Movies For The Weekend

Posted on February 22, 2008 by Andrew.
Categories: Movies.

Two movie picks for the weekend: Be Kind Rewind and The Signal.  If you are going to see Be Kind Rewind go to an Alamo Drafthouse because they will be showing 5 minute movie remakes by Austinites before the feature presentation begins.  Go to http://beta.filmmakingfrenzy.com/ to see all the entries.  There are some really great/horrible/hilarious videos.  That being said, I have no idea how BKR is going to be.  The studio didn’t have any press screenings which doesn’t bode well.  I do like the director, Michael Gondry and the two stars, Jack Black & Mos Def, so I will see this film, it just might not be great.   I’m trying not to get my hopes up. 

I originally heard about The Signal about a year ago from my friend who is one of the screeners for SXSW.  He was really championing this movie to get the publicity it deserves.  Here’s the basic story:  All forms of communication have been jammed by a strange transmission which drives half of the population into a violence and murder.  The film is apparently told from 3 different perspectives by 3 different directors.  As their portion of the story ended they handed it off to the next director. This might make the storytelling disjointed and weird.  It looks interesting and I will see it at some point I’m just trying to decide if it’s going to be a matinee or at home when it comes out on DVD.

Let me know what you think if you are able to check out either of these movies.  

1 comment.

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Comment on February 26th, 2008.

I caught BKR this week, and I found it pretty interesting and funny, although definitely not what I was expecting. It started off a little slow for me, honestly, but it got better as it went along. Afterward, I did think that the idea of the video store being in a neighborhood filled with eccentric characters who wouldn’t realize that the movies were only 20 minutes long and starred people from the neighborhood was a pretty amusing plot device to explain away the repeated attempts at remakes.

The real gem, of course, is seeing Black & Def’s interpretation of well-known movies (Ghostbusters, RoboCop), especially movies which they had never seen (Driving Miss Daisy, 2010, etc.) prior to remaking their own version. There are some really great comic moments in the movie which make it worthwhile to see. I certainly liked it better than Nacho Libre, if that’s any indication of it’s comedic value. This is more “School of Rock” Jack Black than it is the JB of Tenacious D - more mature adult humor and more heart. Mos Def also does a great job as a guy with low expectations, ambitions, and blood pressure trying to deal with a catastrophic event before his boss gets back.

I’d say to go see it.

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