Be Kind Rewind

Rating: ***/*****, or 7/10

Michel Gondry's ode to creativity in general and the old VHS video cassettes in particular. After old Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) leaves his small shabby video store in the hands of his young assistant Mike for a few days, his clumsy and slightly insane friend Jerry (Jack Black) accidentally erases the contents of all the tapes, due to being magnetized after a failed attempt to sabotage the local power plant. Desperate to continue business, the pair decides to reshoot the films themselves with whatever help and means they can find, and soon these so-called 'Sweded' films turn out more popular among their customers than the real deal. Unfortunately, this gets them under the authorities' radar for copyright infringements. To preserve the new sense of community and save Mr. Fletcher's store from demolition, the whole neighbourhood therefore assists in making a movie about a local (fictional) jazz legend. Sweded films include Ghostbusters, Rush Hour 2 and Robocop: these selfmade shorts provide the biggest laughs in this otherwise overly feel-good comedy which trades in humour for sentiment towards the end of the film, but maintains honest and good intentions throughout the piece and calls for an end to paranoid copyright violation laws in favour of people celebrating their favorite films by being creative together, just for the fun of it.

Starring: Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover

Directed by Michel Gondry

USA: New Line Cinema, 2008