Liza's at The Palace.... Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Liza's at The Palace.... Blu-ray Movie Review

Like You've Never Seen Her Before

Reviewed by Michael Reuben November 30, 2011

Many show business legends have spent years in tabloid hell, often deservedly. From her very birth, Liza Minnelli seemed destined for gossip columns and late-night talk show punchlines. The daughter of Judy Garland, a beloved star of stage and screen who was legendary for a tempestuous personal life, Minnelli often seemed to be competing with her famous "Mama" for attention, adulation, show business achievement (an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy and three Tony Awards) substance abuse and a personal life that routinely threatened to eclipse her accomplishments. In 2007, after the very public break-up of her marriage (Minnelli's fourth) to promoter David Guest, Minnelli appeared to have reached the nadir of her career.

But never count out a talented diva with fierce ambition and a loyal fan base (and not just among gay men). Minnelli came roaring back in December 2008 with the kind of special event on Broadway that routinely sells out at the holiday season, when New York City is bustling with visitors. The show was called Liza's at the Palace, because it played at the Palace Theatre on Broadway, where Minnelli had performed her previous one-woman show, Minnelli on Minnelli, directed by the late Fred Ebb (of "Kander & Ebb", creators of Cabaret and Chicago). But this show was a little different. It was more directly autobiographical, more wistful about the passage of time, above all more candid (though not apologetic) about the fact that everyone knew her most intimate secrets. Or did they? In Act II of Liza's at the Palace, its star shares stories with her audience that the tabloids never covered.

The Broadway show was a limited engagement, but the production went on to Las Vegas, where, on October 1, 2009, the performance was recorded at the MGM Grand and subsequently released on DVD and Blu-ray.

The stage is largely bare, with the orchestra at the back under the direction of Minnelli's long-time accompanist, piano man Billy Stritch. Alone in the first act, often accompanied by an elegant quartet of male dancers in the second, Liza puts out a steady stream of energy for a woman aged 65. (Minnelli never gives the exact figure, but the show is laced with age jokes.) There are plenty of references to her recent divorce, but what's remarkable is how knowing and indirect they are. One of the few advantages of having your personal life splashed across newspapers, TV and the internet is that the entire audience becomes your best friend. A nod and a wink is all you need to put across the punchline. When Minnelli performs "If You Hadn't, But You Did", a song by Kander & Ebb about a woman who guns down her philandering man, she introduces it by saying that she knows just how the lady feels. The crowd eats it up.

Act II is a tribute to Minnelli's godmother, Kay Thompson, singer, songwriter, vocal coach, film actress (Funny Face), night club performer, creator of the Eloise books and show business mentor to Minnelli, Andy Williams and others. In between recreating some of Thompson's signature routines with the Williams Brothers at Ciro's in Hollywood, Minnelli relates an array of poignant tales: sitting in her mother's lap at age 2 watching Thompson perform; having to tell Thompson on the phone that her mother had died; Thompson's extravagant notion for redecorating a bedroom (the tale may be apocryphal, but it says a lot about the person); the last words she exchanged with Thompson, who by then was sharing Minnelli's apartment in Manhattan. Parodies of Minnelli, of which there are many, routinely have her reflexively invoking her mother's spirit, but after hearing and seeing how much inspiration she drew and still draws from Thompson (who also, according to Minnelli, taught her famous mother how to sing), it's clear those parodies missed the mark.

Minnelli looks good for her age, and she still has the graceful moves of the dancer who brought Sally Bowles so memorably to life in Cabaret. But the show has obviously been arranged to accommodate her reduced stamina, and when she pauses between numbers, you catch glimpses of the toll that years of hard living have taken on a finally tuned instrument. Still, as Kay Thompson said of Garland, she did what she wanted and had a blast. It shows.

The complete song list is as follows:

Act 1

1. Teach Me Tonight
2. I Would Never Leave You
3. If You Hadn't, But You Did
4. What Makes a Man a Man
5. My Own Best Friend
6. Maybe This Time
7. He's Funny That Way
8. Palace Medley
• Shine On Harvest Moon
• Some of These Days
• My Man
• I Don't Care
9. Cabaret

Act 2

10. And the World Goes 'Round
11. Hello, Hello
12. Jubilee Time
13. Basin Street Blues
14. Clap Yo' Hands
15. Liza (All the Clouds'll Roll Away)
16. Look for the Silver Lining
17. I Love a Violin
18. Mammy
19. New York, New York

Encore

20. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Liza's at The Palace.... Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The 1080i, AVC-encoded Blu-ray from MPI is sharp and detailed, allowing you to see each individual sequin on Minnelli's costumes. Despite the interlaced format, there is no visible flickering or combing while the image is in motion (screencaps are a different matter). Blacks are deep and solid, which is crucial for the lighting design of this show, where Minnelli is often isolated in light surrounded by darkness. The color scheme is simple, but the colors are bright without being fluorescent or Vegas-flashy. This being a disc from MPI and not Image, we get a BD-50 and don't have to give compression artifacts a second thought.

Liza's at The Palace.... Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 5.1 mix presented in DTS lossless uses the discrete format conservatively. Even the audience applause and cheering are relatively quiet in the surrounds, so that the focus of the soundtrack remains toward the front. Whether singing or speaking, Minnelli's voice has been recorded with perfect clarity, down to the slightest catch or crack (all of them undoubtedly deliberate and for effect). Billy Stritch's piano and the accompanying orchestra are always audible, but discreetly so, because the voice is the star here. Bass extension is unusually strong for a track of this sort, but not so strong that you're pulled away from the headliner.

Liza's at The Palace.... Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• "Heart-to-Heart Conversation Between Liza and Director/Choreographer Ron Lewis (HD; 1.78:1; 47:35): Taped on Oct. 2, 2009, the day after the performance, Minnelli and Lewis range widely over the history of the show and its development. Some of the points are matters of detail, for example, the decision to open Act II with "And the World Goes 'Round" (from Cabaret) to get the audience's energy back up before launching into the stories about Kay Thompson. Some are major, like the original inspiration for the show, which was a fluke; Minnelli was trying to interest a record company executive in an album of Thompson's songs, and when he seemed uninterested, she invented a fictitious show she was planning about her godmother as an excuse for playing him the songs.

Liza's at The Palace.... Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

As entertainment continues to move further from live performance, there will be fewer and fewer stars with that indefinable quality known as "presence", the ability to electrify a room and command the attention of a thousand or more people simultaneously. Whatever else she may be, Liza Minnelli belongs to that rare breed, and Liza's at the Palace, while not quite the same as sitting in the audience while she performs, brings you as close to the experience as a recording can. Recommended.