We watched Be Kind, Rewind last night.

I have to say some stuff about it.

Alright, first:

Jack black appears in blackface in the film.

This makes sense within the context of the film, and is addressed as unacceptable by the members of the community his character is living in.

It doesn't add anything to the film, and it's a pretty surprisingly low note in a film that is otherwise about community unity.

I'm not remotely qualified to discuss this aspect of the film, but I felt it would be irresponsible for me to talk about the strengths of the rest of the film without mentioning it.

The movie stars Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def), Jack Black, Danny Glover, and a bunch of other people.

It's about a video rental store in a poor neighborhood in NJ that is condemned and going to be demolished. The store sells VHS tapes and is not financially successful.

This provides the set dressing for a film in which a community gets together and makes movies, including a fictional biopic about Fats Waller.

A community producing it's own media is Very Much my shit, and the movie is good.

I love Yasiin Bey as an actor, and his character in this movie is great.

I'm avoiding spoilers as I discuss the movie because it's new enough and obscure enough that chances are good that not everyone who might want to see it will have seen it already.

It isn't actually new or obscure, but still.

This movie introduced an idea, though:
"To Swede" - The process of remaking a commercial film without a commercial budget or professional actors. The resulting film is a "sweded" film.

The etymology for this turn of phrase within the film aren't important to the rest of this discussion, but "Sweded" is useful shorthand for a specific visual style and concept that I want to discuss at length.

Some examples from youtube:

- The Force Awakens: https://invidious.tube/watch?v=4fDlPI1vI2A

- Robocop (from Be Kind Rewind): https://invidious.tube/watch?v=9ZM5ZD0t1sg

The idea, basically, is short films that revel in their own mediocre production values.

The music is people's voices. The special effects are cardboard, and are done in camera. The production is Bad, but it gets the point across.

Within the context of Be Kind Rewind, this meant a single VHS camcorder, minimal editing, and in camera effects.

There's something Freeing about this approach.

Get out and tell a story with your friends.

I'm not suggesting that we all sit around ripping off hollywood blockbusters as short films made with our neighbors.

I'm suggesting we cut hollywood out of it entirely, and we sit around making our own blockbusters.

I watch Be Kind Rewind every few years to remind myself of what Good Enough can look like.

One thing that stood out to me as I watched this movie was how the march of technological progress always seems to be away from Read/Write in consumer tech.

The "Good" and "Successful" pieces of consumer tech are frequently read only by default, and if there is a read/write option, it's frequently late or measurably worse or extra expensive when compared to the read only version.

I think this is most evident in video, but it's not only true for video.

A commercially released software floppy disk and a floppy disk I write on my laptop are equivalent in terms of quality and longevity.

A cassette I record in my own home is likely *better* than a commercially recorded cassette.

A VHS tape I make myself, again, almost certainly as good or higher quality than a professionally released VHS tape.

But of DVDs I made myself 10 years ago, many don't work anymore. Of the commercial DVDs I purchased in 1999, the vast majority are fine (and the ones that aren't were mishandled.)

CDs I burned in 2002 are probably toast. CDs pressed in 1985 are fine.