One of the best movies of the year seems to be lost in the Halloween-time shuffle.

"Good Hair," a hilarious documentary/comedy hosted by Chris Rock, is smart, funny and educational. I was the only member of the audience the night it opened because everyone else seemed to be at "Saw VI" and "Paranormal Activity."

The movie is all about the lengths - pun intended - many African-American women will go to in order to have perfect hair. Rock, who has two little girls, keeps wondering when they're going to want their hair straightened or maybe even have a weave.

He spends a lot of time here in hair salons and barbershops, talking about the topic of women's hair. He asks one man the last time was he was allowed to touch an African-American woman's hair. "It was 1986, right before the market crash," the man answers in all seriousness.

Rock talks to women who are having their hair relaxed. (One African-American woman says that hair straighteners/relaxers "relax white people.") Women give various reasons for having it done.

He decides to find out just what the relaxer ingredients are and talks to various stylists about exactly what's in that stuff they're putting on their clients' hair. He even talks to a chemist who shows how dangerous the main ingredient in relaxer can be: Sodium hydroxide disintegrates a soda can within a matter of hours.

Rock also talks to Joe L. Dudley Sr., whose hair-care products are used in salons all over the world. He also talks to men and women about the first time they had their hair relaxed. For poet Maya Angelou, whose moments onscreen are among the most entertaining, it was when she was 70 years old. The Rev. Al Sharpton credits the late James Brown with urging him to have his hair relaxed for the first time, and Sharpton says that having it done felt like his head was on fire.

Also, Rock talks to a great many women about using weaves, the outlandish price of some weaves and exactly whose hair is used in weaves. (This part is quite sobering.)

Rock is always his good-natured self, even when he's poking gentle fun at his subjects. The finale of the show is a look at the competition during the Atlanta Bronner Bros. Hair Show, a serious hair extravaganza.

You're bound to smile and learn a little something regardless of what, if anything, adorns your head.