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.
Off the Charts: The Song-Poem Story
(2003 TV Movie)
Probably the best movie you've never seen
18 February 2005