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'Be Kind Rewind' spoofs trend of remaking movies

BY RAFER GUZMÁN | rafer.guzman@newsday.com

February 21, 2008

The premise of Michel Gondry's new comedy, "Be Kind Rewind," seems ridiculous: Two video-store clerks, played by Jack Black and Mos Def, accidentally erase their entire stock and decide to remake the movies themselves. Improbably, their crude, cardboard-prop versions of "Ghost Busters" and "RoboCop" become smash hits - and soon draw the attention of Hollywood.

The funniest part? In a way, this story is true.

"Be Kind Rewind," opening nationally this weekend, is just one of several movies coming soon to theaters that celebrate fan films, an underground genre of remakes and spoofs by amateur auteurs whose ambitions often outstrip their budgets (and their talent). Such labors of love were once limited to living-room screenings for friends and indulgent relatives, but they're now proliferating on the Internet, where even modest productions can reach an audience of thousands, if not millions. At least one Long Island college offers a course in making fan films. Fan film Web sites have sprung up, and even fan film competitions.

Now Hollywood is jumping on the very bandwagon it helped create. There is the Jack Black flick, but there is also "Son of Rambow," a hot ticket at last year's Sundance Film Festival, about two little kids who reshoot their favorite Stallone flick. Paramount Vantage snatched it up for a reported $7.75 million. Also in the pipeline is "Fanboys," a Kevin Spacey-produced film about a group of "Star Wars" nuts who try to break into George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch. Then there's the true story of three Mississippi teenagers who spent almost a decade recreating "Raiders of the Lost Ark." (The film screened last summer at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington). They've sold the rights to their tale to producer Scott Rudin, whose credits include this year's Oscar-nominated dramas "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood."

No more "cease and desist"

Not long ago, the "real" movie industry regarded fan films as something akin to piracy, sending out cease-and-desist letters to budding directors. That attitude has softened. Lucasfilm, for instance, started an official Star Wars Fan Film Awards competition in 2002, with Lucas himself as a judge. CBS last month announced it would release clips of "Star Trek" online so that users can re-cut their own "mash-up" versions.

"If there's going to be a gray market for this stuff, why not get a piece of it?" Chris Gore, editor of the underground movie site FilmThreat.com, said. "That's where the studios changed their tune."

Even Warner Bros., whose subsidiary DC Comics once cracked down on a guy who posted an old 8mm Superman movie online, now seems to take a live-and-let-live attitude toward fan films - as long as no profits are being made.

Still, these fan-related films are not a sure bet at the box-office, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box-office tracker Media by Numbers. The fanboy audience is drawn primarily to superhero films and pulpy fare like "300," he said. "Are the fanboys interested in seeing themselves reflected on screen, or are they just interested in the characters and filmmakers they love? That remains to be seen."

Gondry's film, for instance, is decidedly on the arty side. Inspired by a conversation with the author Jonathan Safran Foer about the concept of "re-shooting reality," the movie explores issues of art, creativity and legality. ( Sigourney Weaver briefly appears as a humorless Hollywood lawyer.) The two clerks are certainly creative - in one cinematic shootout, they use cheese pizzas for bloody gore - but do they cross the line into piracy?

In a recent interview, Gondry seemed to be of two minds. On the one hand, he applauded the creative spirit ("It's the philosophy of D.I.Y. pushed to the extreme"). But he also said that he doesn't like to see his own movies sold illegally on the streets. Ultimately, Gondry said, the film encourages people to make their own art, rather than just passively consume it. That way, "you get to enjoy the entertainment, and you get to enjoy being in the entertainment."

That seems to be the attitude of most fan filmmakers. While some have hopes of hitting the big time, most seem content to put their own stamp on their favorite flick, insert themselves into a well-known story line or act out a fantasy.

"I'm an average Asian-American who wanted to be Luke Skywalker," said Pete Bune, a Commack-born filmmaker who's made a series of short spoofs of popular movies and TV series. "Who's going to put me as Luke Skywalker except me?"

The fan-film urge dates back well before "Star Wars," according to Clive Young, a Rockville Centre author whose book "Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind the Camera," is due out in June on Continuum Books. "These go back to the beginning of cinema," Young said, "all the way back to the 1920s when people were making their own 'Little Rascals' movies."

Today's fan films are mostly made by comic-book, sci-fi and horror buffs, Young said. (You won't see many fan films of, say, "A River Runs Through It.") Daniel Galiardi, a film professor at Five Towns College, has turned fan films into a teaching tool. In 2004, he helped several students make a short based on the comic character Black Panther. Shot in two weeks, "it had a cheesy feel to it," Galiardi admits, but once posted on the Web it was downloaded more than 3,000 times. That helped Galiardi persuade the Dix Hills college to start a production course called From Comics to Film, which he now teaches every other year.

The course plumbs the nitty-gritty of moviemaking (hiring actors, hauling equipment, obtaining permits) but also delivers another tough lesson: how to face the critics. Once the Black Panther film appeared on the Internet, Galiardi said, the feedback came fast and furious. "There's a real big thirst for these types of movies, good or bad," he said. "People love to see them and they love to criticize them." And viewers pay attention to details, he noted: "If you don't get the costumes right, they'll kill you."

The upcoming "Fanboys," despite the big-name backing of the Weinstein Company, is itself a fan film, according to director Kyle Newman. Certain characters and scenes are inspired directly by "Star Wars," and Lucasfilm allowed Newman to use sounds from the original movie, including the whirring engines of the Millennium Falcon. Cameos from Billy Dee Williams and Carrie Fisher add to the sense of homage.

"I thought, this is the closest I'll ever get to making a 'Star Wars' film," Newman said. "It's like: Wow, we get to make a movie about stuff we love, and have fun with it."

"Lost Ark: The Adaptation"

By far the most famous fan film is "Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation," a shot-for-shot remake of the Spielberg-Lucas blockbuster by three 12-year-old boys in Ocean Springs, Miss. Filmed in backyards and basements, the project stretched from 1982 to 1989; during the movie, the child actors morph into near-adults. Years later, a VHS copy of the film began circulating among Hollywood insiders - including Spielberg himself - and "The Adaptation" became an underground hit, playing at small film festivals and art-houses around the country. (To steer clear of any profiteering, the filmmakers usually donate proceeds to local charities or scholarships.)