Hamlet 2 (2008)

Not as bad as it looks. Really!!!

This stars Steve Coogan, who is best known from some British television work that is barely known in the United States.

It tells a story of a talentless actor working as a high school drama teacher in Tucson, Arizona who is trying to save the drama department, which is basically him and his students.

It has the usual clichés of the students bonding at the end, and the pulling it together spirit of theatre experience. Given that if you have worked in theatre you will no doubt in enjoy this film; as it has all the right moves as lets say Noises Off. With that in said, I only know this because I had an ex-girlfriend who worked in an improv place in Austin Texas during her high school in the 1990’s.

The movie has a couple of things working for it. Coogan has a great talent of looking like a loser so much so that you feel a little bad for him, and he genuinely has some chemistry with his young cast.

The rest of the movie is supported by the supporting cast that really nails their bit parts. Catherine Keener plays his acerbic wife. Amy Poehler plays an ACLU lawyer. David Arquette and Elizabeth Shue around the cast of well-known actors. But I must mention the racially ambiguous actress Melonie Diaz who I am seeing in more and more movies and really liking. Maybe she is someone to look out for.

Like every movie of this sort, it climaxes with theatre piece of, you guessed it, Hamlet 2, which features a faux-blasphemous number called “Rock me sexy Jesus” Jesus portrayed as some Keanu Reeves character circa Point Break . This is about as blasphemous as any Christian fundamentalist youth retreat.

In conclusion, Hamlet 2 is barely good, but it works.

Be Kind, Rewind (2008)

Who would have thought Mos Def and Jack Black would be a comedy duo? I guess it is in the long tradition of rapper being film stars that Mos Def must follow.

Be Kind, Rewind is the first good art film to arrive in 2008. It is written and directed by Michel Gonfry. Gonfry is the great French director who started in music videos and moved on to film; like Spike Jonze. He made my favorite film of 2006, The Science of Sleep.

He did another great job with this one. It is interesting, funny and really really sad. The film starts off slow and finish to a rousing finish without a happy ending. Instead, it has the poor will inherit the earth kind of thing going on.

The story of the film is that Mr. Fletcher, a kindly old man (played by Danny Glover) runs a video rental store in a depressing part of New Jersey with ultra-nice guy Mike (played by Mos Def). Jerry, a crazy guy (played by Jack Black) owns a nearby business, is always hanging around. One day, when Mr. Fletcher is away scouting other video stores because the city is set to demolish his building due to urban redevelopment and building code violations, Jerry erases all the videos. So, in a last ditch effort to keep the store running, Mike and Jerry shoot the movies themselves; starring them, just two guys with a video camera in the great state of New Jersey. Along the way, they pick up Alma (played by Melonie Diaz) in a dry cleaners store. This is when the movie picks up speed. The chemistry between the three in one of the best part of film, and something I haven’t seen in film yet.

After a bunch of thugs liked their rendition of Ghostbusters, all three of them start making sweded films. “Sweded” means that they made there own versions of the film. Just like previous Gonfry movies, this wear his stamp comes in with brilliant homemade looking props and art. The film really gets fun and funny here. It picks up a warmth and joy. Then the Gonfry takes it all the way. A harsh reality folds in and never leaves. You are left feeling “Well, at least they tried.” : ( I left feeling really sad.

It really had a Chaplin feel to it. Everyone in the movie was poor and ethnic. They lost every time. The “Man” was always after them. Still, they persevered. It was shot in very urban industrial parts of town; in poorest of areas.

Nevertheless, you have not seen this before. Maybe you have lived it. Maybe you recreated films in your backyard growing up with your video camera. I did. It was like beautiful homage to that.

I have a feeling that a couple years from now and going forward Be Kind, Rewind will be one of those college and hipster cult movies that will be studied and copied into culture.