Bob Fosse

Winner of eight Academy Awards, including Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actress (Liza Minnelli), and Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey), Cabaret would also have taken Best Picture if it hadn't been competing against The Godfather as the most acclaimed film of 1972. (Francis Ford Coppola would have to wait two years before winning Best Director, for The Godfather, Part II.) Brilliantly adapted from the acclaimed stage production, which was in turn inspired by Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories and the play and movie I Am a Camera, this remarkable musical turns the pre-war Berlin of 1931 into a sexually charged haven of decadence. Minnelli commands the screen as nightclub entertainer Sally Bowles, who radiantly goes on with the show as the Nazis rise to power, holding her many male admirers (including Michael York and Helmut Griem) at a distance that keeps her from having to bother with genuinely deep emotions. Joel Grey is the master of ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub who will guarantee a great show night after night as a way of staving off the inevitable effects of war and dictatorship. They're all living in a morally ambiguous vacuum of desperate anxiety, determined to keep up appearances as the real world--the world outside the comfortable sanctuary of the cabaret--prepares for the nightmarish chaos of war. Director-choreographer Fosse achieves a finely tuned combination of devastating drama and ebullient entertainment, and the result is one of the most substantial screen musicals ever made. --Jeff Shannon

Bob Fosse's sexy cynicism still shines in Chicago, a faithful movie adaptation of the choreographer-director's 1975 Broadway musical. Of course the story, all about merry murderesses and tabloid fame, is set in the Roaring '20s, but Chicago reeks of '70s disenchantment--this isn't just Fosse's material, it's his attitude, too. That's probably why the movie's breathless observations on fleeting fame and fickle public taste already seem dated. However, Renée Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones are beautifully matched as Jazz Age vixens, and Richard Gere gleefully sheds his customary cool to belt out a showstopper. (Yes, they all do their own singing and dancing.) Whatever qualms musical purists may have about director Rob Marshall's cut-cut-cut style, the film's sheer exuberance is intoxicating. Given the scarcity of big-screen musicals in the last 25 years, that's a cause for singing, dancing, cheering. And all that jazz. --Robert Horton

Winner of six Academy Awards(R) (2002) including Best Picture, and starring Academy Award nominee (Best Actress, CHICAGO) and Golden Globe winner (Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, CHICAGO) Renee Zellweger (BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY), Academy Award winner (Best Supporting Actress, CHICAGO) Catherine Zeta-Jones (TRAFFIC), Academy Award nominee (Best Supporting Actress, CHICAGO) Queen Latifah (BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE), Golden Globe winner (Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, CHICAGO) Richard Gere (UNFAITHFUL), and Academy Award nominee (Best Supporting Actor, CHICAGO) John C. Reilly (GANGS OF NEW YORK) -- CHICAGO is a dazzling spectacle cheered by audiences and critics alike! At a time when crimes of passion result in celebrity headlines, nightclub sensation Velma Kelly (Zeta-Jones) and spotlight-seeking Roxie Hart (Zellweger) both find themselves sharing space on Chicago's famed Murderess Row! They also share Billy Flynn (Gere), the town's slickest lawyer with a talent for turning notorious defendants into local legends. But in Chicago, there's only room for one legend! Also starring Lucy Liu (CHARLIE'S ANGELS).

The 1999 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, Fosse celebrates the work of director-choreographer Bob Fosse, one of Broadway's and film's truly innovative and distinctive talents. While Fosse's protégé Ann Reinking (also the co-choreographer) and frequent collaborator Ben Vereen are the headliners, the dance revue was conceived as an ensemble piece, so the 32-member cast gets plenty of chances to shine. The nearly two-hour performance features re-creations of dazzling numbers from such milestones as Cabaret ("Mein Herr"), Chicago ("Nowadays"), Sweet Charity ("Big Spender"), The Pajama Game ("Steam Heat"), Dancin' ("I Wanna Be a Dancin' Man"), and All That Jazz ("There'll Be Some Changes Made," among others, but not the stunning "On Broadway" sequence). Reinking, Vereen, and another Fosse collaborator, cast member Dana Moore, also share their memories in interview segments. Filmed in live performance, Fosse stands as a memorial to one man's striking vision, an essential record of many classic routines, and simply a whole lot of fun to watch. --David Horiuchi

The electricity of one of Broadway's greatest talents springs to life in Fosse, a tribute to the man behind such favorites as Cabaret, Chicago, Sweet Charity, and Pippin. A seductive mixture of physically aggressive dance moves and dazzling visual style, Bob Fosse's approach to theater revolutionized how we experience music and dance, while his mixture of cynicism and sentiment remains timely decades after his death. Join one of Fosse's most gifted collaborators, Ann Reinking, as she and a wild, gyrating cast take you through such memorable standards as "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries," "Steam Heat," "Mein Herr," and the unforgettable "Big Spender." So pull up a seat, put on your dancin' shoes, and get ready for a tune-studded show guaranteed to deliver plenty of "Razzle Dazzle!" Songs: Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, Bye Bye Blackbird, From the Edge, Percussion 4, Big Spender, Crunchy Granola Suite, From This Moment On, Transition/Dance Elements, I Wanna Be a Dancin' Man, Shoeless Joe Ballet, Dancing in the Dark, Steam Heat, I Gotcha, Rich Man's Frug, Silly Thoughts, Cool Hand Luke, Nowadays, The Hot Honey Rag, Glory, Manson Trio, Mein Herr, Take Off with Us/Three Pas de Deux, Razzle Dazzle, Who's Sorry Now, There'll Be Some Changes Made, Mr. Bojangles, Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries (reprise), Sing Sing Sing. 118 minutes.

During an audition for a chorus line, hopefuls share intimate thoughts and feelings with the demanding director.Genre: MusicalsRating: PG13Release Date: 15-APR-2003Media Type: DVD

If you've never seen this popular production performed on stage in its original form as one of the longest-running musicals in Broadway history, the movie version is probably your next best option--heck, it's your only option! But beware the major difference between the experience of stage and screen, because A Chorus Line is a perfect example of a show that doesn't translate well from one medium to another. Director Richard Attenborough gives it his best shot, cutting some of the production numbers and adding new ones while "opening up" the show to explore the off-stage lives of struggling performers as they prepare for another grueling audition. Michael Douglas plays the harsh, workaholic director who puts the auditioning "gypsies" through the paces, winnowing a large group of hopefuls down to eight lucky cast members for his next big show. There's a subplot about the director's former girlfriend, who returns for the big audition, and along the way the other hopefuls sing and dance while revealing their various hopes and fears. On screen, the musical works best when focused on its dramatic passages; otherwise it's impossible to escape the fact that this material is best suited to live performance. --Jeff Shannon

CABARET - DVD Movie

Winner of eight Academy Awards, including Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actress (Liza Minnelli), and Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey), Cabaret would also have taken Best Picture if it hadn't been competing against The Godfather as the most acclaimed film of 1972. (Francis Ford Coppola would have to wait two years before winning Best Director, for The Godfather, Part II.) Brilliantly adapted from the acclaimed stage production, which was in turn inspired by Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories and the play and movie I Am a Camera, this remarkable musical turns the pre-war Berlin of 1931 into a sexually charged haven of decadence. Minnelli commands the screen as nightclub entertainer Sally Bowles, who radiantly goes on with the show as the Nazis rise to power, holding her many male admirers (including Michael York and Helmut Griem) at a distance that keeps her from having to bother with genuinely deep emotions. Joel Grey is the master of ceremonies at the Kit Kat Klub who will guarantee a great show night after night as a way of staving off the inevitable effects of war and dictatorship. They're all living in a morally ambiguous vacuum of desperate anxiety, determined to keep up appearances as the real world--the world outside the comfortable sanctuary of the cabaret--prepares for the nightmarish chaos of war. Director-choreographer Fosse achieves a finely tuned combination of devastating drama and ebullient entertainment, and the result is one of the most substantial screen musicals ever made. --Jeff Shannon

FOSSE - DVD Movie

The 1999 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, Fosse celebrates the work of director-choreographer Bob Fosse, one of Broadway's and film's truly innovative and distinctive talents. While Fosse's protégé Ann Reinking (also the co-choreographer) and frequent collaborator Ben Vereen are the headliners, the dance revue was conceived as an ensemble piece, so the 32-member cast gets plenty of chances to shine. The nearly two-hour performance features re-creations of dazzling numbers from such milestones as Cabaret ("Mein Herr"), Chicago ("Nowadays"), Sweet Charity ("Big Spender"), The Pajama Game ("Steam Heat"), Dancin' ("I Wanna Be a Dancin' Man"), and All That Jazz ("There'll Be Some Changes Made," among others, but not the stunning "On Broadway" sequence). Reinking, Vereen, and another Fosse collaborator, cast member Dana Moore, also share their memories in interview segments. Filmed in live performance, Fosse stands as a memorial to one man's striking vision, an essential record of many classic routines, and simply a whole lot of fun to watch. --David Horiuchi

VARIOS INTERPRETES CABARET

Cheated out of playing nightclub canary Sally Bowles on Broadway in director Hal Price's Cabaret, Liza Minnelli nevertheless delivered an Oscar-winning star turn in Bob Fosse's cinematic reinvention of the show (which had the good sense to retain perverse imp Joel Grey from the stage production). Although the 1972 film discarded several songs from the original score, the new ones sound even better: Minnelli's breast-beating "Maybe This Time," the sultry "Mein Herr," and the salaciously satirical "Money, Money." By placing almost all the pertinent musical action on the stage of the decadent Kit Kit Club, the Kurt Weill-like compositional nuances and political underpinnings bask in the spotlight...that is, when Minnelli stops eclipsing it with her no-holds-barred performance. --Kurt B. Reighley

Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 04/04/2006 Run time: 55 minutes

The DVD Holy Grail for Liza Minnelli fans finally surfaces after 30-some years: Liza with a "Z", a splashy TV special from 1972. And wow, is it ever a product of its era. Minnelli and director-choreographer Bob Fosse were at the top of their popularity in 1972, having just made Cabaret, the blockbuster musical for which both won Oscars. Liza with a "Z" places the still-coltish Minnelli on the stage of the Lyceum Theater, in a one-night-only performance covered by Fosse's eight cameras. Songs by Cabaret composers John Kander and Fred Ebb provide a spine for the show, including a breathless rendition of "Ring Them Bells" and the tongue-twisting "Say Liza (Liza with a 'Z')," a goofball number that sounds more like one of Danny Kaye's patter songs than a tune for Liza Minnelli. Liza treats each song as an emotional Mount Everest, never holding back a thing, and the result is a psychodrama played out in the klieg lights. (The outrageous costumes by Halston don't hold back a thing, either; Studio 54, here we come!) Memories of the all-or-nothing style of her mother, Judy Garland, are already heavy in the air by the time Minnelli reaches "My Mammy," and workouts on "God Bless the Child" and "Son of a Preacher Man" confirm the singer's approach. As for Fosse's choreography, there are signature moves aplenty--his dancing so frequently suggested a choreographer lusting for actual sex to break out on stage. "Bye Bye Blackbird" gives Minnelli and her backup dancers a chance to stretch out in an echt-Fosse feast of bowler hats and white gloves. The bell-and-booty shaking in "Ring Them Bells" and the loony tuxedo-clad cowpokes in "I Gotcha" hint that Fosse was in the midst of a manic phase. Speaking of which, Minnelli tackling Joe Tex's "I Gotcha" is one of those jaw-dropping mismatches that she salvages only through dint of daft commitment. No quarreling with the Cabaret medley; say want you want about Liza, she owns those songs. Minnelli and Fosse won Emmys for the show. The restoration of the original materials looks about as good as can be expected, with the spirit of a glitzy seventies TV variety special quite intact. --Robert Horton

The casting director for Chicago, Pippin, Becket, Gypsy, The Graduate, the Sound of Music and Jesus Christ Superstar tells you how you can find your dream! Absolutely everything an actor needs to know to get the part is here: What to do that moment before, how to use humour; create mystery; how to develop a distinct style; and how to evaluate the place, the relationships and the competition. In fact, Audition is a necessary guide to dealing with all the "auditions" we face in life. This is the bible on the subject.

The casting director for Chicago, Pippin, Becket, Gypsy, The Graduate, the Sound of Music and Jesus Christ Superstar tells you how you can find your dream! Absolutely everything an actor needs to know to get the part is here: What to do that moment before, how to use humour; create mystery; how to develop a distinct style; and how to evaluate the place, the relationships and the competition. In fact, Audition is a necessary guide to dealing with all the "auditions" we face in life. This is the bible on the subject.

Fosse changed the face of American dance, with dance movements of openly sexual postures, pelvic thrusts, slouched backs, and turned-in knees, and subjects just as scnadalous, bringing sleazy nightclubs, brothels and the porno world to the stage and screen in such hits as Cabaret, Sweet Charity and Star 80. Here is the story of his wild and flashy life. Photos throughout.

Based on the play by Maurine Dallas Watkins 9m, 10f Premiering in 1975 and the hit of the 1997 Broadway season in a production that originated at City Center's Encore! series, Chicago won six Tony Awards including Best Revival and later the Academy Award as Best Picture of the Year. In roaring twenties Chicago, chorine Roxie Hart murders a faithless lover and convinces her hapless husband Amos to take the rap...until he finds out he's been duped and turns on Roxie. Convicted and sent to death row, Roxie and another "Merry Murderess" Velma Kelly, vie for the spotlight and the headlines, ultimately joining forces in search of the "American Dream": fame, fortune and acquittal. This sharp edged satire features a dazzling score that sparked immortal staging by Bob Fosse. "'A pulse racing revival that flies us right into musical heaven." -The New York Times "Wildly entertaining...[with a] dazzling score." -New York Daily News