Music doc turns to fans for insider info on indie band
By Geoff Plant
In his first documentary, Friends (With Benefits) writer and director Gorman Bechard takes viewers through a chronological history of Minneapolis/St. Paul-based The Replacements, a post-punk quartet that once made a big splash in a small pond. Banding together in 1979, the pioneering alternative rockers lasted through the following decade almost despite themselves. Color Me Obsessed: A Film About the Replacements takes us on a trip down this musical backroad with the friends and fans who love them still serving as tour guides.
TV seems to have a very low opinion of us right now. Midseason replacement time is upon us, and we’re being assaulted by the likes of “Work It” (thankfully already canceled) and a sitcom starring Rob Schneider. (Seriously, what did we do to deserve that?) NBC, meanwhile, is making an all-out assault on our collective taste by pairing the execrable “Whitney” with the marginally less execrable “Are You There, Chelsea?” Both shows were no doubt generated at the roundtable of “Chelsea Lately,” the E! Network comedy chat show hosted by Chelsea Handler and frequented by Whitney Cummings.
Friends of Film, Video and Arts—the organizers of the fourth annual Laugh Out Loud Friends of Film Funny Film Festival—are looking for laughable local submissions. All works must be 15 minutes or less in length and postmarked by Monday, Jan. 30. It’s only $15 to enter the film of your choice. Winning submissions will be included in not one, but two film festivals: The LOLFFFFF (at Albuquerque’s Guild Cinema on March 31) and the Nickel Independent Film Festival in Canada (in June 2013). Cash prizes and other awards are up for grabs.
