This news is a little old, but somehow I missed it and it deserves posting.  Basically, director Michel Gondry describes how he would do a sequel to Be Kind Rewind (disclaimer: the source doesn’t provide context for the following quote so I can’t speak to whether Gondry was being serious or how high he was at the time):

“The sequel would happen this way: Mia [Farrow] and Danny Glover are together, Alma [Melonie Diaz] and Mos Def are together, Jack [Black] is left alone and so he’s kind of depressed,” Gondry explained. “But one day he finds a little dog and gets very attached to it.”

“What happens is that they decide to take over City Hall,” Gondry further explained. “So it’s sort of a socialist collaborative system. They open a restaurant with free food, they refuse to send money to the war, and they get more [jobs] for people. Everything goes very well.”

“Unfortunately, Danny Glover wakes up with a sort of a pain in his brain. He becomes super racist, calls Jerry a dirty [ethnic slur] and asks him to leave the video store;” Gondry continued. “He blames the Polish for having brought the African-Americans [into] accepting the lowest wage jobs. It’s terrible, frenzied, racism.”  [Ed. Note: it's unclear who "Jerry" is at this point - possibly the dog?]

“It gets worse and worse and at the end there is a [race] war that’s starting,” Gondry said. “Basically, segregation is reinstalled. Mike [Mos Def] is leading the African-American community, and Alma the Hispanic community, and Jack is leading the Polish community and they start to fight in a horrible fight.” [I hope the Polish strategy is based on Polish boxing.]

“As soon as the fight starts, the little dog dies, and everybody is so upset that they make peace and stop [fighting],” Gondry answered. “And it turns out that Danny had a brain tumor that was benign and so that’s why he became racist. Everything restarts and goes back to normal.”

I feel the need to clarify that this is 100% real. Honest to blog. Gondry even wanted to film it up at Sundance.

“[But] we didn’t have enough time,” he said. “I wanted to do the sequel in one hour because we had all the cast together, but some arrived too late or too early.” [MTV]

I don’t know why this isn’t being made.  If you ask me, it’s about time someone addressed the ills of race baiting brain tumors.  And the ending?  Brilliant.  Because regardless of the color of your skin, everyone hates lap dogs.

This video implying Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind stole its premise from an old Amanda Bynes sketch has been floating around the interwebs.  I’d love to debate whether the idea is indeed a rip off, but when I watch it all I can think about is how much I hate Nickelodeon. They’re like the pied piper of bad comedy.  You can just see Big Bird coming out to teach an important lesson on the chalkboard.  "Always remember this equation, kids – Silly Accents + Funny Costumes + Annoying Catchphrase = Hilarity.  Now who wants to make their own joke?  Wakka wakka wakka!" 

Sidenote – from Amanda Bynes IMDB bio:

The youngest of three children, she became interested in acting and performing from the age of three, when she would say her older sister Jillian’s lines with her while she performed in plays. It was from then on that her family and friends knew that she would be a star someday.

Kind of like the day I brought my pet chimp Bobo home from the zoo.  He threw a turd at my head and from then on I knew he’d be a major league pitcher.  This is his story. (link fixed now)      

If you’ve heard anything about Eternal Sunshine director Michel Gondry’s upcoming movie, Be Kind Rewind, you probably know that the Jack Black/Mos Def starrer involves two video clerks who restock their video store with their own versions of popular movies.

They released a couple of the trailers for these (what they call "sweded trailers"), but of course, that begged the question, what would a sweded trailer for Be Kind Rewind look like?

Michel Gondry has created just that, and… uh, yeah, he still seems pretty batshit.  Making a movie trailer for a movie about guys who make movie trailers in the style of that movie… my brain has trouble processing the sheer meta-ness. 

My only question is why Gondry only wore a wig when he was impersonating Mos Def.  What, no blackface makeup?  Here in Harlem, one of the funniest jokes is when white people put on blackface makeup and then dance and sing using exaggerated "black" mannerisms.  I really think we’ve stumbled upon something new.

The guys at /film dug up this videø for Bjørk’s “Hyperballad” (plus a cøuple øthers) that was directed by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Be Kind Rewind director Michel Gondry. 

I like Bjørk.  I mean, not because her music’s good, because she’s like a good litmus test for people.  For instance, I translate, "I like Bjork,” as “Hi, I’m pretentious; disregard my opinion.”

She’s like an even more self-important version of Tori Amos.  We get it, you’re artsy.  Shut up now?  Anyway, here’s the poster for Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind, which comes out January 25th.

I also like how the French think they can use a weird spelling to distract us from the fact that they’ll name a dude "Michelle."  You’re not fooling anyone, pussies.

Directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – one of my all-time favorites), Be Kind Rewind stars Mos Def and Jack Black as video store clerks who film their own versions of popular movies when all the videos in their store get erased.  The official site for the movie now has a couple of these promo trailers – this one for Rush Hour 2.  It’s set for release January 25th.

I wish Jack Black could reshoot all of Brett Ratner’s movies.  I’m surprised they avoided a Chris Tucker-yelling-gibberish joke.  I wouldn’t have.