Fist of Doom

Available for pre-order at Walmart.

The one we've all been waiting for!

spartickes

Day. One. Purchase.

Alan Smithee

This was announced last year and then cancelled, with copies that made it out selling for ridiculous amounts on Ebay. As a fan of bad movies, there's just not much to like about Ishtar despite its reputation- it's not a great movie, but not a laughably bad one either, it's just forgettable.

RocShemp

I've never seen this movie. Wasn't it simply a boring flick and a huge bomb? Was it the first big bomb? Is that the sole reason for its infamy?

BuckNaked2k

Wow. Ishtar AND Heaven's Gate within a six-month span!

BambooLounge

I've been meaning to find out what the anti-hype around Ishtar is all about, if it is in the bargain bin, I'll pick it up.

Greg MacGuffin

There was an interview with Elaine May in the comedy issue of Vanity Fair last year. She had a quote, it was something like, "If everyone that claims to hate Ishtar had actually seen it, it would have been a hit."

GoldenJCJ

I'm not really sure why it has the reputation I has. Perhaps the star power involved with it, it was expected to be a big hit?

Regardless, of you go in expecting it to be one of the those "so bad it's good" movies you'll be disappointed. It's just a very boring, bland, forgetable film.

It's reputation is pretty much all it has.

Alan Smithee

Remembering there was a "Far Side" comic which showed "Hell's Video Store," with every tape on the shelves being "Ishtar". I rented this after it had been out a few years, and remembered the girl who checked me out stifling a laugh.

Shannon Nutt

It's not as bad as it gets credit for, it's just a very lifeless film. But considering some of the bombs both Beatty (Town & Country) and Hoffman (Sphere) have made since it, it's not a horrible film. It had more of an impact on the director's career (Elaine May hasn't directed a movie since) than anyone else involved.

I'm guessing this is a bare-bones release?

Giles

what? it's not a Twilight Time release ...

not but seriously I can think of around more than a dozen catalog titles from Sony/Columbia that deserve a bluray release than this.

Fist of Doom

Maybe they figure people will buy it out of sheer curiosity?

IIRC, the first 15-20 minutes of the movie were pretty funny. Then the movie just drags along.

g

They may think it has higher demand because it was never released to DVD.

spartickes

The opening sequence gets me doing that embarrassing snort laugh thing every damn time.

darkhawk

Drexl

Punch-Drunk Love, for instance.

bluetoast

I remember that one. Good strip.

Jay G.

FWIW, I remember the movie as just being not that funny, which is somewhat fatal for a comedy. It's not a trainwreck though. The blind camel bit did make me laugh out loud.

bearkiss

I just watched it last week again on laserdisc... if you go into it with limited expectations, it really is pretty good! the songs are funny (written by paul williams) and it's actually a good story...

but nowhere on screen do you see where all the money went!

gogogo31

Elaine May's reputation has undergone quite a re-think/resuscitation among cinephiles since ISHTAR, with a retrospective at the Film Society and fresh looks at A NEW LEAF and MIKEY AND NICKY (was she the Cassavetes of comedy?) so I'm very curious to see this. Of her filmography, I've only seen A NEW LEAF.

After seeing HEAVEN'S GATE and realizing its worth, I don't trust ISHTAR's reputation at all, because the bad reputation of both films seems to have come from angry/resentful studio CEOs who care only about the money and don't know anything or care about movies. It seems to me that they had an undue influence on critics and those journalistic hacks who can be made to create "buzz" at the suits' behest.

I won't expect a masterpiece, but I will hope for something unusual/deadpan from May. She was an obsessive perfectionist, and I believe the budget went through the roof because she did retake after retake, and possibly even re-SHOOTS, until the comic tone was what she intended it to be.

gmanca

Heaven's Gate gets a bad rap but Ishtar is justifiably bad in a "this joke wasn't funny the first time I heard it" kind of way. The only redeeming value IMO is Charles Grodin's character.