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BE KIND REWIND (2007, directed by Michel Gondry, 101 minutes, U.S.)

BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC

Named after the greatest poem ever mass-produced on a sticker (although I always preferred “Bee Kind Rewind,” with the bumble bee), Michel Gondry’s latest twee ode to hand-crafted production design shows that the French haven’t completely lost their love for their imperious little brother across the ocean.

Only a Frenchman would see Passaic, New Jersey as the perfect site for a movie-lovers fantasy, a multi-ethnic post-industrial land of possibility, like Popeye’s old home of Sweet Haven.  Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) is the proprietor of what might be the last VHS-only video rental store, manned by the sweet natured graffiti artist Mike (all-around entertainer Mos Def).  While Mr. Fletcher leaves on vacation, Mike’s goofball friend Jerry (Jack Black at his Jack Black-iest) is in an electrical accident and is left so magnetically charged he mistakenly bulk erases the store’s entire stock.  Together they conspire to hide their mistake by videotaping their own versions of the films the customers wish to rent.

Right from the opening minutes it is apparent that Gondry wants you to swallow a premise so implausible that you almost expect the audience to erupt in literal choking fits.  With the ease of Judy and Mickey staging a MGM-style musical in their backyard, Mike and Jerry throw together and shoot a Ghostbusters remake over the course of one night.  It is so preposterous as to strain even Gondry’s powers of whimsy, and the film’s uneven mix of reality and absurdist fantasy makes it hard to ascertain the parameters of this mystical Passaic.

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BY AMY Z. QUINN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer you towards the gooey center. Why? Because we love you!

ON THE COVER

CITY PAPER: The beer geeks are coming! The beer geeks are coming! The 10-day Philly Beer Week celebration begins March 7, so this week’s cover takes a look at the area’s bitchin’ brew scene. Bring your own (organic multigrain artisan) pretzels.The reason is simple, according to experts:

Philly, for all of its faults, is a damn fine town to have a pint. “Philly Beer Week is unequaled by anything in the entire country, ever,” says Stan Hieronymus, a New Mexico-based beer writer, blogger (appellationbeer.com) and author of brewing tome Brew Like a Monk (Brewers Publications). “The number of events, the diversity of events — there’s nothing like it. And that reflects Philadelphia’s status. You’ve got brewers coming in from everywhere, and obviously that’s an indication that Philly is important for beer.”

A question: How come nobody mentions Dock Street when they talk about the renaissance in Philly brewing? I always liked the Dock Street Amber. Anyone? Blah blah blah controversy, blah blah blah we don’t actually have enough brewpubs, YardsPhiladelphia Brewing Co.SlyFoxVictory blah blah blah Philly drinks more Belgian ale than they do In Bruges (and have the beer guts to prove it), blah blah blah Joe Sixpack. And don’t forget the suburbs, youse guys.

Phoenixville’s Sly Fox, which has won kudos for both the quality of its beers and its innovative use of cans for packaging, reported 30 percent growth last year. Beers made by Delaware’s pioneering Dogfish Head, South Jersey’s Flying Fish, Adamstown’s Stoudt’s, Easton’s Weyerbacher and Harrisburg’s Tröegs are commonly found on local taps, too.

PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY: For anyone who wonders what motivates your average dude, while listening to WIP (or any other sports talker, for that matter), to make the leap from muttering back at his radio (which, in my own research, is what most men do) to picking up the phone, consider one Phil from Mount Airy:

Phil pleads an inability to restrain himself. “I’ll be sitting here on the computer with my radio on, minding my own business, right?” he explains. “And then somebody’ll say something really fucking ridiculous, and I just can’t take it. I have to call.”

We hear you, brother. Still, what is it that makes this average Philly Dad, living his average Philly life with his average Philly family (complete with child’s bedroom decorated in floor-to-ceiling Iggles gear), rise above the rest of the schmoes who call in? Whatever the reason, Phil’s repartee hasn’t just turned him into a local celeb, recognized by voice at the supermarket. It’s landed him in 610 AM’s pantheon of regulars, “a cadre of callers with handles like “Chuck from Lansdowne,” “Mitchie Tools,” “Sly from West Philly,” “Mike the Weasel” and “Cowboy Dave.” Apparently those last four are not actually the lineup of this weekend’s revue at The Cave:

These are all callers with lives that allegedly extend beyond their radios and phones. Take Mitchell Cohen, aka “Mitchie Tools”—47, married with kids, and the proprietor of a hardware store at Fifth and Passyunk. Like Phil, he usually calls Gargano and Martorano. But unlike Phil, he doesn’t care about sports all that much. “I’m not on top of the stats and everything,” he says. “Actually, I like it when they talk about other stuff.” Cohen does impersonations. “He thinks he can do them but he can’t,” corrects Gargano. “That’s what’s funny. He calls and imitates Elvira from Scarface and [Fox football sideline reporter] Tony Siragusa.”

Aaaanyway, let’s run down PW’s recent offerings: sports talk radio, gambling, beer, the Andy Reid impersonator. Yep, they’ve got the SpikeTV demographic taken care of quite nicely thankyouverymuch.

INSIDE

CP: New Editor Brian Howard takes his bow, reveals other staff-shifting, we remember our own wax-pasteup days. A 30-hour famine to raise awareness of world hunger; cosa fai oggi, Italo-hipsters?

PW: Admit it: Eco-friendly living wasn’t the first “green” you thought of you when you saw this headline about “Green” Roxborough, or as I like to call it, Manayunk With Driveways. McManus on the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s Thriller — Shamon! Bryn Mawr College’s new president is an Islamic studies scholar.

WINNER: You, dear reader.

This would be so much funnier if it weren’t so true.

WASHTINGTON POST: Exxon Mobil, the giant oil corporation appearing before the Supreme Court yesterday, had earned a profit of nearly $40 billion in 2006, the largest ever reported by a U.S. company — but that’s not what bothered Roberts. What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion — roughly three weeks’ worth of profits — for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.

“So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?” Roberts asked in court.

The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. “Well,” he said, “it can hire fit and competent people.”

The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.

Nineteen years after the Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound and spilled 11 million gallons of oil, the 32,000 plaintiffs — mostly fishermen, cannery workers and Native Alaskans — have received no punitive damages from Exxon. A jury awarded them $5 billion in punitive damages — a record level, for a record disaster — and an appeals court cut that in half. Now, the Supreme Court seems inclined to deal another insult to the victims (as many as a fifth of whom have already died) by cutting the award further. MORE

RELATED: Justice Samuel Alito, who owns between $100,000 and $250,000 in Exxon stock, recused himself from the case.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Exxon Mobil Corp. posted record profits for ANY U.S. company on Monday — $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year — as the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from high oil and natural-gas prices and solid demand for refined products. The results exceeded Wall Street expectations and Exxon shares rose more than 3 percent in afternoon trading. The company’s earnings amounted to $1.71 per share for the October-December quarter, up 27 percent from $8.42 billion, or $1.30 per share, in the year ago quarter. The result topped the then-record quarterly profit of $9.92 billion Exxon posted in the third quarter of 2005. MORE

WIKIPEDIA: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, which occurred on 24 March 1989, is considered one of the most devastating man-made environmental disasters ever to occur at sea. As significant as the Exxon Valdez spill was, it ranks well down on the list of the world’s largest oil spills in terms of volume released.^[1] However, Prince William Sound‘s remote location (accessible only by helicopter and boat) made government and industry response efforts difficult and severely taxed existing plans for response. The region was a habitat for salmon, sea otters, seals, sea birds and the great white shark. The vessel spilled 10.8 million gallons of Prudhoe Bay crude oil into the sea.

Both the long and short-term effects of the oil spill have been studied comprehensively. Thousands of animals diedseabirds, 2,800–5,000 sea otters, approximately 12 river otters, 300 harbour seals, 250 bald eagles, and 22 orcas, as well as the destruction of billions of salmon and herring eggs. immediately; the best estimates include 250,000–500,000 Almost 15 years after the spill, a team of scientists at the University of North Carolina found that the effects are lasting far longer than expected.^[17] The team estimates some shoreline habitats may take up to 30 years to recover. MORE

SEATTLE INTELLIGENCER: “I advertised my services at Fishermen’s Terminal. At first, fishing was something to do in the summer. But then I found I was pretty good at it.” So McLenaghan worked his way up the ranks. In two years, he was running his own gillnetter. At 24, he skippered a salmon and herring purse seiner. In 1989, he’d made enough money to go all in: $1 million in savings and loans — everything he had — to buy a 50-foot boat and licenses for Prince William Sound herring, Cook Inlet herring and Chignik salmon.

Two months later, at 11 p.m. on March 23, 1989, Capt. Joseph Hazelwood retired to his stateroom and left third-mate Gregory Cousins in charge of the tanker Exxon Valdez as it sailed toward Washington.

McLenaghan hadn’t yet fished a single day on his new licenses or boat. “I had just dumped all of my money into it. You know how it goes, how you buy a business and that first year is pivotal.

“Once the oil spill hit, it zeroed me out.” So McLenaghan started selling stuff. So did every other fisherman, from Seattle to Alaska, who depended on the closed fisheries. And it was not, to put it plainly, a seller’s market. His daughter was 3 at the time.

Exxon, for its part, also appears to have recovered. In recent years, the company has set records as the most profitable in world history, netting nearly $40 billion in 2006 alone. MORE

WALL STREET JOURNAL: The almost-constant growth of the U.S. prison population during the past 30 years has pushed the number of people behind bars past a new threshold, according to a study released yesterday.With more than 2.3 million people in local jails and state and federal prisons, more than 1% of the U.S. adult population is locked up, according to the Pew Center on the States. The rate is the highest in the world, and the statistics are starker for some groups. More than 11% of the nation’s African-American men ages 20 to 34 are behind bars, the study said. The overall rate has led to among the largest increases in state spending. According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, states spent more than $44 billion in tax revenue on corrections last year, compared with $10.6 billion in 1987. MORE

AL JAZEERA:More populous China was ranked second with 1.5 million behind bars, while Russia was third with 890,000. “Beyond the sheer number of inmates, America also is the global leader in the rate at which it incarcerates its citizenry, outpacing nations like South Africa and Iran,” the report said. “Rather, it flows principally from a wave of policy choices that are sending more lawbreakers to prison and, through the popular ‘three-strikes’ measures and other sentencing enhancements, keeping them there longer,” it said.

THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX: Correctional officials see danger in prison overcrowding. Others see opportunity. The nearly two million Americans behind bars—the majority of them nonviolent offenders—mean jobs for depressed regions and windfalls for profiteers. MORE

LAS VEGAS SUN: Ricin, a deadly toxin, was discovered in a room at a weekly motel off Valley View Boulevard and Flamingo Road this afternoon. Hotel employees thought the substance looked suspicious and called police, who responded with the Clark County Fire Department. Presumptive testing quickly revealed the substance was ricin and police shut down the property.

Ricin is derived from castor beans and can be deadly in small quantities, said Metro Sergeant Joseph Lombardo, head of the department’s Homeland security unit. It is used in cancer research, but is illegal to produce for any other reason. Ricin [pictured, right] can be delivered in a mist, a pellet or can be dissolved in water or weak acid, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The toxin gets inside cells of a human body and prevents the cells from making vital protein. As little as 500 micrograms — an amount that fits on the head of a pin — can kill an adult. It is not known how much was found in the hotel room. Officers found the substance in a small vile along with actual castor beans, Lombardo said. MORE

LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL: The last time Las Vegas police dealt with ricin was in 2003, when a 60-year-old former gaming executive and chemist killed himself with the agent. The man, Tomoo Okada, told emergency responders that he had injected himself with the deadly poison, which prompted two hospital emergency rooms to be shut down for about three hours. On Thursday, 30-year-old Charlie Aitken, who was visiting Las Vegas from Nova Scotia, Canada, for the first time, said he was told by police to leave his room at the Extended Stay America about 3 p.m. As he walked out, he saw men suiting up in hazardous materials outfits. “It was like, ‘Welcome to Vegas!,’ ” Aitken said. MORE

BY JEFF DEENEY TODAY I SAW a collarless gray brindled pit bull giving lazy chase to another stray on 72nd Street, across from the Paschall Homes. The shaggy dog leading the pit bull jogged past the crumbling houses on Yocum Street, looking back over its shoulder, causing the pit to playfully hop up on his hind legs for a step or two when it did. The proliferation of feral dogs around the Paschall Homes lends irony to the statement spray painted on the facing low-rise brick wall dotted by plywood-covered windows on Greenway Avenue that reads, “Welcome 2 the Zoo.”

Two teen girls stroll past, one with a long weave that sways in the wind and the other in a snug hoodie that hides her face. The girl with the weave has black fringe framing the back pockets of her tight designer denim that moves in counterpoint to her hair. They walk past a barrel-shaped black iron grill that’s chained to a porch railing, waiting through the winter for barbecue weather. On the next porch over there are two little boys, easily four or five years younger than the girls, wearing unzipped, puffy down jackets; when the girls get close enough one of the boys hops onto the sidewalk and runs headlong into the girl with the hoodie, causing her to scream as they start to play wrestle.

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Since we find other people’s feuds with Doctor Philebrity to be almost as tiresome and tedious as our own, we got bored and changed the channel about half way through this exhaustive summation of the Clockcleaner vs. Joey Sweeney cage match. But you people on the Internets LOVE this catty shit, so here’s yer bowl of milk. Lap it up. Apparently there is talk of a lawsuit and the whole Internet getting sued or something — it’s like 2006 just threw up all over itself. Wake us up when it’s over.

From Baltimore, yo. Comin’ to the Barbary April 3rd. Nice.

BY DAVE WALK Bill Cosby is 70-years-old now and its been 45 years since his debut comedy album. And even though he may be known to some for wearing his trademark sweaters on The Cosby Show, the pudding pops or, more recently, for his critical remarks towards African American families, he is, above all things, a stand-up comedian. And he’s still performing live. This past Sunday the 24th, he was at the State Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey and he did two shows, three and seven.There’s a scene in 2002’s documentary Comedian, about Jerry Seinfeld’s re-entrance into the world of stand-up comedy, where he’s sitting in a New York comedy club with Chris Rock. “I saw Bill Cosby three weeks ago,” Rock says.

“Really?”

“The best comedy show I ever saw in my life.”

Seinfeld’s mouth gapes, his eyes bug and he sincerely looks shocked.

“I took like 15 people,” Rock continues. “We had all seen him before. We only knew one bit. He did two and a half hours.”

They both laugh in disbelief.

“The best shit, Jerry,” Rock continues, ”I felt like a fucking fraud. What is this? What, I’m good? Who says I’m good? Who says any of us are good? Sixty-three and embracing it.”

“Did he have an opening act?”

“No.”

“So he took an intermission after…”

“No, he didn’t take an intermission.”

Again, Seinfeld looks shocked. “Two and a half hours straight?”

“Pow, pow, two and a half hours of killer shit,” Rock says. “Killer and it’s so much edgier now and mean. Oh, you’ve got to see it.”

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INQUIRER: Former President Bill Clinton is in town today for a speech at the University of Pennsylvania, which he squeezed between some politicking for his wife among diner patrons in the morning and patrons of another sort later on.Clinton dropped by the Penrose Diner in South Philadelphia around 10 a.m.

Then he was off to Penn, to present the keynote address at “Kerner Plus 40,” a University of Pennsylvania-hosted symposium on the legacy of the national commission created by President Johnson in 1968 to investigate the state of U.S. race relations, and the causes behind dozens of urban riots during the turbulent civil rights movement.

Later, in a private meeting with 40 to 50 of Hillary Clinton’s most prominent supporters in Pennsylvania, the former president was expected to rally the faithful, “to brief them on her presidential campaign,” and “energize them” for the organizational work to be done ahead of the Keystone state’s primary in April, said Mark Nevins, Pennsylvania communications director for the Clinton campaign.

Among those invited to the private session are Gov. Rendell, Mayor Nutter, Pennsylvania state Democratic Party Chairman, T.J. Rooney, and other high-profile supporters, said Nevins, who described the meeting as “the kick-off of the Clinton campaign in Pennsylvania.” MORE

RELATED: Bill Clinton is dutifully traveling from state to state and small town to small town on behalf of his wife’s presidential candidacy. But the growling and snapping Bill Clinton the nation saw before the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries has been muzzled and leashed. He is being kept as far from the news media as possible to prevent any more of the red-faced, finger-wagging tirades and freelance political commentary that polls say cost Hillary Rodham Clinton a lot of support, particularly among black voters MORE

RELATED: Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton leads rival Barack Obama by six percentage points in Pennsylvania, down from 16 points two weeks earlier, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday. The final two Democratic contenders face off in Pennsylvania’s April 22 primary, which could prove significant if the race for the Democratic nomination in the November election is still close. Following March 4 primaries in Texas and in Ohio, Pennsylvania is the biggest state left on the state-by-state election calendar. The Pennsylvania poll, conducted February 21-25, showed Clinton, a New York senator, with a lead of 49 to 43 percent among likely Democratic voters. A previous Quinnipiac poll, conducted February 6-12, showed her with a lead of 52 to 36 percent. The biggest shift in preference was detected among younger voters, aged 18 to 44, who went from 52 to 41 percent in favor of Clinton in the earlier poll. They moved to 58 to 41 percent in favor of Obama, an Illinois senator, in the more recent poll, Quinnipiac said.

FOLLOW THE MONEY: Senator Barack Obama’s campaign did not release an estimate of its February fund raising totals Thursday, but the amount is believed to be more than $50 million, according to several major donors. Campaign officials said the final numbers are still being tabulated and would only say that their haul was “considerably more” than the $35 million that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign announced it had raised in February.

RELATED: Grand Opening of Obama For America Philadelphia Headquarters and Voter Registration Canvass Kickoff for Change, Saturday 1:30 PM 1500 Sansom Street, Philadelphia

SAINTS BE PRAISED: St. Vincent, First Unitarian, Last Night [CLICK TO ENLARGE]

1. St. Vincent sounds even better live than on record. Highlights of the evening were the opener, “Now, Now,” and “Marry Me,” the latter leaping to the top of the list of most heart-wrenching songs I’ve ever seen live on stage.

2. St. Vincent was very happy to finally be in Philadelphia for the tail end of her two-week tour, telling the crowd that she had drove through “the mountains, the desert, the ocean, the Siberia, and Seattle” to make it. Personally, I am of the opinion that driving in an underwater car with St. Vincent to get to Philadelphia would be pretty cool.

3. St. Vincent can shred! Equipped with her Jack White-esque Silvertone, she threw down some surprisingly heavy licks that contrasted her sweet voice in almost every way possible. In a word: badass.

4. St. Vincent might be a bit nuts. As though the theme of being adorable wasn’t enough, she announced midway through the set that the show’s theme was that “we’re giants in a psychedelic forest.” The theme returned to adorable, however, when she revealed that her and her band painted the miniature wooden trees on the tour bus (or underwater car, as it were).

5. St. Vincent is a beautiful human being- it would take a pretty grinch-like indie kid not to immediately fall in love with her as she took the stage. Only someone with a blacker-than-black heart and a hatred for Jenny Lewis and/or springtime could help themselves from being lost in her chestnut-sized eyes.

TEXT & PHOTOS BY MICHAEL DONOVAN