High Fidelity

Since my nickname is Cosby Sweater and Nick Hornby just came up on Chris’s blog, I thought I’d tell you one of my favorite things to tell people.

“Your fly is down.”

OK, that’s a DIFFERENT thing I like to tell people. Here’s the real thing I like telling:

“I liked the movie HIgh Fidelity better than the book.”

This is true. I did like the movie better. There’s a couple reasons I liked the movie better.

1) Jack Black. JB made that movie. He should get huge props. His character in the book was not nearly as funny as JB was.

2) The movie was from an American POV, the book was British. I don’t know as much about British pop culture, nor do I like their music as much. Plus British humor can grind on me after a while. Except when it comes to BBC’s The Office. That was hilarious the whole time.

I'm so glad a movie actually became better than a book. That never happens. And bookworms LOVE to let you know when a book is better. “Oh, the film was dreadful compared to the novel.” Then I have to listen to blah, blah, blah...OKAY. I GET IT. YOU READ. HERE’S A MEDAL. Now why don't you do me a favor and go back to the book club you came from?

I wonder what would happen if one of these people actually liked a movie better than the book. Would he deny it and keep living his lie, covering it up with a huge Barnes & Noble spending spree? Or would it so not compute that if we were lucky we’d get to see a little blood trickle out his ear right before his head exploded?

Hey, I’m the first to admit America, especially Hollywood, usually takes what talented people from here or abroad give us and dumb it down, homogonize and process it until it royally sucks. I think one of the best examples of this is the movie “Insomnia.” The Al Pacino/Robin-are-you-kidding-me-by-casting-Patch-freaking-Adams-in-this-Willams movie was awful compared to the original Norwegian thriller. Most Americans will never know about the original and better version. And that’s a pity.

That’s why I was so happy to see us take something and make it better. That’s what America was founded on. That’s our roots, dammit. We've been too focused on BIGGER and FASTER. We've forgot BETTER. That's the one we should be concerned with.

Thank you High Fidelity, the movie. Thank you Jack Black and John Cusack and DV DeVincentis (writer) and Stephen Frears (director). You not only gave a facial to Brits and book nerds everywhere, you restored my faith in AMERICA.

Fuck yeah!