In Shamrock, Texas, a small town on what once was Route 66 near Amarillo, every New Year's day the men of the town shave for the last time.  They will grow beards until St. Patrick's Day when the whole town turns out for the annual parade and beard judging.  But they aren't growing just any beard; to enter the contest you have to have a Donegal, a traditional Irish form of beard.  (It's the type of beard Leprechauns are often wearing in illustrations.)  This film follows five contestants from New Years until the judging, including an outsider from Austin who hopes to do well on his first try.

This is an amusing movie, but not at the expense of the contestants.  It doesn't make fun of the hicks living in a small town in Texas, rather the movie shows a bit of what it is like to live outside of a big city.  Some of the comments the interviews are funny, and the seriousness that people take their beards is another source of humor, dyeing their beards will printer ink for example.  But all of the humor is respectful, and director Woolfe was able to make an entertaining short while avoiding the pitfall of mocking his subjects, something that would have been easy to do, but would have made the film seem cruel instead of amusing.

Woolfe is a young film maker, and there are some mistakes in the movie that I'm sure he won't make on his next film.  (He really should have reshot the interview where the cat walks in front of the camera and sits down obscuring the subjects face.)  But these errors add to the fun of the movie.   This is short that is well worth checking out.

Audio:

The stereo audio track was generally acceptable.  The background music by the Gourds sounded very good; clean and clear.  Some of the interviews had slight distortion and others had a fair amount of hum.  Even so, the dialog was easy to understand.  There are no subtitles. (Except for a short section in the extras where one of the interviewees comments are subtitled.

Video:

This documentary was filmed digitally, and it shows a bit.  There are a lot of digital artifacts; mainly aliasing and shimmering parallel lines, but these are not distracting and obviously present in the source material.  The full frame image is generally pretty good, even with the limitations of digital video.

Extras:

This DVD is just chocked full of extra features.  I am pleasantly surprised that Aspyr went to all this trouble for a 30 minute film.

Included in the fold out cardboard case that the DVD comes in is a CD of the soundtrack and a booklet that will fit in a standard CD case.  Sadly, my musical taste is fairly narrow.  I like what I like and don't spend a lot of time listening to new bands or music.  Musically speaking, I guess you could say I'm stuck in a rut.  So when it came to the CD, I originally intended to throw it into my player, listen to a track or two so I could say I gave it a spin and move on.  After the first couple of songs, I was hooked.  The Gourds, who wrote and preformed the music, are an interesting band that almost defies description.  They are the type of unusual yet eminently listenable band that Austin Texas excels at producing.  The music sounds a little like blue-grass, with some old time country music and an Irish influence thrown in for good measure.  It sounds like the type of music you might have heard at a barn dance during the depression, except for the odd references that they throw in. The songs on this CD mention C. Everert Coop and Dan Haggerty, which gives their songs a humorous quality which the music accentuates.  A fun CD to listen too, and make sure you hear their cover of "Get Your Kicks on Route 66."

In addition to the CD and booklet, there is also reproduction of a Donegal Permit that will allow you to travel to Shamrock, Texas without a beard.

There are three commentary tracks on this DVD.  Producer and director Mike Woolfe plays host on all three.  He comments on the film with Scotty McAgee, the outsider from Austin, Roy Wardlow, another contestant, and Kevin Russell of the Gourds.  Kevin talks about the music of course, but the other two tracks concern themselves with the contest.  I really enjoyed Kevin Russell's comments.  Kevin is unpretentious and down to earth.  He talks about the town, how it has changed since the film was shot and what is was like going to the premier.  A fun track.

The 72 Oz Steak is a great short about a gentleman who takes The Big Texan restaurant's challenge: if you can eat a 72 oz steak in one hour, it's free.  Otherwise you have to pay $50 for the meal.   Director Mike Woolfe chronicles George Basar's attempt to eat the four and a half pound steak (along with a dinner roll, shrimp cocktail, and salad.)  It is less than 8 minutes long, but a lot of fun.

How Not to Make a Documentary is a three minute short in which the director illustrates some of the mistakes he made making this film.  It was very amusing.

There is also a five minute tongue-in-cheek featurette about the world premiere of the film, and another featurette, a little more serious this time, on the premiere in Shamrock, Texas.  (At the local High School no less.)

In addition to all this, there is an eight minute reel of outtakes, and a five minute reel of photos from the 1939 St. Partick's Day parade in Shamrock.

Final Thoughts:

Aspyr (pronounces 'aspire') did an excellent job on this release.  They have only released three DVDs, and this is the only one of the three that I've seen, but if they continue to release such high quality DVDs as this one is, they will soon gain quite a following.  Of course all the extras and soundtrack bonuses won't help a bad film, but Growin' a Beard is great fun, and the copious extras make this a great package.  This DVD comes with a high Recommendation.