DEEP/DIVE – High Fidelity (2000)

March 31, 2020 Owen Morawitz Editorial 0

High Fidelity DEEP/DIVE, lists

Greetings all and welcome to DEEP/DIVE: FilmBunker’s newest (and greatest) editorial series! Join us for a somewhat regular column, where we will skewer, dissect and gleefully over-analyse a wide selection of fine films without any real need for doing so, because ‘The Internet’. Said films may be approaching, or have surpassed, a particular retrospective milestone. They may have penetrated the cultural zeitgeist in a way that demands increased attention from neurotic and/or caffeine-riddled critics. Or they might just have, like, really dank memes. Whatever the reason, FilmBunker is ready to wade through a sea of hot takes and pop-up browser tabs in order to take the plunge.

High Fidelity (2000)

Released: March 31, 2000 (US)

Directed by: Stephen Frears

Runtime: 113 minutes

Okay, full disclosure: I’m a list guy. Even before I watched High Fidelity, the film adaptation of English author Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel, I was the type of dude who would make lists of my favourite films by genre or year of release. Or my favourite books. Or my all-time, desert island records. In full knowledge that these lists served a very subjective purpose and would more than likely never be seen by another person. I made these lists in notebooks, note files on my phones, and spreadsheets (yes, with formulas; I’m not a sadist). Sometimes, I’d even memorise these lists for a kind of hypothetical, ‘What if you get put on the spot?’ moment.

And it’s this hyper self-awareness and commitment to my neuroses that I relate to the most when watching High Fidelity. I feel that critic Roger Ebert put it best when he described the film’s “unforced, whimsical, quirky [and] obsessive” qualities:

“This is a film about—and also for—not only obsessed clerks in record stores, but the video store clerks who have seen all the movies, and the bookstore employees who have read all the books. Also for bartenders, waitresses, greengrocers in health food stores, kitchen slaves at vegetarian restaurants, the people at GNC who know all the herbs, writers for alternative weeklies, disc jockeys on college stations, salespeople in retro clothing shops, tattoo artists and those they tattoo, poets, artists, musicians, novelists, and the hip, the pierced and the lonely. They may not see themselves, but they will recognize people they know.”

So, in the spirit of the film, this will not be a regular review or even a real retrospective. What follows is a list… of lists… about lists. You’re welcome.

1) Top Five Songs Featured in the High Fidelity Soundtrack

  • Jack Black – ‘Let’s Get It On’
  • The Kinks – ‘Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy’
  • Elvis Costello & The Attractions – ‘Shipbuilding’
  • The Velvet Underground – ‘Oh! Sweet Nuthin’’
  • Stevie Wonder – ‘I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever)’

2) Owen’s All-Time, Top Five Break Up Films (That Aren’t High Fidelity)

  • The Wedding Singer (1998)
  • Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
  • (500) Days of Summer (2009)
  • Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)

3) Top Five Scenes in High Fidelity (Based on Hilarity and/or Legacy)

  • Rob’s dream sequence series of confrontations with “that fucking Ian guy”
  • Introductions to Dick & Barry with soundtrack by Belle & Sebastian
  • Barry’s “In a minute!” record store guy elitist snobbery
  • Rob’s autobiographical categorisation project for his record collection
  • Barry & Dick being humbled by the “little skate fuckers” making a sick demo tape, and then Rob offering to put out their record on a label that doesn’t (yet) exist

4) Owen’s All-Time, Top Five Films About Music (That Aren’t High Fidelity)

  • Dazed and Confused (1993)
  • Almost Famous (2000)
  • School of Rock (2003)
  • Sing Street (2016)
  • 8 Mile (2002)

5) Top Five Top Five Lists Mentioned in High Fidelity (A Meta-Tribute to List Making)

  • Rob’s Desert Island, All-Time, Top Five Most Memorable Break Ups
  • Barry’s Top Five Musical Crimes Perpetrated by Stevie Wonder in the ’80s and ’90s
  • Your Top Five Worst Things That You Have Done to Your Partner, Even If – Especially If – Your Partner Doesn’t Know About Them
  • Rob’s Top Five Favourite Books
  • Barry and Dick’s Top Five Songs About Death, ‘A Laura’s Dad Tribute List’

6) Owen’s All-Time, Top Five Book-to-Film Adaptations (That Aren’t High Fidelity)

  • Starship Troopers (1997) [Paul Verhoeven; Robert A. Heinlein]
  • No Country for Old Men (2007) [The Coen Brothers; Cormac McCarthy]
  • Die Hard (1988) [John McTiernan; Steven E. de Souza]
  • Blade Runner (1982) [Ridley Scott; Philip K. Dick]
  • And “I don’t know, probably something by Kurt Vonnegut.”

7) Top Five John Cusack Appearances in Film (An Objective List Excluding High Fidelity)

  • Con Air (1997)
  • Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)
  • Stand By Me (1986)
  • 2012 (2009)
  • Sixteen Candles (1984)

8) Owen’s All-Time, Top Five Songs About Sex and/or Love & Relationships

9) Top Five Lines of Dialogue in High Fidelity (Completely Removed of Context)

  • “What came first, the music or the misery? … Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?”
  • “John Dillinger was killed behind that theatre in a hail of FBI gunfire. And do you know who tipped them off? His fucking girlfriend. All he wanted to do was go to the movies.”
  • “I agreed that what really matters is what you like, not what you are like… Books, records, films – these things matter.”
  • “Is it, in fact, unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter-day sins; is it better to burn out or fade away?”
  • “I don’t wanna hear old sad bastard music, Barry, I just want something I can ignore.”

10) Owen’s All-Time, Top Five Ways to Organise Your Record Collection

  • Alphabetical by artist name, then record title
  • For the rest, see above (anything else is blasphemous, you cretin)

11) Top Five Celebrity Cameos in Film (Playing Themselves; Also Not Including the Boss From High Fidelity)

  • Alice Cooper in Wayne’s World (1992)
  • Bob Barker in Happy Gilmore (1996)
  • Billy Idol in The Wedding Singer (1998)
  • Margot Robbie in The Big Short (2015)
  • Bill Murray in Zombieland (2009)
  • Runner-Up: Pretty much everyone in This Is The End (2013)

12) Owen’s All-Time, Desert Island Top Five Records (In My Personal Collection)

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