Without a doubt, "Be Kind Rewind" is a fairy tale.

For starters, its tale of a pair of no-budget Steven Spielbergs is about as plausible as Jack and his magic beans or Cinderella and her glass slipper. Mostly, however, it's about a time that doesn't exist anymore.

Sure, "Be Kind Rewind" (which was released on DVD last week) takes place in the present, but it's more like a parallel universe. It's a universe with a video store that carries only VHS tapes, customers who like cheap, homemade films better than the blockbusters, and neighbors who are so eager to help put on a show they make Andy Hardy look like a slacker.

When video store clerk Mike (Mos Def) is left in charge of the store, his buddy Jerry (Jack Black), by a preposterous set of events, accidentally erases all the store's videotapes.

Not ones to sit and mope, Mike and Jerry simply remake all the films. This is where "Be Kind Rewind" finds some kind of stride and steps up several notches on the intelligence level. Writer-director Michel Gondry ("The Science of Sleep," "Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind") finds just the right things to parody in Mike and Jerry's mini-films, right down to their opposing viewpoints on the value of "Driving Miss Daisy." The big problem is that despite some goofy charm, the rest of the film isn't nearly as smart.

Technology, the competition between big-box and small stores, and our changing world are the underlying themes of "Be Kind Rewind." All three could turn the character of video store clerk into a historical figure, along with knights in shining armor and kings of yore.

Superstores such as Blockbuster aren't going away any time soon (and hopefully great indie stores like Four Star Video Heaven or Bongo Video won't either), but technology and mail-order companies have changed how people get their movies.

Yet the video store clerk will always live on, even if the movies they live in arrive in your mailbox. There's one front and center in "EDtv" (1999) played by Matthew McConaughey. There's Dante's buddy Randal in the cult classic "Clerks" (1994). Writer-director Kevin Smith liked that notion so much he made one the love interest (Liv Tyler) for Ben Affleck in "Jersey Girl" (2004). And when Muriel fled Porpoise Spit, she got a job as a video clerk in Sydney in "Muriel's Wedding" (1994).

The video store clerks aren't alone in the "Obsolete Jobs in the Movies" categories, just the latest. And they'll have plenty of company with these cinematic occupations that either don't exist anymore or are increasingly obscure:

Elevator operator: This has been an up-and-down job for many a movie character, but few so prominent as Shirley MacLaine in "The Apartment."

Her Fran Kubelik, the elevator operator at a big-time corporation, catches the eye of Jack Lemmon and his sleazy boss (Fred MacMurray) in Billy Wilder's 1960 classic.

Gas station attendant: If all gas stations had been self-service in the 1970s, Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) might not have gotten a job, found a place to live or ended up in the phone book in "The Jerk" (1979).

Movie projectionist: One of the greatest love letters to the movies was 1988's "Cinema Paradiso," in which a projectionist befriends a young boy who grows up to become a famous film director. The greatest ending of a movie ever.

Marshal: Well, we do have fire marshals, army officers of that rank and all sorts of law enforcers with that title. They just don't heroically stand alone against the bad guys the way Gary Cooper does in "High Noon" (1952), which was just released in a two-disc collector set. One disc is just extras, including three short documentaries about the film and three extras dedicated to cowboy crooner Tex Ritter.

Switchboard operator: Rosalind Russell couldn't quite manage this profession in "Auntie Mame" (1958). However, I would have preferred her to the automated directory assistance that couldn't manage to get me the phone number of my cousins, the Wegehaupts, in Menomonee Falls last week. It's possible that circuits all over the world melted.

Milkman: Paying the friendly delivery man was a huge concern for the mother (Julianne Moore) in "The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" (2005). Many contest winnings later, she probably could have bought her own cow.

Copy editor: Last week, the New York Times published an elegy to the picky people who save reporter's skins on a daily basis and aren't necessarily surviving their publications' moves online. Few are more persnickety than the romantically challenged lead of "Kissing Jessica Stein" (2001), who was turned off by a guy who said he liked working out because of the rush of "dorfmans" he got.