Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 7, 2019

Note: This film is available as part of Les Blank: Always for Pleasure.

Chances are that unless you have a specialized interest in some of the indigenous folk music(s) of the United States, your recognition of the name Les Blank, if indeed you recognize it at all, may well come courtesy of Burden of Dreams (note that the link points to a DVD, not a Blu-ray), Blank’s fascinating documentary about the filming of Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. That piece was actually kind of an outlier in Blank’s oeuvre, a large body of work that otherwise tended to focus primarily on musicians (though there are a couple of exceptions in this set). Criterion’s collection of fourteen Blank documentaries may understandably be thought of as a niche product, but for those interested in this subject, it’s a virtual smorgasbord of great performances and at least some biographical data.

If you've ever wanted to hear Werner Herzog tout the benefits of garlic (and who among us hasn't?), this really odd but engaging documentary may well be your garlic infused cup of tea. This is one of the weirder inclusions in this set, one that doesn't really seem to fit in with Blank's emphasis on indigenous American music, and yet in a way it feels perfectly at home with several other documentaries included here, since it so capably mixes a love for food with a nice portrait of a community, in this case East Bay, California. Spicy, but sweet.

Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of the Criterion Collection with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1.

Criterion's insert booklet has the following information on the transfers in this set:

All fourteen films are presented in their original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right side of the image to maintain the proper screen format. These new digital transfers were created in 2K resolution on a Scanity film scanner from internegatives at Technicolor Los Angeles. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using MTI's DRS and Pixel Farm's PFClean, while Digital Vision's Phoenix was used for small dirt, grain, and noise management.

This is another transfer that has some fairly wide variances, but which provides a more than watchable experience overall. Blank loves to overlay text on his imagery, and there's some understandable spiking of grain and lessening of detail in several such moments. But there's a pretty problematic sequence featuring a guy named Charles Perry in this piece that looks degraded, with a noisy grain field and an almost pixellated accounting of the actual imagery. Otherwise, though, this is a generally fine looking transfer, with decent detail levels and an organically resolved appearance. Once again, there are things like stray hairs caught in the gate, but nothing I'd term overly distracting.

Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Criterion's insert booklet has the following information on the soundtracks:

The original monaural soundtracks for The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins; A Well Spent Life; Dry Wood; Always for Pleasure; Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers; Sprout Wings and Fly; In Heaven There is No Beer?; Gap-Toothed Women; Yum, Yum, Yum! A Taste of Creole and Cajun Cooking; and The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists were remastered at 24-bit from 35 mm full-coat magnetic tracks. The original monaural soundtrack for Hot Pepper was remastered at 24-bit from the original 16 mm full-coat magnetic track. The original monaural soundtrack for God Respects Us When We Work, but Loves Us When We Dance was remastered at 24-bit from a restored DA-98 tape and the restored 35 mm full-coat magnetic track. The original monaural soundtrack for Spend It All was remastered at 24-bit from a restored WAV file. And the original stereo soundtrack for Sworn to the Drum: A Tribute to Francisco Aguabella was remastered at 24-bit from the original 16 mm full-coat magnetic track. Clicks, thumps, hiss, hum, and crackle were manually removed using Pro Tools HD, AudioCube's integrated workstation, and iZotope RX3.

Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers features a fine sounding LPCM Mono track. This is one of the "talkier" Blank outings, though there is music here. A lot of the documentary features folks just talking about garlic, and the narrow track suffices perfectly fine for that approach.

Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• For the Love of Garlic (1080p; 10:29) features Maureen Gosling, Harrod Blank and chef Alice Waters.


• Remembering Les (1080p; 10:27) is a sweet 2014 remembrance of Blank by Alice Waters and Tom Luddy.

Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This documentary, along with Gap Toothed Women, is probably among the odder entries in this set. It's still enjoyable, and often kind of weirdly funny, but, like garlic itself, this may not appeal to every taste. Video has occasional hurdles, but audio is fine, and the supplements enjoyable.