I went to see "Be Kind Rewind" with my girlfriend.

My feelings are a bit mixed. I enjoyed the film, but there were some things that really bothered me.

Having seen "Science of Sleep" and "Be Kind Rewind" it has become very clear to me that Gondry doesn't care about structural perfection. I felt "Eternal Sunshine" was a near perfect film. The way it plays with plot and character suggested some deeper understanding. It also did a clever job of playing with the conventions of relationship dynamics in film to bring us to a very complex but satisfying place at the end of the story which gave me a nice mix of intellectual and emotional satisfaction.

But in the two films that Gondry both wrote and directed ("Science of Sleep" and "Be Kind Rewind") I felt like there were moments where it seemed that Gondry was more interested in getting from point A to point B with little or no effort given to finding a sensible means to get there. After watching "Science of Sleep" I attributed such problems to it being Gondry's first self written film. But after seeing the glaring plot problems that Gondry used to solve aspects of "Be Kind Rewind's" story, I'm starting to think that Gondry just doesn't care.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing... but having being raised in the limited language of "Hollywood" films, it still leaves a nagging feeling with me that with a shift in focus or a more concentrated effort on structure, both films could have been way closer to the near-perfection that I regard "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" to have.

The good stuff is absolutely wonderful. Mos Def and Jack Black are great. They make the perfect team of geeky misfits. The "sweded" versions of films they make together are beautiful... so much so, that you wish more time in the movie were afforded to the various low budget homages they do to modern film "classics".

The final film they put together is brillant and makes me wonder what the actual process was behind it. The way it looks and feels suggests that the brainstorming that characters go through for this final opus of a "sweded" film was the genuine brainstorm with the actors involved. Little bits that were thrown out and later integrated into the project feel way to free-form to have been included into the original script.

Unfortunately, the story, the glue that holds it all together, feels very rickety. It starts off great. But as the cast of participants becomes larger, the motivations take a huge backseat to the creative process... so much so that it feels like the film's story is just an excuse for everyone to become a part of Gondry's great filmmaking Sandbox.

The overall feeling of this creative movement is so strong, that I kind of got the feeling that Gondry didn't want to give you a satisfactory conclusion he wanted you to participate creatively to come up with your own.

To close things out, here are really nice "sweded" versions of "Kill Bill", "Star Wars", and "Die Hard". These guys were probably "sweding" way before Gondry introduced the term to the mainstream. With the release of "Be Kind Rewind" I'm sure they're getting some well-earned exposure!