(Elaine May, 1987, USA, 108 minutes)

Before titles like Showgirls, Cats, and The Room started to suck all of the “Worst Movie” oxygen from the room, a longtime standard bearer was Elaine May’s fourth and so far final feature film as director, 1987’s Ishtar. Upon reappraisal, what’s that, this isn’t a “so bad it’s good” situation like the above, but instead a “misunderstood in its time” type of deal, more along the lines of Heaven’s Gate than Valley of the Dolls. It follows two talentless New York-based singer-songwriters, Chuck (Dustin Hoffman) and Lyle (Warren Beatty), who get booked to play a Moroccan hotel and, in so doing, find themselves as pawns in the middle of a four-way cold war stalemate. Adjani, who was dating Beatty at the time, plays a woman they...