Customer Reviews
Self-indulgent brilliance 
2008-08-21
Fosse's "All that Jazz" is one of my all time favorite movies and I don't generally enjoy big production dance movies. In this movie, Fosse, through his actor, Roy Scheider, gets to play himself with all his talent, weakness, brilliance, stupidy, self-indulgence...and...evil. He lets us feel the phrenetic pace of an overcharged life and he shows us the fears, along with the associated thick skin, that come along with being a choreographer and playwrite. Without an effort to justify himself, he shows his opportunism in seducing young women trying to make it big. He shows us something of the women and child that he has injured but who are, at the same time, trying to save him from himself.
He shows a man dying of overwork, drug abuse and guilt. He shows us a man who simply doesn't care. He has a heart attack but lives...for a time...but a man like Fosse/Gideon simply doesn't live for long. They burn up like a short burning match. The movie is great but the last scene is even better. Death comes to him in the form of the hauntingly beautiful Jessica Lange. There is a truly remarkable dance routine centered on a jiving Ben Vereen. Everybody is there...everybody from his past...the strippers, whores, wife, child, girl friends, angry business partners. The rockin' tune is "There goes my Baby" and the rhythm is that of Fosse/Gideon's beating heart. Vereen's perfect eulogy is on the mark, "And you AIN'T nobody's friend." Bomp, bomp, bomp...bomp. Sweet death gets closer, closer, closer. Fosse/Gideon--or whatever is left of him--are brutally zipped up in a body bag. Terrific. Terrific and brilliant. Fosse has gone and choreographed his own death.
Ron Braithwaite author of novels, "Hummingbird God" and "Skull Rack"--on the Conquest of Mexico
Lotta singing, lotta dancing, a fair bit of drugs and sex... it's like life, only snazzier! 2008-07-29
Or should that be jazzier? Very entertaining film, but it's not all fun and games. There's definitely some dark stuff here, this is no "Meet Me in Saint Louis" style musical. But the songs and dancing are great, the story and acting are great. If you haven't seen this before, you're in for a treat. A really original film with many great, memorable scenes.
Awesome, in every sense of the word. 2008-05-30
All That Jazz (Bob Fosse, 1979)
Even at the tender age of ten, I was already both a ravening cinephile and a hardcore music fan. Cabaret was one of my favorite movies as a youngster (and doesn't it strike you, too, as odd that I would be exposed to such a movie repeatedly at such a tender age?), so it seemed to me, at the time, that All That Jazz, Fosse's other huge musical blockbuster, was a natural. My parents, however, were not so sure; stills from the movie combined with it being rated R for "graphic depictions of surgery" convinced my mother that there was some form of weird, and nude, interpretive dance going on with surgery as its theme. Well, mom, I'm here to tell you, finally, that a chest spreader is not an interpretive dance-- that really is a graphic depiction of surgery. (However, it's worth noting that nowadays, you see this sort of thing on shows like ER all the time, so don't let that stop you.) But, yeah, like the man said, "will there be [censored for Amazon consumption]?". Yup. Of course, as a ten-year-old, that's the other half of why I wanted to see this movie. It's twenty-nine years later, and I finally have.
The story: this is basically Bob Fosse's autobiography, through his alter ego Joe Gideon (Roy Schieder), a workaholic philanderer. We see him in the throes of putting together a stage show while at the same time overediting an epic film about a standup comedian (in real life, this is his 1974 flick Lenny), having flings with a bunch of starlets, trying hard, but in vain, to connect with his daughter (Erszebet Foldi, who never acted in another film), and indulging in the vast overuse of, well, just about everything he can get his hands on. I have to say that all of this leads to a pretty predictable outcome, but I also have to say that man, I did not see that ending coming. Maybe I should have, but wow.
It's a truism that, seeing a film thirty years after its release, you're going to be looking for different stuff than you would have thirty years before, and such is the case here. One of the great parts of this movie, for me, was seeing actors who have grown into brand names early in their careers (most notably John Lithgow and CCH Pounder), but the spectacle of this thing is just as amazing now as I'm sure it was then; I say this, mind you, as someone who generally can't stand musicals, despite my love of both film and music. Fosse obviously did this one from the heart, and it shows in every frame. Everything about this flick is top-notch; even if you don't like musicals, I highly recommend it. **** ½
All That Jazz Rocks! 2008-05-08
Seldom seen on TV, this is a rather dark view of behind-the-scenes Broadway. It's an autobiographical movie of the choreographer/director Bob Fosse, a man who had great career success but was less successful in his personal life. And, don't forget the fabulous musical numbers and Bob's patented, sexy, sensational dance numbers.
A "don't miss" for fans of Cabaret and Chicago.
incredible film 2008-04-19
This is one of my favorite films. Creative, theatrical, thought provoking and something that I recommend to all my media students.
Self-destruction has never been so entertaining 2008-03-20
Part tragic part comic this outrageous look at life in the fast lane in the Academy Award-winning musical about Bob Fosse's excessive life in show business. Played by Roy Scheider Fosse's alter-ego drives himself over the edge and soon finds he is caught between a recurring fantasy about his death and the reality of a near-death experience. Dazzlingly presented this electrifying story about the perils of pushing yourself too hard is filled with Fosse's legendary song-and-dance choreography.Episodes-Bonus Features:**Widescreen Feature**Audio Commentary with Film Editor Alam Heim**Portrait Of A Choerographer**Perverting The Standards**Making of the Song 'On Broadway'**Movie-oke 'Take Off With Us'**Music Machine (access musical numbers through scene selection)**Bob Fosse Gallery**Production Snapshots GallerySystem Requirements:Run Time: 123 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MUSICALS/MUSICALS Rating: R UPC: 024543434795 Manufacturer No: 2243479
Fantastic BIO pic of Fosse 
2008-03-08
Roy Scheider excels in this bio-pic of Fosse and Jessica Lange is at her
most beautiful. Music is wonderful and dancing is "Pure Fosse", an
American tradition now.
Dance 10, Looks 0 
2008-01-29
The film itself is one of the greats of the past 25 years, but the DVD itself is one of the lousiest I've seen in a long, long time.
The entire movie is a little dark and slightly fuzzy; the color correction is off throughout. Dingy is the word that come to mind. The better your TV, the more obvious the flaws. It's as if the disc was mastered from some previous-generation tape source instead of a copy of the film itself.
The film and its fans deserve better. We can only hope that someone will take the time to do a fresh, new, and careful film-to-digital transfer for release someday soon on Blu-Ray.
fosse's best 2007-09-18
bob fosse is regarded as a genius. although he won oscars for directing caberet and his movie on lenny bruce, his genius is universally acknowledged to lie primarily in the field of choreography. All that Jazz contains his best choreography on film, no argument. what else needs to be said?
Love his warts 2007-08-30
I have to admit the title of the DVD, All That Jazz--The Music Edition, puzzled me. Did the last version of the DVD have the music cut out??? Was this just a DVD of the songs, without any movie? Fortunately the naming of the DVD, like so many other things studios do and applaud themselves for, is just a meaningless gimmick. You get the whole movie just as before, in a transfer that looks very good to me. Some reviews called it a "soft print," but I think they're just seeing the photography the way it was intended, with fog filters being used extensively, especially in the scenes with Jessica Lange. Razor-sharp high-contrast cinematography where you can see every pour on the actors' face is a relatively recent phenomenon.
The movie itself harkens back to a different age, one where filmmaking was more personal and more daring. Fosse proves he's as brilliant a film director as he is a stage director. Sound fades in and out and overlap and go echoey. Some of the most dramatic moments are silent. There's rapid cross-cutting and temporal jumps. But none of it is gimmicky, it's all in the service of the story.
Some have criticized that story for being too sympathetic to the Fosse character, played by Roy Scheider in a career-defining performance. (No Oscar?!? Typical.) It's true the script is subtlety very sympathetic to Joe Gideon--despite all his failings, we are offered excuses, not the least of which is his genius. It's true that the screenplay isn't as hard on Gideon as it superficially comes across--this is *not* the hard-hitting, uncompromising, unflinching film that reviewer John Remington thinks it is. He's been "fooled," exactly the way the filmmakers intended. (He's also apparently never seen Fellini's 8 1/2.) Still, it must have been a brave portrait in 1979 to show a main character with an ex-wife and a small daughter popping pills and having open and free sex with every woman who crosses his casting couch. Casting Scheider was a triumph. He has a natural warmth that adds a lot to Gideon's likeability. I cannot imagine the original choice--Richard Dreyfuss--in the role.
The others in the cast are also very effective, from the ex-wife, played by Leland Palmer to the current main girlfriend, played by Ann Reinking. However, you'll note both female characters put pressure on poor Joe Gideon--one to choreography a lame musical solely as her comeback vehicle, one for fidelity only to go to the arms of another man as soon as Gideon takes ill. The other men in his life, mostly annoying producers, managers, agents and competing directors, are portrayed as small and narrow people. Never having worked in his profession, I can't say if this is accurate or not, but again, it *is* designed to make Gideon, for all his faults, look so good. Self-critical All That Jazz is not.
The movie, however, is well-written, directed and paced--until the ending. The last 20 minutes should have been 10. Once Gideon ends up in the hospital the pace starts to drag, and while the final set piece is brilliant and deliciously satirical, it goes on for too long. Still, all that jazz is a very good motion picture and one of the more important films of the 70s. But with a little tweaking, it could have been even better, a masterpiece.
This is Fox's second DVD of the film, and the extras are even more lame than those in the first. So lame they're not worth mentioning, or even checking out by the viewer. A lengthy interview with Schneider would have been nice. If you love this movie this DVD is worth owning, but not for the goodies. I wish Criterion would get its hands on this.
