“Waiting for Ishtar” is a documentary by John Mitchell & Jonathan Crombie about the Elaine May comedy, Ishtar, starring Dustin Hoffman & Warren Beatty. Help support it via its indiegogo campaign! Find out about the kick-starter campaign HERE!
See Richard talking about the legendary flop “Ishtar” here:
Vanity Fair called the scene in 1969’s Midnight Cowboy where street hustler Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) slaps the hood of a taxi and yells, “I’m walkin’ here!” the movie’s most iconic scene. It is memorable and although it looks carefully planned, was completely improvised.
“They didn’t have the money to close down a New York street,” Hoffman told Peter Biskind in Vanity Fair, “so they were going to steal it [shoot guerrilla style, without permits]. The camera was in a van across the street. It was a difficult scene logistically because those were real pedestrians and there was real traffic, and [director John] Schlesinger wanted to do it in one shot—he didn’t want to cut. He wanted us to walk, like, half a block, and the first times we did it the signal turned red. We had to stand there, and it was killing us, because Schlesinger was getting very upset. He came rushing out of the van, saying, ‘Oh, oh you’ve got to keep walking.’ ‘We can’t, man. There’s fucking traffic.’ ‘Well, you’ve got to time it.’ ‘Well, we’re trying to time it.’ It’s the actors who always get the heat. It was many takes, and then the timing was right. Suddenly we were doing this take and we knew it was going to work. We got to the signal just as it was turning green, so we could keep walking. But it just happened—there was a real cab trying to beat the signal. Almost hit us. John, who couldn’t see anything in the van, came running out, saying, ‘What was that all about? Why did you ruin it by hitting the cab? Why were you yelling?’ I said, ‘You know, he almost hit us.’ I guess the brain works so quickly, it said, in a split of a second, ‘Don’t go out of character.’ So I said, ‘I’m walking here,’ meaning ‘We’re shooting a scene here, and this is the first time we ever got it right, and you have fucked us up.’ Schlesinger started laughing. He clapped his hands and said, ‘We must have that, we must have that,’ and re-did it two or three times because he loved it.”
Midnight Cowboy, the story of a green male prostitute (Voight) and his sickly friend’s (Hoffman) struggle for survival on New York City’s mean streets, was very controversial when it was released in 1969. The film—about which one studio exec laughably said, “If we could clean this up and add a few songs, it could be a great vehicle for Elvis Presley”—was originally rated X, before that rating became the domain of the porno industry, so there is a truckload of trivia about it. At the April 7, 1970 Oscar ceremony it was the first, and so far only X-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar; Jimmy Carter requested it be shown in the White House screening room, making it the only X-rated film to be shown to a U.S. President while in office and it was the first X-rated film to be shown on television, although the film’s rating had been changed to R by the time of the film’s television premiere.
Co-stars Jon Voight and Hoffman—who kept pebbles in his shoe to ensure his limp would be consistent from shot to shot—were both nominated for Best Actor Oscars, but went away empty handed.
Here’s a question. What’s Barbra Streisand’s worst movie? Or Dustin Hoffman’s? Or Robert De Niro’s? How about Harvey Keitel? It’s a trick question. Here’s a hint: It’s just one movie. Another hint? It’s a sequel and it’s in theatres right now. Enough hints. It’s “Little Fockers,” the third in a series of movies about a male nurse named Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and his overly suspicious father-in-law (De Niro).
In this outing Greg, now moonlighting as a pharmaceutical salesman, must prove to Jack (De Niro) that he isn’t fooling around on Pam (Teri Polo) and is worthy to be the patriarch or Godfokker of the whole family.
“Little Fockers” is an interesting study in what passes for a successful comedy franchise these days. Its producers must be hoping that familiar faces and situations will equal laughs and big box office. They’re probably half right. The Focker mix likely will garner big returns at the box office, but the laughs aren’t there. Three movies in the ideas seem to have run out. Instead of the freshness of the first movie, we’re treated warmed over jokes, innuendo, a series of misunderstandings and the only enema-flirtation scene to ever appear in a Streisand movie. There is the odd laugh and a few giggle worthy scenes but they are few and far between.
It’s ram packed with big stars—even if one of them, Harvey Keitel, seems to only be there to add some heft to the marquee—but to be fair no one is doing their best work. Jessica Alba seems to be having fun playing a wild-child pharmaceutical rep but most of the other performances have a been-there-done-that feel, as if the movie was strung together from outtakes from the past Focker films. We also seem to have reached the self parody stage of De Niro’s career. Please Robert, if there is a fourth movie, no more Godfokker jokes!
“Little Fockers” is proof positive of the sequel law of diminishing returns. It might be time for these Fockers to Fock Off.
By and large romantic comedies are the domain of the young. Sally was 28 when she met Harry and Julia Roberts was just 23 when she starred in Pretty Woman. A new movie called Last Chance Harvey sees Stranger than Fiction co-stars Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson—aged 71 and 49 respectively—bet that audiences will want to see a slightly more mature romance play itself out on screen.
Harvey Shine (Hoffman) is the kind of guy who always looks like an unmade bed. He’s been beaten up by life, and if it wasn’t for bad luck this guy wouldn’t have no luck at all. In the past twenty-four hours he’s been fired from his job, missed a plane and been told that he won’t be walking his daughter down the aisle at her wedding. Meanwhile Kate Walker (Thompson) is an unhappy single woman with a boring job and an overbearing mother. Her best friend Una, who tries in vain to set her up on blind dates, says that the endless phone calls from Kate’s mother are “human contraception” and the reason she can’t find love. Kate and Harvey couldn’t be any more different, he’s a brash American, she’s a blunt, but reserved Brit, but when they meet perhaps opposites will attract.
Last Chance Harvey is a slight movie. It follows the conventions of romantic comedies we’ve seen a thousand times—two unlikely people beating the odds to become a happy couple by the time the credits roll. Dorky Harry meets beautiful Sally. Pretty Woman of the Night meets and is seduced by suave rich guy. You get the idea. You usually know how the movie will end before it even starts, so the challenge for filmmakers is to keep the journey interesting. How the lovers wind up together is as important as why.
To that end Last Chance Harvey does a charming, if slightly forgettable job of bringing these two together. Their courtship is fast paced and not without its roadblocks, these are, after all, two older people who bring a lifetime of baggage to the relationship. Unlike most romantic comedies in which happily-ever-after absolutes are woven into the story, these two are mature enough to know that their romance might not be forever. When she asks how their relationship will work, he says, in a refreshingly honest bit of romantic comedy dialogue “I have no idea.”
Hoffman has the schlep routine down pat but it is Emma Thompson who eats this movie like Pac Man. She’s better than the script, bringing an emotional honesty to a thinly written character.
Last Chance Harvey is a schmaltzy little movie, but is buoyed by the work of these two old pros who add considerable charm to the hackneyed proceedings.
In a world where wonder is in short supply, Mr. Margorium’s Wonder Emporium is an oasis of amazement. Located in an unnamed city (one that looks an awful lot like Toronto) it’s a Rube Goldbergesque kind of toy store where sock monkeys come to life, giant basketballs dwarf the kid customers and a mobile made of real fish hangs from the ceiling. In short, it’s FAO Schwartz on steroids and such an astonishing place even Kermit the Frog shop there!
The shop is run by Mr. Magorium (Dustin Hoffman) a 243 year-old “wonder aficionado” who sleeps upside down, wears too-tight Mr. Dress-Up suits and once played Jumping Jacks with Abe Lincoln. Years ago he bought enough shoes in a store in Tuscany to last his whole life. He’s now on the last pair and wants to get his affairs in order before he leaves the world.
He plans on leaving the store to his manager, Molly Mahoney (Natalie Portman), a young piano prodigy who lacks confidence in herself. His first step is to bring in an accountant (Jason Bateman) to audit the store—no records have been kept since the 1770s—and take care of all the paperwork. The accountant, or Mutant as Magorium calls him, is a workaholic with a distinct lack of wonder in his life. As Margorium’s last day approaches Molly must come to grips with the loss of her mentor, a magical store that is literally throwing a temper tantrum, a young misfit who doesn’t have any friends and the skeptical Mutant. In the end Molly learns that anything is possible—even magic—if you believe in yourself.
Mr. Margorium’s Wonder Emporium is a rarity—a kid’s movie that doesn’t try and cater to an adult audience by slipping in jokes that the little ones won’t understand. It is a gentle fantasy with corny jokes, some magical images, but none of the mean-spirited edge that crept into the similarly themed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The tone is sweet throughout, and while Hoffman’s performance borders on annoying—think Uncle Bobby on helium—the film’s sense of wonder and G-rated sensibility should have great appeal to kids.
Rodents have a long distinguished history on the big screen. There’s Ben, the leader of a pack of vicious killer rats who inspired the 1972 movie of the same name, Stuart Little an orphaned mouse voiced by Michael J. Fox, and written by Oscar nominee M. Night Shyamalan in one of his less sinister moods. Ratatouille starring Remy the gourmet rat, Ron Weasley’s Scabbers the rat from the Harry Potter movies, The Rescuers’s Bianca and Bernard voiced by Eva Gabor and Bob Newhart and Master Splinter the radical rat who is also the father figure to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. One rodent, Mickey Mouse even won an Academy Award back in 1932. Add to that list Despereaux, a big eared mouse with even bigger aspirations in The Tale of Despereaux a new animated film starring Matthew Broderick and Dustin Hoffman.
The movie, based on the Newbery Medal winning series of children’s book by Kate DiCamillo, begins its convoluted story with Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman) a charming merchant marine rat who inadvertently scares the Queen of Dor to death. After the King banishes rats from the kingdom forever he is cast out to the underworld of Ratland. Meanwhile the movie’s hero, a misfit mouse with huge ears named Despereaux (Matthew Broderick) has also been expelled from his home only to end up in the dungeon of Dor castle. As he schemes to escape his underlying qualities of chivalry and loyalty emerge and his fate becomes intertwined with that of Roscuro, a bumbling servant girl (Tracey Ullman) and the castle’s princess (Emma Watson).
That’s the Reader’s Digest version of the story. It’s amazing how many plot points the filmmaker’s were able to cram into Despereaux’s 90 minute running time. The comings-and-goings of all the characters may confuse younger viewers but shouldn’t challenge 8-12 year old kids. I think, though, that most children regardless of age will be taken with the characters and the elegant animation.
Despereaux doesn’t feel like other recent animated hits like Shrek, which relies on pop culture references as a source of humor or even the brilliant WALL-E with its environmental message. Despereaux is more old fashioned than that; more like a “Once upon a time” Grimm’s fairy tale. The humor in the film comes from the characters and the situations, not belch jokes or double entendres.
Layer on top of that uniformly excellent voice work from an all-star cast which includes Matthew Broderick, Emma Watson, Dustin Hoffman, Tracey Ullman, Sigourney Weaver, William H. Macy Kevin Kline and Stanley Tucci with important messages about being yourself and redemption and you have, in a season filled with heavy weight dramas for adults like Revolutionary Road and Doubt, one of the few all-ages movies for the entire family.
Barney’s Version, based on Mordecai Richler’s final novel, gives Paul Giamatti his most memorable part since Sideways. Utterly compelling as the kind of guy who calls his ex-wife’s new husband with the offer of some nude pictures, “so you can see what she looked like in her prime,” he glides—or more rightly put, drunkenly stumbles—through three wives, an accusation of murder and countless cigars toward a battle with Alzheimer’s Disease. While the filmmaking occasionally veers into television movie territory Giamatti and cast—Dustin Hoffman, Rosamund Pike and Minnie Driver—are by turns touching, caustic and hilarious but above all, entertaining.
