Birdhouses

When I was a young boy, I would gather every Saturday evening around the television for our weekly family tradition of watching "Hee Haw," an hour of country music, down home silliness and simple family fun.

As I grew up, my musical tastes moved more toward The Ramones and The Dead Kennedys and, sadly, family time became less and less of a priority. Birdhouses, a 2004 short film written and directed by Sam Goetz, brings to mind those sweet, tender and funny days when family time mattered and courtship still took place over homemade berry pies and reruns of "Hee-Haw" and "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C."

The story of Dave (David Barlett) and Louise (Nina Louise Miller), Birdhouses is a funny and gentle-hearted romantic short that follows these two lonely souls who unexpectedly connect after Nina moves into the neighborhood and, being the neighborly sort, brings a homemade pie over to David as a sort of introduction.

What follows is a basic story made incredibly beautiful by the touching performances of Bartlett and Miller, blended together with surprisingly effective clips of Buck Owens, Roy Clark, Lulu and the rest of the oddly endearing "Hee-Haw" gang. So easily, the characters in Birdhouses could have been turned into a Southern caricature, but Goetz's wonderful dialogue finds the inherent humor in the scenes without ever making fun of the characters.

Shot on an estimated $3,500 budget, Birdhouses is carried by the strength of the lead performances and Jonathan Yi's mood-setting black and white camera work. The film won "Best Short Film" at the Ithaca Film Festival and Idaho's Spudfest and is now available as a free rental at Jaman.com.