Got this in today. Anyone watch it yet? How's the commentary? Transfer? This is a fantastic movie that I've always wanted to see get the Criterion treatment. This could be close.

I'm looking forward to you and anyone elses reaction to the auio-commentary. Paul Schrader is one of my favorites. I'm sure his commentary about the film will be very smart and interesting. He'll probably talk about sub-text that you didn't even imagine he was trying to work in. And then when he says it, you'll go, "Oh, I see. That's right." Watch it soon and get back to us.

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THE EDEN MYTH: Coming to Hollywood Video Feb. 23, 2000
www.edenmyth.com

I'd sure like to see a release of "Which Way Is Up?" I'd settle for a bare bones DVD of this classic Richard Pryor film. His best, IMHO.
As for "Blue Collar", I read somewhere (I think it may have been at the Digital Bits) that the 3 stars didn't get along well, and that Pryor was a total pain in the ass for all concerned. Aside from that, how's the DVD?

[This message has been edited by Laredog (edited February 11, 2000).]

It's interesting. I love this movie and have been collecting weir dparaphenalia unofficially since it came out (I have b&w publicity photos of the stars sitting on a couch from the key scene of the film, the Discovision set of it that sort of plays on laserdisc that a friend gave me, and the original novelization by Leonard Schrader). However, my favorite item has always been the tape I dubbed off the old vhs of it that was totally grimy and hard to watch. I felt that this was the way that the film was meant to be seen, partly because that's the way I first saw it and partly because the asthetic of the film was very dark and murky and, like the obscure movies Travis Bickle watches in Taxi Driver, it is hard to watch. When a vhs rerelease happened some years back it was so cleaned up and brightened I remember thinking that they had actually done it a diservice (not unlike colorizing a movie that was intentionally made in b&w). However, from the little bit of the dvd that I've watched so far it seems that the murkiness has been kept intact. It looks more like the way I remember it, which is a good thing. I think (although I have no idea if this is true) that Anchor Bay decided to preserve the dark and corrupt, almost degraded, look of the film, rather than clean it up like on the vhs rerelease. The transfer is 16X9, so obviously care has gone into it.

As for the stars getting along, there is a version of this story in the director bio (a weird place to hide it).

The director commentary consists of Schrader having a conversation with a film historian, probably because he is so strange and seemingly uncomfortable talking about ... anything. He is a very intelligent man, but you get the sense that he is not put together right. Whereas other director's commentaries (good one) have the director sounding lucid and intelligent, Schrader always sounds a little off, but clearly has insights into things.

The design of the disc is kinda weak (I've designed better interactive menus for projects than that in minutes) but the fact that this mostly forgotten film has gotten a thoughtful treatment is good enough for me. Along with Notorious, Nosferatu, and Fitzcarraldo I gotta say, Anchor Bay is doing great work.

Well, now I have a little more to say (plus moving this up can't hurt; I wish more people would find out about this great film).

The commentary is interesting, but a little more sparse than I'm used to. Paul Schrader does not have the chattery interest that, say Wes Anderson or Scorsese have. What he does say is good, but there are some spaces in between comments.

This commentary is, fo me, unique because Schrader is unafraid to criticize the movie. IT is the first film he directed and he claims to not have seen it since it's premiere. He points out many ways in which he now feels he either made mistakes or was immature as a director. This is one of the ugliest films I've ever seen, but that is intentional and adds to the point of the film, although I think a more experienced Schrader would have stylized it a bit more. He also points out the dogmatic style of much of the dialogue, the "hit 'em with your point" nature of speech that he has grown out of.

He also talks at great length about the hatred between his three stars: Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, and Yaphet Kotto. He was constantly in fear that one of them would walk so he would shoot each scene all the way through, that way if someone left he'd at least have the scene from one angle, which explains the number of scenes that play out in master shot and the lack of camera moves.

This is by no means a disc that you would show to people to show off your home theater. It is a raw, rough piece of political commentary that sometimes seems to have so much bile to spew that the film itself seems to be coming apart. Long silences, grimy imagery, and depressing situations broken up with desperate humor from Richard Pryor make this film unique and fascinating.