Hair-larious, informative, with a message woven in

As a person whose scalp was scalded by hair relaxer when he was 12, causing him to end up with a head of hair that smelled like burned brownies for an entire summer (I can still smell it!), "Good Hair" hit me in all the old familiar places.

"Hair" gets right to it in exposing the expensive, hazardous and generally unbeweaveable lengths that many black people (OK, black women) go to get their nappy roots straight and wavy, just like white folk hair. To paraphrase a Woody Allen movie title, it's everything you always wanted to know about black women's hair, but were afraid to ask lest you get the taste slapped out of your mouth.

You can thank Chris Rock for this. Once again daring to put black folks' business out in the street, he goes on a Michael Moore-esque mission (complete with goofy stunts such as selling actual black hair on the street) to uncover the dirty little secrets of black-hair culture. This was brought on because one of his young daughters wanted to know whether she had good hair. I guess when the kids start wondering whether they need to get perms (which kids actually get in "Hair"), a movie needs to be made.

Rock gets interviews and testimonials from long-haired, admittedly weave-wearing celebs, such as Nia Long, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Melyssa Ford, Meagan Good and Tracie Thoms. Watching these gloriously golden-brown ladies on the big screen might have you seething and yelling in your head, "Why can't Hollywood give decent roles to these fine women?" But you also get Maya Angelou, the Rev. Al Sharpton (dubbed the "Dalai Lama of Relaxer" in the movie), T-Pain and Ice-T (who gives the funniest -- and most dead-on -- last words I've heard in a movie recently) throwing in their two cents.

Along with various barbershops and hair salons, Rock visits spots where black hair gets the most business. He shows up right here in North Carolina, at the Dudley hair-care empire in Greensboro. He goes to India, where hair is a cash crop thanks to people sacrificing their locks in a religious ceremony known as tonsure.

And he visits the extravagant Bronner Bros. hair expo in Atlanta. He often goes back to this spot because "Hair" also chronicles a quartet of hair stylists as they prepare for a hair-battle competition. As you watch these hairdressers garishly, hilariously come up with their presentations, it's like you're watching Rock's version of a Christopher Guest movie: "Best in Hair Show."

With Rock leading the way and director/longtime collaborator Jeff Stilson putting it on film, "Hair" manages to be entertaining, informative and occasionally unsettling. People who have never heard of weaves may be surprised to hear how much ladies will fork over (some "hair units" start at $1,000) to get some sewn into their heads.

It also may unnerve some weave-wearers to know that their fake-yet-luxurious hair might come from scalped foreigners.

And, just like with my aforementioned horror story, people share their equally painful, occasionally scabby ordeals with sodium hydroxide (or "creamy crack," as a couple of sistas call it).

Sandra "Pepa" Denton of the rap group Salt-N-Pepa tells how her hair was burned up by a relaxer, accidentally leading to a new hairstyle.

Thanks to Rock and his crafty, comical ways, "Hair" shows not only how black women are fueling a $9 billion black-hair industry that is mostly not operated by them, but also how they are chipping away at their distinctive identities every time they weave or perm it up. I mean, am I the only one who remembers how sexy and banging women looked with afros in the '70s? (I have four words for you: Pam Grier in "Coffy.")

No matter how much Chris Rock says he made "Good Hair" for his daughters, he basically made it for all black women. To remind them that they really need to cut that stuff out.

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