All That Jazz (1979) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

A thumb up from Tuna, an abstention from Scoop, who can't vote because he is prejudiced against anything even vaguely similar to this. Scoop does, however, admire any film that inspires a great title for a porn film - in this case, All That Jizz.

Scoop's comments in white:

A large number, perhaps a vast majority, of heterosexual males despise some or all types of musicals. I don't hate them all, but I hate a certain kind, and I can describe that kind to you fairly accurately on a two dimensional scale.

Dimension 1 - What do they do when they aren't singin'? If they are speaking, driving the story forward, I am more likely to enjoy the play. If they are dancing or if they are just singin' non-stop without spoken breaks, I am not likely to enjoy it.

Dimension 2 - Is it funny? The funnier the better. In general, I like musical comedies, or musical dramas with a solid comic undertone.

These dimensions produce musicals of four distinct types, as shown here:

The closer a musical is to the top right of the graph, the more likely I am to like it.

I like Type A musicals - where the dance is incorporated naturally into the songs, the dancing is amusing and not necessarily spectacular, and there are plenty of jokes to keep the show flowing. I enjoy Singin' in the Rain, for example, and I miss true musical comedies, which have been extinct forever.

I usually like Type B musicals if they are good ones, like West Side Story and Man of La Mancha, with a solid story and good tunes.

I don't much care for Type D - alleged comedies where the comedy is actually just a lame excuse for production numbers. Don't get me wrong about Gershwin, whose musicals are listed here on the chart. I love his melodies. I sing them in the shower. He may be my favorite 20th century composer, but his musicals are just glorified Busby Berkley productions. The comedy is lame, and the musical numbers go on and on and on, long after I've lost interest in them. I usually find myself looking in the Playbill to see when the next good song is coming.

I reserve complete, utter boredom for Type C. I don't actually know if I like them, because I've never really stayed awake through one, unless I used the fast forward button. I fell asleep in Cats three times - and that was in the theater in New York, near the stage. Pretty embarrassing. I made the mistake of eating a heavy meal and drinking a bit too much, and ...  well, you know. I was actually snoring.

The only exceptions for me in this group are the operas of Puccini. I find myself so mesmerized and moved by his music that I can make it through the slow parts. OK, I admit that I cry like a girly man during the "Un Bel Di" solo in Madame Butterfly, but Puccini was really a unique talent who wrote beautiful, emotional music. Usually I can't make it through a Type C at all. I can't even stay awake during Don Giovanni, and that's freakin' Mozart, fer chrissakes, so if ol' Amadeus can't get to me, Andrew Lloyd Webber has no chance to enter my life unless I run out of Sominex.

So there are my prejudices. I don't much like Gothic musical drama, and I don't like long dance numbers. I fell asleep twice watching Chicago, and that's a multiple Oscar film. Give me good melodies and/or lots of jokes, and I'll enjoy a musical, but puh-leez cut back on the show-stopping dance numbers. It should be obvious to you that I can't really make a fair assessment of Bob Fosse's contribution to entertainment, because he and I disagree on a crucial issue - the value of dance as entertainment. He thinks that dance numbers are the ultimate expression of mankind's music and sensuality. I think they are the ultimate expression of mankind's need to press the fast forward button.

Given those biases, you don't really care what I have to say about All That Jazz. This movie is a Type C musical, therefore not my kind of entertainment, but it's not down there in the bottom left corner with Phantom of the Opera. It's closer to the center of the (x,y) axis. The drama is leavened with sex and some humor, and it's not a typical type C because even though there is a lot of dancing, there is also plenty of spoken dialogue. The dance numbers do go on forever, but in this case they replace the singing rather than the speaking. Strangely enough for a musical, the film has almost no singing, and none at all really worth listening to (except for George Benson on the sound track).

It's basically Fosse's self-directed autobiography, and he seems to portray himself honestly and without a sugar coating. In fact, he may even be indulging in a little bit of "repentance chic" by portraying himself as worse than he really was. Roy Scheider plays the Fosse character (called Joe Gideon here) as a workaholic who jump starts every day with a shower and a mega dose of speed, then proceeds to create a Broadway play during all the hours when he's not editing his latest movie (a fictional version of Fosse's actual movie, "Lenny"). Joe ignores everyone he might love, including his daughter, and makes human contact primarily for sex. His sex life is full. After all, Fosse chose the ultimate path to sexual heaven - he was a heterosexual director and choreographer of Broadway musicals and movies. He may not have had as many women throw themselves at him as Jim Morrison, but it had to be close.

The movie's finale is Joe's heart attack, which alternates between the operating room and the simultaneous fantasy in Joe's head - a ghoulish dream in which he literally sings and dances his way into death. In a phrase: death as a Fosse production number - with the requisite dark stage, shiny props, spangled costumes, gaudy lights and moving spots. Joe hoofs his way toward the ultimate spotlight at the end of the tunnel.

It seemed to me that the movie was a single long dance number, so I was able to watch it in about ten minutes thanks to the blessed remote. Those people who actually like this kind of stuff seemed to think that this was sheer genius, so if you like it, go for it. If you don't like this kind of material, the compensation is an abundance of female nudity.