Be Kind Rewind (2008)

GREAT HEARTFELT FILM....WORTH SEEING

if you're expecting a complete dumb laugh fest where Jack Black and Mos Def make fun of a bunch of movies, then be warned, you might be disappointed.

but here is the bottom line.

Danny Glover plays a video store owner, Mr. Fletcher, and owns Be Kind Rewind, and employs (Mike) Mos Def. Glover and Moss both look up to Fats Waller, a great old time music legend who was burn in their building. Glover is old school and only carries VHS movies, not DVD because he hasn't yet adopted to the change of the more modern world.

Mr. Fletcher then leaves Mike (Mos Def) in charge as he leaves town to celebrate the anniversary of Fats Waller's death.

Moss's friend, Jerry (Jack Black), works for a company down the road and lives in a trailer that is right next to a power plant.

Jerry and Mike (Moss) try a sabatoge mission that goes bad for Jerry and he ends up becoming magnatized. He goes back to the video store and accidently erases all of the tapes in the video store.

When one of the customers comes in to rent Ghostbusters, Mike and Jerry say they don't have the movie availble, but the customer informs them that if the movie isn't ready by the next day 7pm, she will call Glover and tell him what is going on.

So they set in motion to film Ghostbusters on their own in only a couple of hours and the rest is history. It's passed from one person to another and before you know it, they stare SWEDEDing other movies, from Driving Ms. Daisy to King Kong, to Men in Black to Robocop.

They become neighborhood movie stars and slowy trying turning a profit to help fix the building from being torn down.

But then the government gets involved and destorys all their tapes and demolition time is within 2 weeks.

so as a last hurrah, Mike, Jerry, Mr. Fletcher, and Alma, the leading lady come up with an idea to make a documentary on Fats Waller involving the ideas and the community themselves.

Bottom line, this movie is really about the heart and soul of film making, and why people fell in love with movies in the 1st place.

It reminds you of those movies that hold a special place in your heart not because it was the #1 movie of all time, or because it has the most blood and guts, but rather because you can see that in that movie, they put their heart and sould into it.

that is what Be Kind Rewind is really about. when movies were made carefully and on VHS, not the big budget rush to DVD movies that are too often made now a days.

GREAT MOVIE....with HEART and SOUL....you could not ask for more.
Acting is amazing, the remakes are funny and you'll laugh at how they do them. July 21, 2008

The Cure for Insomnia

I fell asleep an hour after I started watching this movie...and still didn't see any fun plot lines or any "remaking the classic movies" I rented this film for. I guess I should have been warned by the descriptions of it as "quirky" and "daffy." Uh...yeah...if by "quirky" you mean puzzling, and "daffy" you mean dopey. We're talking zero action and dialogue that sounds like the actors were working without a script. Set in a dull dark rundown storefront, and grimy streets. Yuck. July 18, 2008

Too Bad You Can't Give Zero (0) Stars

This movie had so much potential to be hilarious. It was never once hilarious, even with Jack Black in it, and I turned it off around three-quarters of the way into it. This movie never elicited a chuckle out of me, and the concept of the movie was nonsense: a VHS store that loses all of its recordings due to someone being magnetized? Good God.

Save your money and skip this altogether. It's not even worth the rental, it's just that bad.

July 15, 2008

Watch the trailer for the best parts of this film and save the other 100 minutes for something else

"Be Kind Rewind" written and directed by Michael Gondry

Elroy Fletcher (Danny Glover) is the owner of a run down building in which he lives and operates a small VHS rental store named Be Kind Rewind. The building is severely out dated and in need of numerous repairs the money for which Mr. Fletcher doesn't have. If the repairs aren't completed promptly the building will be condemned and demolished to make way for a new condominium project. Mr. Fletcher leaves to go on his annual trip and ponder his problem while leaving his employee Mike (Mos Def) in charge. While watching the store Mike's crazy friend Jerry accidentally magnetizes himself and erases all of the store's tapes. Mike and Jerry scramble to replace the store's outdated commodity with a creation of their own making...

"Be Kind Rewind" was a huge disappointment for me. I was actually pretty pumped to see it but the movie turned out to be a lot different than what I went in expecting. I was looking forward to a solid Jack Black style comedy but most of the movie wasn't funny in the least and more time was placed on the character's problems than the remade movies which was the appealing aspect of the movie to me. A movie that was sold as a comedy was instead a "Poor guys turns problems into something positive for the community" film which wasn't what I showed up to watch.

The Good: There are a few chuckles here and there but not the pay off I was expecting. The production overall wasn't bad, including acting, cinematography and sound of the movie.

The Bad: The story overall was ridiculous which would have been fine if the creator was going for a straight comedy instead of a film with serious underpinnings. They way in which they magnetized Black's character was terrible and could have been done in a substantially better way. Not enough time was devoted to the movie remakes. Most of these were viewable in the trailer.

Overall: "Be Kind" was a huge let down. Don't bother unless you are a die hard Jack Black or Mos Def fan.
July 13, 2008

awesome movie

this movie is hilarious! I laughed so hard, espcially for the robocop and ghostbusters theme! worth every penny! SWEDED! July 12, 2008

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