Bob Fosse, Posterized

Today would have been Bob Fosse's 82nd birthday if he hadn't smoked and sexed himself to death while choreographing dirty musical numbers and flirting with angels of death in Nineteen-Seve... oh wait, I'm thinking of Joe Gideon, his All That Jazz altar ego. Fosse died of a heart attack at 60 in 1987. He's best remembered today as the most important choreographer of the 20th century this side of Martha Graham, totally affecting everything that came after him. But he was also a brilliant film director and in the realm of cinema he rarely gets his due. When great actors die young they often become legendary. When great directors die after just a handful of movies, not so much... especially if they made their mark in the musical genre.

Fosse acted and danced in other movies but these are the six filmed entertainments he directed. All are worth seeing and two are among the greatest films ever made.

Sweet Charity (69) | Cabaret (72) | Liza With a Z (concert telefilm, 72)

Lenny (74) | All That Jazz (79) | Star 80 (83)

How many have you seen? If the answer is less than six, do yourself a huge favor, and put them on your rental queue. Have a Fosse completist festival at home. You won't be disappointed. And maybe you'll even wonder why he's not lumped in with the biggies when people talk about the great 70s directors. I know I do.

I like Rob Marshall's Chicago (2002) just fine but it's hard not to think about what Fosse's version would have been like. And if they do remake Damn Yankees like they keep saying they will, will they keep his awesome choreography, or chuck it and go with unskilled dancers in the big roles?

God... it's so great when you can see entire bodies in dance scenes.
Almost no filmmakers understand this anymore.

If you've seen all of Fosse's films, why not a double feature of Damn Yankees! (1958) and All That Jazz. Think about it: In the former you can watch Fosse and the legendary Gwen Verdon together (like in the scene above) and then in the latter you can watch Roy Sheider and Leland Palmer pretend to be them, acting out their very difficult relationship with Oscar calibre aplomb.

As a takeaway please enjoy Bob Fosse doing a minute of Fosse-isms in 1953's Kiss Me Kate.



Incidentally, that musical was in 3D. I actually saw it in 3D the very first time I saw it at a special showing in the 80s (there was a mini 3D fad ... i think it lasted about a year and half round about 1984 or something?). I'm reading that 3D might die out again and am crossing my fingers that history repeats itself. I like my movies flat. The best performers burst out of the screen in multiple dimensions anyway. You don't need glasses to witness those miracles. Now if only they'd give me film grain back... if anyone ever tries to clear the grain from Cabaret it won't even remotely be Cabaret, you know?
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Damn Linkees!

OhLaLa ~Jake Gyllenhaal drinks to Jamie Foxx's new music video Blame It (on the alcohol)... always a good thing to blame it on. Foxx seems to have instructed his celebri-guests (there are a few others, too) to play "attitude" because they don't seem to be having a good time.
Just Jared ~more Wolverine promo pics.
/Film Eddie Murphy as Richard Pryor? Bill Condon sure does love making biopics. Fully half of his feature filmography is biopics.


Yahoo by way of Awards Daily ~Clint Eastwood receives a prize from Cannes, 3 months before the festival begins. I promised to ease up on the Eastwood thing this year (my frustration with the collective need to bury him in trophies has not won me fans) but please allow me to express genuine non-snarky confusion here. I had no idea that film festivals gave prizes when they were not in session. Who juries that? Is this the same prize he received last May when he was there to promote Changeling (only delayed for its own ceremony?) or is this actually an additional career prize nine months later? I'm not trying to piss people off. I'm just confused that off season honors exist and that they honor the same people honored the previous summer.
Kenneth in the (212) and Crazy Days have wise things to say about this Rihanna / Chris Brown situation. Why is she back with him and why are other celebrities, blogs and infotainment shows so willing to promote misogyny and domestic abuse with these "misunderstanding" semantics? Domestic abuse is not excusable. Period.
The Big Picture ~ Will Watchmen flop outside of the community prepared to love it?
Glark ~"my hair is a bird" Ha!

And about that new Damn Yankees movie you may have been reading about elsewhere. The film will supposedly star Jake Gyllenhaal as 'Shoeless Joe Hardy' (an old man who, after making a pact with the devil, becomes a young superstar baseball player) and Jim Carrey as Mr. Applegate (i.e. The Devil). Don't get too excited about it. According to Everything I Know... there's not even a screenplay, a director or a "Lola" yet. Lola, Mr. Applegate's temptress assistant who develops genuine feelings for Joe, is the best role in the show and was immortalized by Bob Fosse's girl Gwen Verdon in the 1958 movie. She's got one of the musicals two real showstoppers which is called "Whatever Lola Wants" (see previous post). Mr. Applegate gets the other one (his only musical number) "Those Were the Good Old Days". Broadway star Cheyenne Jackson recently did the 'Shoeless Joe' thing here in NYC and, come to think of it, Jake Gyllenhaal is almost his perfect movie star counterpart. Both are a) tall dark and preternaturally handsome b) underappreciated due to their total gorgeousity c) almost too perfect for the Joe Hardy role in that Joe is kind of a dull character, a blank slate object of adoration for the media and the other characters. So if you're already a slightly generic fantasy object when you're coasting, you have to add a lot of notes to that role or it can fall flat. Shoeless Joe is very Benjamin Button actually. It's an old man gets young lead role but it's a very passive one and the least interesting character in the piece. Good luck Jakey!

Now can someone in Hollywood please cast Cheyenne Jackson in a major motion picture? He's, in a word, awesome. Plus he already proved with United 93 that his acting skills and charisma transfer just fine to celluloid.
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