Tootsie (1982)
Directed by Sydney Pollack
When struggling, out of work actor Michael Dorsey secretly adopts a female alter ego—Dorothy Michaels—in order to land a part in a daytime drama, he unwittingly becomes a feminist icon and ends up in a romantic pickle.
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What critics compared Tootsie to
After all - as Dustin Hoffman did so memorably with Tootsie - there's still a point to be made about the roles available to women in film and television, right?
Alas, "Jack and Jill" is more " Norbit " than "Tootsie" or "Mrs.
When it is funny, it's because it is done in a convincing way (think Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie), or in a way where the joke is that the supporting characters don't realize how unrealistic it looks (think Some Like It Hot).
It’s generally funniest when a male actor plays a man disguising himself as a woman for an important plot purpose à la Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like it Hot, Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie and Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.
This is a major reason the in-no-way-funny Tootsie and Some Like it Hot are remembered as classics.
Picture "Tootsie" if everyone in the cast had a head injury.
One recalls the line from that "Tootsie" about how far a camera on a New York set should be pulled back so that Dustin Hoffman's Dorothy might look attractive; "how do you feel about Cleveland" came the reply.
Some Like It Hot, Tootsie and La Cage Aux Folles are but three triumphant comic examples of cinematic cross-dressing, but it's an undeniable fact that male-to-female gambits always seem to work better than female-to-male.
The cross-dressing antics can't compete with anything in "Tootsie," "Mrs.
Animal House provides the setting — a college campus dominated by a fraternity of morons — and Tootsie the emotional payoff — self-centered males see themselves through women’s eyes and don’t like it.
"Sorority Boys" shamelessly rips off "Tootsie," "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" and every other movie where the men dress in drag.
That was done for just the shock or comedy value (such as Flip Wilson and Milton Berle in their TV shows) or because a certain situation in the script required that of them (as occurred in TV's "Bosom Buddies" and in movies such as "Some Like It Hot," "Tootsie," "Mrs.
In Volver, Mr. Almodóvar has taken great pains to turn her into a voluptuous firebrand, big as the screen can hold, with a makeover inspired by the extended eyeliner of Claudia Cardinale, the tumble-down hair and plumped-up cleavage of a young Sophia Loren, and Dustin Hoffman’s padded derriere in Tootsie.
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She imbues Tully with a fresh (albeit one-dimensional) buoyancy that reminded me of the hippie-go-lucky attitude of the young Jessica Lange in King Kong and Tootsie.
With a pageboy haircut, pale skin and a voice that recalls Dustin Hoffman as "Tootsie", Mr. Depp's Wonka exudes none of the gravity required for the role.
The story (what there is of it) is a thin stew of shamelessly stolen ingredients, one part Mrs. Doubtfire , one part Nutty Professor , one part Tootsie , five parts idiocy.
Borrowing heavily from The Nutty Professor and Mrs. Doubtfire (not to mention, of course, the grand "mama" of them all, Tootsie), this film serves up heapin' helpin's of fat jokes, sex jokes, and scatological humor, wrapped around a thin plot involving FBI agents trying to nab a bank robber.
Before that, he popped up in potent bit parts in "Caddyshack" (1980), "Tootsie" (1982), and "Little Shop of Horrors" (1986), and laid it all on the line for his own pet project, "The Razor's Edge" (1984), which was unsuccessful, but interesting.
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This is, after all, a variation on Tootsie meets Kramer vs. Kramer, both of which featured Hoffman.
Williams has to break out of a second-rate "Tootsie" imitation, ankles clamped in pathos and face covered in latex.
As Bill Murray put it in Tootsie (1982), "We're getting into a weird area here."