RUINS OF CHILDHOOD is an excavation and recontextualisation of Tim’s 20th Century.
THE EPIC TALE OF ISHTAR (BUT IT’S THE ONE WITH WARREN BEATTY) PART 2 of 2: For Tim’s initial thoughts immediately preceding this viewing read HAVING NEVER SEEN ISHTAR
I just finished watching ISHTAR and the load bearing pillar to my temple has collapsed, leaving three and a half decades of belief in ruin. As it tuned out, I found ISHTAR funny. I found ISHTAR entertaining. Yes, I found parts of it culturally insensitive (specifically that auction scene) but what I did not find ISTHAR to be was guilty of its stranglehold on bad cinema.
And for that, I apologize. I am sorry ISHTAR but I am stripping you of your full-on flop status. I mean, not if we’re still measuring it financially (my $3.99 rental fee won’t recoup any losses) but, in terms of being devoid of creative resonance or entertainment value ... I’m taking you off that list. You are a legitimate comedy with some hilarious songs and a brilliant performance from Charles Grodin.
But why this sudden reevaluation of your cinematic standing? Well, despite all that press about globe-trotting excess, you were never out to change the world. You weren’t claiming to rewrite cinema, in fact, you never asked us to view you as anything other than a mildly entertaining film. And … Ms. May, Mr. Beatty, Dustin... all three of you were mildly entertaining. In fact, I would remove “mildly” and either insert “sufficiently” or just let that previous sentence run as “an entertaining film.”
And for that I fling open this front door, drop to my knees, raise both fists and, in an echoing tremble the neighbors are use to, holler to this verified lack of Heaven, “2020 YOU HAVE TAKEN EVERYTHING FROM US! EVERYTHING!”
“I am not prepared to live in a world where ISHTAR is not a punchline. Nor am I equipped to review the preceding decades as wrongfully using it as one.”
I am not prepared to live in a world where ISHTAR is not a punchline. Nor am I equipped to review the preceding decades as misusing it as one. We were so set in our ways, so certain, that we had the perfectly crafted analogy to renounce any attempt at perceived hubris that we missed our own mirrored intentions entirely.
“Oh, like Ishtar?” we would say to a resounding thunder of adoration and applause.
So, with Dennis Miller smugness crashing around us, what must we now reckon with? Our past passed judgement on rudimentary entertainment is now void of meaning. And removed of impact. Every clever and well-coiffed denouncement on so many other people’s efforts have been rendered mute and, even worse, moot.
Was this your intended apocalypse, oh mighty ISHTAR? Your trampling of Enkidu beside Gilgamesh? Had you intended to tangle us in this myth of tripe just to strangle our throats with our resounding words? You’ve weakened talk show hosts, rendered hashtags obsolete and crippled us from ever again speaking as elite humorists. This endgame has damned our greatest one-liner to the abbreviated apex of common mortality.
Here among the embers of incinerated reality twinkles the fading twilight of pop culture dominance. Those perfected opinions toward films I never watched have been snuffed out. Not like a comet burning down the Cretaceous but as a simplified metaphor at the end of this post.
It was folly to have streamed ISHTAR. Just as it was folly to think I could reign over it with how hilarious “Just like Ishtar” was to say.
I was humbled by ISHTAR.
And I curse ISHTAR for sparring me.
Because now I have to give COCKTAIL a re-watch.
About thE author
TIM BLEVINS is a multiple podcaster, left-handed hairstyle and next to last star fighter.
SUBSCRIBE to his podcasts 20TH CENTURY POP! & MÉNAGE Á POP