Watch Good Hair For Free

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Chris Rock has two young daughters Lola and Zahra. One day, Lola asks why she doesn't have good hair. Chris goes into a funny in-depth dive into the world of black people's hair. It's a hidden world for most non-blacks and this is informative. The interview with the white chemistry professor is funny when he asks why black people put sodium hydroxide in their hair. Rock could have had more white people interviews. He follows some of the competitors in the Bronner Bros Hair Battle. His wit is great and he's able to also deal with the material seriously. This is very much right up his alley. It's fun and ultimately has a point to make.

I had no idea that this was a documentary and bought it since it said "hillarious" on the DVD cover and because Chris Rock usually makes good comedies. But this turned out to be a documentary about something I have absolutely no interest in.It was a struggle to sit through "Good Hair" and watch people talk about something with no meaning to me whatsoever. How can people be so self-centered and vain as to pay several thousands of dollars on hair, when there is so many wrong things in the world?"Good Hair" is like a Halloween ride of shallow caricatures of people who has no sense of reality.This is the worst $2 I have ever wasted on a DVD. It is rubbing from start to end. I managed to suffer through it to the end, and now that I have seen it, I will never make a return trip to watch this movie or any contents on the disc ever again.

Starring, narrated and produced by Chris Rock, "Good Hair" is an interesting, sad, but ultimately thin documentary. Focussing on the hair of Africa-American women, the film examines the various social prejudices and inferiority complexes weighing down upon black women. These women, the film argues, face overwhelming pressure to conform to certain standards of "normalcy" and "beauty".Whilst "Good Hair" is interesting, it mostly tiptoes around issues of race, class and American history. The Black Pride movements of the 1960s and 70s, which tried to politicise black hair, is also skirted over. Instead, Rock interviews shop owners, factory owners, and those who profit off the sale of hair straightening products, relaxers and extensions. One interesting subplot journeys to India, where the hair of Indian women is harvested to make western weaves."Good Hair" is framed around the plight of Rock himself, whose young daughter feels pressured to use hair relaxers. Does he allow her to? If so, what are the social ramifications of this? Rock's daughter's journey echoes those of millions of African American women, all of whom endure gruelling, time-consuming and expensive hair regimes. But why?For Rock, "black hair" is routinely described via pejoratives (frizzy, coarse, natty etc), its "natural state" derided. This disdain, the film argues, is not only socially constructed, but a form of hairstyle "bigotry". "Good Hair", though, seems reluctant to fully acknowledge this; it's scared of admitting that its giant cast has internalised racism, subconsciously accepted our dominant society's racist views, stereotypes and biases, and are essentially attempting to minimise traditional African features. Ironically, "Good Hair" climaxes at the Atlanta's Bronner Brothers Hair Show, a hair styling concert put on by hair-care professionals. For these folk, the styling of African-American hair is merely a means of self-expression, a means of asserting one's identity. It is not, they believe, a tool for garnering validation or social acceptance.7/10 – Worth one viewing.

Chris Rock digs deep into the various elements at play in the big-money world of black hairstyling. In between interviews with the small local businesses who are unashamedly making a killing on weaves, (one blue-haired stylist with a full waiting room proudly proclaims that her work "starts at a thousand") Rock finds some unsettling truths about the origins of this product, the toxicity of the ever-popular "relaxers" women are gladly globbing onto their scalps, and the showy world of celebrity hairdressers in Atlanta. Rock's no Michael Moore, and the investigative bits are revealing but not particularly thorough; he's at his best when he's in his element, joking with patrons and poking fun at the hapless boyfriends mournfully waiting for their wallets to run out of steam in the lobby. A bit long at ninety-six minutes; it's only got enough gas for seventy or eighty, but it's decent fun while it lasts.