All That Jazz

I've always loved this film. Glad I finally got a copy. It arrived pretty fast and in great condition 👍🏻

A classic film, easily one of Fosse's best. The extras give insight into the creation of a masterpiece.

Bottom Line First:All that Jazz can be an intense and difficult to watch. This is a rewarding movie for a thinking viewer. It is not recommend for date night, light entertainment. It is not entirely family friendly as there can be rough language and exposed flesh. There are views of actual open heart surgery. All That Jazz is a dramatic exposure of a person's inner life as he forces himself to see past his own weaknesses. Along the way there is great dancing, moments of satire, love of family and love of the flesh. If you are open to a serious and complex movie I recommend All That Jazz.Director, choreographer and writer Bob Fosse invites you to watch this as a film autobiography. Roy Scheider who performs the Fosse role as Joe Gideon reemphasizes this approach in the commentaries attached to this copy. Many who knew Fosse reacted to this view of the movie commenting with equal passion that Bob Fosse was not that bad of a person and that he was worse.This is fiction. Fosse used elements from his life to create a fictional world. Joe Gideon is not (exactly) Fosse. Gideon is an exaggeration of those elements, good and bad that make for a dramatic movie. I take this stand against the counter argument that no autobiography is an exact retelling of the writer's life, because the writer is never able to remove himself from the retelling. Fosse makes the deliberate decision to pick and choose because fiction allows/Demands that he change reality to fit the demands of his story.Joe Gideon is a man slaved to the classic addictions: booze, drugs, sex and work. Against the claims of all these `unreal' aspects of being a person he will sacrifice every real value: His real love of his daughter, his abiding love for his ex-wife and the burgeoning love for his girlfriend. He is deeply committed to the production of Broadway musical comedy and his next movie. All that is real in Joe Gideon is on view and available for his customers, those who care most about him get what is left.As the movie open we can see that what is left is dwindling. We are here to watch this man die. We are invited to judge him. We see him from the view of his business partners, fellow performers, and loved ones. We will watch him judge himself before death. Rather the Angel of Death played, rather perfectly underplayed by Jessica Lange. Death clearly does not judge, and is never fooled. She is everyone's ultimate lover and is beyond caring about anyone's artifices, dodges or self-delusions.Director Fosse refuses to blink or excuse Joe's failures. It is this honesty that can make this movie difficult to watch. If you can see this much into another man's life and not ask yourself to see past your own excuses, then watch All that Jazz again. You may be razzled dazzed by the sex and dancing and all that jazz, but ultimately Fosse asks that you see your truth.

Bob Fosse was undoubtably a bastard and a genius. And, on top of both of those things, he was also incredible honest. Despite being a serial liar.This movie is basically his autobiography -- about the insane time when he was directing both the risky Broadway musical "Chicago" while ALSO directing Dustin Hoffman in the Academy Award nominated bio-pic "Lenny" (about Lenny Bruce).Unlike most filmmakers, Fosse does not shy from his faults. In fact, he puts them centerstage. He's a bastard. He admits he is. And he doesn't try to sugar coat it. That's why this brilliant masterpiece is one of the most gut wrenchingly beautiful emotional cadavers in film history. Hell, he put his own lover in the role of herself and had her play out scenes as they happened. Word for word. No rewrites. No apologies. Just the truth. Brutal and ugly. And dazzlingly entertaining.Roy Scheider (once again) shows why he was one of the biggest movie stars of the 1970s. He plays the fictional version of Bob and holy hell does he knock it out of the park. He was robbed of the Oscar that year (he was nominated). It's a performance that stands the test of time. Filled with humor, love, pathos, revulsion, pain and magic.There isn't a false beat in the whole thing. And I once again tip my hat to Criterion - they do one helluva transfer. This looks and sounds great. Top notch. Worth every dollar. This is a desert island movie for me - and I don't even like musicals. But it's not a "musical." It's all motivated (no stupid breaking out in song in the middle of a scene). This is quite simply one of the best movies ever made.

First of all, the delivery was super fast and easy. The Bluray itself is in great condition, both the box and the picture/audio quality. In terms of presentation/packaging/special features for the movie, Criterion knocks it out of the park again.There's a handsome booklet inside the box, talking about the movie and the director, Bob Fosse. There's a ton of bonus features, cool interviews, behind the scenes clips, and some select commentary from Roy Scheider, the actor who plays Bob Fosse's doppelganger in the movie. The picture quality is beyond crisp and it sounds great.I definitely recommend this to people who like good, snappy, intelligent, character-driven dramas. It's got a serious, gritty, unflinching 70's cinema feel to it -- but the dance numbers are wild, flirtatious, completely entertaining. There's humor, drama, life and death struggle, brisk dialogue and characterization -- it's an overall wonderful movie.

Came on time and in great condition

All that Jazz (1979) is another Bob Fosse masterpiece. After the huge success of Cabaret in 1972, the bar was set high to deliver another great movie musical. Here, Director Fosse makes another musical that’s geared toward an adult audience. Roy Scheider stars as Joe Gideon, a stressed out, chain smoking choreographer who flirts with death throughout the story, suffering major health setbacks, mirroring Fosse’s own path in life in a lot of ways. While some people think this story is a downer, I thought it was funny and very entertaining. I laughed several times throughout the film, and couldn’t wait to see what happened next. This musical is a breath of fresh air from the usual upbeat musical; we’re dealing with a self-destructive and ultimately tragic character who just happens to find humor in almost everything he does, and that is a refreshing combination. The Criterion Collection blu ray is an excellent transfer and comes with the usual booklet and several special features. I highly recommend All that Jazz for your movie musical collection.

A good drama about the making of a drama for stage and screen. I would never have considered it if it hadn't been recommended by someone I trust (we're not glitz fans by any stretch of the imagination). But, as a show about show time, with copious amounts of OTT, it was very well well acted (well mostly) and certainly the dancing outstanding (all of the principal dancers and especially lead Sandahl Bergman). Bob Fosse's choreography for the 'we start with smoke' routine was brilliantly done.The only problem was that it was much too drawn out - especially the final scene where, how should I put this, the character lingered at least 20 minutes far too long.

Bob Fosse - a noted dancer and dance choreographer - directed this somewhat indulgent film about acharacter that reflected his own chosen career in show business. The expertise for which Fosse was famousis on display from the outset in the set pieces and any musical film fan would appreciate the content, butthe story and its denouement can stretch the patience, not least because of the leading character'spersonality traits/flaws. One for the specialist fan perhaps when it comes to film musicals.

Having just watched Fosse/Verdon on BBC, surely bound to win a handful of Tony Awards, I thought it a good idea to catch up with Bob Fosse''s autobiographical version..If you've seen the BBC series don't go anywhere near this.However, if you've seen the BBC series and you then watch this, as I did, you'll see just what a mess this is. Ugh!

So clever and deep. Probably a bit politically incorrect these days but worth watching

I REALLY ENJOYED THIS MOVIE. IT IS EXCELLENT FROM START TO FINISH. ONE OF THE TOP TEN MOVIES EVER MADE.