If you thought “Be Kind, Rewind” was off-beat or eccentric, wait’ll you get a load of director Michel Gondry’s proposed sequel, which could be called “Rewound” if I didn’t already dub it “The Weirdest Friggin Thing I Have Ever Heard of In My Life.”

“The sequel would happen this way: Mia [Farrow] and Danny Glover are together, Alma [Melonie Diaz] and Mos Def are together, Jack [Black] is left alone and so he’s kind of depressed,” Gondry explained. “But one day he finds a little dog and gets very attached to it.”

So far, pretty normal. I could totally see Jack Black sublimating his feelings onto a dog. It fits. He’s kind of a wacky outsider to begin with, and especially sympathetic if all is buddies mate up. You almost had me fooled Michel. I thought for a second there you were going to say something off the wall - like he’s so angry he takes over City Hall.

“What happens is that they decide to take over City Hall,” Gondry further explained. “So it’s sort of a socialist collaborative system. They open a restaurant with free food, they refuse to send money to the war, and they get more [jobs] for people. Everything goes very well.”

Ok, that’s still kinda cool, since “Be Kind, Rewind” is all about the contributions we make as individuals. Taking it out of the video store and projecting that message to a larger community could be wry social criticism. I’m coming around.

“Unfortunately, Danny Glover wakes up with a sort of a pain in his brain. He becomes super racist, calls Jerry a dirty [ethnic slur] and asks him to leave the video store;” Gondry continued. “He blames the Polish for having brought the African-Americans [into] accepting the lowest wage jobs. It’s terrible, frenzied, racism.”

Wait, are you going to film a race war? An honest to god race war? In a comedy? I don’t’ believe it. There’s no way it could happen, right?

“It gets worse and worse and at the end there is a [race] war that’s starting,” Gondry said. “Basically, segregation is reinstalled. Mike [Mos Def] is leading the African-American community, and Alma the Hispanic community, and Jack is leading the Polish community and they start to fight in a horrible fight.”

How do you get from Jack rescuing a dog to a race war? Hey, whatever happened to that dog anyway? No, wait, I can see it coming. I take back my quest—

“As soon as the fight starts, the little dog dies, and everybody is so upset that they make peace and stop [fighting],” Gondry answered. “And it turns out that Danny had a brain tumor that was benign and so that’s why he became racist. Everything restarts and goes back to normal.”

I feel the need to clarify that this is 100% real. Honest to blog. Gondry even wanted to film it up at Sundance.

“[But] we didn’t have enough time,” he said. “I wanted to do the sequel in one hour because we had all the cast together, but some arrived too late or too early.”

I don’t mean to be hard on Gondry. I love his work. This synopsis, however, makes me want to rewind my brain. But what do you think of Gondry’s wacky idea for “Be Kind, Rewind 2″? Sound off below.

[Source : MTV Movies Blog]

All the great masters crib ideas from others: “Casablanca” was adapted from a failed play, “Hamlet” from a Norse work called “Ur-Hamlet” (subtle work with the title there, Shakespeare), but could Michel Gondry have stolen the idea for “Be Kind, Rewind” from…Amanda Bynes?

That’s the rumor going around today after an 8-year-old clip from her eponymous Nickelodeon comedy show began circulating around the interwebs. The two-minute clip basically shows Amanda working behind a video store counter, repeatedly telling customers that their versions of rented movies (which she has sweded with her brother) are “better” than the originals. So yeah, it’s got a video store, shabby looking remade movies by the staff, and some complaining customers.

Which all adds up to…nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Look, here’s the deal. I swear on everything I hold sacred that I came up with the idea for “The Amazing Race” before Jerry Bruckheimer. I was at a train station with a friend in Salzburg, Austria when it hit me. I wrote it down. This actually happened.

It doesn’t mean I should sue CBS. Some ideas are just out there, independently striking those willing to be inspired. Within months of each other, there were two meteors hitting the Earth movies for goodness sakes. Right now, there are two competing films moving forward on Leonard Chess. And, before I interviewed one of the stars, I had never even HEARD of Leonard Chess.

But there’s more: an idea is only as good as it’s presented anyway. We don’t read “Ur-Hamlet” now and do you know why? Because it sucked.

Remaking movies with a low budget? In the hands of Amanda Bynes? Ok, sorta cute and funny. But in the hands of Michel Gondry? Much, much more.

But what do you think? Should Miss Bynes start collecting royalties? Is Michel a thief? Sound off below.

[Source : MTV Movies Blog]

Jack Black has been outed! Like all of Hollywood’s A-list, it appears that Mr. Black is on all the good Sundance swag suite guest lists. Friends of the actor can probably look forward to some pretty excellent birthday presents this year, wouldn’t you say?

Want more? Check out the rest of our interview with Jack, including his relationship with 50 Cent, right here.

See our complete coverage of the 2008 Sundance Film Festival — including breaking news, celebrity interviews, red carpet photos, movie clips and tons more.

[Source : MTV Movies Blog]

If any other writer/director hit you with this plotline, you might be inclined to glance around the room for his crack pipe. With Michel Gondry, however, it somehow makes sense.

“I’m writing a story about kids who invent a water that makes you hear music when you drink it,” explained the director of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and next month’s trippy Jack Black flick “Be Kind Rewind”. “It’s going to be a scientific story, but completely unrealistic.”

Revealing the film for the first time anywhere to MTV News, Gondry added that its current title is “The Return of the Ice Kings,” and that he already has actors in mind for several roles. “I’ve been talking to some,” explained the in-demand French filmmaker, whose previous films have lured the likes of Jim Carrey, Dave Chappelle, and Kate Winslet. “But I have to finish the writing first.”

“Return of the Ice Kings” will mark Gondry’s fifth screenwriting effort, following “Sunshine” and “Rewind,” as well as “The Science of Sleep” and his upcoming flick “Tokyo!” The director, who shot to fame with groundbreaking music videos for the likes of Bjork and The White Stripes, is planning to make it his next gig after the Japan-set film.

“I’m into science - in fact, I read more about science and astronomy than about movies,” he said of his mindset while writing “Ice Kings.” “Science is re-questioning itself all the time, and it’s still at a stage where anything is possible.”

It’s these kinds of possibilities that are allowing Gondry’s legendary imagination to run wild, and he’s planning on taking his music-loving kids to some unusual places. “At one point, they see the end of time in the movie,” he revealed of a scene he’s already plotting in his head. “So, we’ll have to shoot it somewhere that looks like the end of time.”

[Source : MTV Movies Blog]

Sit back and enjoy a hot steaming cup of our links of the day, back again in the new year with news on Daniel Radcliffe, Frank Darabont, and possibly the greatest trailer mash-up ever.

- Daniel Radcliffe to play photo-journalist Dan Eldon in “Journey.” 22-year-old photographer was stoned to death in 1993. (The Observer)

- “Back to the Future,” “Dances With Wolves,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” all among flicks added to National Film Registry by Library of Congress. (Library of Congress)

- “Be Kind, Rewind” director Michel Gondry opening video store in NYC. Will give people the opportunity to create their own short films. (/film)

- Frank Darabont prepping movie about “Tokyo Rose,” famed Japanese-American broadcaster convicted of treason. (Collider)

- “Why so serious?” This trailer mash-up of “The Dark Knight” and Adam West’s “Batman” television series might be the funniest thing we’ve seen in a while. (YouTube)

[Source : MTV Movies Blog]