Director: Stephen Frears
Starring: John Cusack, Iben Hjejle, Todd Louiso, Jack Black, Lisa Bonet
MPAA Rating: R
Distributed by: Touchstone / Disney
Running Time: 113 Minutes
Release Date: August 7, 2012
Film: 4 out of 5 stars
Extras: 3 out of 5 stars
John Cusack has always been one of my favorites. I am not sure what it is but he is just always nails his roles. This film is one of his best roles, easily. When “High Fidelity” was released, it introduced me to some great music, Jack Black and some of the best comedic lines in film. It is very hard to believe that this film is actually 12 years old. It still holds up though and still delivers the laughs. It still ranks in my top 5 of comedies since 2000. Those who previously own this DVD are wondering if this is worth the upgrade to HD. It is definitely worth the jump for sure. Highly recommended for those who love music, Jack Black and, of course, Cusack.
The film follows Rob Gordon (Cusack), the owner of a fading record store, Championship Vinyl, which does what is says…sells vinyls. He is a walking enclycopedia of music, living and breathing it. He spends his days battling with two employees Dick and Barry creating their all-time favorite top-five lists throughout music. When Rob’s long-term girlfriend Laura walks out on him, he examines his previous failed attempts at romance and tries to seek to find what went wrong.
The Blu-ray presentation itself is very well done by Disney! The 1080p transfer comes with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and a video codec of AVC/MPEG-4. Overall it looks very sharp in its HD transfer. Since music is a very big part of this film, the audio track is very important. There is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track included with 48kHz/24-bit, which is basically perfect with the dialogue and the music.
The special features are good overall but there are no new HD extras included on this release. First up is some great interviews with Writer/Producer John Cusack split into five different sections. There is also a “Conversations with Director Stephen Frears”, also split into five sections. These both are very informative about the film. There are nine “Deleted Scenes” that are well worth checking out. I have always loved the scene with Beverly D’Angelo, which is hysterical. Lastly there is the theatrical trailer included.