|
| • Advanced Search • Help |
High Fidelity | Year: 2000 Classification: Comedy Birthdate: 22 March 1971 Directed: - Stephen Frears Actors/Actresses: - John Cusack - Sara Gilbert - Natasha Gregson Wagner - Harold Ramis - Tim Robbins - Lili Taylor - Catherine Zeta Jones - Joan Cusack - Iben Hjejle Jack be nimble... I intensely disliked Nick Hornby's book High Fidelity - in fact, I dislike pretty much everything that Hornsby stands for in contemporary British literature, and so I only ever came to see this courtesy of losing in a game of Scissor-Paper-Stone at the video store. It's one game I'm glad I lost. This is a terrific, intelligent comedy, set on fire by the outstanding performances of the cast, but especially the comedy double act of Jack Black and Todd Louiso, John Cusack's geeky sidekicks at the record store. Black, in particular, should take credit for converting a half-chance record-store geek role one of the most accutely observed and and perfectly executed comedy supporting roles in all of motion picture history. Black utterly steals the show, which is saying a lot, as Cusack himself completely nails the lead character, in whom all males of a certain generation will intantly, and horrifyingly recognise themselves. High Fidelity almost loses impetus in the middle, but pulls itself around with a storming finale in which, appropriately enough, Jack Black features, in a scene stealing act. The fact that Cusack et all were able to craft such a winning film out of such an irritating book earns this effort the big rack of five in my book. Dead-on accurate There is a moment in the movie when one of John Cusack's hilariously slacker employees visits his apartment and see's Cusak in the process of reorganizing his thousands of vinyl record albums. He's asks Cusack if the sort sequence will be chronological. Nope. "Not alphabetically?", as if this is too mundane. Nope, Cusack is going to arrange them autobiographically, meaning in the order that he acquired them. There was a time in my life when this this would have been a perfectly normal discussion, and I'm sure the character would have been able to accomplish the feat. I miss that part of my life. This is a very realistic portrayal of people who live and breathe rock and roll. While I myself still keep in touch, it's unfortunately at arm's length while more the more pressing responsibilities of life take a higher priority. While some may think life has passed these characters by, they proudly stay right where they are, as if someone has to hold up the banner. They are even snobbish about it, and will not sell records to customers they don't consider "worthy". I find these admirable qualities. With that as background, the Cusack character now finds that he may have to make that jump to the responsible world or lose yet another girlfriend that has made that jump. Being of the mentality where all music can be categorized into "Top 5" lists, he chooses five of his past relationships to explore what happened. The fact that he throws a 7th grade, two-week relationship into the mix shows his maturity level outside his record passion may not be that high. He finds that, in several cases, he didn't realize at the time what a good thing he had, and it's his own fault he lost the girl. His struggles with this, and what to do with his current situation make this one of the most intelligent movies with a rock and roll setting ever made. I was very satisfied with the ending. I believe his character will probably never abandon his lifestyle to the degree that I did. But then he's incredibly lucky to find someone that is willing to accept him for that lifestyle. Who that person turns out to be I won't reveal. By the way, Jack Black's introduction to the general movie-going public is hilarious. Possessions and obsessions This is a movie about men, their possessions and how they order them. For Rob, it's all about pop music and women. Nothing else, besides the odd film, matters to him. And it's pretty much the same for his two male colleagues at the record shop, who exist at opposite ends of the forcefulness spectrum. They form a self-selected elite who look down on the musical taste of nearly everyone they meet. But actually their hyper-critical views are pretty close to the mark. It's great to hear someone else noticing and lamenting the 1980s decline of Stevie Wonder, for example. One might criticise author Hornby for selecting Rob's dream job as record producer in the punk era (1976-79) when he could have chosen, say, late 1960s Beach Boys / Beatles psychedelia. But you can never find someone with the identical taste as your own. Strangely, the music is not particularly central to this movie, in the sense that it probably generated fewer album sales for featured artists like Marvin Gaye than say 'The Big Chill'. The structure of the movie takes a little getting used to. The first time you see it can be a disappointment -- there's no upbeat climactic ending, unless you count the improbable, rather obviously tacked-on, disco/concert by Sonic Death Metal, or whatever they happened to be called at the time. John Cusack's frequent chats to camera seem altogether natural (except when he's sauntering backwards and forwards on some wooden bridge-cum-platform in downtown Chicago). What I like about this film is that, from a male viewpoint, it rings true so often. Men do behave treacherously, and the behaviour often looks worse at first sight. I like the fact that the actress who played Laura wasn't stunningly attractive. Even Lisa Bonet didn't seem particularly beautiful in the movie. (But yes, that really is Catherine Zeta-Jones discreetly stripping off in a role just before she became famous enough to warrant a major Hollywood film credit.) This is not the perfect movie, but it contains a message about the male psyche that I hadn't extracted from any other movie, and that revelation in itself is sufficiently uplifting to distract from the artificial attempt by the film to uplift via the back-together-again concert/disco scenario. Buy High Fidelity at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on High Fidelity Search with the Priority Search Engine on High Fidelity This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
|
