Ishtar is a 1987 movie starring screen legends Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman directed by comedy legend Elaine May. Mostly known for being one of the biggest box-office bombs of its time, Ishtar was a film that was embroiled in controversy almost from its inception. A skyrocketing budget, celebrity egos clashing with that of their director, and a location that didn’t always bend to the whims of the filmmakers were just some of the problems that plagued the production. By the time the movie was released it was already doomed by a skeptical Hollywood hoi polloi and was terribly received by the movie going public at large.
In recent years, however, a small subset of film fans have been rediscovering Ishtar and re-examining whether it deserved the thrashing it got when it came out in 1987. David Schrader (co-creator of the Action Lab Danger Zone comic Baby Badass and a filmmaker in his own right) has always been a fan of Elaine May’s movie about two hapless songwriters who stumble into a CIA plot to overthrow a Middle Eastern government. Kristian, who had never seen Ishtar until now, sits down with David to chat about one of the biggest movie bombs of the eighties that may or may not have deserved its fate.
Part-Time Fanboy. Full-Time Obsession on a Part-Time schedule.
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