Dustin Hoffman his seventh Academy Award nomination for his performance in "Wag The Dog" (1997), in a role that allowed Hoffman the chance to work with both Robert De Niro and Denis Leary. The movie is a black comedy film produced and directed by Barry Levinson, who also directed Hoffman in "Rain Man" in 1988. The story takes place a few days before a presidential election, where a Washington, D.C. spin doctor (De Niro) distracts the electorate from a sex scandal by hiring a Hollywood film producer (Hoffman) to construct a fake war with Albania. Hoffman, as a caricature of real life
All That Jazz (film) the titular role of "The Stand-Up"—the film-within-a-film version of "Lenny"—after having played the role of Lenny Bruce in the original theatrical production of the show (for which he won a Tony Award), but was passed over for Fosse's film version of the production in favor of Dustin Hoffman. Reviews were largely positive. "All That Jazz" scores an 86% "Fresh" (or "good") rating on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes based on 36 reviews. In his review in "The New York Times", Vincent Canby called the film "an uproarious display of brilliance, nerve, dance, maudlin confessions, inside jokes and, especially, ego" and