American Harmony

American Harmony is a straight forward documentary on barbershop quartet competitions. Before you warm up your vocal chords in response realize that the contests are national and international and that the groups you will see in this film are beyond amazing in their a cappella abilities.
While this is an instant choice of anyone who can sing a roulade and fans of trained singers everywhere, American Harmony presents its story rather prosaically. Yes the film is a piece and interesting more often than not but the execution is standard for what you would see on half a dozen themed cable channels and not really cinematic in scope. There are plenty of egos involved but their battle of wills never becomes an issue to the narrative, not like the rivalry in something like The King of Kong. The contests themselves aren't suspenseful in the American Idol sense, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
American Harmony, opening this weekend exclusively at the Angelika, shines the spotlight on quartets like Real Time, OC Times, Reveille, and Max Q. If this subject had been a 30-minute short it would be award winning. As a feature length docu it is merely singing to the choir.




On Friday, August 21 and Saturday, August 22 prior to the 7:20 showtimes of American Harmoony, local Houston barbershop quartets Ringside and Initial Sound will sing a few songs for the guests at the Angelika. Ringside will be the featured performers on Friday and Initial Sound will sing on Saturday. Both quartets will be there to answer questions and sing a few tunes in the lobby at 6:50pm and will do a short performance in advance of the 7:20pm showtime for the patrons of American Harmony.