My wife and I decided it would be a good idea to mellow out the other night after a difficult week of bad news, fear, worry, relief and life changes to rent some movies. She satisfied her guilty pleasure with 27 Dresses while I played on the computer and we shared in watching Be Kind Rewind starring Jack Black, Mos Def and Danny Glover as well as Mia Farrow.
Like music, I am the last guy you want to go to to get a credible, educated review of any art form but those of you interested in a regular guy's opinion of a movie, here is mine:
Overall the movie has your basic premise. A fledgling video store stuck in the VHS era trying to stay open in a Jersey town outside of NYC while the zoning committee wants to tear down the nearly condemned building to put up brand new condos or something along those lines. Of course there is a big, new chain video store competing for business (see Barbershop) but its role feels minor.
Throughout the movie I found myself drawn to Mos Def's character, Mike, for some reason. He just seemed like your average guy trying to do the right thing keep the store up and running for Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) 
who he seems to look up to. That appealed to me. Jack Black continued to play the same character he seems to play in every comedy I have seen him do...the silly, goofy guy dancing around and singing absurd things. 
But I have been a sucker for that I guess. You never really know what Jerry (Black) does for a living or what role he plays in these people's lives other than "the odd friend."The movie really isn't anything to write home about. I imagine the critics would blast it up and down. I mean the plot revolves around unrealistic events. For some reason Jerry thinks the power plant is messing with his brain on purpose and he tries to sabotage it getting magnetized in the process which later leads to him erasing all the tapes in the store. The plot finally takes off from there but the whole power plant things seems irrelevant except for an excuse to get all the tapes erased.
The meat of the movie is the remainder as Mike and Jerry try to remake all the movies and do a terrible job but the customers still like it. It is all a bit of a stretch. Nonetheless hi jinx ensue and it becomes kind of a fun ride as the community comes together. The weirdness of it all attracted me in the same way that Weird Al Yankovic's UHF did from almost two decades ago. I had much fondness of UHF for some unknown reason. ("Badgers?! We don't need no stinkin' Badgers!!)
In the end it has the feel good moment of the town coming together to make their own movie instead of ripping off other movies. It was about their local Jazz musician hero Fatt's Miller I think.
It was a "neat" ending for an easy going, movie. Not one I would go out and recommend to everybody or call one of my favorites. I doubt I will see it again, but it was pretty good. It fit the mood my wife and I were in perfectly. We laughed, we enjoyed the oddity of Black and got caught up in the simplistic story.
2 comments:
I love Mike Gondry films. This one was bashed by critics and did poorly at the box office, but I loved it. It's all about communities banding together to take on corporations with little more than imagination and a DIY ethic.
You should check out some of his other films like The Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. These films are similar but with more coherent plot lines.
I was curious if there were fans of the movie out there because it seemed like one that the critics would pan but pockets of people would really like and appreciate/
I did see "Eternal Sunshine..." and thought it was really good. I didn't know it was the same guy. I should check out the other movie.
By the way, did I tell you I have taken head of your Roots suggestion and really enjoy them.
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