RIP filmmaker Les Blank, 1935-2013.
Les Blank served as director and cinematographer of dozens of films, mostly documentaries. He’s probably most famous for his 1982 film Burden of Dreams, which chronicles Werner Herzog struggling against nature and humanity alike to make Fitzcarraldo. For me, the two films are inseparable. Here is Blank talking about making that film:
(Les Blank also made Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe).
Blank was also famous for documenting blues, jazz, folk, and other types of roots music in a naturalistic, earthy fashion.
He also loved gap toothed women:
One day I will write about the time I saw US Maple at The EARL in Atlanta and saw the cheerleading film Bring It On at some bar next door before the show and how several mentally-handicapped fans came to the Maple show in full camo and how my friend spent the entire show in the back of my other friend’s Mazda in an agonizing migraine and how the show was maybe the weirdest and most oddly aggressive show I’ve ever seen and how the Maples kept bumping into each other and they wore homemade vests and the whole deal was deeply disorienting and then after the show the Mazda broke somewhere on I-95 and we drove all the way back to Gainesville in 3rd gear and got home some time as the sun was coming up.
RIP Roger Ebert, 1942-2013
Roger Ebert had a tremendous impact on how I thought about criticism and how a review should be written, voiced, pitched. I didn’t always agree with the guy, but I loved watching his show (usually more than the films he and Siskel reviewed) and reading his reviews, and I loved following him on Twitter, where I’ll miss him most I guess.
(And, while you’re at it…check out Korine’s Five Favorite Films at Rotten Tomatoes).
Biblioklept 