Dianna Dilworth(Director): Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie

I would imagine most of our readers are familiar with the Mellotron, a tape-playing keyboard that became popular in the late '60s on songs like The Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever." Ms. Dilworth took on the task of creating a video documentary of this curious device, from its origin as the Chamberlin to the computer-based emulations of the Mellotron that we have today. Whenever I hear of movies that tackle a somewhat "technical" subject of keen interest to me, I always assume the end result will be a travesty, with an oversimplification of the subject matter, and major facts and concepts missing. Well, this is absolutely not the case with this fine film. Not only does she find many of the key musicians that originally made the instrument popular, like Mike Pinder and Rod Argent, but she also includes folks like Jon Brion (Tape Op #18, book Vol. II), Brian Kehew (#54) and the group Bigelf, all of whom helped bring the original "sampler" back onto current album productions. This is a perfectly put together and very captivating documentary, and I doubt that there is a single person reading this right now that wouldn't enjoy watching Mellodrama and learning more about the Mellotron than they ever thought possible.($24.95; www.mellotronmovie.com)