February's last glimmer of hope

February could fall into a black hole on the outer rings of the Crab Nebula and no one would notice until pumpkin carving began in October. Maybe this is why the month has the fewest days in it: we wouldn’t miss them if they were suddenly crushed into subatomic particles by extreme gravitational forces.

There are many reasons to dislike February — depress-o-rama Valentine’s Day, Leap Year and that oddball 29th day, the anniversary of the formation of the Nazi Party (1920) — but I’m just talking movies here. February is a garbage month for going to the movies. Ponder the rest of the year: summers are for blockbusters, which means May to August is a gridlock of comic-book movies; winters are for more thoughtful blockbusters (maybe a Harry Potter even) and Oscar-worthy dramas, which takes care of September through December; and January usually has some decent holdouts from the previous year. April’s off the hook because sometimes the summer season starts early.

February and March fall into that dark period that no one wants to admit even exists. The studios know this and usually dump their rubbish into those months, particularly February, in hopes they’ll be forgotten completely or get a minuscule audience for the simple fact that there are no other choices at the box office window.

So far in 2008 the studios have made it very painful: Fool’s Gold, The Eye, 27 Dresses, Over Her Dead Body, Untraceable (technically this counts as a January release) … with each new release the quality goes down, down, down. At this point even I’m getting tired of writing bad reviews, as are my readers. Friday I was at the bank depositing my weekly haul — I’m paid in popcorn seed — when a man approached me to say he enjoyed my reviews but that sometimes I take it a little far with the bashings in my negative reviews. I sympathized with him. It’s not like I want to be so ornery; I’m just forced to by the movies from this particular time of year. So far I’ve ripped everything I’ve seen. The only way a moviegoer — me included — can enjoy this month is to lower their standards, which isn’t fair to the non-February movies, or just stay home.

But wait. This column is not about despair, but hope. The hope is called Be Kind Rewind and it might be the only bright light inside this all-consuming, light-sucking vortex we call February.

It stars Jack Black and Mos Def, two resourceful friends who accidentally demagnetize all the VHS tapes at a rental store. Rather than just buy new ones at great expense, they just re-film cruddy versions of the movies themselves with a video camera and F-grade visual effects. They call the process sweding and in the movie they swede new versions of Ghostbusters, Men in Black, Robocop, Driving Miss Daisy, Rush Hour and The Lion King.

The sweding effect has already produced a cultural phenomenon: sweded versions of movies (including a version of Be Kind Rewind’s trailer, by the director no less) are on YouTube, entire sweded Web pages are popping up on the Internet and my own Volume page is sweded for your enjoyment. The idea resembles, in a not-too-distant way, the plays of Max Fischer from Rushmore. Max took classics like Serpico and Apocalypse Now and retold them using grade-school special effects and child actors. The effect was brilliant. Be Kind Rewind is Rushmore’s logical successor.

As it is right now, Be Kind Rewind could be the first brilliant picture of 2008. Even if it tanks big time — high unlikely, by the way — it should definitely get us through the rest of February and into March, which is probably another sad story all over again.

So, if you’re as frustrated with the movies as I am, just count the days (12 from today) until Be Kind Rewind opens on Feb. 22. Or just turn your calendar to April and just make believe there is something decent opening this Friday.

Five Reasons to Eagerly Await Be Kind Rewind
1. Jack Black — He’s had his genius moments (High Fidelity) and he’s had his flops (Envy), but Jack Black usually excels when the plot goes kablooey. Nacho Libre … horrible film, great Jack Black. Be Kind Rewind features a whacked-out plot so Black should feel right at home.

2. Michel Gondry — He made Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Nuff said.

3. Mocks Hollywood — Some of the mocking might be affectionate ribbing, but most of Rewind looks to be a sucker punch to Hollywood’s over-inflated need for special effects, celebrity talent and swollen budgets.

4. The sweded version of Boyz N the Hood — By the looks of the trailers, Black and Def play most of the characters. And is that Black as Doughboy?!? I hope so. These sweded movies better be on the Rewind DVD when it comes out later this year.

5. Mos Def — His hip-hop albums are classics, but slowly and ever so surely this actor is making great movies. Here he plays a solid wall for Jack Black to bounce himself from.