Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

In Heaven There Is No Beer? 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.

My wife grew up in Wisconsin and has joked that coming from there gave her two inestimable life skills, knowing how to score bowling manually and being able to dance the polka (she has also joked that she was in her twenties before she realized that wedding bands were not "required" to play polkas). Blank may not get into bowling scores, but this is a really ebullient depiction of what might be called "polka culture". Once again there's a surplus of fun, energetic music, along with a broader portrait of the people who form a community based on their shared love.

In Heaven There Is No Beer? Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

In Heaven There Is No Beer? 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 generally pleasing looking transfer that offers good detail levels in close-ups, and an overall natural accounting of the palette, though once again things looked just slightly pink-purple to my eyes at times. For those keeping track of hairs stuck in the gate, this actually does have hairs (as in plural) more than evident at moments, typically toward the bottom of the frame. Grain resolves naturally throughout this presentation.

In Heaven There Is No Beer? 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.

In Heaven There Is No Beer? features an LPCM Mono track which captures the energetic polka music with very good fidelity, though some of the performances sound like they're coming through the house audio system, which can result in a somewhat thin sound at times. Dialogue and other spoken elements are rendered without any major problems.

In Heaven There Is No Beer? Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Polka Happiness (1080p; 8:21) is a 2014 piece with Blank collaborator Chris Simon.

In Heaven There Is No Beer? Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Blank evidently never got around to making a documentary about manually scoring bowling, so Wisconsians or other polka fans will have to make do with this entertaining and lively piece. Video once again has a few niggling issues, but audio is fine, and the supplement enjoyable. Recommended.