Monday, July 7, 2008

Be Kind Rewind/Men With Brooms

During this stellar 4th of July weekend I was able to catch a couple of movies.

On Saturday I had a little down time after cleaning the house, and while Kasey and Erika took a nap so I tossed in Be Kind Rewind. I was pretty excited about the movie, because the premise looked like it could really be a funny movie.

Basically the plot goes like this: Jerry (Jack Black) is electrocuted and his body becomes a bit magnetized. Mike (Mos Def) has been left in charge of the video store, Be Kind Rewind, which is a little behind on the times - currently only holding VHS titles. Jerry comes into the store and, due to his magnetization, accidentally erases the entire library of videos.

So, in order to please their customers and not get in trouble - Jerry and Mike decide to remake the movies themselves. And to their surprise, their customers actually enjoy the movies. They call the movies 'Sweded', and are soon drawing in tons of new business.

Little do they know, however, is that Elroy Fletcher (Danny Glover) is out trying to find a way to upgrade the store to make more money, so that they can stay where they are located. A builder has plans to renovate the property - evicting the video store.

I have to admit, I was not that pleased with the movie. There were some pretty good parts, and the ending was kind of nice, but it just didn't hold my attention like I thought it would. The scenes where they were remaking the movies were pretty funny, but those scenes weren't long enough. I am glad I checked out the movie, and it's possible that some people might actually like it, but I can't truly recommend it - especially for repeat viewing.

Grade:

The other movie I checked out this weekend was Men with Brooms. I have seen this movie multiple times, but it had been awhile since I had watched it.

The movie stars Paul Gross (Chris Cutter), Jed Reese (Eddie Strombeck), James Allodi (Neil Bucyk), Peter Outerbridge (James Lennox), Molly Parker (Amy Foley) and Leslie Nielson (Gordon Cutter).

I was first interested in this movie when I saw the trailer. The movie features music from two of my favorite bands: The Tragically Hip and Our Lady Peace. It's kind of weird how music can actually draw you to a movie, but I am glad it does. It's happened a few other times, especially with Life As A House which featured another favorite band, Guster.

Men with Brooms is a movie about a curling team. The film is set in Canada and starts with the death of Amy Foley's father, who also happens to be a curling coach. His death brings together his former team of Chris Cutter, Eddie Strombeck, Neil Bucyk and James Lennox. The team hadn't been together in nearly 10 years after Cutter mysteriously left the group. We later find out that the reason he left was because he lied about a team member touching a stone, in order to preserve a victory.

Their coaches last wish was for the quartet to compete one last time for the curling championship. Cutter recruits his father, Gordon, to get the team back up to speed in order to compete in the championships.

Each member is dealing with different issues in his life, which throughout the movie they are forced to face and deal with.

Despite the lack of any real stars (Nielson being the lone big name) this movie was pretty amazing, and I can watch it multiple times. It was funny, there was drama, there was a love story and there was curling. I have never truly been a fan of the sport, but it was interesting to see the dynamics of the game.

Overall I definitely recommend checking out this movie. Especially if you are into Canadian humor and Canadian music. For a special bonus, The Tragically Hip actually had a cameo appearance in the film as a rival curling squad from Kingston, Ontario.

Grade:


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