I like Michel Gondry. Or I used to. Maybe I still do. I dunno. Anyway, I have two reasons for which my estimation of him has gone down somewhat. One I can't talk about, but involves work, and a relation of his, so take my word for it. The other is because of 'Be Kind Rewind'.
I don't know what happened here. I'll sum up the plot for you, and probably take a few pot shots on the way.
Theres these two guys, one a black guy played by Mos Def, and a white guy, played by Jack Black.
The black guy listens to jazz. Stereotype. Racial. The white guy acts a lot like Jack Black.....but a not funny Jack Black. Maybe more like an impersonator of Jack Black doing a very bad Jack Black. Seriously. Its like Gondry pointed the camera at him and said 'Act funny'.
I felt uncomfortable for him.
Anyway, these guys live in this kinda slummy part of some American city which could be New York but I can't remember, and work in a video store owned by this other old guy who is black and played by Danny Glover, who is also black. The Video store boss also listens to Jazz and makes up lies about it.
Jack Black for some unknown reason....I think probably cause he is wacky and Jack Black like, and you know him, he is CRAZY, decides to attack some power station with a grappling hook. Anyway he ends up being eletrocuted and becomes magnetized in a wacky Gondry way.........because I don't know if you realise this........but in real life.....you'd die. Fuck I love Gondrys little wacky flights of fancy. He's so wacky and cute. Anyway he goes back to the video store and wipes all the tapes.
The boss guy who listens to Jazz and is a liar, has gone away to look at other video stores to find out what makes them money, because guess what? His business is failing. It needs saving.
(Funnily enough when looking around one of the mega stores, he says, 'More copies of the same film, less selection' in a hysterical satirical social attack on Dvd shops and those films that they make so many copies of that you can by them in supermarkets. Which is double funny cause I bought 'Be Kind Rewind' in a supermarket.)
Not wanting to damage the Boss guys store Jack Black and Mos Def decide to remake all the films in the store on the cheap with a video camera.
Now, Although what I have written so far sounds pretty scathing, I actually really like the idea of guys remaking films on the cheap and coming up with awesome ways to recreate scenes which everybody already loves and knows in an inventive and cheap way. The problem is that, this only seems to make up about 1/5th of the movie. About 1/5th of that 1/5th is inventive and interesting. The rest of it is just crap. 1/5th of 1/5th of this movie equals about 2 mins and in each of those minutes I laughed once. This is exactly how much I laughed during the whole film.
Anyway, the guys end up making enough money to save the store, but then get sued by the corporations for pirating their movies. (Those guys again. To get out of that one they should have made some logo art out of the DVD logo where instead of standing for Digital Versitile Disc, it stood for Defining Vacuous Dicks. Then they could have plastered pictures of George Bush all over it sucking Tony Scotts cock.....political, with a cool and popular opinion about movies and the types of people that watch them and a little nonsensical as well so you can say 'Don't you get it?' That would have shown them.)
The guys come up with an idea of making a movie that is an original idea so they gather the community together to help them make a movie about a Jazz singer who used to live in the video store building. Only it turns out he never did. The Boss made up a whole lot of stories about the guy that never really happened, but as it turns out none of them give a fuck, so they also decide that they should all make up stories about this jazz singer and put them in the film. So its a town of liars.
Anyway the corporations see the film the lying fuckwads of a community made whilst standing outside with their bulldozers waiting to smash the store to shit and find it as heartwarming as the putrid music playing on the soundtrack. The credits roll.
I really like Gondrys other films and music videos. I like all the cool, clever little tricks he does. I like the design and art direction of his stuff. I like how you can tell stuff is a Gondry film. None of that shit matters. You can have all the cool ideas you want to add salt and pepper to a story, but if its a bad story its not gonna make one turd of a difference. For me, this turned Gondry completely into the 'arthouse' version of Michael Bay. All style and no substance. The fact that he even had a cool idea like that and ruined it makes it even worse. Again a Michal Bay comparison: Gondry had two guys remaking films we know and love in a downright funny and interesting way as his idea, Michal Bay had giant Transforming robots. Both great ideas for a movie and both these cunts managed to fuck them up.
I went and did a search for Gondry on Youtube and found all these wacky ideas that he has been making into little films. I particularly didn't like ones where he sprouts hands out of the ends of his fingers/nostrals/feet to do multiple rubix cubes all at once. I can see how maybe you'd make it once (I think the feet one was first), but to be honest why keep making it? Its not hard to do, its not really all that clever and its not really funny.
I think he has some brilliant ideas and I loved 'Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind'(which he didn't write)
I just hope 'Be Kind Rewind' isn't a sign of things to come.
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