YMMV / Ishtar

• Bile Fascination: It made a huge amount in rental fees ($7 million, compared to $14 million when it was in theaters) when it first hit VHS, from people curious to see if it lived up (or down) to its reputation. It's considered a Cult Classic for this reason.
• Critical Backlash: The multitude of stories about the film's legendarily Troubled Production lowered critics' and audience's expectations for the released film, and indeed the box office^note It won its opening weekend, but just barely, over its closest rival—The Gate and reviews reflect that. But people who've watched it in the years since say it's actually not bad.^note Gary Larson, who had at one point depicted shelves full of the film on a "video stores in hell" Far Side panel, public expressed his regret for doing so years later.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: "If you admit that you can play the accordion/No one'll hire you in a rock 'n' roll band". Filmed the same year that They Might Be Giants released their debut album.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Willa and Carol are hated more then the corrupt CIA Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain Jim Harrison for them dumping Lyle and Chuck for the sole reason of them being losers in life and hating their music, with Carol even cruelly, remorselessly and spitefully lashing out to Chuck "your life is a joke," angrily revealing to have feigned her support for him and his musical pursuits the whole time up to that point.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Ishtar became the go-to example of a terrible movie. Like Roger Ebert said about Battlefield Earth, it was (deservedly or not) "the punchline of jokes about bad movies" for years afterwards. One Far Side cartoon depicted "Hell's video store" stocked only with copies of Ishtar, because of its reputation. (Once Gary Larson actually watched it, he apologised. Then again, a video store that sells only one movie would be pretty unpleasant.)
  • After RedLetterMedia played it multiple times throughout an episode of Best of the Worst, the trailer for the film became a meme for the site's fans. Specifically, the line "These men are pawns!" near the start of the trailer.
• Vindicated by History: Once referred to solely in association with box office flops. Now a Cult Classic that even became the subject of a documentary.
• The Woobie: Both Chuck and Lyle, they are passionate of pursuing a career in music, but are both Hollywood Tone-Deaf, they are hated by their first loves who would leave them for being losers that they absolutely do not want to associate with and they both ended in a life-threatening situation in in attempt to find they breakthrough when they are hunted by government agents and stranded in the middle of the desert in the Middle East with seemingly nobody, but only amongst themselves to care for their plight.

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