Movie review Be Kind Rewind
February 23rd, 2008, 6:35 am Hobbies And Interests
Cult filmmaker Michel Gondry turns his “spotless mind” on film itself and our relationship to it in his silly, semi-successful satire “Be Kind Rewind.” It’s about our memories of movies, our relationship to art and the YouTube zeitgeist.If it isn’t up to his Oscar-winning “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” it at least has Jack Black and Mos Def around for laughs. Even Gondry’s failures leave us with much to chew on.In the vast expanse of junk yards and urban decay known as Passaic, N.J., Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) has a video store. It’s called Be Kind Rewind because Fletcher, a fanatical fan of jazz composer Fats Waller, hasn’t kept up with the times. He still rents VHS tapes, “1 movie, 1 night, $1.” Mike (Mos Def) runs the place for him out of a historic building Fletcher says was once home to Waller.But the city wants to demolish the building. Fletcher’s business is fading, thanks to his tech illiteracy. And when he takes off on a scouting trip to see how the West Coast Video chain earns its billions, Mike’s doofus conspiracy-nut pal, Jerry (Jack Black) makes a fateful attempt to sabotage the power relay station that buzzes over the junkyard camper he calls home. Jerry is magnetized. Jerry walks into the store. And we all remember what happens to magnetic tapes exposed to magnets. Hundreds of titles are zapped.Mike can’t let Mr. Fletcher down. To save the business, he resolves to trick an out-of-touch customer (Mia Farrow) by shooting their own version of “Ghost Busters.” Mike and Jerry and assorted neighborhood characters remake the movie from (faulty) memory. In an afternoon.Movie lovers and student movie-makers will connect with their own memories of movie moments and the ingenious ways the neighborhood filmmakers come up with faking scenes - fire crackers simulate gunfights; a washing-machine tub recreates the walking upside down effect in “2001″; shooting through a fan’s blades creates a silent movie “flicker” effect.The upshot? The would-be moviemakers learn from copying others, then create something original.Memory is a tricky thing, and memories of movies even trickier. What Gondry is getting at seems to be that our attention spans retain only snippets of anything, that the reason viral video has touched a nerve is that we don’t have the patience for anything other than action beats or big laughs.But if he’s arguing against that trend, he should have made a movie that would require rewinding, one whose “Sweded” version won’t be more at home on YouTube.
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