Here's a little documentary you don't know, about a subject you've never heard of. And, man, it couldn't be better! Everyone has seen the suspicious ads in the back of magazines that look like schemes for separating a sap from his cash. Ads that want you to send in cash in order to print your book, song, whatever. Off the Charts is about those little companies and the people that send material to them. Song-Poems, those companies call them; God-awful, most everyone else calls them; downright entertaining is what I call this movie. These horrible little songs that people send in have charm and personality. There is also a certain sadness to the entire situation -- of people who are in limited situations sending out for impossible dreams, completely unaware of how bad the lyrics they are sending away. Or maybe, most who use these services do it just because they want to hear their own song, no dream of riches, no manipulation involved, just having fun making music. Either way, these Song-Poems are awesome. If you can get your hands on this film, give it a spin. It is full of quirk and will definitely put a smile on your face. And after all, that's what entertainment's for.

This was absolutely fantastic. One of the best documentaries I've seen in ages. Certainly one of the best about music. I tried to find more info about the flick, but there's just one PBS interview with the filmmaker. So definitely clue into this if you dig on quirky, honest filmmakers like Les Blank or Ross McElwee. The work is warm and respectful and revealing. Everything a cultural doc should be. Sometimes it seems to come dangerously close to mocking its subjects but then a humanist beat equalizes everything and film skirts back into a position of measured observation. As far as I'm concerned this is up there with "Sweet Grass", "Grey Gardens", "Gimme Shelter", "Sherman's March" and "Harland County, USA". It's just that good.

This film has a lot to say about America, and Americans, at their most sad and most hopeful.The song poem industry can be taken as a metaphor for show business as a whole, or at least most Americans' relationship to it.The most telling thing about the reactions from the aspiring songwriters is not that they feel ripped-off by cynical hucksters. In fact, they have the opposite reaction, mostly. They remain optimistic and continue to cradle the American Dream to their hearts. They're lovely people, and very, deeply American, even if you do want to slap them around so they wake up to reality. But then again, why shatter their dreams? A highly, highly recommended documentary. Especially good for fans of popular music or record collectors.

I checked this out from the public library, because the cover looked vaguely interesting and there was basically no risk, but for some lost time. And, like someone discovering a song-poem collection in a used-LP bin, I was amazed and amused by this great (and fortunately brief) little film. It's about these people who send in poems or lyrics to a company, which promises to make a song from those words, then asks them to pay the recording cost -- which is how they make money. But the scheme is beside the point. Instead the movie focuses on some of the "poets" who write tunes, almost always with a straight face, with titles like "Non-Violent Tae-Kwon-Do Troopers" and "I Am a Ginseng Digger." The movie also features some of the performers, composers, and producers of these songs (sometimes separate, often not), and even has time for a brief rise-and-fall story regarding one artist that the song-poem cultists and performers all seem to consider a squandered semi-genius. It's a crazy-quilt portrait of low-impact American ambition and creative expression from Joe Public (no, not the early 90s group). A real freakin gem.