Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Superior musical from the genius Bob Fosse,mixing reality and fantasy where telling your own life as the main character Roy Scheider in an unforgettable performance as workaholic director who living when is working,fantastic choreography seeking the perfection all time driven him to lives with pills,cigarettes and sex....stressed almost has a heart attack until has going to hospital...there continuous working in his masterpiece on a surreal time...fresh musical giving another dimension at this style...extremely sexy goes beyond of imagination...Resume:First watch: 1993 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 8.5

I remember watching the movie back in 1982, and what stuck most in my mind was the recurring scene of Roy Scheider facing the mirror with the eye drops and dexedrine tablets saying: "It's showtime folks!"Bob Fosse made a overview about his life, in which recognizes that he is not taking the right path. Even so, he is still being able to succumb to the stream of indolence. It is as if he had no choice but to surrender to his self-destructive attitude.The film also has a transcendental view: he knows he is going to die soon. The role of "Angel of Death" is played by Jessica Lange, who listen his final statement. Despite of his misbehaviour, she does not judge him. This causes a strange feeling in the viewer: empathize with him notwithstanding what we have said.Anyway, what we have is an honest, well-directed and gripping musical autobiography. 9/10

I had never thought much of Roy Scheider till I saw this movie late one night, quite by chance. It was inspired casting on Bob Fosse's part I think, cant imagine anyone else as Joe Gideon.Although I do not usually enjoy "musicals" I do thoroughly enjoy this slightly surreal, slightly gritty movie that presents a series of colorful tableau culminating in a memorable final scene.Although the story is considered to be autobiographic the underlying study of a self destructive psyche and approach of death is intriguing, set in a back drop of modern dance and music.Probably has to find a place in my 100 favorite movies.

For about half the duration, I thought this was going to be a masterpiece, a bit of late but considerable innovation for the musical. All the way back to Busby Berkeley in the 30's, the musical was a film about our film being put together, this was already a worn-out trope by the time of this. But there were clear demarcations in those days, between a life you agonized about in terms of creative love and the big stage where all of it was magically danced right.So I thought the experiment, a very interesting one, was the same template - a film about both a film and a Broadway show - but blurred lines between stages and dance spliced in the small moments, not the perfect dance, but the one that is human and flawed. It has all sorts of new cameras capturing that, or thought to be new then on this blockbuster level. It has Welles. It has Altman's roaming eye. It has Nouvelle Vague. Cassavetes. Kubrick. All of it blends in one style that is pretty cool to watch. It is visual jazz in the sweep of improvisation.So the first half of this is just a beautiful melange of sometimes cold intimacy being confessed inbetween poise, and the poise is as spontaneous as the people improvising feelings, making it up as they go along, as we all do. But Bob Fosse was an egomaniac, so it was not enough to give snippets of life being danced into motion, a rehearsal of life. It had to be a big show. It had to razzle-dazzle us.The problem is that Fosse is just not, as a thinker, a cinematic jazzman. The second half is maudlin, crass (thinking he will shock), obvious, self-important, ordinary in that frivolous way that passes caprice as insight. It seems like someone is out to impress instead of being content to evoke.The good thing that came out of this is that it probably inspired Dennis Potter to write his own autobiographical musical of sorts, The Singing Detective, a beautiful work of much more earthy imagination.But apparently the French were impressed. The film won at Cannes.