Film & Water #59 – High Fidelity

THE FILM & WATER PODCAST

Episode 59: HIGH FIDELITY

Rob welcomes back David Gutierrez to compare their Top 5 favorite things about Stephen Frears' 2000 comedy HIGH FIDELITY, starring John Cusack!

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15 responses to “Film & Water #59 – High Fidelity

  1. What’s this Superman story? Did I miss it somewhere? Did I just forget? Did your Mom realize how horrible Superman IV was in the theater? And I say that with all love for Chris Reeve and all he means to me (remember the first Superman film is my favorite movie of all time)…but IV is just bad. Superman III is defensible. Superman IV as filmed…is not. Sorry Mike.

    Great discussion with you and David on this one. I need to re-watch it, as I believe I only saw it when it first hit home video. Add it to the Film & Water Bucket List!

    Chris

    1. How did I miss this? Or maybe I forgot it? But either way…ooh that smarts. Now, I know your mom is cool, because she had Super Friends Party Supplies! But Cindy’s Mom has no truck with sci-fi or fantasy, so I get that second-hand.

      My Mom’s favorite movie was Somewhere in Time, so she was down with such things. And thought Chris Reeve was hunky. That’s why she took me to the Superman movies. 😉

      Chris

    1. Fire and Water should do a theme month. Rob can cover the Video Store Diaries, while Shag and I can talk about working at Comic Shops, although Shag did it far longer, and was in management!

      Chris

  2. Don’t psyche me out like that! Please tell me Highlander 2 is on the docket. Somewhere. I’ll talk about that movie for an hour. Put me in coach! Oh wait… that means I’d have to watch it again doesn’t it? Now I’m not so sure.

      1. While I will NOT sign off on the idea of doing The Source, I actually think it’d be interesting every once in a while to have Rob and a guest talk about something that went so amazingly off the rails that they can just break down “What on earth happened?”

        The Golan-Globus special kind of did that, and we all had fun then!

        1. I’ve thought about purposely picking a movie I DON’T like, but I haven’t thought of a movie that’s fun to pick on, doesn’t make for a nasty episode, AND is something I could stand to watch again (that rules out VAN HELSING).

  3. So first off, I love this movie. Cusack is one of those guys who when he makes a ‘Cusack’ movie, he is brilliant. When he doesn’t (hello 2012 or whatever the disaster one he was in), it just doesn’t.

    I love this movie for all the reasons you guys say. First off, I was a DJ on my college radio station and there were definitely conversations like the one in the store about music there.

    But really, the fun thing to do is compare the store scenes with comic book fans. Whenever one of my friends (or me) goes off on a rant about comics, inevitably someone will say ‘way to go Barry!’ It is too true.

    Top five Cusack movies? Counting Down…
    Hon Mention: Eight Men Out, Adult World, Better Off Dead

    5) The Grifters
    4) Say Anything
    3) High Fidelity
    2) Sure Thing
    1) Grosse Point Blanke

    1. Working in a comic store is literally this movie, minus the hot chicks, plus Clerks.

      Some Cusack sleeper films I like: True Colors, Hot Pursuit, and The Jack Bull that he did for HBO.

  4. “Little Ryan, Long Way” — Thanks, David, for providing me with the title for my future posthumous biopic!

    I love HIGH FIDELITY but this episode brought an unexpected sadness to my life: I had this movie on VHS but don’t own it on DVD or digital. I think I’m gonna have to correct that soon.

    One of the many great things I took from this movie was the phrase “old sad bastard music”. It’s a throwaway line, but it became a staple of me and my friends whenever we made mix CDs or playlists. Always needed that one Sad Bastard Mix.

    Great episode!

  5. I saw the movie on video, then read the book (though About A Boy got me to first read Nick Hornby). They are two different entities. I like the book better; but, it’s a different world. Hornby has more room to do things and the films is very Cusak-ified. It’s still a great film; but, the book speaks to me more. Hornby is great about capturing men of my age range, particularly our childish obsessions, our problems with dealing with a world that didn’t live up to the propaganda we were fed in childhood, and our problems with relationships. I can see myself in a lot of his characters, in bits and pieces. i never had the confidence with women that certain of his characters have,; so, it’s other character traits. Meanwhile, Hornby is such a great writer it’s hard to capture it on screen. I actually felt About a Boy did it better, though it also significantly altered the story. I haven’t seen A Long Way Down; but, loved the book.

    The record store stuff is a pleasure and reminds me, a bit, of working as a bookseller for 20 years. i worked for B&N, so we weren’t the little quirky independent; we were mass market; but, we had the really good stuff and those of us who worked there read the good stuff. We weren’t as aggressive about attacking people’s tastes, though we did have our eye-rolling moments (especially when asked for a Rush Limbaugh book).

    As a side note, I organized my comics once; when I got comic boxes. Pure alphabetical order; I just wanted to be able to find the books without hours of digging and trying to remember the criteria I used last time. Watching Cusak reorganizing the records gave me a nice feeling of superiority; I may be obsessive, but I’m not that screwed up. Even geekdom has its hierarchy.

    So, when do we get the next Hornby, About A Boy? Who’d a thunk that the “boy” would go on to play Beast?

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