Like “Pink Floyd The Wall,” “All That Jazz” is one of those simultaneously brilliant and infuriatingly narcissistic autobiographies that many artists create to expose themselves to the world, warts and all.  Except … is this really the darkest pit of their ugly soul these artists are exposing?  Or is it a ruse to keep people off the scent of their true self … a self so horrible that they feel the need to throw out some “bad” stuff in order to win praise for “bravery”? Who knows?

The sequence linked here is the last 18+ minutes of the film … an extended sequence with a “Broadway” version of the Everly Brothers’ “Bye Bye Love” that is simultaneously nauseating and dazzling.  Nauseating because it’s a “Broadway” version of the Everly Brothers … dazzling because it’s one of the most brilliant artistic talents of the last century at his best.   This is a sequence you’ll either love or hate.  I want to hate this in the worst way, but … I totally love it.  It’s tacky, tasteless, and over-the-top, but I think it was meant to be all of these things.  Love it or hate it, you have to admire the balls-to-the-wall energy and chutzpah on display here.  And the part near the end where the Fosse surrogate, Joe Gideon (brilliantly played by Roy Scheider), hugs his tearful daughter on his way to death’s door always makes me cry.  It’s the one extremely real moment in an otherwise fanciful sequence and it hits like a motherf–ker!

“I Got Nothin’” was originally composed and performed during the end of the Stooges’ (early 1970s version) tenure in 1974 (it appears on their infamous live album “Metallic K.O.”)  It was re-recorded by Iggy Pop and James Williamson in 1975 for a series of demos that was later released in 1977 as the “Kill City” album.  The songs were originally supposed to function as a demo to get Iggy a new recording deal after the demise of the Stooges and a recent stay in a metal hospital.  In fact, these demos were recorded during weekend passes from Iggy’s mental hospital. A record deal based on these songs didn’t happen at the time, but after Iggy found some success with his official late 1970s comeback with David Bowie, Bomp Records offered some money to remix and overdub the original tracks, releasing the final product as “Kill City.”

This is my favorite song off the album and it’s one of Iggy’s best.  Despite it’s very raw sound, it sounds like it wouldn’t have been out of place on the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street.”  A very nice mix of hard rock, punk, and blues and a very underrated song in Iggy’s oeuvre.  Used to great effect during a disturbing scene in Penelope Spheeris’s 1985 serial killer melodrama “The Boys Next Door.”

One of the best scenes from Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained” contains no action and no dialogue.  It’s just a simple montage of Jamie Foxx’s and Christoph Waltz’s characters riding horses set to Jim Croce’s “I Got a Name.”  A big part of my love for this scene is due to the Croce song, one of my favorites from listening to AM-radio in the 1970s.