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Powerful

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

As Good As It Gets

The acting in this movie is really good.

Well, I don't know. The further one goes back on the IMDb 'Top 250' lists, the quality of pictures that made it seems to get weaker and weaker, and here's an example. "High Fidelity" was at #205 in the year 2000 when it first came out, dropping to #241 the following year. That it doesn't appear again since should not surprise discerning movie watchers. It's entertaining enough if stuff like this is your thing, but really, should a twelve year old that you made out with once for a total of six hours over the course of three days be on your Top Five All-Time Break Up List? By the end of the story, you'll more than realize that Rob Gordon (John Cusack) seriously needs to get a life. But by that time, you'll probably be bored to tears over his incessant barrage on the fourth wall of your viewing screen. I will say I got a kick out of Jack Black's character Barry, the snobbishly arrogant music fan who works at Rob's 'Championship Vinyl' record shop. The same with Dick (Todd Louiso), but come to think of it, do you think they collected a paycheck there? I tend to doubt it, as most of the time, it was only the three of them in the store at any given time. And this is the only time I've ever seen Lisa Bonet as an adult after all those years as Cliff Huxtable's daughter on 'The Cosby Show'. So that was a surprise, and a very good looking one too. The one thing I'll agree with though is that "Books, records, films..., these things matter", otherwise I wouldn't be posting reviews here on IMDb. But as a service to adults over say, the age of thirty, save yourself the frustration of sitting thought this picture. Chances are you lived through the angst of this story yourself already, and who needs to be reminded of all that? And if you have your own Top Five list of All-Time Break Ups, better chuck it before the wife or significant other find it, or you'll be talking to the TV yourself.

In one of the last classicly '90s films, High Fidelity, John Cusack stars as a classicly '90s hero: he's single in his thirties, doesn't know why, and wants more than anything to be in a relationship. Nowadays, that type of man doesn't really exist anymore; he got married in 2000.As John reflects on his past relationships, he talks to the audience and exposes them to his work and friends. He works at a record shop, and music is a huge part of his life, so if you can't really identify with him in his romantic troubles or his love of music, you will probably find the movie irritating and boring. As it is, I'm a '90s kid, but a little on the younger side, and I think I might have missed the core demographic of this movie by a few years. I'm not entranced by vinyl, and I tended to see the main character's shortcomings rather than his qualities.While nostalgia is a good reason to pick up this movie, you might also want to watch it for the supporting cast. Jack Black, Catherin Zeta-Jones, Joan Cusack, Tim Robbins, Lisa Bonet, Lili Taylor, Natasha Wagner, and Iben Hjejle all contribute to this colorful film in their own way. I didn't end up liking High Fidelity, but I don't usually like dark comedies or quirky romances.

I've seen this movie countless times in a 10 years span. Is one of the few movies that changes depending you emotional state. Background romantic flick, hilarious comedy, real life drama, state of the art script to analyze line by line and should I start with the soundtrack? Being realistic with a 9, Why not a 10? I've seen this movie with lots of women and to be honest they are not fond of the main character, well, that's real life. Yes, he is s a misogynist bastard with an excellent taste in music but that's real life people. This movie has no time, it works in the 80s, 90s, 20s and on...This movie is a gem.Frears + Hornby + Cusack = 10.

This has generally positive reviews and in fact it's not bad. More than anything else it brings Woody Allen's work to mind. Not his early flat-out comedies and not his late erratica but his midstream features like "Manhattan." John Cusack runs a Chicago shop full of old vinyl records and more recent CDs. He knows his way around pop music. Unfortunately he can't figure out a relational calculus when girls are involved. What we do is follow him through a series of full and partial affairs, all of which seem to puzzle, frustrate, and anger him.The style is really Woody Allen's. When a former lover tells Cusack that she's slept with her new boyfriend but they haven't "done it" yet, he agonizes over the particular meaning of the word "yet." He pummels his friends with questions about it. Does "yet" mean you haven't done it but you intend to do it in the future? In a Woody Allen movie this would be done in narration but the director here has Cusack breaking the fourth wall, directly addressing the camera and leaping with excitement or slumping with depression as he describes one contretemps after another.I could allow myself to be drawn in by some of his feelings -- that the girl is too classy, too good looking, for a schlub like me, even though I myself closely resemble the youthful Robert Redford. Why, just the other day a toothsome blond in the supermarket looked at me and swooned. At least I think it was a swoon. Can swoons follow an expression of utter horror? My understanding of his obsessions with post-Beatles pop music was a little forced because I think most of it stinks. True that one of Miles Davis' better albums is on display, but then some numbskull makes a sarcastic crack about Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.On the whole, if you've enjoyed mid-stream Woody Allen, you should get a kick out of this character-driven story.