• Art Buchwald (1925-2007) - Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist who wrote some English dialogue for Jacques Tati's Play Time and co-wrote Stanley Donen's Surprise Package. He also sold a treatment to Paramount that was the uncredited basis for Coming to America, and he successfully sued the studio for a share of the film's profits. He appears in the documentaries Around the World of Mike Todd and Year of the Woman and in Robert Altman's mini-series Tanner '88. He passed away January 18.
• Ron Carey (1935-2007) - Actor who appears in Mel Brooks' The History of the World: Part I, High Anxiety and Silent Movie. He also appears in Fatso, The Out of Towners and Johnny Dangerously. He died of a stroke January 16, in Los Angeles. (NY Times)
• Jack Coffey (c.1931-2006) - Former boom operator who became an important union leader in Hollywood during the '70s and '80s. He died of prostate cancer December 13, in Sherman Oaks, California. (Variety)
• Harvey Cohen (1951-2007) - Composer who scored the theatrically distributed short Santa vs. the Snowman 3D, the direct-to-video Beauty and the Beast sequel Belle's Magical World and the feature Ghost Town. He also arranged music for Bicentennial Man and orchestrated the music for Mission: Impossible III, King Kong (2005), The Patriot and Hudson Hawk. He also has an Emmy for his work scoring for television. He died of a heart attack January 14. (AP)
• Darlene Conley (1934-2006) - Actress who appears in The Birds, Lady Sings the Blues, Tough Guys and Valley of the Dolls. She died of stomach cancer January 14, in Los Angeles. (NY Times)

The term "turkey" was long ago coined to describe either bad movies or huge financial flops, and there is a long list of them. (Although Kevin Costner movies like Waterworld or The Postman could better be described as "ham.") I combed through the trash to find seven treasures that I would actually recommend; these are the Butterballs.

1. Ishtar (1987, Elaine May)
Today, it's actually fairly difficult to see Ishtar, that "musical comedy" starring Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty, even if you wanted to. It hasn't yet been released on DVD (except in the UK), and I bet most of those old VHS tapes have been carefully disposed of. But Elaine May's famous flop deserves reconsideration, if only because recent years have shown that May's first three films, A New Leaf (1971), The Heartbreak Kid (1972) and Mikey and Nicky (1977), were masterworks way ahead of their time.