Ishtar

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When
Sunday, Dec. 15, 2019
7 p.m.
Cost: $9
Where
934 SW Salmon St
Portland, OR 97205

The following description was submitted by the event organizer.

Directed by Elaine May
United States • 1987 • 107 mins. • In English

A legendarily over-budget film maudit (cursed film) and produced a full 11 years after the release of May’s prior film Mikey & Nicky (1976), Ishtar is the film that put the final nail in the coffin of her directing career. And yet, it’s one still ripe for rediscovery as a neglected classic; a film far ahead of its time and totally misunderstood on release after one of the most tumultuous productions of the 1980s. Starring then-superstars Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as Rogers and Clarke, songwriters invited to Morocco to work as lounge singers, the film pivots when the two men become embroiled in a plot of international intrigue involving a covert CIA operation and left-wing anti-government guerrillas in the fictional North African country of Ishtar. Featuring complex performances from her top-of-their-game leads (who endured Kubrick-like multi-take scene shooting), May’s film nonetheless won a spot on many critics’ worst films of all time lists—but has since experienced a substantial rehabilitation based on the merits of the film itself, not its troubled production. New restoration!