Be Kind Rewind (2008)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Simply Perfect

Good concept, poorly executed.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Two bumbling store clerks inadvertently erase the footage from all of the tapes in their video rental store. In order to keep the business running, they re-shoot every film in the store with their own camera, with a budget of zero dollars. Despite some good intentions and Black's and Def's chemistry and perfomances 'Be Kind Rewind' showcases how bad it is to remake certain films when on the same time it's humor never lands and the overall pacing is terrible. Overall a disappointing film that doesn't hold up that well as i remembered. (4.5/10)

VHS. VCR. Video. Video Rental.Such were the terminologies when videotapes could be rented, watched, and then returned only to be rented again by your next door neighbor who complained that the tape wasn't rewound at the time of purchase. "Be Kind Rewind" was the annoying slogan plastered on the bulky piece of plastic.In Michel Gondry's radically original flick, two lowly video store clerks are faced with the challenge of not only renting out a dying breed of videotapes but making them as well. There's no way of describing Be Kind Rewind's plot without smirking, but I'll try: Loser drifter, Jerry (played by crazy Jack Black), is accidentally "magnetized" by a nearby electrical plant. On an innocent stroll to the local New Jersey video/thrift store, he accidentally demagnetizes or "clears" all the contents of the videotapes on display. In an effort to save the old shop's business, co-manager, Mike (a composed Mos Def of a more popular reference to rap music), and idiotic Jerry come up with an amazing plan: re-film all the erased videos with themselves as the actors through the lens of a cheap, handy camcorder. I know this sounds stupid, ludicrous, and out of this world, and all three observations are correct. These two characters really are stupid, really believe in their ludicrous plan, and after the first 30 minutes, you realize that you really aren't in Kansas anymore. Mike and Jerry's renditions are so bad, they're hilariously good. Plus, although it may seem chaotic, this film embraces a refreshing outlook: Movies are fun, but they're more fun to make.

Mike works at a video rental store in Passaic, New Jersey and is put in charge when his boss, Mr. Fletcher, takes some time off. Mr Fletcher leaves just one instruction… don't let Mike's friend Jerry into the shop. Jerry is somewhat paranoid and believes the nearby electrical substation is part of some sinister mind-control plot and decides to sabotage it; he fails but ends up magnetised. He doesn't realise this when he barges into the video shop and starts rearranging the tapes… leading to them all being deleted! Soon afterwards a customer, Miss Falewicz, returns her copy of 'Ghost Busters; complaining that the tape is blank. Mike tries to get a copy from a rival shop but has no luck; they've all switched to DVD. Jerry has a plan; Miss Falewicz has never seen the film so why don't they just remake it themselves… the idea is ridiculous but they have no other choice. Soon afterwards a second customer returns his copy of 'Rush Hour 2' so they remake that too, helped by Alma, a local woman, to take the female part. Soon their remakes are achieving cult status. Jerry tells people that these special films cost far more than usual videos as they use materials imported from Sweden. By the time Mr Fletcher returns these 'Sweded' films are making more money than the originals… not everything is good though; the town council want to demolish his store and the Federal authorities have got word of their unofficial remakes and demands their destruction. They decide to make one last film; a biopic of jazz legend Fats Waller who, Mr Fletcher had been telling people, was born in the building.When I sat down to watch this I wasn't sure if it would be good silly fun or just silly… thankfully it turned out to be funny. It took a while to get going; early on Jack Black's Jerry was a bit too annoying and Mos Def's Mike wasn't that funny. Once they started making their 'Sweded' films things improved notably; these were very funny, especially if one was familiar with the film they were remaking. Other cast members are pretty solid; most notably Melonie Diaz, who plays Alma, Danny Glover as Mr Fletcher and Mia Farrow as Miss Falewicz. The film's conclusion is rather touching and avoids the expected cop-out. Overall I enjoyed this more than I expected and would recommend it for anybody looking for some silly fun without any offensive material.

Directed by Michael Gondry, "Be Kind Rewind" stars Danny Glover as the owner of a run-down video shop. As he is temporarily leaving town, Glover entrusts his business to two clueless assistants (Jack Black, Mos Def). Bad move. The duo unwittingly erase all the videos in Glover's store and, in an attempt to make up for their mistake, decide to shoot their own low-rent versions of popular hits. These low-budget hatchet jobs prove a great success with customers, but will the scheme prove profitable enough to save Glover's store from bankruptcy?Modelled on the works of Frank Capra, Gondry's "Rewind" says one thing but does the other. It positions the world of VHS, BETAMAX and cosy cinema on one hand, and big business, intellectual property laws, copyrights and DVDs on the other. Glover's shop itself represents a dilapidated past which we fear is disappearing into a haze of radioactivity, static and time, but which Gondry hopes will be preserved by the communal, cut-copy-pasting of generation 21C. We own film history, Godry says, and we can be entrusted to guard and nurture it.But the postmodern hatchet jobs of Mos Def and Jack Black aren't the saviours of cinema, but its replacement. Today, the subject/object dichotomy of cinema has long given way to the participatory media of the internet generation, in which bodies, profiles and the audience itself become the new canvas, in which content and context give way to thin surfaces, references, pastiche and homages, in which cinematic signs refer only to other cinematic sign, and in which the author and previous concepts of ownership have been bulldozed. Gondry then falsely offers big studios, who increasingly seek to commodify and privatise all aspects of "experience", be they analogue or digital, as that which stands in the way of this blissful future."Be Kind Rewind" would introduce the term "sweding" into popular culture. It's a fictional word used to describe works self-consciously or playfully derived from other texts (think most Youtube videos). "Rewind's" aesthetic is itself comprised of a series of little segments, each a reference to a previous film. This echoes Gondry's work on "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and Gondry's own pre-cinema career, in which he cut his teeth making short advertisements, commercials and music videos for corporate brands. His is the schizoid aesthetic of Generation Youtube.Fittingly, "Rewind" homages Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life", a film about a guy who embraces the concept of "community" when he realises that, without him, the small town of Bedford Falls would be sucked into the abyss of urbanisation. In "Rewind", Glover's store is offered as the last bulwark against gentrification, and several symbolic shots frame the building as a peripheral urban space on the verge of being eclipsed or engulfed by "the global". The film then offers an interesting subplot in which Glover propagates a very specific myth: his shop, he says, was the birthplace of Fats Waller, the man he claims invented jazz. This is not true, but that's Gondry's point. The myths, the stories we tell, and indeed the act of "sweding" itself, become means of collectively fighting for urban identity and preserving cultural memory.Themes of identity and memory were of course at the heart of Gondry's previous film, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". In that film, characters had their memories wiped and then inserted prosthetic memories as a means of forgetting painful pasts. In "Rewind", we see the opposite, the inhabitants of a small urban space wishing to resist both memory wipes - gentrification involves literal physical erasure - and the implementation of "new memories". In this regard they cling to Glover's myths, and thereby foster a sense of shared identity. Both films are about nebulous questions of memory and forgetting, but "Sunshine" shows how technologies pull people further apart, whilst "Rewind" shows how the possibility of erasure and cultural-wiping can bring people closer, together and create bonds where previously there existed only separation. In this regard, "Rewind's" endlessly fascinating, but also a pipe-dream. Digital technologies don't democratise production, capitalism tends to homogenise, endlessly bulldozes or repackages past "cultures" into kitsch, and as we see in the film, issues of "culture", "identity" and "memory" never rise above the level of nostalgia for a specific DVD collection.As a comedy, "Be Kind Rewind" is weak. Gondry's low-budget segments can't compete with the more raw, energetic fare found on the internet, Jack Black's comedic talents aren't used properly, and the film's broader tale is overly familiar. Like Gondry's "Dave Chappelle's Block Party", the film celebrates community and is irrepressibly optimistic.7.9/10 – See John Sayles' "Sunshine State" and "Limbo", two similarly themed films. Worth two viewings.