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just throw one of these bad boys on and bask in les blank’s loving portrait of humanity and the finer things in life - garlic, polka, gap teeth, etc.
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Think about it ; most successful movies these days have boring-ass, one word titles : Barbie, Oppenheimer, Wicked, Sonic, I could go on... It seems no one dares to give interesting titles to their films.
To counter this, I now offer you a short list of the names of Les Blank's documentaries. The man notoriously knew how to name his films, AND he looked like a pirate from the seventies, what could go wrong ?
1. A Poem Is a Naked Person, about Leon Russel, a GROOVY singer from the depths of the 70s
2. Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers, you guessed it, it's about garlic
3. Burden of Dreams, The making of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, you may have seen a delightful clip of this film were Herzog rants in the rainforest
4. God Respects Us When We Work, but Loves Us When We Dance, general hippie tomfoolery
5. Werner Herzog eats his shoe, about losing a bet (and Werner Herzog !!!!)
All this to say people should really put more thought into naming their films, books, music etc, because it's so much more fun !!
Also just in general, if you've been wondering about American culture (can it even be defined ?) I highly recommend these films. Take a deep dive in the music, food, rituals of hippies, immigrants, suburban families... in the 70s, watch Les Blank !
Dec 28, 2024
on it’s face this is not a particularly interesting documentary, the editing is serviceable and the interviews aren’t exactly dynamic, but what it lacks in creativity it more than makes up for in content. blank city tells the story of the no wave movement in 70s/80s downtown nyc from the ones who lived it. truly one of the most inspiring documentaries that i found at a pivotal point in my life that changed the trajectory of how i view filmmaking, art, and just coolness in general. blank city is the story of one of the most transgressive artist communities of all time and they’re not very well known, just a few names made it to the mainstream with many others becoming underground legends. in fact a few of the films featured in this documentary are only viewable by screening at the museum of modern art, totally unreleased everywhere else (and trust me i’ve tried to find them) this doc got me into the new york art scene, velvet underground, jim jarmusch, glenn o’brien’s tv party, patti smith, andy warhol, lydia lunch, john lurie, jean-michel basquiat and on and on and on. this film opened a gateway into filmmaking that i had never even considered at that point in my life and i’m grateful i found it. the best part is: kino lorber was kind enough to upload the entire thing on youtube to watch right now!
Jan 17, 2025
Beautiful 30-minute short doc from 1990 by Les Blank about traditional Louisiana food culture
Jan 25, 2024
Top Recs from @ruben
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altin gün is a good band and they put together this really expansive and well curated selection of 20th century turkish funk, psych and traditional music
Dec 8, 2022
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going here in the winter is one of the most magical experiences you can treat yourself to - they’ve got old jazz christmas classics blasting at top volume from a boombox somewhere and it reverberates through the massive space and you can just be there with your thoughts and peruse unspeakable amounts of items
Dec 8, 2022