"Be Kind Rewind"

Feel good comedies aren't very common. And when they are, they're not very good. This is a movie that was left forgotten, made you feel great, but was largely fantastic.

"Be Kind Rewind" (2008) Mr Fletcher (Danny Glover) runs a video store (which only rents VHS) out of a historic building of a small town in New Jersey hit hard by the recession in the economy. The town is famous for Fats Waller - a jazz musician who got his start in this small town. Things start getting tougher and tougher, so Mr Fletcher decides to go on Waller memorial trip, but really he is secretly staking-out a West Coast Video to see why they are so successful (which is because they only rent DVDs, and no longer deal in VHS). He leaves the store in the hands of his foster son Mike (Mos Def), and tells him not to allow the village idiot Jerry (Jack Black) into the store while he's gone.

Jerry is a conspiracy theorist, and thinks the government is controlling everyone through the electric power plant, so tries to sabotage it. In doing so he becomes magnetized, and ends up erasing the tapes of every movie in the store. To keep business going while Mr Fletcher is out of town, Mike gets the bright idea of recording his own version of Ghostbusters to rent to one of the regulars who is being called by Mr Fletcher every night while he's gone. It's awful, but the woman ends up loving it. The charade goes on and on until the store becomes infamous in town for having these really bad remakes which they refer to as being Sweded. When things start to go wrong, the whole neighborhood comes together in support of the movie store, and its beautiful. 

"Be Kind Rewind" is great. It has a target audience: fans of movies. And if you've ever worked at a movie store, there will be a special place in your heart for this one. Plus, anyone who enjoys seeing Jack Black hit in the skull with a cast iron pan multiple times will get some enjoyment out of this one. 

I highly recommend this movie. It is just fun. The montage of them filming a bunch of movies is terrific - you get to see the Sweded version of very famous movie scenes. And its genius. We've all pretended to be in movies before - Mike and Jerry are making the movies we would have made as children. Do yourself a favor and check this out. It's not the greatest movie, but it is very worthwhile.