Part of Three Films by Elaine May and Music City Mondays
Mired with one of cinema’s most infamous production histories, and badly misunderstood and maligned by critics and audiences at the time of its release, Elaine May’s fourth directorial feature now stands as a major, culminating work by one of comedy’s sharpest, most inventive minds. Again centering on the relationship between two (ridiculous) men, the film stars Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as broke, hack, wannabe Simon-and-Garfunkel types who agree to take a gig as the lounge band at a hotel in Marrakesh. But when one of the men loses his passport en route in the fictitious country of Ishtar, and the other finds himself roped into an obscure CIA scheme, it becomes clear that this “Road to…” is as perilous as it is absurd. Also featuring especially memorable turns by Isabelle Adjani and Charles Grodin, ISHTAR is a cursed-then-rehabilitated masterpiece whose devotees include the likes of Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. (Synopsis from Film at Lincoln Center)
