Ishtar.

Review #2248: Ishtar.

Cast: 

Dustin Hoffman (Chuck Clarke), Warren Beatty (Lyle Rogers), Isabelle Adjani (Shirra Assel), Charles Grodin (Jim Harrison), Jack Weston (Marty Freed), Carol Kane (Carol), Tess Harper (Willa Rogers), Aharon Ipalé (Emir Yousef), Fred Melamed (the Caid of Assari), Fuad Hageb (Abdul), David Margulies (Mr. Clarke) and Rose Arrick (Mrs. Clarke) Written and Directed by Elaine May.

Review: 

"Well, oddly enough when I made this movie, Ronald Reagan was president and there was Iran-Contra, we were supporting Iran and Iraq. We put in Saddam. We had taken out the Shah. Khomeini was there. I remember looking at Ronald Reagan and thinking—I’m qualifying this, this was just an idea, I didn’t really believe it—I thought, he’s from Hollywood, he’s a really nice man. It’s possible the only movie he’s ever seen about the Middle East are the road movies with Hope and Crosby, and I thought I would make that movie....If all of the people who hate Ishtar had seen it, I would be a rich woman today."

To put it mildly, Ishtar landed like a smelly fish being thrown onto a wedding party with audiences at large. There's plenty to say about Elaine May beyond just saying this is (currently) her last film as a feature director. The Philadelphia native was the child of actors that had their own Yiddish theater company. Not surprisingly, she got into acting, which eventually led her to meeting Mike Nichols. The two collaborated with each other in improvisational comedy that led to them doing their own standup team that ran for a few years (resulting in Grammy Awards) before they went their own ways. After a handful of years in acting and theatre work, May became a director with A New Leaf in 1971. The Heartbreak Kid (1972) is arguably her most noted film, but Micky and Nicky (1976) endured enough trouble that she did not have her cut of the film shown to the public until after the film already died in theaters. So, a decade later, May was essentially given a chance to direct again because of her help in writing on Heaven Can Wait (1978) and Reds (1981), which each had Warren Beatty as star and director. So yes, Beatty would produce the film (believing that May never had a good producer behind her) to go along with starring alongside Hoffman, who happened to have the help of May in (uncredited) work on Tootsie (1982) and eventually went along with being in the film despite his misgivings about the script (specifically when the film shifts from New York to Morocco for "these guys who think they're Simon and Garfunkel"). While the movie was a flop, May has continued to write (such as the 1996 Nichols comedy The Birdcage) and occasionally act into her nineties.

Maybe it works better for those more familiar with road movies. The film is basically a riff on the seven Road to... films that featured Bing Crosby, Bob Hope & Dorothy Lamour from 1940 to 1962. Those were comedies that were more about gags (and the occasional song) than plot (which could have differing professions from film to film such as sailor playboys on an island or inept vaudevillians dealing with evil hypnotists). Of course, maybe I'm not as familiar with Hoffman or Beatty in films. Maybe it just was a bit too subtle for its time. Maybe, maybe, maybe, nah, this movie just wasn't for me. Honestly, I tried to give the movie a fair shake, but really it just wasn't that funny. It lumbers in the time between the start and actually getting to Ishtar with songs that totally supposed to be funny by being terrible (as written by Paul Williams, who you would remember from stuff such as A Star Is Born [1976]). But all I see is a movie that drones and drones until the only thing that matters by the end of its time in the sand and bland is being thankful you aren't stuck watching it further. You can try to mine humor all one wants in uncomfortable neurotic weirdos, you just have to *be funny* about it. Strangely, it reminded me of Spies Like Us (released two years earlier as its own homage to the Road films, complete with having Hope in a cameo), which also wasn't exactly great in, well, the comedy (of course, it didn't stop others from making their own Road homages, as evidenced by The Road to El Dorado [2000]). Hoffman and Beatty have mostly stuck with the film in terms of defending it (for the most part) with the former calling it "a B-minus, C-plus comedy". And there are people that have raised the film up as not being just a noted flop that probably did find something worthwhile in its comedy involving second-rate musicians that fulfill themselves in their craft. The attempts at showing the "creative process" must be how people who don't care for watching movies about making movies feel.

The chemistry of the trio just isn't there to inspire anything on the level beyond looking at the sand and the ideas of trying to say something about the politics around the people thinking about the Middle East that just seems middling. Adjani bumbles around in a silly getup (get it? short hair?) that benefits no one in actual presence, and the only funny one really is Grodin, because he always seems on point for understated amusement (or Weston, who is seldom seen). Even at 107 minutes, it just feels hollow and middle-ground, never actually getting a rise by the time it goes to what surely seemed funny for its climax of essentially saying, yes, you too can sing all you want and be a name if you happen to have leverage. As a whole, the negative buzz around the film didn't lend it many favors back then, and maybe there really will be a push a few more years down the line to really rehabilitate the movie as a hidden gem, but I am not one of those people. Encounter at your own curiosity of a film that is not nearly what you might think it is, for better or worse.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Next up: let's do a second chance for something that actually is good...Hudson Hawk.

Nosferatu the Vampyre.

Review #1292: Nosferatu the Vampyre.

Cast: 
Klaus Kinski (Count Dracula), Isabelle Adjani (Lucy Harker), Bruno Ganz (Jonathan Harker), Roland Topor (Renfield), Walter Ladengast (Dr Abraham Van Helsing), Dan van Husen (Warden), Jan Groth (Harbormaster), Carsten Bodinus (Schrader), and Martje Grohmann (Mina) Written and Directed by Werner Herzog.

Review: 
Horror films can leave an impact on us all. This is especially apparent with the great ones, which can endure in the hearts of curious audiences regardless of any subsequent attempts at remakes or further adaptations. But there are exceptions to this at times, even for films as haunting as F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu (1922). It is evident early on that care and appreciation has been taken by Herzog to make something that stands tall in delivering its own brand of chills that begin with its title character (both versions utilize certain characters from Bram Stoker's book, with the former using composites and this one using four of the character names). It does a tremendous job in making a quality horror film without being tied down to the traditions that banded so many other Dracula films before it.

This success is in part because of its depiction of the character, who is shown with such a striking pallor alongside long fingernails and features reminiscent of a rodent that grabs your attention just as much as the actor playing him, for which Kinski should be commended for. He had to endure four hour long sessions in makeup, with fresh latex ear pieces being made for each day of filming due to destruction of the pieces during their removal. He does a wonderful job in delivering a subdued yet chilling performance, a creature of the night that is as lonesome as he is immortal. He may stalk others with the thirst for blood, but it is a lonely quest that could go forever if he had his way, and Kinski delivers with such pathos that one could almost find him to be playing an antihero. He does have his moments in delivering chills much in the same vein that others had done with the character, but he does it with careful precision that makes for a riveting time. Adjani does just as well, quiet yet graceful in a role that desires it, where one is interested to follow along with her in a film that slowly devolves into madness. Ganz also does well with his material, one who fits the nature of the journey (with accompanying moods that run the gamut of madness) without seeming overshadowed by the other parts of the main trio. Writer-turned-actor Topor is quite right for Renfield, unsettling for whenever necessary with morbid excitement. Ladengast doesn't have as much to do, but he does what is necessary without fail. Undeniably, the music from Popul Vuh (a German collective that fell into genres such as ambient, psychedelic rock, and electronic) plays a great part in heightening the unsettling nature of the film, striking in its composition that consumes the film's soul in darkness. This extends to the camerawork and cinematography by Herzog and Jorg Schmidt-Reitwein, where certain shots from the original 1922 film are re-created, and one must give credit for the location work done in places that range from Czechoslovakia to the Netherlands to Guanajuato, Mexico (more specifically, a museum that houses mummies from a cholera outbreak in the 19th century, which is used for the opening). By the time it reaches its well-done climax, the film has already sealed itself as a morbid charmer for the ages. There were plenty of vampire films to go around for the year of 1979, particularly with a character as lonesome and evil as Dracula, with this being one of five films featuring the character in some way released in that year. The easiest one to note is Universal's updating of Dracula, which also switched the roles of Mina and Lucy around, which marketed itself as a love story with its own rendition of the lonely evil Dracula. In any case, Nosferatu the Vampyre stands tall as a great piece of film, doing wonders in stylistically updating what had been done before with its namesake while standing as an excellent horror film in its own right with delivering chills.

Next Review: Dracula (1979), as part of my feature week, Halloween - The Week After. I couldn't quite get to all of the films I wanted to do for the month despite fourteen reviews, so I decided to extend the horror spotlight until November 7th. 

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.