Extra! Extra! Read all about it -- Heaven on Earth discovered in this remastered DVD!

Okay. Stop what you're doing. Put down the knitting. Put down the book. And for God's sake put down the broom and run out and buy LIZA WITH A Z! (That's Zee, not Zed).

From the back of the DVD:

In 1972 Liza Minnelli and Broadway legend Bob Fosse took the Oscars by storm for CABARET. That same year, the two paired up once again to create the spectacular musical special LIZA WITH A Z, making television history -- and carting home four Emmys in the process. Now, Liza and the Executive Producers of the Academy Award-winning CHICAGO bring the glamour and glitter to DVD for the very first time in Dolby Digital 5.1. Restore. Remastered, and Remarkable!

It's all that and more. Of course three other people played key roles in the TV special -- John Kander, Fred Ebb and Marvin Hamlisch. Oh, and Halston did all her costumes, which are absolutely fabulous, darling! And according to the commentary at the Toronto International Film Festival (where the newly restored film was "premiered" on Sept 9, 2005), the costumes gave Standards and Practices a heart attack since they thought they saw nipples showing! I wonder if that is where the scene from SCROOGED comes from...

I didn't see this when it first aired, but boy am I glad it's available now. After all the goofy press she's been getting lately there is a risk that people might forget what a genius performer she really was. The singing, the dancing, the emotions, the whole package. It's so darn exciting to watch.

I think my two favorite numbers are "My Mammy" and the famous white gloved "Bye Bye Blackbird".

Speaking of jazz hands, Liza was filthy with them, using them very powerfully. But listening to her talk with John Kander in the Bonus Features, you realize that maybe Fosse and Minnelli can't take the credit for those hands. It was Fred Ebb who used his hands that way! Liza and Kander and Ebb seemed destined to work together, perfect complements. Kander and Liza said they used to joke that Liza was a figment of Fred Ebb's imagination!

The actual restoration was done over six years by Michael Arick, and thankfully Liza owned the rights to it so it didn't get lost in the vast network vaults (or garbage pails...).

I love that the feel of the times (1972) positively oozes off the screen. Liza tells a story about how they only have a couple of hours to eat and get ready for the show after rehearsal, so they had to rent a room in the "hooker hotel" across the street. Turns out everyone was renting those rooms by the hour, including the bugs scurrying around the floor!

From the liner notes by Craig Zadan (one of the producers of the movie CHICAGO, and the producer who brought this project to Showtime), who was there that night in 1972:

Today, LIZA WITH A Z has come full circle. Watching this extraordinary movie in its newly pristine incarnation vividly brings me back to that great night at the Lyceum Theater when Liza hijacked my heart and revealed to that screaming audience just what happens when a star is, literally, born.

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