Unkind unwind
The film industry tries to revive the ailing home-entertainment business
“BE KIND REWIND”, a 2008 comedy about the travails of a small New Jersey video store, is not the best film ever made about the film business. But it may be one of the most honest. Whereas most entries in this navel-gazing genre are about the making of movies—the scheming actors, the lying moguls—“Be Kind Rewind” is about the unglamorous but vital business of getting them into customers' hands. It is accurate in another way, too: it ends with the video store about to close, crushed by technological change.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "Unkind unwind"
Briefing March 19th 2011
From the March 19th 2011 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from Briefing
America’s fiscal outlook is disastrous, but forgotten
On the campaign trail, both main candidates largely ignore the problem
America’s $61bn aid package buys Ukraine time
It must use it wisely
America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
Which is a worry, because much of it is already shrinking