Ishtar

"Ishtar" is a genius film that was misunderstood and deliberately maligned in its time, for a variety of reasons, most of which are spelled "Elaine May." Hollywood truly was not ready for a risky, strong-minded woman at the head of a film like this. The initial lashing against it was so thorough that I didn't see it for decades, until sometime around 2010, at which point it immediately became one of my favorite comedies.

Those were different times, and there's an unfortunate making-fun-of-desert-languages bit, but overall the humor is satisfying. The constant gag of Dustin Hoffman as the dreamboat, cast against Warren Beatty as the guy who can't get a date, is a perfect frame for the joy of their hilariously-bad songwriting duo - songs actually written by May and Paul Williams. It's ludicrous, weird, funny. The edit is jittery, without the easy build we might want from a smart comedy, but final cut was taken away from May halfway through filming, so what survives is probably a committee cut mostly run by Warren Beatty. It's still good. Happily, the times are warming to Ishtar, so it plays art-house cinemas pretty often these days. Warning: I found it getting stale after the fourth or fifth viewing in ten years or so; I'll have to pace myself better in future.

When the Farrellys watched this they realised the only problem was it wasn't quite dumb enough, and paydirt was just around the corner.