Gary Larson once drew a Far Side panel of a video store in hell stocked with nothing but copies of one movie. Decades later Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino championed that same film, The New Yorker called it a wrongly maligned masterwork, and it drew votes in a 2022 greatest films poll. This deep dive explores the 1987 adventure comedy Ishtar, how unlimited money and top-tier talent spiraled into one of the most chaotic productions ever, and how time reversed its legacy.

We follow Warren Beatty's desire to shield Elaine May as director, the Bing Crosby and Bob Hope road movie premise with Beatty and Dustin Hoffman playing against type, the 12.5 million dollars guaranteed up front, and the Coca-Cola mandate to shoot in Morocco to spend frozen funds. Then come land mine sweeps, the blue-eyed camel that was eaten during a haggling disput ...