If it’s possible to credit the last three years’ resurgence of the movie musical to one person, it has to be the late Bob Fosse. His highly physical, breathlessly sexualized choreography has influenced nearly all the genre’s post-millennial successes—most obviously last year’s Oscar-winning Chicago. Fosse also directed two of the last great musicals before the genre completely collapsed in the 1980s, and both are out this month on DVD: Cabaret, the 1972 celebration of Weimar decadence, and 1979’s All That Jazz, his brilliant if overlong self-epitaph. The odd one out in this bunch is Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 Moulin Rouge, a huge popular success that proved musicals could still be palatable to today’s audiences. We found it unwatchable, sorry to say—terminally shallow and giddy as laughing gas. But we’re convinced of Luhrmann’s talent (check out his debut, Strictly Ballroom), and if he can dial it down a notch, next time he could be the director who finally outfoxes Fosse.
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