Friday, October 10, 2008

Be Smart and Don't Start "Be Kind Rewind"

I've never walked out of a movie I've seen in the theater, though I came close to doing so during The Mummy. Good thing its awesome roller coaster makes up for the awfulness of that franchise. But now, for the first time I can remember, I gave up half-way through a DVD I'd been watching in the comfort of my own home. Congratulations, Be Kind Rewind... it takes a lot for me to throw in the towel.

I still remain confused as to why and how this movie was so terrible. I mean, play its trailer -- unique concept, some big-name cast members... it looks funny, right?



Except that it wasn't funny. At all. Even Jack Black wasn't funny - his character was mean-spirited, weird and not at all relatable. In addition, Mos Def is not a good actor and should stick to MC-ing. Further, there were several parts of the film that I literally couldn't watch -- they kept showing clips of "old movies" that flickered so badly that I had to avert my eyes or else I knew I was going to get a migraine.

Finally, I looked at my husband about forty-five minutes into it and said, "Do you really want to spend another hour watching this?" and he said, "No." We ejected the DVD and caught The Office and the SNL special instead (they're running them every Thursday until the election - set your Tivos!).

If anyone out there saw Be Kind Rewind in its entirety, please let me know if I made the wrong decision. I did think the reenactment of Ghostbusters was kind of funny, but not enough to watch them do it over and over again with different films. I still am kind of depressed because I think the idea behind this comedy is a good one: what would happen if a video store re-shot famous movies in an attempt to pass them off as the originals... and customers ended up loving the shoddy remakes?

Maybe someone should remake Be Kind Rewind and then perhaps I could stand it.

- e

6 comments:

OlNumba7 said...

Normally we share pretty similar tastes, e, so I'm suprised you didn't like it. I think that the movie trailers did a pretty bad job of selling what the movie was all about. I thought that it would be a little more of a Jack Black screwball comedy, but it was a different kind of funny, and actually was pretty touching. The hook to get you in was the redoing of the movies and zany Jack Black, but it turned out that the story was all about Mos Def's character (who I also loved in that 16 Blocks movie with Bruce Willis).

Anyway, that's just my opinion. Keep up the good work here and on Redblog, and I can't wait to read you're Lost recaps in just a couple of months!

Unknown said...

You did not make the wrong decision. I saw the movie in the theater and was bored out of my mind.

Spenzer said...

I know that I watched it because a friend of mine wanted me to, but I couldn't tell you for the world what that movie was about. It was just floating by and I wasn't really paying attention. Very forgetful.

drew said...

I never saw it, and now I dont think I will.

sylvia said...

Having seen Michel Gondry's previous two efforts I was expecting a whimsy and unconventional, albeit an intelligent film. What BKR turned out to be was just a sentimental, confused mess. I'm not sure if Mia Farrow's character was meant as a tribute to Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo where she played a movie-obsessed New Jersey housewife, but it should win an award for the most embarassing and cringe-worthy role of the year.

I recently read that a silent movie era director DW Griffith shot his earlier films in the Passaic area and that the town was the setting of a milestone documentary, The Passaic Textile Strike, produced by the Communist party in 1926. It seems particularly sad that the film's demoralised citizens of Passaic seem completely unaware of this.

Caity said...

My husband and I watched this on DVD, and he still insists that it was entertaining, but I can't remember why/how it could have been. Even the movie remakes, which were supposed to be the funniest parts, were not that funny. It was a good idea, but they just didn't pull through.