Be Kind Rewind
Reviewed by Jonathan Shearon
January 18, 2008

There’s something kind of sweet and romantic about the way Michel Gondry deconstructs the idea of the Hollywood blockbuster in Be Kind Rewind, by breaking it down to its most essential element: a couple of guys with a camera trying to tell a story. That sweetness carries over to the film’s very eclectic soundtrack, which is anchored by a couple of soul standards like “I Ain’t Got Nobody” and Billy Preston’s “Nothing From Nothing”, and Jean-Michel Bernard’s brief score contributions.

Bernard’s score mostly consist of his accompaniment to the two main character’s “sweded” versions of famous movies (i.e. remade poorly and cheaply, albeit hilariously) like Robocop and Driving Miss Daisy. As a film score fan, it’s always a lot of fun to hear film music parodied – my favorite here was Bernard’s Lalo Schifrin/Rush Hour impersonation in “Chinese Bamboo” – although you sometimes get the feeling that he wasn’t that familiar with some of this music. A lot of the parodies were not exactly spot-on, either stylistically or thematically.

As an album that warrants repeated listens, I can’t say that I really recommend Be Kind Rewind. There is a lot of repetition in the song selection - did we really need three versions of “I Ain’t Got Nobody” or two versions of “Your Feets Too Big”? - and Bernard’s score is too slight and quirky to leave much of an impact. Still, if the goal was to convey the fun and devil-may-care attitude of the film’s premise, then I’d say the album is a smashing success.

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