R.C. Killian (FangsFirst)

I've no idea, really, how Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze came to my attention. I know I saw handfuls of music videos from both of them when music videos used to air regularly, once upon a time. But at the time I couldn't name the directors of any movies I'd seen, barring, perhaps, Steven Spielberg, so I certainly didn't know music video directors. I know "The Directors" label releases caught my attention, but I ignored Gondry and Jonze, caring only for Chris Cunningham--because, of course, he directed some videos for The Aphex Twin. Still, I think the association was enough to catch my attention in all honesty, and I do think, at least, that it's what planted their names so firmly in my head. While both worked with Charlie Kaufman (which generally sits quite well with me), I didn't know his name either, though Gondry and Kaufman were brought most firmly to my attention with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I don't think either name was really entrenched in my list of "names to follow" by the film, but it was definitely a film I recognized at least retroactively.

Mike (Mos Def) and Jerry (Jack Black) have a tendency to hang around the severely outdated video rental shop Be Kind Rewind, owned by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), with Mike actually being employed there. Being in a slum-like building in Passaic, NJ, Mr. Fletcher is threatened with condemnation of the building he occupies, the birthplace of jazzman Fats Waller according to Mr. Fletcher. He goes off to research the video rental business via big-box rental stores (a la Blockbuster) while Mike runs the store. Neither Mike nor Jerry is terribly bright, but Jerry also happens to be a conspiracy theorist, convinced the local power plant is sending out microwaves that are brainwashing the public. He enlists Mike to help him sabotage the plant against Mike's own thoughts, but finds himself alone in an accident there instead, which magnetizes his body completely, leading him to enter Mr. Fletcher's shop and accidentally erase every tape there. When regular Mrs. Falewicz (Mia Farrow) comes in attempting to rent Ghostbusters, the pair is left with no choice but to find an alternate copy of the film. Being so terribly outdated, finding it on VHS is nearly impossible* and so Mike suggests that they take an elderly VHS-based camcorder and re-record the film themselves with homemade special effects. When another customer comes in demanding Rush Hour 2, they take the successful completion of their rendition of Ghostbusters and continue the process. When Jerry refuses to kiss his mechanic Wilson (Irv Gooch), they are forced to recruit the help of local female Alma (Melonie Diaz). Soon it catches on with the Passaic locals and brings them hope for saving Mr. Fletcher's store.

I think a lot of people took from the trailer that the primary focus of the movie was the versions of famous films the boys film with each other. Of course, they do just that, and they are a strong part of the film, but it's a little more of the "heartwarming save the old homestead" trope. I don't mean that as disparaging--insert discussion of the limited number of stories in existence here--but rather to clarify the film's intents, motivations and methods. The device of the "Sweded" films (their term for these "imported" versions) is part of the whole rather than the whole itself. None of them appears in their entirety within the film. It's really about love, love of film (for the viewer and one suspects the cast and crew), love of home (both Passaic and the Be Kind shop), and losing these things to homogenization, legalities and money in general. There are some rather nasty digs at Blockbuster and its ilk when Mr. Fletcher is doing his research--talking about reducing the store to "action" and "comedies." It doesn't paint "West Coast Video" as anyone in particular, nor does it specifically insult anyone working in the imagined store, so it comes off as a general, cultural criticism rather than an indictment of anyone or anything in particular. It's a little more comfortable for that, feeling like a poke at marketing trends rather than pointing fingers at big business X, Y or Z.

There's a very peculiar nature to the relationship between Mike and Jerry. It's a lot more innocent--as the film itself is--than usual, with a relatively PG vocabulary and less clever sniping between the participants. Both of them are really complete doofuses, though. Not utter idiots, but lacking in some things that just about any average viewer would realize or know better how to deal with. It's not condescending to them, though, nor to the viewer. As long as you are willing to take the film and its characters only as seriously as they ask to be taken, it's a good bit of harmless fun. It doesn't feel like we're intended to point and laugh at Mike and Jerry like they are a trainwreck or pathetic, but at their earnestness and willingness to try. Jack Black manages this--just barely--despite my reservations about him as, well, anything. I don't write him off completely (there are few actors I do, possibly none, but he's way up that list, though this makes three movies I have no real problem with him in) but I am very wary of his over-enthusiastic shtick. Jerry, though, is kind of a jerk, so once again Black's natural tendency to be an ass works for the character instead of against the movie. Mos Def is odd, being terribly subdued and almost comatose in the role of Mike, seeming almost like another local--as there are many--pulled in from the area to work on the film. It never comes off as false, just amateurish, even if deliberately so.

But if you can't accept the idea of a video store existing in the modern age, well, this movie is not going to be for you. It's not about "realism" by any stretch of the imagination, something a little refreshing to me in this day and age, taking an utterly absurd accident (the power plant one) and pretending it could have the absurd effect it does. The whole film is that way--the efforts of the boys to film are simultaneously charmingly homemade and yet unbelievably creative and perfectly made. Gondry's specialty is visuals, though, so it isn't surprising. Of course he can put these things all together properly, and make us both believe in them and marvel at them--which is the reason I check out Gondry's work. It's always simutaneously grounded and whimsically awesome--in the sense of inspiring awe, not being "totally bitching."

*I think my copy is still hanging around, actually.

I had two free passes to the local arthouse styled theatre that were running out Monday, so I decided to go see whatever the heck was showing. One film was House of the Devil, a throwback horror film that I truly loved, the other was a film that I thought sounded like the kind I might pick up on a whim (lo, it was released by Sony Pictures Classics, an arm of Sony I trust pretty blindly to do right by me)--this one. I knew the essence of the plot, but tried to keep my readings vague, so as to avoid spoiling any of it, this being my preference when I see any film. I knew only the name Peter Sarsgaard of the primary cast and had never heard of Danish director Lone Scherfig.

Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is a 16 year old prep school student in 1961 Twickenham, London who plans to go to Oxford and then "become French," living in France, reading French literature, speaking French, eating French food, and smoking constantly. Her father Jack (Alfred Molina) discourages her from doing anything that does not further her education (barring those things which are appreciated by acceptance boards at Oxford), even things like playing her cello, which he notes will impress Oxford as a "hobby," but then continues need not be practiced as it is a "hobby." Her mother Majorie (Cara Seymour) tries to smooth things between them as Jenny tests her father's "rules," attempting to reason him into allowing her some ideas. Jenny has a fledgling romance with orchestra-mate Graham (Matthew Beard) until the poor boy makes the mistake of suggesting he might take a year off from school, which does not earn the respect of Jack. One rainy day after orchestra rehearsal, Jenny is approached from a car by a man who offers to at least shield her cello from the rain as she walks home by placing it in his car. Jenny's amused by the man's charm, and he introduces himself as David (Sarsgaard) and strikes up a conversation, eventually getting herself out of the rain alongside her cello in David's sportscar. Slowly taken with him and running into him periodically, Jenny begins to accept offers from David when he gives her the opportunity to experience the culture she so loves and admires--concerts, jazz bars, art auctions and so on. He introduces her to his friends Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Helen (Rosamund Pike), and begins to take her further and further out into the world, all the while slowly romancing her. His charm works even on Jack and Majorie, allowing this to happen with their consent. A trip to Oxford pushes at Jenny's principles, but she finds herself torn between a small moral capitulation and the chance to have a "real life."

Of course, once I saw the cast appear onscreen, I realized instantly that there was another name here I knew very well: Alfred Molina. In fact, this knowledge was humourous to me as I watched Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes and the segment with Molina and Steve Coogan showed, where the joke was how unknown Molina was--when the opposite was true for me. Of course, I also know the screenwriter, Nick Hornby, albeit primarily from the Americanized film version of High Fidelity. Still these were primarily passing knowledge, especially Hornsby and Sarsgaard. The synposis I read led me to expect something far more drastic was hiding behind these scenes than actually turned out, so I was surprised in this respect, and it probably helped to keep my understanding of the film "in line" with its intentions. It's worth noting here that it is an adaptation of journalist Lynn Barber's actual experiences, and that this often shores up some seemingly unusual choices.

The most interesting role by far is that of David, as Sarsgaard is forced, as many have put it, to walk the line between charming and creepy. He is charming and does not come across as purely sleazy, despite being a 30-something man romancing a 16 year old girl, though I did spend half the movie with fingertips placed at my forehead in a sort of preliminary (or perhaps vestigial?) representation of the desire to hide the film from my eyes. I was hideously uncomfortable for a lot of it. I was perhaps too charmed by David myself, but could not shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong anyway. I'm a little more open-minded than most, I suppose, as I roll my eyes at those who called American Beauty a sick film about a pedophile, but I had great difficulty stopping myself from slumping down further and further into my seat and squirming at many moments (the scene involving pet names was particularly excruciating). I can't say it was a flaw, but it was a bit of a problem. I suppose I was really directed very perfectly into the place of Jenny herself, torn between the allure of an exciting life and the responsibility of the one that is hard and boring but theoretically the "best" choice. At the same time, there was a definite feeling that it was entirely too easy to see how she was deceived, and yet wish she wouldn't be. Jenny is not stupid, she is very clever in her interactions with everyone, but she's so thoroughly charmed by David that she's easily taken in by him, but especially because he brings her all the things she wants.

The central concept is the variable defintion of "education," being either the worldly education offered by David or that of Oxford, with various tangential definitions, such as learning about life via the parts of David that were not showing originally. It's a valid argument that Jenny gives her Headmistress--that there is no one telling the students why, exactly, they must get an education--except to go on and use that dull, hard, boring education to live a dull, hard, boring life. It makes the choice of David seem obvious, yet, at the same time, we know (hopefully!) is not so simple as all of that. There's no good argument (at least none I've heard) against Jenny's, but at the same time there's an understanding, for me at least, that other paths are more difficult or simply aren't as good as they seem to be. It's nice that the film doesn't attempt to truly explain or answer this question, even if it does show Lynn Barber's actual decisions and life at the end, what she chooses to pursue and follow for her life. She admits that she has aged but not become experienced or wise because of the events she takes part in, which seems a good way of putting it.