Sometimes, the best things catch you by surprise. My friend Clint quipped that I was so "High Fidelity" with my Top 5 lists. ....only problem....I'd never seen the movie. I decided that I better see it though, because that sounded interesting.....so I told him I'd rent it. I did have every intention of renting it, although probably not tonight except when I logged on Myspace, he again asked if I had seen it...so with an impending hurricane and a free Blockbuster rental coupon in hand, I decided to head across the street and pick up it...possibly curl up in bed tonight and use it to drown out the terrential downpour. I walked right in, picked it up....and got in the 43 person long line..... (I counted....twice....I have a bad habit of doing that with lines...slight OCD possibly?) to rent it before they locked up at 6pm. I got out approximately 50 minutes later along with 3 purchased DVD's I aquired while waiting in line and a box of dark chocolate raisinettes because I'd never seen them before, also acquired from standing in line too long. I returned home, started up the computer and proceeded to immerse myself in the HTML coding antics of MySpace. I kept thinking about this movie....in my head, I had psyched myself out...."was this really a great gem of cinema masterpiece that somehow slipped through the cracks....I missed this?" I swear the DVD kept wanting me to play it....all night...so around midnight, I finally got settled and started the movie. I was hanging on every word from the first opening scene. It starts with a self-reflection.....and his girlfriend leaving....which in turn, he announces...his TOP FIVE WORST BREAKUPS OF ALL TIME and proceeds to list them individually with history...... and it just keeps going.....TOP FIVE SONGS FOR THE VERTICALLY CHALLENGED, TOP FIVE SONGS ABOUT DEATH....it;s amazing...I'm thinking, "Did someone follow me around....I mean, I've met and shaken hands with Jack Black...somewhere along the line did I somehow transfer quirky behaviors to him?" It was insane.... also... this movie was based on a book written by Nick Hornby...who also wrote About a Boy and Fever Pitch....both two of my favorite movies!!!! I own them both!!! I didn't know that!!!! , I didn't even know it was based off of a book. I loved the Springstein dream sequence where he gets his "advice" how great..... something about this film was just so familiar and identifiable for me...I thought it was great. It's sooo realistic, the compromised aspirations that we all lose along the way, the unhealthy fixations and lengths we go to when we lose what we never knew we had. The obsessive nature of our inner brain functions that causes such panic and fixation over cheating and loss of love when we can't ever begin to control it to begin with. The sudden actualization that true unfaltering love never really existed for any of us but that real life ups, downs, and cotton underwear can be better than the fantasy..... yeah....so I leave you with this
Erin's Top Five Favorite things about High Fidelity
1. The random listology.....I do it constantly and when I ran the CD store, I was obsessive about compilations and "mixtapes"
2. He gives the outline of a good mixtape. It's a lost art and anyone younger than me will never get to experience the joy and frustration of a cassette mixtape. If you ever received a mixtape from a significant other, it really meant something...and I always read so much into the song lyrics on my mixtapes....John Cusack was right when he said that the maker must think long and hard when selecting tracks because of the connotation associated with the lyrics of songs.....
3. There is a "Smith's" reference within the first 5 minutes of the film
4. He organized his record collection in Autobiographical order.....amazing similarity.....I once organized my CD books as to when I acquired the CD, not chronological to the date of release, but sort of a timeline of my own musical preferences and their evolution through time...it was pretty difficult but theraputic to tie a life memory to each CD to think about where it should be filed. Try it one day, with just ten CD's or so and just sit back and think about the memories we acquaint with music, it's out of this world.
5. It shines a light on the elitest personas that are music geeks. You know you do it....every time you hear someone listening to Fallout Boy, Nick Lachey, or some other top 40 fly by night band while you jazz to some lesser known singer/songwriter jam, admit it, you start feeling superior...you feel as if you are more enlightened, more in the know, "smarter" if you will, less of a "Follower", more of a "leader"...it's OK...it's actually admirable....I love anyone that can match wits when it comes to music or film...I I do consider them superior to the general population because my brain functions on pop culture......and so does yours.

So, to the only three people that will probably read this (Jen, Clint, and Tim).... know that I consider all three of you in my personal "Top Five pop culture vultures". Wear that badge proudly. It's 3 AM, I'm heading to bed........ thanks for the tip off.....sorry for the rant...thanks for making it this far :)