Robert Downey Sr.

[Cash Flagg]

Greaser's Palace is comin to DVD on November 23rd from Scorpion Releasing. Here's their website, with info on other upcoming titles.

[hearthesilence]

Couldn't find mention of this anywhere, but Robert Downey Sr. says Criterion is prepping his first four (or three, can't remember for sure) films for release.

He said it this past week when he appeared at the Brooklyn Academy of Music for a post-screening discussion of Hal Ashby's The Landlord. (Ashby was a good friend of Downey's and BAM's currently running a retrospective on Ashby's films.) During the Q&A, someone just asked him "when are your films going to be out on DVD?" and he said Criterion's doing them.

[Thomas Dukenfield]

Couldn't find mention of this anywhere, but Robert Downey Sr. says Criterion is prepping his first four (or three, can't remember for sure) films for release.

Holy shit. He'd be perfect for an Eclipse release. I have boots of Pound, Moment to Moment, and Chafed Elbows, but none of them have even been released on VHS.

[PBR Streetgang]

I see that Greaser's Palace is mentioned often here in this thread. Is that the best one to watch after Putney Swope? I liked that one a lot and am looking for the next Downey film to watch.

[Calvin]

Scorpion are releasing Greaser's Palace on Blu-Ray in May

[knives]

I like Downey a lot, but Greaser’s Palace has all of his worst traits amplified to the max with none of the good. He can be an incisive and funny artist using Dadaism well. This has the most in common with Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight, but that film was secure in being a bunch of nonsense and also mercifully short. Palace instead absently mindedly brings up TOPICS in big flashing letters coming across as insure about being a Tim and Eric predecessor. The comedy is just screeches and scrambles without anything funny happening or being said making the normally satisfying 90 minute runtime an absolute punishment I could not stand. It could honestly be the worst film I’ve seen from otherwise competent filmmakers.

Sticks and Bones made around the same time which I’ve seen recently is a far better film on the other end of the Downey spectrum bringing up topics and utilizing them rather than being a madlibs and utilizing surprise for humour in a way that is very effective. It’s also a very sharp film emotionally. A real highlight to a career hidden away by an uncaring owner.

[beamish14]

I like Downey a lot, but Greaser’s Palace has all of his worst traits amplified to the max with none of the good. He can be an incisive and funny artist using Dadaism well. This has the most in common with Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight, but that film was secure in being a bunch of nonsense and also mercifully short. Palace instead absently mindedly brings up TOPICS in big flashing letters coming across as insure about being a Tim and Eric predecessor. The comedy is just screeches and scrambles without anything funny happening or being said making the normally satisfying 90 minute runtime an absolute punishment I could not stand. It could honestly be the worst film I’ve seen from otherwise competent filmmakers.

Sticks and Bones made around the same time which I’ve seen recently is a far better film on the other end of the Downey spectrum bringing up topics and utilizing them rather than being a madlibs and utilizing surprise for humour in a way that is very effective. It’s also a very sharp film emotionally. A real highlight to a career hidden away by an uncaring owner.

It’s truly sad to realize how far American network television has declined after watching Sticks and Bones. The bootleg that snuck out looks more than passable, and I wonder if someone at CBS actually got ahold of it. It screened with Downey in person at the Cinefamily some years before appearing on torrents. I don’t think the Paley Center has it

[therewillbeblus]

I like Downey a lot, but Greaser’s Palace has all of his worst traits amplified to the max with none of the good.

I forgot I had seen this til you mentioned it.. Such a massive disappointment after Putney Swope. I think the Coens are big fans of it, and I remember feeling like that made sense even though I like them (as you say, it evokes their worst qualities)

[beamish14]

I like Downey a lot, but Greaser’s Palace has all of his worst traits amplified to the max with none of the good.

I forgot I had seen this til you mentioned it.. Such a massive disappointment after Putney Swope. I think the Coens are big fans of it, and I remember feeling like that made sense even though I like them (as you say, it evokes their worst qualities)

P.T. Anderson is also a huge fan of this one. I don’t quite get the appeal, either

[pianocrash]

I always thought Greaser's Palace was a huge stiff middle finger to El Topo, which I can only gather was a huge phenomenon at the time for lots of reasons in his realm, but still a weird riff nonetheless (without one you cannot have the other, possibly).

The fact that GP is a thing made by human beings is a wonder in and of itself - it pretty much transcends good or bad taste or even art as a thing that occupies space that people should or should not enjoy, but I'd always viewed it as his Metal Machine Music or maybe Music, Martinis & Misanthropy. It's really something else entirely. Anything is possible! Even this.

Also, seeing someone flop flat on their face in an attempt to "entertain" is always a good time, like when you see a mascot uncomfortably try to exit the stage but can't seem to find the exit, or where the curtain ends, etc. Big failure is admirable, just maybe not too rewatchable.

Blowing $1M in 1972 money and producing this movie is also another level of miracle, hail hallelujah, good lord, but that's what happens when you enter a fifth dimensional space of mental awareness that is probably better "understood" via the aid of your choice of recreational motivators.

I still get a laugh when I remember that when asked early in their career by Francis Ford Coppola what their favorite movie of his they most enjoyed, the Coen Brothers said Finian's Rainbow, because of course they did :-"

I have boots of Pound, Moment to Moment, and Chafed Elbows, but none of them have even been released on VHS.

I know it's not 2011 anymore, but clips of Pound were included in the recent Sr. documentary on Netflix (along with lots of others in varying states of conditions, some better than others), so I would hope Jr. eventually does the right thing, unless somehow he gets them released by Sony and rebrands them as a Marvel Universe series (it could happen).