Ever since rewatching The Breakfast Club, I’ve been on an ’80s kick, at least where movies are concerned. So earlier this week at my parents’ house with Netflix for some reason not working on my iPad, I settled for Amazon Prime and YouTube instead and watched for the billion time two ’80s classics: Tootsie and The Sure Thing.
Tootsie
Dustin Hoffman’s female-impersonation vehicle, I’m happy to say, still holds up. On a recent episode of The Americans, a couple of characters see the movie and the one from Russia says, “That would never happen in the Soviet Union.” The American answers, “That would never happen here either.”
And it’s true. While the film is hilarious and great storytelling, “Dorothy” is clearly a man in drag. There’s no way that absolutely everyone would be fooled.
But all the actors are wonderful, and although I’ve seen it so many times, I still laughed out loud at certain parts, like when Julie, flustered by Dorothy’s advances, answers the phone but picks up a corn cob instead.
“That’s a corn cob,” Dorothy says.
Or when a dejected Michael watches a mime “balancing” on the curb for a few minutes before pushing him over.
I also love that Bill Murray plays straight man second fiddle to Hoffman. You kind of forget that it’s Bill Murray. I read in the IMDb trivia that he agreed to omit his name from the opening credits so that audiences wouldn’t expect something like Caddyshack or Meatballs.
Some other takeaways: Dabney Coleman plays sleazy very well, and Terri Garr was rather Jennifer Aniston-esque, or rather Aniston is Terri Garr-esque.
The Sure Thing
As I said in my Breakfast Club post, I’ve been obsessed lately with 1980s John Cusack.
While I was really in the mood for Better Off Dead (as a short dark-haired Chinese girl, I always identified with the short dark-haired French girl), I only now just found that it’s available for free on YouTube, so I made do with The Sure Thing (also free on YouTube).
While there are a few very ’80s aspects about the movie — the music for one as well as the guys’ short shorts — it holds up well. Cusack was only 17 during filming and Daphne Zuniga was four years his senior, but they’re a good match and have good chemistry. While Zuniga’s character is supposed to be uptight, I actually love her preppy L.L Bean outfits, which unlike Cusack’s turned up collars and rolled up shirt-jacket sleeves, don’t seem dated.
But enough about the clothes. I’m always a sucker for a good meet-cute and two characters who hate each other but end up falling in love, and that’s what Gib and Allison are. What makes The Sure Thing well above average is that Gib and Allison have convincing character arcs as well — not only do they fall in love, they change, which makes the falling in love possible.
Next up in my ’80s queue are Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer, Moonstruck, and 9 to 5.