Update on the Miles Davis movie.

[Larry Kart]

I like Ishtar, too.

[jlhoots]

"Ishtar is a truly dreadful film." - Roger Ebert - May 1987 - so you must both be kidding.

OTOH, Ishtar gate is very interesting. Look it up.

[Larry Kart]

Roger was wrong. 

[jlhoots]

Roger was wrong. 

It must be the Paul Williams songs you like. 

[Larry Kart]

Roger was wrong. 

It must be the Paul Williams songs you like. 

In the context of the film, the Williams songs were supposed to be lame, terrible songs IIRC -- musical banana peels to show how lame and terrible the Beatty-Hoffmann duo was. You wanted them to be good songs? Ish Kabibble should look like Cary Grant? Marjorie Main should fit into a bikini? Prof. Irwin Corey should speak like John Gielgud?

[jlhoots]

Roger was wrong. 

It must be the Paul Williams songs you like. 

In the context of the film, the Williams songs were supposed to be lame, terrible songs IIRC -- musical banana peels to show how lame and terrible the Beatty-Hoffmann duo was. You wanted them to be good songs? Ish Kabibble should look like Cary Grant? Marjorie Main should fit into a bikini? Prof. Irwin Corey should speak like John Gielgud?

If that's the case (lame & terrible) they (the songs) were a success. Did Williams write them that way on purpose or was that the best he could do??

I guess the movie then becomes a cynical success. I just never could give it that much credit. I'll stick with Ebert.

[Chuck Nessa]

Sometimes a cynical success is the best you can get.

I'd take a couple of 'em.

[jlhoots]

Sometimes a cynical success is the best you can get.

I'd take a couple of 'em.

The success I presume, not the songs.

[Chuck Nessa]

Sometimes a cynical success is the best you can get.

I'd take a couple of 'em.

The success I presume, not the songs.

yep.

[Larry Kart]

Roger was wrong. 

It must be the Paul Williams songs you like. 

In the context of the film, the Williams songs were supposed to be lame, terrible songs IIRC -- musical banana peels to show how lame and terrible the Beatty-Hoffmann duo was. You wanted them to be good songs? Ish Kabibble should look like Cary Grant? Marjorie Main should fit into a bikini? Prof. Irwin Corey should speak like John Gielgud?

If that's the case (lame & terrible) they (the songs) were a success. Did Williams write them that way on purpose or was that the best he could do??

I guess the movie then becomes a cynical success. I just never could give it that much credit. I'll stick with Ebert.

The movie was a comedy (some would say would-be comedy) that revolved around the premise that the quintessentially innocent and hopeful Beatty-Hoffman folk-song duo (who are sent to or wind up in Ishtar, I don't recall which right now) was a uniquely inept act but that they themselves didn't know this. Thus the songs they sang had to fit that concept. Mr. Williams, for a fee, obliged.

As for ther "cynical success" notion, if Williams had written good songs for the Beatty-Hoffman duo to sing, he would have failed in his assignment. Again, it was a comedy about two innocent, insanely optimistic nudnicks who stumble into all sorts of goofy trouble in a fictional Arab country. The songs should have been at the level of "Porgy and Bess"?

Edited August 9, 2015 by Larry Kart

[jlhoots]

Could he (Williams) have written "good songs".

I actually don't know. Maybe they wouldn't have fit the movie. Not sure why I care. 

[Larry Kart]

Could he (Williams) have written "good songs".

 

Probably not by your standards or mine, but here is one of the songs Williams wrote for Beatty and Hoffman to sing in "Ishtar." Can you not tell that it's deliberately ludicrous?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiN3SL7SZ-Q

Compare that to two of Williams' more iconic efforts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__VQX2Xn7tI

 

Edited August 9, 2015 by Larry Kart

[Larry Kart]

Could he (Williams) have written "good songs".

 

Probably not by your standards or mine, but here is one of the songs Williams wrote for Beatty and Hoffman to sing in "Ishtar." Can you not tell that it's deliberately ludicrous? ***

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiN3SL7SZ-Q

Compare that to two of Williams' more iconic efforts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__VQX2Xn7tI

 

*** The  Beatty-Hoffman song above has these lyrics: 

"Life is the way/we audition for God/Let us pray/that we all/get the job."

Edited August 9, 2015 by Larry Kart

[jlhoots]

O.K. - I hope the Miles movie is better than Ishtar. Apples & oranges + wishful thinking I suppose.

[Shawn]

I'm going to actually watch the movie before proclaiming it a disaster.  This whole cynical pre-reviewing (or ESP film criticism) of films based on no more information than short studio blurbs, casting notices and sometimes a teaser trailer seems to be rampant on the internet these days.  Suddenly via social media there are millions of movie critics that can see into the future and write their reviews before seeing the film.  

[Chuck Nessa]

U must live in LA. :-)

[ejp626]

I don't feel the need to be fair.  I will wait for the official publicity blurbs, but if it is indeed about Miles stealing back his music from some white musician, the premise is so unbelievably stupid that I have no problem in dissing it sight unseen.

[Rosco]

I have high hopes for the car chases.

[Dave Garrett]

I have high hopes for the car chases.

[JSngry]

Yeah, if it's anything less than a brainy post-modern neo-psychedlic blaxploitation masterpiece, I'll consider the ball to have been inexcusably and unforgivably dropped. Time, place, story,e tc.

Did y'all see Cheadle's Petey Green?

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

thats very intruguing itll focus on his retirement years, i hope its not too fictionalized though, since like no one knows about that period i at least am not gonna know whats true and what isnt.....like when i saw love & mercy, you know i really got that movie....

[bluesoul]

Maybe the Chet Baker biopic will be better.

[JSngry]

[jlhoots]

O.K. - so I watched the entire 8:48. I'm sorry but I don't get the point.

[JSngry]

Not sure I do either. But it happened.