“The little band who couldn’t” is the affectingly bittersweet hook for Drew DeNicola’s loving doc about the almost-rise, demise and rediscovery of early ’70s US alt-pop beauties Big Star. Critics, musos and family members pop up to revere a band who spun melancholy into magic over three albums, before bad distribution, bad luck and tragedy broke the spell.
The downside of their cult stature is a shortfall of footage, but the music is uncannily gorgeous, well deployed and copious: for non-initiates, it’ll be like finding lost treasure.