High Fidelity. (2000). Starring John Cusack and Jack Black.
I bought this in a Charity store for GB £1.00. I had heard and read quite a bit about it since it was released ( mostly Great things, on various websites/magazine/word of mouth), and the book is also supposed to be excellent. I was not at all sure what to expect from it, but, being a long standing visitor and customer to UK "Indie" record stores for most of my life, I thought I may get some sort of enjoyment/retrospective "Feel" from it.
What I was most certainly NOT expecting was a film in which John Cusack whinges like an absolute gobshite all the way through it, about how bad his love life has been/is since he discovered "girls". So, we spend most of the film watching him( sometimes to Camera, as if I/we are in the same room with him) try to explain his past relationship disasters. In the meantime, he is splitting up/getting back with his latest ex, whilst simultaneously Banging an "about to make it big in the record biz" Black female artist. Oh, and he runs a record shop.
This record shop is an indie/obscure music fans idea of Utter Heaven, stock-wise, as not a single space of shelf or wall display has been taken up by a crap record. EVERY single album is a "Must-Have".
The staff of the shop are, indeed, pretty "true to life" characters ( in my pesonal experience anyway..), However, Jack Black excels himself in his role here, playing an Obnoxious, loud-mouthed, Know-it-all, insufferable self-important asshole ( Which, come to think of it, he plays in just about every movie I have ever saw him in..), and I would have happily punched his lights out if he EVER spoke to me the way he does to some of the customers in the store.
The person I was watching this with fell asleep about an hour in, and I turned it off soon after ( with about 30 mins to go...), and went to bed myself.
It is now the next day as I type, and my co-watcher has said it was "Boring", and that Jack Blacks character was, indeed a C#nt, and he didn't care how it ended.
I myself have absolutely NO intention of watching the last part...I just completely DID NOT CARE for a single character in it, or how it turns out in the end either...Oh, ..the movie did open with Cusack mentioning the Smiths, so I will finish this by also mentioning the Smiths....it said Nothing to me about my life.
P.S., I even watched the Unmistakable atrocity that is "The Dictator" to the end....which just shows how bad I thought High fidelity is....maybe it's just me, but it was, in Alexei Sayles immortal way of reviewing Films..."Shite".
