story attached awkwardly with lots of metaphorical duct tape.

The movie is gonna appeal to teenagers and they probably won't even mind that it's a dumb flick that makes no sense, because they likely haven't experienced many good horror films.  Unfortunately this one does nothing to change that situation either.

REup the reviews, and big ups to the RIP VIP's

I took a break from writing about the movies I watch for awhile, but I'm back at it again.  I'm half way through February and I hope to run through the backlog by the end of September - just in time for the VIFF.   I saw a few flicks I really enjoyed during my down time so I'm sad I didn't capture my immediate thoughts on them (I'm looking at you, Beyond The Black Rainbow and Prometheus), but that just gives me an excuse to watch them again eh?

RIP Martin Hamlisch and Judith Crist!