Roy Scheider in All That Jazz Buy it Wallace Shawn in All That Jazz

It speaks well of Bob Fosse's 1979 film All That Jazz that, as grim as it often is, it has more than enough sheer showbiz razzle-dazzle within to justify a "Special Music Edition" DVD, out today from Fox. The features that make it a "Music Edition" include a Music Machine chapter select option that plays all the picture's musical sequences one after the other; a "Movie-Oke" (ugh) sing-along track of "Take Off With Us," a featurette on the making of George Benson's version of "On Broadway" (the song features in the movie's opening sequence, a canny variant of A Chorus Line's I-hope-I-get-it kickoff seen from the POV of director, composers, et. al.) and such. There's also a very good new anamorphic transfer of the movie and an excellent commentary by the movie's editor Alan Heim.

The movie got some pretty scathing notices at the time of its release, and, yes, Fosse's blatantly autobiographical portrait- of- the- artist- as- an- overextended- overindulged- death- courting- prick is self-indulgent, self-consciously Fellini-esque, philosophically facile, and more. But it pulses with a life and exuberance and an in-your-face ballsiness that's woefully absent from Hollywood moviemaking nowadays. It never stops just flat-out going for it even after it falls on its face three or four times. Roy Scheider's performance is as go-for-broke as the movie itself. And the picture also features a glimpse of the young Wallace Shawn (36 at the time) at his most suave. I believe he's playing an accountant here. Blink and you'll not only miss him, you'll get a close-up of open-heart surgery.