Tootsie (1982)

Strikingly unusual romantic comedy. 

New Yorker Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) cannot hold down work as an actor because he's too opinionated to accept his directors' instructions. Out of desperation, he pretends to be a woman (reshuffling his name as Dorothy Michaels) and is hired to play a hospital administrator on the popular TV soap opera Southwest General. While on the set he meets and falls in love with another member of the cast, Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange), who believes he is both her new best friend and also a woman.

Hoffman is at his best – pushy but vulnerable, quirky but sharply witty. Lange is also excellent. Bill Murray, as Michael's long-suffering friend Jeff, pretty much does his usual thing. Teri Garr, meanwhile, has an intriguing role as his other friend Sandy. 

In the film's oddest moment, Sandy catches Michael in a state of undress in her bedroom where he hopes to find new clothing ideas for his Dorothy persona. But hoping to hide this from her, he pretends he wanted to sleep with Sandy and then goes ahead and does exactly that. Moments like this make it quite revealing in terms of the gender politics of the late 1970s/early 1980s, and the film would certainly have turned out differently if it had been made now.

The Monuments Men (2014)

A handful of military misfits go to Germany towards the end of World War II to locate and retrieve fine art stolen and hidden by the Nazis. (In reality, there were 300 such people working on this project, but the film doesn’t acknowledge that.)

George Clooney stars, writes and directs but unfortunately can’t decide if he’s making a comedy or a drama. It falls somewhere in the middle – neither very funny nor very exciting, with too much rather stilted sitting around. The all-star cast seems underused, with Matt Damon, Bill Murray and the dreaded John Goodman in underdeveloped roles and not really getting a chance to shine. Only Cate Blanchett (a sympathetic curator with an inconsistent French accent) comes out of it unscathed. 

The tone is all over the place. The film flits between trying to make serious points at certain times and seeming like Dad’s Army at others, with “jaunty” music that’s especially jarring. Even the central message – art is so important that it might be worth dying for – is watered down by the way it’s something we’re repeatedly told rather than meaningfully shown. 

The final scene – a modern-day glimpse of Clooney’s Lieutenant as an elderly man appreciating Michelangelo in a gallery with his grandson – is particularly awkward and naff.

Broken Flowers (2005)

Comic drama directed by Jim Jarmusch.

Don Johnston (played by Bill Murray and with a name that gets him deliberately confused with the Miami Vice actor) is a lonely, retired man who used to work in computers. On the day that his girlfriend Sherry (Julie Delpy) leaves him, he receives an anonymous letter that tells him he has a 19-year-old son. With the help of his neighbour Winston (Jeffrey Wright), a fan of detective stories, he sets off on an investigative trip to meet four women who might have been the mother of the child he never knew he had. 

The bulk of the film deals with these four encounters, which meet with varying degrees of success. One of the former lovers (Sharon Stone) spends the night with him. Another (Tilda Swinton) gets him beaten up. All of these four women (​​Frances Conroy and Jessica Lange play the other two parts) are convincingly portrayed.

It could have been funnier. Some of the deliberately “low-key”, contemplative scenes just fall flat, even though that’s probably the point. The detective aspect is a bit silly, which undercuts some of the power of the serious relationship material. And while I appreciate that it was deliberately left ambiguous, the final “twist” at the very end is an in-joke that slightly spoils the open-ended conclusion.  

It’s ultimately a third-rate Lost in Translation, but without as much originality, dry wit or warmth.

Lost in Translation (2003)

Another masterpiece directed (and also written) by Sofia Coppola. It’s a gentle drama with comic elements. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is in Tokyo to film a whiskey advert. He meets a young college graduate called Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson). They are both experiencing marital problems and get time alone in their hotel rooms to reflect on them. Bob’s wife faxes him home decor suggestions and posts him carpet samples, while Charlotte’s husband (Giovanni Ribisi) is an absent, immature photographer. Feeling alien, lonely and disorientated in a culture they don’t understand, the two develop a deep connection that goes beyond casual friendship. 

The film is poignant and touching. There are glimmers of romance between the pair, but it’s to the film’s huge credit that it resists that obvious option and instead focuses on the two characters and their far less predictable kind of relationship. Murray and Johansson each give the performance of a lifetime, perfectly handling the empathy and restraint evident in the sensitive script. 

Coppola creates a strange and lovely atmosphere, understanding that what goes unsaid can be more potent than the words actually uttered, and each successive scene builds upon that. By the end, you feel profoundly engaged with these characters in a way that doesn’t usually happen when you watch a film. 

There are too many perfect scenes to mention, but my favourite is the karaoke episode. Charlotte sings “Brass in Pocket” (The Pretenders) and Bob sings “More Than This” (Roxy Music). In each case, they seem to be using the song to communicate something to each other. 

A really special film. One of the very best.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

A sequel that doesn’t disappoint. Following the events shown in the first film, the Ghostbusters have been sued for property damage, put out of business and forced to work as party entertainers for uninterested children. But then their old friend Dana Barrett sees her baby’s pram being wheeled into traffic by mysterious forces, and at the art gallery where she works a painting comes alive with the spirit of a 16th-century tyrant named Vigo the Carpathian. Meanwhile, a river of pink goo now runs beneath the city. After five years in obscurity, the gang reunite to face this new menace.

It’s slightly less packed with laughs than the 1984 film, but only slightly. The main cast are all superb and the writing by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis is excellent. The snivelling head of the art gallery (Peter MacNicol as Janosz Poha) is too annoying to be pleasurable to watch, but when Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Sigourney Weaver are on screen together everything clicks and comes to life. Rick Moranis and Annie Potts reprise their roles as accountant Louis Tully and secretary Janine Melnitz respectively, but this time they become an item.

There’s a nice theme about the soul of New York City, which has become corrupted but which recovers enough to defeat evil. As with the original film, it’s a feel-good story that’s also intelligent and funny.

Ghostbusters (1984)

This supernatural comedy is close to perfect. There’s so much that’s great about it. The three main characters – Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler – are terrifically well drawn, and Bill Murray, Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis play them perfectly. The theme tune by Ray Parker Jr. is memorable and distinctive. The visuals are superb for the time, rendering neon ectoplasmic ghosts that gobble down plates of sausages and “slime” their victims. The run-down “Ecto-1” car (a converted hearse) is iconic. Sigourney Weaver seems effortlessly seductive and sophisticated as Dana Barrett, the woman possessed by an evil spirit and who Venkman falls for. Rick Moranis provides endearing slapstick as a nerdy accountant taken over by a demon. There’s an evident love of New York that permeates almost every frame. It’s a quirky film that’s unlike anything else. And, giving hope to all of us, its heroes are not glamorous or good-looking. They are flawed humans you can laugh with and relate to. A masterpiece.