‘Booksmart’ besties, and ‘Ishtar’ reconsidered

Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen

PRX

Arts

4.6 • 675 Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2019

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1987 Elaine May’s comedy “Ishtar” was savaged by critics and flopped spectacularly, but it turns out that the movie is actually pretty funny — and the reason it failed is pretty complicated. Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever, the stars of “Booksmart,” tell Kurt Andersen about how they became friends after they were cast as friends — and they bring a playlist of some of their favorite on-screen friendships. The final episode of the original “Star Trek” series aired 50 years ago this week, and Ronald D. Moore reveals how watching reruns of the show made him a science-fiction fan and ultimately led to becoming staff writer for “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and, in a movie for the franchise, to killing off his hero, James T. Kirk.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	from PRX.
0:06.3	Today on Studio 360.
0:09.6	Okay, now let's have a roll of the drums, please,
0:12.3	for the biggest bomb of 1987 or of almost any recent year.
0:16.9	A notorious cinematic disaster from 1987.
0:20.0	You didn't think, did you, that we have forgotten Ishtar.
0:22.8	Why Elaine May's Ishtar bombed.
0:24.9	And why some critics and fellow filmmakers think that's a travesty.
0:29.2	The movie was hexed.
0:31.0	The well was poisoned.
0:32.2	And I don't think anyone could watch it with an open mind.
0:37.1	Plus?
0:39.0	You can't fake chemistry.
0:40.4	You really cannot fake chemistry.
0:42.8	How the stars of the new movie Booksmart became best friends to portray best friends.
0:48.1	We couldn't, you know, go back and redo our lives, but we could make sure that from the
0:51.7	moment we did meet and we did get cast, we spent every minute together, and there was no greater way to do that than living together.
0:57.8	Beanie Feldstein and Caitlin Dever. That and more is ahead on Studio 360 right after this.
1:08.6	This is Studio 360. I'm Kurt Annes.
1:11.1	And I'm sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
1:13.4	This first level of gardens.
1:14.8	This is Thomas Jefferson's vegetable garden.
	...

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