BE KIND REWIND

2008

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Michel Gondry

CINEMATROGRAPHER: Ellen Kuras

BUDGET: $20 Million

GROSS: $30.6 Million

Ahhhh, the title itself brings me back to my childhood and the VHS-era. Alright, so this is gonna date me a bit, but I remember when the first video store opened up in my town and my parents would have to rent a VHS machine (along with the VHS tapes) until we eventually bought one.  And so began to grow - exponentially with each video I rented - my love of movies.

Be Kind Rewind, from the wonderful Michel Gondry, has that love of movie smell all over it. And you want to inhale every minute of it. 

The film is about a small little VHS-only video store run by Danny Glover. While he’s out of town he leaves the store in the care of Mos Def. But his friend, Jack Black, ends up erasing all the video tapes (it’s quite an odd and funny series of events that leads up to it). In order to fix things, the two guys decide to remake the movies themselves using an old camera and low-budget special effects.

Not only is the film funny, it’s also really sweet without being corny. Watching them remake all these movies and iconic scenes will wake up the film lover in you and put a smile on your face like few other movies about movies have (Cinema Paradiso perhaps).

Gondry is known for his great visual style (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, The Science Of Sleep) and Be Kind Rewind is no exception. The entire film feels like it’s present day (2008), but also about 15 years prior. 

It’s like a little time warp within the present and it’s definitely a trip worth taking.