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esteeb.art · @esteeb.art@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Ishtar 7/10

Watching this for Letterboxd Season for Career Enders Week. I’ve found Elaine May to be a really interesting hidden gem of a writer and director and there’s a lot of here. But I can see how this movie would perform poorly in the 80s. The story is overstuffed and a little too cute by half. Even as an obvious satire of the Cold War and American foreign policy it feels somewhat unfocused.  All that said, this movie was very funny. Like intentionally funny, not “whoops your movie sucks actually” funny. I wouldn’t be surprised if people just weren’t ready for this movies sense of humor because the comedy in a lot of ways is very modern. But it checks a lot of the May boxes, insecure men, whip smart jokes, more than a little gay coded. The dialogue is great even when the story is buckling under its own weight.  But I was not prepared for how good Hoffman and Beatty are together in this movie. I just wanted this entire movie to be the two of them sharing one brain cell writing the shittiest songs in the worst outfits you ever saw.

#lsc9 #lsc9 week12 #movie

Published 2023-11-23 00:00 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere