2008 Movie Preview
Be Kind Rewind
Starring: Jack Black, Mos Def, Mia Farrow, Danny Glover
Directed by: Michel Gondry
Release date: February 19, 2008
The Plot: A junkyard worker (Black) accidentally erases every copy of every film in his friend's (Def) video store when his brain mysteriously becomes magnetized. In order to satisfy the store's most loyal customer — an elderly woman (Farrow) slowly losing touch with reality — he and his friend set out to remake the films themselves.
The Pros: Michel Gondry consistently delivers off-kilter delights, and the idea of Black and Def making bargain-basement versions of Back to the Future, RoboCop, and Jurassic Park is too good to resist.
The Cons: Although Gondry has shown he can inject a lot of heart into his weirdness (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep), Be Kind Rewind may not be a strong enough idea to sustain an entire movie.
Cheat Sheet:
- The movie appears to have coined a word: "Sweding." It means making a version of something (like, a popular movie) using household items and technology. Rewind's main character claim their movies are Swedish versions of American blockbusters, hence the term.
- Gondry has said that Back to the Future is actually one of his favorite films.
- Gondry remarked that the hardest part of making the film was getting permission to recreate well-known films, and Black has mentioned that the recreated "Superman" film in Rewind had to be called something else because they were not given the rights.
- The props and costumes that Black and Def's characters use in the films were all designed by Gondry.
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