Be Kind Rewind

Just reading a brief synopsis got me fairly hyped for Be Kind Rewind. The film was written and directed by Michel Gondry, who directed my favourite movie in the last five years, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so it was a no-brainer that this would be a movie I would want to see. But unfortunately, the idea seemed to be a whole lot better than the final product.

Mike (Mos Def) works at an aging video rental story in New Jersey run by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover). Despite the advent of DVD, the store only carries VHS tapes, and rents them to local customers at a fee far cheaper than the usual rental store. The store is apparently a landmark, so Mr. Fletcher does not want to give into local developers looking to turn the block into a nice piece of real estate. He leaves Mike in charge for a few days, but leaves specific instructions for him to not his friend Jerry (Jack Black) into the store. He does, and after a rather amusing accident, Jerry manages to erase all of the tapes in the store. To help cover this up, Mike and Jerry begin to film their own versions of the films.

It sounds creative on paper, but Be Kind Rewind is too muddled in subplots to really take advantage of its outrageous idea. The entire landmark dispute becomes rather boring and annoying right after it is mentioned, and the frequent mention of jazz musician Fats Waller loses its sentimental and nostalgic touch far too early on in the film. It just lacks the focus of Eternal Sunshine, and lacks the daring scope of The Science of Sleep, another film by Gondry. While Sleep was not all that great either, it seems to have had a much better grip on the point of the movie than Rewind does. It mopes around far too much, and I found myself more bored than I ever thought I would be watching it. I wanted to be interested, but the film did not make for many interesting moments. It has a sense of purpose and clearly knows what it wants to accomplish, but allowing it to seems to be an issue the film can never overcome.

One of these reasons may be the lack of depth in the characters. We learn very little about Mike or Jerry, and their pasts and motivations seem to never come up. We just know the basics, and that seems to be enough. Ditto for Mr. Fletcher, the frequent customer Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow) and Alma (Melonie Diaz), who seems to get thrown into the mix rather randomly half way through the film, and never seems to fully materialize as anything other than being a female in a primarily male dominated main cast. Gondry clearly has a point for these characters to be here interacting (and a couple of curious supporting characters like Irv Gooch's Wilson, who lend the film a lot of its laughs), but he does not seem to want to make them be anything more than near one-dimensional cut-outs. I do not want to make them seem as simplistic as that, but more often than not, I really found myself not seeing anything other than that.

When the film actually gets to its key drawing point, the re-filming of the VHS movies (or sweding as the film refers to it as), it does bring in a lot of that creative depth Gondry is known for. Using many different angles and stylistic devices, Gondry remakes specific scenes out of these movies with ease, and brings a lot of humour to them as well. Watching Def and Black redo Ghostbusters is absolutely hysterical, as is their redoing of Driving Miss Daisy, King Kong, We Were Kings and 2001: A Space Odyssey. But unfortunately, these scenes are really short and sweet, and many of them are never lingered on. Frequently, they are only mere seconds long before the next sweded movie scene comes in. At one point, there is just a scrolling list of movies that are being redone, but barely any are shown on screen. It is a little disappointing, but I did really like the footage that is shown.

While the film's storyline is a little winded, and the character development is a little off, the actors themselves do really well.

Def continues to impress, and helps carry this film from beginning to end. I am never really impressed with his work, but he seems to have a knack for making his characters enjoyable and very human in their design. He just seems to have that natural acting talent that every young actor tries to have, but never can truly create for themselves. Even in its most boring sections, Def delivers a great performance that is insightful and more introspective of what the film could have been had Gondry put more effort into it.

The same goes for Black, who continues to redefine himself as an actor. On one hand, he does his usual screwball schtick to its finest degree, and gets plenty of laughs for it. But on the other, he really develops his dramatic side, one that is seen only in the likes of King Kong (where his performance is not nearly as well liked as I think it is) and pretentious fare like Margot at the Wedding (which I doubt many people will ever attempt to see). It is a fine balance, and Black walks it perfectly throughout the film, and gives a solid performance for one of the film's most undefined characters. Kudos to him for really making something of it.

While the rest of the supporting cast does fairly well for themselves, none ever match the charisma or the chemistry that Def and Black share. And in a film that is disappointing already, that makes it all the more worse.

7/10.

This is a silly but harmless fun piece of fluff, guaranteed to put some smiles on your face and give you somewhat of a feel-good feeling when it's over. I'm sure that was the intent, and very little more. It wasn't made to astound anyone or provide huge laughs. Yet, it has a lot of charm and subtle humor.

It's a ludicrous story, so you just can't take anything seriously. The premise is unique: two guys converting a dying video rental store into a success by taking blank tapes of famous movies and making their own 20-minute versions! The new "movies" are so bad, they're good and the neighborhood starts making requests and renting the new "sweded" movies like hotcakes. Goofy? Sure. Tons of plot holes? You bet......but a nice movie.

The more films you know, beginning with "Ghostbusters," the more you'll enjoy this as the guys make these cheap knock-offs on budgets of about a hundred bucks! In addition, Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover and Mia Farrow were all fun to watch.

It's no award-winner, but you could do a lot worse.

Michel Gondry's new film is NO "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", but it's better than "The Science of Sleep" and doesn't deserve the negative reviews it's been getting. Without Charlie Kaufman writing, Gondry's script might be a little less original, but his visual creativity (no one else knows how to make art out of cardboard boxes like him!) and passion for his story makes "Be Kind Rewind" some kind of special.

Mos Def and Jack Black work at Danny Glover's video store and, after Black gets "magnetized", he unintentionally turns every tape in the store blank. They have the brilliant idea of remaking the customers' favorite movies (from "Driving Miss Daisy" to "Last Tango in Paris"), and they suddenly become the local sensation. Some moments are very funny, others not so much, but this is not supposed to be a Farrelly Bros. kind of flick. With a simple but very compelling idea, Gondry created a story about people's love for movies, the sense of community, the compulsion for memories, the oblivion of old-time artists (the Fats Waller subplot) and old-fashioned technology (should Glover finally adhere to DVDs?). Gondry said in an interview: "I am not against modern things. I use technology, but what I am against is when the technology creates a system that makes you believe you need to use it". I couldn't agree more. By the end, even though not being a masterpiece like "Eternal Sunshine", "Be Kind Rewind" leaves you with the bittersweet feeling of other movies about our love for film-making, more notably "The Purple Rose of Cairo" (by the way, Mia Farrow plays the video store's most loyal customer) and "Cinema Paradiso". Definitely worth seeing. 8/10.

French film-making has been bankrupt for decades.

Oh, we've had "Amelie," and that's great, but in general, the ideas of reflection and cinematic exposure in French hands have been about as successful as the architecture of the Pompidou Center is engaging. Even the art therein, as typified by Niki de Saint-Phalle, is wan.

But these ideas have always had promise, and combined with the American invention of noir have more or less become embedded in everyday film. There isn't a better example than Michel Gondry. He was an ordinary drummer in an ordinary band until making that band's videos. And then Bjork's. And then Kaufman films, and then an Oscar. Finally, perhaps the highest honor for a creative mind: to be named artist in residence at MIT.

Here is the product of that tenure.

Its a film with three distinct parts. These parts are not well integrated, I think by design, and that will allow newspaper and internet reviewers pretending to be critics to give it bad marks. And that will be too bad. In my city, this was showing in one theater, for one late showing per day.

The first part of the film is a rather conventional Jack Black-centric comedy. It involves his battle with the massive power plant next to the junkyard in which he lives. Its funny in what is already a conventional juvenile style. It however has one of the best sight gags in recent memory: Black shows up one day in camouflage to convince the Mos Def (even the name is a joke) character to participate in an assault on the plant. Later, he in (cameo as well) and Jack do climb the fence surrounding the plant. But they are interrupted by the cops and freeze, their cameo perfectly matching where they happen to be standing, complete with partial signage. That one joke is worth your six bucks.

The middle section has the two taping ad hoc versions of the movies in the store. Its a wholly different sort of humor, goofing on the folding mechanism I note so often in my comments. These are homemade movies within a homemade movie. Each follows Ted's law in being precisely as abstract (which in this case includes the offhand homemadeness) as the movie in which it exists. Some of this is really good, and to keep it funny, the pace increases phenomenally until it would take many viewings to get the jokes.

The final section is a third film, whose effectiveness depends on the first two. Its sweet, deep and very affecting. You will end up crying as I did. They are unable to continue making "Sweded" versions of movies because of the evil studios, who surely are moving to become as strong as possible in fighting imagination. So they make a "new" movie, a fiction about Fats Waller. You will have seen parts of this at the beginning of the film, and there's no mistake that this is the emotional center of the project — and why Danny Glover was required.

Its in the tradition of a Rooney-Garland "let's have a show" movie, involving the entire neighborhood. And it is as sweet and endearing as can be. Extremely post-racist and human, unashamedly using children where they mean something. And celebrating the sort of random "make up anything" fun that's at the soul of Waller's music. If you know Swedish films, even the term is a massive joke.

This is a gem. If you like film, and as a result are in danger of jaded watching, of analytical hell, this will help you escape. It could be one of the two best films you will see this year.

Oh, and after you see it. Not before, after, you really must see the trailer by Gondry where he "Swedes" his own film, replacing the Black and Def characters — in fact every character — with himself.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Michel Gondry is a very talented filmmaker especially when it comes to visuals. His music videos and films go beyond simple video marvels into a world of simple visual trickery. This is something Gondry is very good at. Furthermore, he has a do it yourself mantra when it comes to filmaking. He's not into the marvels of CGI. He's more into what you can do without it.

But it takes a little more than visual trickery to make a film a success. Be Kind Rewind is a prime example. The film starts off well enough. Mos Def helps run a video store owned by Danny Glover's character. The store is probably one of the last remaining stores catering to VHS. Jack Black is Mos Def's left of center friend who works at an electrical plant. Through some plan to sabotage the plant, he becomes magnetic, erasing all the tapes.

Our heroes are forced to re-record the movies and do it through a process called "sweding," producing 10-15 minute versions of the film, using a wide array of do it yourself techniques that Gondry himself has utilized in his work. An example is a simple trick where filming through a fan makes the film look old. All of this is fun. The way the guys try to truncate the film's stories into a little time or their lack of knowledge regarding some films like Driving Miss Daisy. the crude effects are fun and are prime examples of why we love Michel Gondry.

The downside to the film is the script, penned by Gondry. Clearly, the film is built around the sweded films. But I was starting to think that watching the sweded films would've been more fun than watching Be Kind Rewind itself. Gondry never fully fleshes out his characters or resolves some of the subplots. The visuals are fun, but when Gondry's forced to wrap up the movie, it becomes a little sporadic and we start to realize the the film doesn't go much beyond its rich concept.

There is something great to take away from this film. And while I have some reservations about the film, my recommendation for the film is based on Gondry's filmaking vision. That is to say, there is clearly a joy of filmaking associated with Gondry that will have me continue to look forward to his work. If you're not sure what I mean, take a look at his promotional materials or at his other short films. The man loves filmaking and has fun with this movie. However, I'd recommend he build an alliance with some good screenwriters that would help his visions become fully realized, and not just good natured diversions, as this film is.