Be Kind, Rewind!

Be Kind, Rewind. I'm sure you heard of it. It's that one movie with Jack Black and Mos Def where Jack Black becomes magnetized and erases all the tapes. And then, to make money, they decide to remake each erased tape to satisfy their clientèle, which exponentially grows after some interesting versions of Ghostbusters ("What you gonna do about Ghooost-BUSSSterssss?!") and Rush Hour 2 (Jack Black is Jackie Chan, no facial make up required).

Well, I'm sure most people saw the trailer thinking, "Aw, must be some cute, feel good movie with some funny remakes of movies, maybe I'll check it out." But they probably didn't, maybe they were busy, or, when they were at the theaters, they went to the romantic comedy instead, I mean, it did come out in February. So, this movie probably got very little attention. I mean, I never watched it in theaters. I wanted to, I thought it would be great, but that's because I knew it's backstory. I'll get to that in a minute. But, I never watched it until this morning. And I'm ridiculously glad I did. More on that in a moment.

Michel Gondry was the writer and director of this film. He's only done four other pictures, of which I've seen two. He originally did Dave Chapelle's Block Party (which I have no intention of seeing) Human Nature, which I've never seen, but wasn't very popular. Most notably, that movie was written by Charlie Kaufman, who's most notable for Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Human Nature set up the beginnings of a future collaboration that would put Gondry on the map: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Good film, great camera techniques, well written, good acting. This is what Gondry is most remembered for, but I think a film he wrote (by himself) and directed two years later was so much better that ESotSM: The Science of Sleep, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, of The Motorcycle Diaries (eh, it was OK) and Babel (great). In this movie, Gael's character, Stephane Miroux, has a disassociation problem, in which he has trouble discerning the difference between his dream world and the real world. This is Gondry with no one pulling him back, completely on his own coming up with the most original movie I have ever seen. The basic plot is a girl, Stephanie, falls in love with Stephane, but he originally likes her friend. However, he ends up deciding that he likes Stephanie more, but by the time he realizes Stephanie has moved on and doesn't care for Stephane, so he spends the rest of the movie trying to get her back. But, the plot was not what made it good. It was a part of it, but it was mostly the visuals. However, I'm losing my original point here, so I will stop talking about Science of Sleep and tell you all to go out and watch it, right now.

Be Kind Rewind is Gondry being restrained, but even him restrained is good. He has at least two shots in which it is just the camera moving along as the main characters create their remakes, but as the camera movies along, we are shown different sets and movies. So, it starts with like a boxing movie, moves into 2001 then King Kong and it just keeps going. The camera never stops and neither do the actors. I'll stop here because I hate giving away movies, but I'll just say this: go out and see it. For newcomers to Gondry's style, I suggest starting out with this one. It's the least crazy, but it's still very good. I have a feeling Gondry was trying to reach out to a deeper audience with a more subdued idea, but he's still making good stuff.

Now, after all that, I bet all of you out there are thinking where the hell is he going with this? My ultimate point is coming up in this paragraph, so be patient, you'll see it, you'll go "Holy crap! He's absolutely right!" and be done with me. In the trailer of BKR, it says "The most important movies are the ones we make ourselves". I watched the trailer before I watched the movie (what can I say, it gets me more invested in the movie), and I saw that, and I realized they were giving away the theme of the movie before anyone had seen it. I had never noticed that line before, but it just struck me. And then I watched the movie, and that was the point they made. These two guys set out to make a bunch of movies because they needed money to save their business, but instead they created something that their whole community became invested in.

And that struck me. What are the most important videos to me? Sure, I'd probably put Jurassic Park and Raiders of the Lost Ark because those are the movies that made me love film, but after this movie, I'm not so sure. I look back on the movies I've made growing up, the ones I've made for my film classes, and I remember what it was like the first time showing any of those. My stomach tightening, my fist tightening. I remember looking at people's reactions more than the movie itself. And I remember discussing it, saying what I was going for, what people got from it, their opinions, their criticisms, I would take whatever I could get. And I look back on it now and I realize those are the ones that are important. Why? Because it's my work, it's my effort, it's my thoughts poured out on film.

So, I pose the question to you all, what is more important to you? Say you love reading. What's more important to you, the books you've read or the ones you've tried to write yourself? Or your a football player. What's more important, the hits you've seen on TV, or the ones you've laid yourself? What's more important, what someone else has done, or what you've done yourself? In the end, what matters is what you've done, what you have worked for, and the effort you put into your work. Take pride in that work, because it is yours. That's what matters.

Wow, first post and I'm already getting preachy. I don't how future posts will turn out, so expect less life lessons. There will be no universal themes to my posts, so each time you'll be left with a new thought. Which is the way I like it.

Since I talked so much about the most important videos being the ones we made ourselves, I thought it would be fitting to leave you all with one I made myself. Or maybe I'm just way too into myself. Either way, enjoy this work of cinema in the classroom.