Results tagged “michelgondry”

Ever since I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—the wildly imaginative, deeply moving, incredibly insightful sci-fi/romance/drama/comedy with Jim Carrey that came out in 2004—I've been pretty keen to see what else writer-director Michel Gondry can do. I found his next fiction feature film, The Science of Sleep, ultimately unsatisfying, but just as imaginative and affecting as ESotSM. So I was thrilled to hear about Gondry's latest project: Be Kind Rewind. This film—set over the bridge and up the road a piece in Passaic, New Jersey—is about one of those small, privately-owned video rental stores that are still fighting it out against the big chain stores. The shop is called Be Kind Rewind, and it's run by an aging man named Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover). His only employee is Mike (Mos Def), a young man who looks up to him as a kind of father figure. And, in fact, Mr. Fletcher has fatherly feelings for Mike, and tends to keep things from him that he knows will make him unhappy – like the fact that the shop is not doing well, the building has been condemned, and if he doesn't make a lot of money and do a lot of repairs in a very short period of time, it's going to be taken away from him to be demolished and turned into a modern apartment building. Mr. Fletcher tells Mike he's going on a trip and leaves him to take care of the store while he spies on the nearby West Coast Video in the hopes of getting the information he needs to turn his business around. Mike has been given only one hard-and-fast rule while Mr. Fletcher is away: keep Jerry out! Jerry (Jack Black) is Mike's buddy, and the local kook – a paranoid weirdo who works down at the junkyard, and lives there in a small trailer, right by the power plant. He's convinced that his mind is somehow being altered or controlled by the power plant, and so one night he convinces Mike to help him sabotage the place. Mike has second thoughts, but Jerry goes through with it – or at least tries to. Actually, all he succeeds in doing is getting himself electro-magnetized, so that the next time he walks into the video store, he erases all the tapes.

What's new and/or interesting in Philly theaters this weekend.

A steaming hot pile of our favorite things from around the internets.

Ah, Valentine's Day: refuge of the uninspired lover and bane of the singleton's year. Fear not! We present our annual offbeat V-day guide, guaranteed to add some flair to the red-heart holiday (whose idea was it to put a celebration of love and relationships smack in the middle of the great gray beast February anyway, we ask you?).

To be fair, although their heyday was definitely the '90s, British band Massive Attack has actually been out there making music on and off, in one form or another, since they first appeared on the scene way back in 1988, and in fact they are in the process of putting together a new album right now (with the intriguing and provocative title of Weather Underground). Apparently only original members Robert "3D" Del Naja and Grant "Daddy G" Marshall are left now - we miss Tricky! - but in whatever format they now exist, they'll be performing at the Tower Theatre tomorrow night.

A steaming hot pile of our favorite things from around the internets.