Here's one of my dirty little secrets: I love lists and I keep track of my year's ten best movies all year long. Most other critics hastily assemble their lists at the last second, which is partly why so many December movies dominate; critics can't remember what they've seen earlier in the year. My list shows that 2008 has had a pretty poor first half, but I do have some contenders for listhood. Two movies are currently competing for the top spot, though I need to see them both again to be sure. Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flight of the Red Balloon (6 screens) is one; it has a lovely, laid-back, observant quality and feels less severe than some of Hou's other recent films. But I haven't yet decided if the film is a comedy or a tragedy. It all feels pretty light and insignificant, except for the saddest thing: no one seems to notice the red balloon of the title, drifting around Paris, unable to find a boy like Pascal to love it. The film also contains the year's most vibrant performance: Juliette Binoche playing a frenzied single mom working with a puppet troupe.

Be Kind Rewind
When news first broke about the premise of this film, it seemed too good to be true -- Michel Gondry was making a movie about guys who remake classic movies. However, they wouldn't be just remakes; they would be "Sweded" classics because one of the guys had become magnetized and ruined a store full of VHS tapes. It sounded like a wacky dream come true, and it sounded like the perfect film fodder for Jack Black and Mos Def.

In reality, it was almost all there. The quirky bits were brilliant, but the save-the-store back story that Gondry was pressured to add could've been left out. But that didn't matter. Gondry's versions of flicks like Ghostbusters, Driving Miss Daisy, and Rush Hour were perfect -- and worth dealing with any sappy-themed fare that followed. Honestly, it could've been a lot worse, and I still would've enjoyed their scheme to film night shots during the day. That bit was sheer brilliance.

Anyway, now you can get your own copy of Be Kind Rewind, one that should be safe from your magnetically laced friends. The DVD offers an extended train scene with Mr. Fletcher, but not too much in the way of other added fare. There's a regular featurette called "Passaic Mosaic," which features chats with cast, crew, and locals, and the theatrical trailer, which isn't much of a special feature at all. I would assume that another disc has to be on the way -- at the very least, to add in Gondry's own Sweded trailer for the film.

Check out James Rocchi's review | Buy the DVD

Jack Black, whose Kung Fu Panda opens this week, seemed to move awfully quickly from rising star to overexposed. His always-moving, rock 'n' roll persona seems to be everywhere, turning up in several movies a year, always pitched at the same high level. It's all too easy to concentrate on his most annoying performances, as lazy fast-talkers, or selfish schemers in films like Saving Silverman, Shallow Hal, Envy and The Holiday. But a closer look at his filmography shows more than a few samples of the Jack Black that we initially liked and elevated to stardom.

1. High Fidelity (2000)
This was the first time Black came onto my radar, although he had previously been in at least 30 other movies and TV shows. It's arguably the first time he tapped into the Jack Black persona for the length of an entire movie, and he was nicely fitted in the mix between cool, confused John Cusack and Todd Louiso (as the withdrawn music nerd). His was a supporting role, rather than a lead, which is the best place for a character actor of his caliber. Moreover, Black played a nerd with a wide-ranging knowledge of music, implying that he was at least using his brain for something (as opposed to many of his other films). As for his performance, he showed enough natural, unhinged exuberance (especially in his surprise rendition of "Let's Get It On") that, frankly, he deserved an Oscar nomination.

Among my favorite film books is Michael J. Weldon's two-volume "Psychotronic" film guide. The first was published in 1983 and the second in 1996 (Michael hopes to publish a third at some point). Unlike Leonard Maltin's annual book, Weldon doesn't update an existing guide; each new guide is an entirely new volume. If you want to read about Halloween, you need Vol. 1 and if you want to read about Halloween 4, you need Vol. 2. A "Psychotronic" movie can be fairly easy to define. It's basically any of the "lower" film genres, dealing with the more questionable elements of society: horror, sci-fi, bikers, strippers, superheroes, zombies, kung-fu, vampires, comic books, drugs, sex, action heroes, rock 'n' roll, midnight movies, monsters, witches, cults, serial killers, magic, time travel, robberies, heists, contract killers, gladiators, Spaghetti Westerns, mad scientists, murder mysteries, pimps, voyeurs, etc.

Not many people care to admit it, but Hollywood is run by fear. Fear is an emotion generated by things that are not known or understood, and in the movie business, no one ever knows what's going to happen. (William Goldman was right when he said, "Nobody Knows Anything.") All those accountants, producers, publicists, entertainment TV shows, ad campaigns, etc. are all an attempt to get a handle on the unknown, an attempt to control the uncontrollable. Anything can happen. The world's biggest movie star can jump up and down on a couch and suddenly become a weirdo outcast. Or the star of a dismal turkey like Showgirls can turn around and find herself cast in a Woody Allen film. This fear, in essence, is why so many movies are so bad. The more investors and business people try to control their investment, the more they clamp down on it, and the more it gets smothered.

See, movies can live and breathe like an organic life form, but they have to have a chance. If brave producers step back and let the movie come to life in the hands of a genuine artist, they could wind up with something extraordinary like Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men (229 screens), a film that somehow pleased critics both highbrow and middlebrow, won a handful of Oscars and has nearly grossed $75 million. This film has already entered the cultural canon as a classic of cinema. More or less the same can be said of Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (224 screens), which, having lost the Oscar for Best Picture, is now in a position of being an underrated underdog. But those are exceptions to the rule. No one is immune to the fear: a few years back the Coen Brothers teamed up with sleazy producer Brian Grazer, of all people, and came up with their first dud, Intolerable Cruelty.

(The following review ran during the Sundance Film Festival, but we're re-posting it now to coincide with the film's theatrical release.)

In Passaic, New Jersey, the thrift store and video rental emporium Be Kind Rewind offers customers their choice of films to rent, if by 'choice,' you mean 'VHS only.' But while owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) is away, his counterman and almost-son Mike (Mos Def) lets Jerry (Jack Black) into the store, against Mr. Fletcher's instructions not to. Jerry is normally a walking disaster -- a dreamer of a mechanic, obsessed with the belief that the power plant he lives near is flooding him with radiation. A failed attempt to sabotage the power plant leaves Jerry energized and magnetized to such a degree that his mere presence wipes all of Be Kind Rewind's inventory. When loyal customer Ms. Kimberly, tasked by Mr. Fletcher to check in on the store while he's away, comes in to rent Ghostbusters, Jerry and Mike's solution to the crisis is hardly logical, but certainly inspired: Produce and shoot a replacement version of the film within 24 hours so she'll be none the wiser about the store's ruined inventory.

But Ms. Kimberly shows the film to some of her foster children, who can recognize that Jerry is not quite Bill Murray, and that Mike is not quite Ivan Reitman, and that holding the right-hand side of Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights" up to the camera is not quite a special-effects shot of a demon-haunted landscape. The foster kids -- thugs and toughs to a man -- come around Be Kind Rewind the next day. But they're not mad; they're curious: "That was pretty good. What else you got?" And other customers are curious about the store's new selections -- which, it's explained, come from Sweden, which is why they cost $20 and you have to request them 24 hours in advance. ...

Written and directed by Michel Gondry, Be Kind Rewind is as much a work of creativity and passion as the re-shot, cut-in-camcorder, home-brew "Swedish Import" re-made Hollywood blockbusters that it revolves around. And, much like Jerry and Mike's re-shot versions of Driving Miss Daisy or Rush Hour or The Lion King, Be Kind Rewind is a film where the plot is less important than panache, where the lack of elegance is made up for by an excess of enthusiasm. Jerry and Mike aren't just shooting day for night; they're shooting day for night, male for female, white for black, Jerry for Jackie (Chan, that is). Aided and abetted by Alma (Melonie Diaz), an early recruit to their shooting requirements (they need a girl for Rush Hour), the store's new offerings rapidly become a sensation, as customers line up to request new films they want to see the 'Sweded' versions of and rent the rest of Jerry and Mike's oeuvre as soon as other customers bring them back. This not only makes Jerry and Mike celebrities (or, more correctly, sub-lebrities) in Passaic, but also may raise the money that Mr. Fletcher's store needs to come up to the building code and avoid being shut down. ...

A brand new trailer for Be Kind Rewind has arrived online, and I'm ashamed to say this may be one of my favorite trailers of all time. It has nothing to do with the actual movie, mind you, but I love it because Michel Gondry runs around like a loon. Yes, this is a "sweded" version of the actual trailer -- meaning Gondry messed up the film reel and had to re-create his own trailer using whatever props he had on him. Confused yet?

See, Be Kind Rewind stars Jack Black and Mos Def as two guys who run a video store and accidentally erase all the tapes. So, in order to save their business, the men need to re-create all of the classic movies using cheap props they collect themselves (this process is called "sweding"). So now imagine if the film's entire trailer was "sweded" by director Michel Gondry, and that's what you'll find above. Gondry plays all the roles, and he's an absolute riot (partly because we have no idea what he's saying half the time due to his pretty thick accent). When he sang the Ghostbusters theme to himself, I just about lost my sh*t. Gotta watch it now! Check out James' Sundance review of Be Kind Rewind and his interview with Gondry; Be Kind Rewind hits theaters on February 22.

Sometimes I wish I had a large, waiting-to-be-used stash of money that would allow me to go to every film festival that caught my fancy. The other option would be to convince a patron of each fest to wear a mini camera on their lapel, but that would be, well, illegal, so let's stick with the other fantasy. Like many of the big fests, Berlinale is looking to be all sorts of tasty. We've already had some previous screening announcements, and now Reuters has added even more eagerly-anticipated films to the fest list.

In the realm of Berlin's competitive films, Kristin Scott Thomas' I've Loved You So Long has been added to the roster. In the "out of competition" offerings at Berlinale, filmgoers can delight in a who's who of big names. There's Fireflies in the Garden, the Julia Roberts-starring film about a town devastated by an unexpected tragedy. (It's also a film that co-stars the likes of Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hayden Panettiere, and Ioan Gruffudd.) Or, if you want to dip back into history, there's Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman's The Other Boleyn Girl. And, what could be better to wrap up the festival than a movie for fans of film? Berlinale will perfectly close with Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind. (Check out James' Sundance review!)

The festival will run from February 7 to 17.

Writer-director Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind follows two small-town friends, Jerry (Jack Black) and Mike (Mos Def) as disaster at a VHS-only video rental store forces them to try to replace the wiped tapes ... by re-shooting the films they once contained. When their ultra-low-budget, ultra-high-spirit remakes of films like Ghostbusters, King Kong and The Lion King become hits with customers (who are told the tapes are Swedish imports), Jerry and Mike's absurd yet logical attempt to save the store becomes an unexpected starting point for their own artistic journey -- and a celebration of movie making and movie watching. Gondry brings Jerry and Mike's collaborations to life with the mix of big-idea film making and intimate wonder he's demonstrated in all his work, including Human Nature, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep and Dave Chappelle's Block Party. Be Kind Rewind will premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival; Gondry spoke with Cinematical about everything from the joy of creation, racism in film and popular culture, and how Sundance feels different from other film festivals: " (At Sundance) ... I felt encouraged to continue; in Cannes, I felt really like people were asking me to stop doing my job."

(The audio file of this interview, like all of Cinematical's podcast offerings, is now available through iTunes; if you'd like, you can subscribe at this link. Also, you can listen directly here at Cinematical by clicking below: )



Cinematical: I guess the first, and easiest question is where did the idea behind Be Kind Rewind come from for you?

Michel Gondry: It comes from a utopia I had -- do you say 'having a utopia?' -- a belief I have that people can create their own entertainment. I always wanted to create this community that would come and tell their own story, shoot it -- and watch them. The idea is to not have one entity who creates the work, the project, and another entity who consumes it; the idea is people create their own work, like somebody cultivating his garden.

Cinematical: And in the film, we see the characters go from imitation to actual creation; that was always part of the idea?

Michel Gondry: Yes; it's very important to me that they go through this journey; I don't want to advocate imitation; I want to encourage creation. In this case, they start with imitation because their goal is not being creative; they don't realize they're being creative until they become successful and they are forced to be creative. And actually Alma (Melonie Diaz), who's sort of the smarter, the smartest guy of the band -- she's a girl -- tells them that they are much more creative than what they think they are. And then they realize that they don't have to copy movies; they can create their own. And I think it's very important that people not just make their own entertainment, but that they create it, that they really invent the story.

When it comes to Michel Gondry films, I guess the wackiness just never stops. Cinemablend is now hosting the first poster for the comedy fantasy Be Kind Rewind and it's everything you would expect from the director who seems to have 'whimsy' as a middle name. Starring Jack Black and Mos Def, the film centers on two local video store employees who have to re-create an entire video store worth of films when Black accidentally erases all the tapes after a bout of 'personal magnetization'. Rounding out the cast is Mia Farrow as one of the store's most dedicated customers and Danny Glover as the owner of the struggling shop.

The first trailer for the flick arrived in August, and so far most of the marketing for the film has been stressing that same message of a fantastical 'DIY culture'. I guess in the end that is what I've always thought Gondry's movies were about; if you aren't happy with the way things are then create your own reality until you are. The official site for the film even gives you the opportunity to cut and paste your own face into some famous movie art. Ever wanted to be on the cover of Die Hard? Well, here is your chance. There is even a pretty elaborate gag involving a "homemade Internet". The poster for the film seems to keep the same feel as the website and even looks like it was made on the cheap with markers and pencil crayons -- but as anyone in the design business knows, sometimes it's the 'cheap' look that costs you the most. Be Kind Rewind opens in theaters on January 25th, 2008.

Check out the full-sized poster after the jump ...

Before I had ever attended the Sundance Film Festival, I imagined the event as this small mountain town overrun with an abundance of celebrities, who could be seen just walking around, outnumbering the actual moviegoers. Why? Because that's what a lot of the media concentrates on. And yes, when I did finally attend, I was able to spend five minutes walking up Main Street, in which little time I walked past Evan Rachel Wood, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Tom Arnold and others. Sure, they weren't the biggest names, but it seemed my imagined world actually existed. Of course, most of the big celebs are probably not walking around so casually. But I wouldn't know; the rest of the fest I spent my time watching 37 features, mostly far away from Main Street and the celebs, inside the Yarrow Hotel's press screening rooms.

For many attendees, though, it's all about the celeb sightings and the big-name movies, of which Sundance seems to premiere more and more of each year. However, 2007 didn't seem to have as many popular titles (as far as I noticed from my non-attending standpoint). In contrast, the 2008 festival appears to have more stars than the Academy Awards ceremony. Some of the big films that will be premiering or screening this year include Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, Barry Levinson's What Just Happened?, Morgan Spurlock's new doc Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, Michael Haneke's Funny Games (U.S.), George Romero's Diary of the Dead and the directorial debut of Michael Keaton, The Merry Gentleman. And, for the sightseers, some of the attending stars include Robert DeNiro, Sean Penn, Maria Bello, William Hurt, Sharon Stone, Bruce Willis, Dennis Quaid, Ellen Page, Ben Kingsley, Ewan McGregor, Sean Combs, Julianne Moore, Charlize Theron, Brian Cox, John Malkovich, Matthew Broderick, Jacqueline Bisset, Meg Ryan, Jack Black and Mia Farrow.

For the rest, head over to Variety for the full list of films and of course their big-name casts.

The official site for Michel Gondry's latest movie, Be Kind Rewind, has every trademark touch you would expect from the whimsical director. There is plenty of style and plenty of silly. Rather than just your typical site with trailers and downloads (and don't worry this site has plenty of them if that's your thing) the site presents us all with a truly frightening concept: what if someone wiped out the internet? I won't ruin if for you, but let's just say that it involves rebuilding Google with some string and a bunch of wood -- it's kind of hard to explain, but trust me, it's pretty darn cute.

Besides the usual offerings, the site gives you the chance to 'Swede' yourself into a few flicks. That's right; Gondry has even invented a new word for the movie. The word 'Swede' pops up a lot on the site, in fact, and a quick Wikipedia search provides this definition: "the practice of re-creating something from scratch using commonly available, everyday materials and technology. Items that are 'Sweded' look distinctively homemade, often bearing only the slightest resemblance to the original. While naively rendered, 'Sweded' items are usually charming and highly amusing".

Rewind stars Jack Black as a video store employee who accidentally magnetizes himself and when he comes to work the next day, manages to wipe out the store's entire collection. Trying to save their jobs, Black and his friend (and co-worker) Mos Def, set out to recreate the movies that were lost. OK, so the story might seem a little wacky for an entire movie, but Gondry is the master of leaps of movie logic so I still have faith. Be Kind Rewind is set for release on January 25th, 2008.

You gotta love that title. Is there a better phrase than Be Kind, Rewind to embody the golden age of VHS rental stores? I've often thought that saying would look pretty retro on a t-shirt. In this new comedy from Jack Black, (and you can check out the trailer at Yahoo) Be Kind, Rewind also happens to be the name of a video store. When Black's character somehow becomes magnetic, he erases the store's entire stock of movies on tape. Rather than simply buy new tapes (too logical and not at all funny), Black and co-star Mos Def proceed to produce their own versions of several Hollywood blockbusters including Ghostbusters, RoboCop, and Driving Miss Daisy. Their homemade remakes become quite popular, transforming the pair into local heroes.

I thought at first this might be a period piece from the pre-DVD era, but since one of the flick's Black and Def mangle hilariously is 2001's Rush Hour 2, the theory doesn't hold water. As funny as the trailer is, I couldn't help wondering if this might be one of those concepts that would work fine as a Saturday Night Live sketch, but would be hard-pressed to fill out a feature. Michel Gondry -- the man behind Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , which I loved -- is directing, so I have to think he's got something to say here. Be Kind, Rewind is due in U.S. theaters on December 21.

What hasn't Michel Gondry done, except for plain, mainstream fare like action movies and typical romcoms? There have been split-screen studies of going forward and backward in time, men carrying cars, dancing people skeletons, civilizing a man raised in the wild, another who tried to wipe his love from his memory and yet another guy whose hands can grow really big. He'd done everything except, of course, a magnetic brain, which he's now got covered with Be Kind, Rewind. Cinematical has been telling you about this film for ages, and if you haven't been paying attention yet -- you really should because if there was ever a Gondry film for everyone, I'd say it's this one.

The peeps over at Twitch have posted a photo from the film, which has Mos Def and Jack Black wrapped in tin foil stuck together with silver duct tape, with black straps to a backpack or something running under their armpits. Any guesses on the movie? Obviously, that isn't their normal attire, but their costumes for one of the films they re-create. If you haven't heard Rewind's premise yet -- it's about this guy named Jerry (Black) who becomes magnetized while trying to sabotage a power plant he thinks is melting his brain. When he accidentally erases all the tapes at the video store his friend Mike (Def) works at, to keep Mike's job and the sole regular, old lady customer, they decide to recreate every movie she decides to rent. (Because in Gondry's world, that's easy than buying the flick elsewhere.)

Part of me wishes they'd been releasing pics from each of the pair's adaptations are promo material, but at the same time, I'm sure that could spoil the funny shock of seeing what they come up with on the big screen. Hunting around to see if there were any others, I found some other photos lurking, which you might have missed if you don't haunt Jack Black fan sites or Filmwad. Both those links have a slew of pictures up with Black in period garb, farting around on a large, black and yellow train. Man, Mike and Jerry have a great production budget!

In a great interview with Danny Glover over at Latino Review, the actor discusses his new movie Shooter, and his admiration for co-star Marky Mark and director Antoine Fuqua. He also mentions one of the greatest character actors of all time, Ned Beatty, who I was thrilled to learn will appear in Shooter (mainly because I thought he was dead!). There's even a brief mention of his role in Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind, one of my most anticipated films this year. But let's focus on the big question: Will there be a Lethal Weapon 5? Or Lethal Weapon 5.0? Or Live Free or Lethal Weapon?

Sorry, action fans, Glover blows that question off pretty quickly, saying "No, no, no. I think it's good with the four. It's been nine years now since we finished Lethal Weapon (4). There was a lot of change in nine years. I think that for me and I feel for Mel (Gibson), it's good to leave that behind."I assume by "a lot of change," Glover is referring to Gibson's robo-insanity of late. The interviewer brings up Indiana Jones 4: The Search For Quality Lower Back Medication and Die Hard 4: The Magic Is Gone, but Glover remains firm, saying those movies were predicated on one guy and the Lethal Weapon series was more of a relationship piece. He states that Gibson could do one on his own and that he could do one on his own but it just wouldn't be the same. (I think if Glover believes people would turn out for a movie called Murtaugh! he's sorely mistaken, but that's neither here nor there.)

We'll see if Glover changes his tune once Warner Brothers and Mel's PR people back up the money truck, but for now, this is a good call. One need only watch the dismal Lethal Weapon 4 to know the series ran its course a while ago. I mean, Danny Glover first uttered that immortal line "I'm getting too old for this shit" in 1987! So now, twenty years later...I think it's safe to say the man is officially too old for this shit.