High Fidelity

My wife and I read books together. Actually I read them to her out loud. The last one we read was High Fidelity, which although it is extremely sentimental and male chick-lit, was still decent. So then we watched the movie. I had heard good things about it but it was absolutely terrible. The acting was horrible, the characters were one dimensional, the plot was extremely contrived. Even the timelines were impossible. Based on the songs they used playing in scenes - not soundtrack but characters listening to it - the timeline was completely impossible. They had songs from the late 90s playing presumably at some point in the late 80s or early 90s.

I also hated the changes they made from the book to Americanize it. I especially hated the way they changed the music. As a record collector myself I could appreciate the music in the book - it was good, obscure music that people would legitimately want to collect. In the movie it was just pop garbage. Green Day? Please.

I detested the film so much I almost turned it off a couple of times. Normally I will sit through a movie from end-to-end, no matter how bad it is. I figure that I at least owe the movie a chance to explain itself or redeem itself or something. I watched "The Devil Wears Prada" from end-to-end, it's just a compulsion I have. I see movies as works of art and you don't critique a painting or a sculpture without seeing the whole thing. But this was just absolute garbage. And I've sat through some pretty terrible, contrived, precious movies so there must be something else about this one that makes me hate it so much.

Or maybe it's just a crappy movie.