If you told me you were making a film about a fictional senatorial race, I would think it was going to be very boring. Politics are dry enough; fake politics sound even worse. However, local indie filmmaker Cythnia Lopez has managed to pull off the impossible. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Would-Be Senators.

This 45-minute film is shot in various locations all around Portland, and probably contains one or two people that you know. The story is this: Brandy Millhouse, a blonde airhead, catches local sleazeball Senator Smite on film doing some shady sexual stuff. She blackmails him into helping her run for senate, which is hilarious, because she's such an airhead and wants her entire campaign platform to be "the lady in pink."

You're thinking that Brandy is going to be totally creamed in the senatorial race, until you meet her competitor, Harold Heart, who is even more stupid than she is. A Democrat, Heart wants his image to be more "hip" and "open-minded," so he hires a couple of gutterpunks to run his campaign.

But now ready for the plot turn? Brandy and Harold fall in love! Don't worry, I'm not giving anything away, because that happens relatively early in the film, and most of the story is about the ensuing drama.

Keep in mind, this film was done locally and with limited resources. The acting is, well, what you'd expect from a film this small, but the camerawork is good, and the filmmakers obviously put a lot of work into the staging and sets. It's funny, cute, and only 45 minutes.