Les Blank's New Film

Proto-chowhound filmmaker Les Blank, one of the early pillars of the food-lover's pantheon, is still going strong. In the early 1970's he made a series of documentaries about food culture (and music and other good stuff), including the classic Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers, a film about the Gilroy Garlic Festival that's traditionally screened with the stinking bulb sauteeing right in the theater. Les also directed a classic not-about-food, film, Burden of Dreams. It's about the making of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, and is generally considered the only making-of film that's better than its subject.

Les is premiering his newest work in NYC, starting tonight (Friday) night, at Manhattan's Cinema Village. "All in This Tea" profiles tea radical David Hoffman (who I wrote about on my Chow Tour in a piece entitled "The Enchanted Misty Mountain of Tea and Excrement"). See the trailer here, read the rave LA Times review of the film here, and order the DVD here. It's supposed to be great.

I've begged Les to release a complete set of all his films, just to use the title "A Complete Blank".

In other movie news, Les' old friend Werner Herzog has a new film out, Encounters at the Edge of the World, about the folks living and working at the McMurdo Station in Antarctica.