My views: 16
This inspirational film about two aspiring songwriters, Lyle Rogers and Chuck Clarke, who pursue their dreams despite many obstacles, the most glaring of which being their complete lack of talent, is often - unfairly, in my opinion - cited as one of the worst films ever made. I'm sure that many serious film buffs would be very upset to know that a blogger who calls herself bestpicturewatcher has seen Ishtar 16 times. If there are any still reading this after Ella Enchanted made the list I don't know what to say to them, except that as far as I can see, there are only two reasons people could hate this film: they don't understand it or they've never seen it.
I'm pretty sure I'd heard my mom talk about this movie before, but we didn't get it from the library until May of 2006. I remember sitting down to watch it with my parents and my dad telling me that he thought it would probably become one of my favorite movies because my mom loved it so much. That was when I found out that my dad could predict the future. I ended up watching it three times in that month alone, the following month we bought it for $3 from the video store that was getting rid of its video tapes, and by the end of the year I'd seen it a total of 8 times. I'm pretty sure it's still the most entertaining film I've ever seen in my life. The songs are so hilariously bad that they're good, and it became my greatest ambition to own the soundtrack, until I found out that, despite what the credits say, one was never released. Still, my friend found a few of the songs and song clips on the internet and burned them onto a CD for me, so I've gotten as close to owning the soundtrack as possible, and I kind of listen to it all the time. "Tellin' the truth can be dangerous business: honest and popular don't go hand-in-hand. If you admit that you can play the accordion, no one will hire you in a rock-and-roll band!"
While the songs are definitely my favorite aspect of the film, they are by no means the only thing I love about it. The songwriters get a booking in Morocco, where they are caught up in all kinds of political conflict, torn between Isabelle Adjani and Charles Grodin, who do not get enough credit for their ability to keep straight faces in this movie. But Rogers and Clarke have about as much political know-how as songwriting talent, and they have no idea what's going on, which only adds to the hilarity. I know that this movie had a huge budget and doesn't really look like a big-budget film, but between the songs, the performances, and the brilliant script, it's priceless. Seriously, some of my favorite quotes are in this movie, from "You say you'd rather have nothing than settle for less" to "The dome of the Emir's palace in Ishtar is gold, and the people have never seen a refrigerator." Tell me this isn't brilliant.
I think the main reason I've seen Ishtar so many times is it's like they combined my mom's and my sense of humor and made it into a movie. I know I've been talking about my mom a lot on this blog, but of all the movies we've watched together I really consider Ishtar to be "our movie". Sometimes my dad watches it with us, and I've shown it to at least one of my friends, but I don't think either of my siblings has ever seen the whole thing. This is what my mom and I usually pick when we're alone and feel like watching a movie together. I don't think either of us would call it our favorite movie, and certainly not the best movie ever made, and there are definitely things about it we don't like, but it just clicks with us. We use it as a reminder not to take life or ourselves too seriously. So now, as Mother's Day approaches, I would like to take this opportunity to thank my mom for giving me her sense of humor and love of movies. I don't care if other people hate it: to me, Ishtar will always be something special that my mom and I share.
No comments:
Post a Comment