Cult filmmaker Michel Gondry turns his "spotless mind" on film itself and our relationship to it in his silly, semi-successful satire "Be Kind Rewind." It's about our memories of movies, our relationship to art and the YouTube zeitgeist.

If it isn't up to his Oscar-winning "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," it at least has Jack Black and Mos Def around for laughs. Even Gondry's failures leave us with much to chew on.

In the vast expanse of junk yards and urban decay known as Passaic, N.J., Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) has a video store. It's called Be Kind Rewind because Fletcher, a fanatical fan of jazz composer Fats Waller, hasn't kept up with the times. He still rents VHS tapes, "1 movie, 1 night, $1." Mike (Mos Def) runs the place for him out of a historic building Fletcher says was once home to Waller.

But the city wants to demolish the building. Fletcher's business is fading, thanks to his tech illiteracy. And when he takes off on a scouting trip to see how the West Coast Video chain earns its billions, Mike's doofus conspiracy-nut pal, Jerry (Jack Black) makes a fateful attempt to sabotage the power relay station that buzzes over the junkyard camper he calls home. Jerry is magnetized. Jerry walks into the store. And we all remember what happens to magnetic tapes exposed to magnets. Hundreds of titles are zapped.

Mike can't let Mr. Fletcher down. To save the business, he resolves to trick an out-of-touch customer (Mia Farrow, charming) by shooting their own version of "Ghost Busters." Mike and Jerry and assorted neighborhood characters remake the movie from (faulty) memory. In an afternoon.

"Our version is better than the original," Jerry insists.

"Our version is only 20 minutes," Mike counters.

It turns out that their short, sloppy, do-it-yourself movie is just the thing for the viral video generation. More laughs per minute thanks to badly hand-crafted costumes and adorably hand-made special effects. (Wait'll you see how they pull off the drive-upside down in the Holland Tunnel scene of "Men in Black").

Buzz builds and a new word enters the video fan's lexicon: Sweded. Their movies have been remade from materials at hand, apparently a very Swedish trait, according to Jerry. And if you "Swede" a better mousetrap, the world beats a path to your door.

Gondry's film is as charmingly low-rent as the ones the guys remake for the store. They take on "Rush Hour," "Last Tango," "2001: A Space Odyssey" and many other titles, even, reluctantly, "Driving Miss Daisy," which makes Mike uncomfortable.

"I found it a little condescending."

Movie lovers and student movie-makers will connect with their own memories of movie moments and the ingenious ways the neighborhood filmmakers come up with faking this scene or that one -- fire crackers simulate gunfights; a washing-machine tub recreates the walking upside down effect in "2001"; shooting through an old fan's blades creates a silent movie "flicker" effect.

The upshot? The would-be moviemakers learn from copying others, then create something original.