Be Kind Rewind

I went to see this yesterday and with no expectations of the film, to begin with i thought it was going along nicely.The Ghostbusters sequence which had me in stitches,picking out all the bits that were 'sweded' . Then after, nothing matched up to that first 20-30 minutes.The film became very predictable, clichéd and very formulaic, which was very disappointing with it having so much promise at the start. the two main stars Mos Def and Jack Black worked well together i thought, but ultimately, without a good story you don't really have much else to keep you engaged. As the woman says in the film the human brain has an attention span of 20 minutes, i'd recommend that first 20 minutes then walk out, you won't get much more out of it after that.

source: Be Kind Rewind

This is a silly but harmless fun piece of fluff, guaranteed to put some smiles on your face and give you somewhat of a feel-good feeling when it's over. I'm sure that was the intent, and very little more. It wasn't made to astound anyone or provide huge laughs. Yet, it has a lot of charm and subtle humor. It's a ludicrous story, so you just can't take anything seriously. The premise is unique: two guys converting a dying video rental store into a success by taking blank tapes of famous movies and making their own 20-minute versions! The new "movies" are so bad, they're good and the neighborhood starts making requests and renting the new "sweded" movies like hotcakes. Goofy? Sure. Tons of plot holes? You bet......but a nice movie. The more films you know, beginning with "Ghostbusters," the more you'll enjoy this as the guys make these cheap knock-offs on budgets of about a hundred bucks! In addition, Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover and Mia Farrow were all fun to watch. It's no award-winner, but you could do a lot worse.

Jerry (Jack Black) attempts to sabotage a power plant, but he fails and ends up erasing ALL of the videotapes at a local video store where his best friend Mike (Mos Def) works. Mia Farrow plays an elderly customer, Miss Falewics, who suffers from dementia and Jerry and Mike re-create and film every movie she rents and end up becoming big celebrities in the process. Then the law gets involved because they are violating copyright laws and may end up in prison just to satisfy their most loyal customer who doesn't even know the difference between their movies and the real movies that were ruined earlier in the film. This film has NO comedic timing and falls flat on jokes. The trailer for this film is better than the film itself, and the script is very weak. This film would've been better as a short film versus stretched out into a feature-length movie that has to go as far as to water down and explain jokes to appeal to a mass audience rather than assuming the audience is intelligent enough to get the jokes without the explanation. For each punchline, there's an explanation of why it's funny. If you have to do that in your script, then something is wrong. Jack Black is a talented actor that can make bad scripts good, but even a magic wand couldn't revive this dead script. The plot is hokey, the jokes are badly timed and the cinematography is a joke. I wonder if the cast and crew were high and drunk when filming this movie because how it ended up in theaters as-is is beyond me. I'd describe this movie as a dog fable that never finds it's way home. With an 80's cliché of VHS tapes that video stores put the fear in us to "BE KIND and REWIND" or else they'll charge us a "rewind fee", this film fails to deliver on that charm. I give this film a 4 out of 10. Don't see this movie. It's not worth it. I do have to give kudos to Chandler Parker in this film. He has a bit part, but he plays it well and he has a face that is unforgettable and draws your attention to the screen no matter who else is on there. I see a big future in movies for Chandler Parker. Great name, great face, great talent and great personality!! Bravo, Chandler Parker!

I'm not sure why this movie has such a high rating on IMDb... maybe Jack Black and his buddies have been on this site lately. Anyway... I'm usually a fan of Jack's comedy style. He is usually extremely animated and his movies are filled with parts where you just bust out laughing saying, "Did he really just do that?"... but this movie fell short. The beginning was quite dull.. not very funny at all. It was only towards the middle of the movie when things got a bit funny, but only a bit. The dialog was not snappy at all. I think the writers must have been depressed or something. Very bland. I went to the movie looking for a light hearted comedy that would make me laugh and out of the 2 hours of movie, maybe about 90 seconds of it hit my mark. The ending was the best part of the movie, but it was too little, too late. Pretty lame movie in my opinion. If you want a good laugh, go rent School of Rock, or Shallow Hal or something...

I respect Michel Gondry's work in every aspect of the word, whether his innovativeness in music video making or his film work. He has definitely a unique style, some whiz, excellent film techniques, and a generally good sense of humor. However, Be Kind Rewind, which I have been waiting to see for some time... was a huge disappointment. And I don't mean to be harsh... but the film is really badly written. Yes, it has good ideas, but it has no believability of character... and it's extremely dull. That film should have been co-written with someone like Charlie Kaufman per se. I don't recommend Be Kind Rewind. It's hardly funny. And it's not worth watching. Yes, it has cute ideas, but I prefer watching plot less art films than this trying-to-be-commercial unentertaining flop.

This movie make a glance on our film-society of today. He hold up a mirror to us and take a look at what are the roots of film making. How is a modern video store appointed? In my country there are maybe 50% * movies, 20% action or horror movies, 25% Mainstream and nearly 5% legendary movies. Exactly this makes the movie show me in his funny way. Jack Black and Mos Deaf as funny simple-minded human beings try to make their accident right and in that way exactly hit the mark. This movie on the one hand motivates to use your own creativity - going out and make your own films. On the other hand makes clear that video stores like "Be Kind Rewind" are still fighting against Goliaths, hopefully with a sling and as well with us who going to support such treasures like those video stores. After all this movie is some kind of tragicomedy, even if you must laugh nearly the whole movie.

While I'm sure I'll pay a price in the "helpfulness" department for saying it, this is the only film out of the couple dozen that I caught at Sundance this year that I simply could not make it through. (I walked out around the 50-minute mark.) I have nothing against feel-good comedies, and as a film lover, I found the concept hilarious and suspected that this director would do a good job with it. For me at least, it wasn't to be. I've never been a Jack Black fan, but I was willing to give him a chance, and he was serviceable in a role that didn't ask all that much. What I couldn't get over was the fact that the "sweded" recreations of classic films were not much more imaginative than the stuff that the "Scary Movie" franchise has been cranking out lately. If you want to see classic movies ingeniously remade on a shoestring, might I recommend "Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation" instead? Those three teenagers had a lot less dough to work with than the the creators of this far-too-predictable exercise, but one could argue that the results were far more entertaining. End of rant. It could have been worse, but it should have been so much better.

Looking at the existing comments you might be forgiven for wondering why over 500 people have given this a 10 out of 10 rating. To date, none of those have commented on the movie apart from me. For me, Jack Black has appeared in three films that have unexpectedly made me think: School of Rock, Shallow Hal and this one. All these films seem to have a genuine sense of fun, particularly where children are involved, yet have a deeper message that lingers as an uncomfortable question in the back of my mind long after the film has ended: School of Rock about the nature of teaching, Shallow Hal about our perception of beauty and Be Kind Rewind about communities and film-making. I have found no answers to any of the questions posed by these films. I easily managed to suspend my disbelief for two hours and found this movie genuinely funny and touching all at the same time. As a moviemaker myself this film reminded me that great movies are made by people who love them (e.g. Somewhere in Time, The Sting) and they're made for the audience of that time and place. It's not about realism, it's about loving the story. This film reminded me that communities are broken up in the name of progress, which gives the film a rather melancholy feel towards the end. But most of all it reminded me of the fun we have in making short films and the excitement you feel when you see the product of your own efforts. Great acting by all - without exception. And what a nice touch to rejuvenate the memory of Fats Waller.