Grateful Dawg

Quite simply a treat for the ear.

The pure joy of music-making is what this gem of a film is all about.

This is a video stroll through a family scrapbook.

A multilayered documentary that explores music and friendship, and in its own quiet way, the battle with fame.

Though there are moderately interesting interviews interspersed throughout, Deadheads will want to see the numbers, in which Grisman's more formal style complements Garcia's looser approach to his music.

It's like an 80-minute flip through the Grisman family photo album -- complete with live, unreleased soundtrack.

With no aspects of the personalities represented outside of their music, Grateful Dawg ends up feeling dry and incomplete; its two subjects are stripped of all other characteristics and come across as not very interesting.