All That Jazz Music Edition

All That Jazz Music Edition
Directed by Bob Fosse. Starring Roy Scheider, Jessica Lange, Leland Palmer, Ann Reinking. Released by 20th Century Fox. Box office (U.S.): $38 million.

If today's big-screen musicals seem too straightforward, too staged, dig this trippy disco-flavored extravaganza, a meta-movie-musical if ever there was one, a fat dish of Broadway showmanship baked in auteur-era '70s Hollywood. The so-very-autobiographical tale from Bob Fosse tells of a Broadway bigshot losing his cool, his mind, his grip on reality and, literally, handle on life, all while directing a movie, staging a musical and keeping up with the women, drugs and booze that own his days. What's great is how honest, how true, how head-on Fosse faces himself, how much of a boozing, womanizing, overworking boor Roy Scheider is as he faces his own mortality, besieged by women, fantasy dance sequences and an angel. It's a big movie from another time, and this edition includes a DVD navigation based on musical numbers and a short doc on the signature tune, "On Broadway." Let's see Beyoncé do any of that.