All That Jazz starring Roy Schieder (yeah, the Jaws guy) as a Broadway song and dance man who – despite dressing like a total femme – is supposed to be the worst woman-chaser/heart-breaker around. He’s the choreographer of a musical dance production called – I’m not making this up – Air-otica, a musical about swinging airline stewards and stewardesses. I’m seriously thinking about using it to blackmail Roy Scheider. Even Fingers with Harvey Keitel was not this bad. I have a new standard for a one-star review. I’m going to go scrub my eyeballs now.
This would be the All That Jazz that won 4 of the 9 Oscars it was nominated for in 1980. Admittedly it didn’t win with its nominations for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Picture or Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen.
No accounting for taste, eh?
You are aware All That Jazz is a barely-disguised film autobiography of the director, Bob Fosse? (BTW, you have heard of Bob Fosse before?)
How preposterous!
Hey, that wasn’t there when I posted!
I think the OP is onto something. I think movies should be digitally updated, so the the costumes word by the characters are always in current style, rather than reflecting the times the movie was actually made in. Like colorization! That way we can judge a movie based on our own limited experience, instead of learning something about the time and place and people the movie is actually about. That would be WAY easier.
No; it’s the All That Jazz that won the Palme d’Or at Cannes that year. You must be thinking of a different All That Jazz; the sucky one, that’s worse than Fingers.
I think that after Yellowtail successfully sues Roy Scheider for being nominated for an Oscar, he should buy us all bowler hats.
I don’t agree with the OP, but even though I liked Chicago and Caberet, I was somewhat underwhelmed by “All that Jazz”. More “Forgottable” then “horrible”.
“word”?
:rolleyes:
worn.
Yarbles, great bouncy yarblockos to you.
Fosse is, IMO one of the top 5 directors of all time and AtJ is his tour de force. Too bad he (like Kubrick) went out with a stinker.
I realize there’s no way to discuss taste, but you really didn’t get the movie, what it was about or why anything was in there, judging from the OP.
I really should sit down and write an OP about the brilliance of this movie, how well done it is, on so many levels: narration, plot line, juxtapositions, thematic. Apart from how extremely well the storytelling is done. it’s also technically brilliant.
I like All That Jazz, though it’s not up to the level of Cabaret. Still, it’s a fascinating film – autobiographical, yet highly critical of its subject. I especially loved the “Take Off With Us” number, probably the sexiest musical number ever put on film. And the dig a critics (and Rona Barrett) who don’t see that the simplest scene may have been due to much more than what is apparent.
Fosse is one of the great geniuses of dance on film, up with Busby Berkeley, Fred Astaire/Hermes Pan, and Gene Kelly.
It’s my all-time favorite musical.
I always liked All That Jazz. Not the best movie in the world, but not even in the running for worst. It also had a pretty big influence on musicals made after it. I wonder what time-warp YellowTail has been living in?
This was a great movie. One of the earliest uses of the word “cock” in film, I believe.
The dancing was awesome and Roy Scheider did a fantastic job. It’s one of his best roles as far as I’m concerned.
Well , maybe not the WORST , but it is one of the few movies I have walked out of the theatre on back when it wa first released. So YellowTail, you are not alone in your distaste.
Actually, that particular picture makes Scheider look amazingly like Fosse did in ‘Kiss Me Kate’, same sort of beard … makes me miss his style of choreography, and the FUN of many of the projects he worked on. I adore Kiss me Kate, and it is still one of my ‘god i am dying of this cold, please let me die’ lying on the couch sick movies. I put it in the video deck and I forget how scroungy I feel.
I’m sorry, but you cannot have seen the wors movie ever made, until you’ve seen the horror that is Manos; the Hands of Fate
…the only movie the Mads in MST3K ever APOLOGIZED for showing to Joel and the Bots… 
More like the 100th.
I don’t remember a lot about this movie but didn’t it save Jessica Lange’s career? She was supposed to have committed career suicide with her first movie being King Kong (1976), but then came back (in 1979) as an ethereal, angel-like character and was seen as a serious actress after it came out. If nothing else, the movie ought to be praised for that. I need to see it again. I remember liking it, but I only really remember Jessica.
I looked at IMDB’s listing for the 1980 Academy Awards. It lost all the big awards, Picture, Director, Actor (Dustin Hoffman), to Kramer Vs. Kramer. It lost Cinematography to Apocalypse Now (too bad that didn’t win Best Picture) and Screenplay to Breaking Away. It won Editing, Costume, Art Direction and “Music, Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score” (that category hasn’t been around for ages).