Movies

The other night, when I was on my way out to dinner, I popped into the lounge on the ground floor and saw that the last 10 minutes of High Fidelity, the 2000 movie starring John Cusack, was on. Later that night, at around 3:00am, while I was in the lounge on my floor to get some hot water, I turned on the TV and saw that the last 10 minutes of High Fidelity was on AGAIN!

(Sigh...) I've been looking for a copy of High Fidelity for AGES. I couldn't download it while in Canada (before the huge crackdown - or was it just a ruling? - on downloading), and still couldn't find it at either DVD "stalls" (where DVD's cost less than $1 CAD) or in DVD shops (where they cost $1.20 to $1.50 CAD) in Beijing. And there's no way in hell I'm going to pay $20 CAD for it in Canada!

I remember watching High Fidelity accidentally, and I don't even remember where I watched it, but it could have been on a plane or on pay-TV. Anyway, High Fidelity is about a cool guy who recounts his 5 most memorable break-ups. No, I don't have a morbid fascination with break-ups, and it's mere coincidence that break-ups have been mentioned in 2 consecutive blog entries. Anyway, I found the movie to be quite clever and funny, and the biggest shock was at the end when I found out that Jack Black can SING! The only person who can do Marvin Gaye better than Jack Black is Marvin Gaye.


The strange thing about High Fidelity is that I only watched it once. That's never the case when it comes to movies I like a lot.


Like La Bamba, the movie about the life and death of the rock star Ritchie Valens. Such catchy music, especially La Bamba and Donna, and such a cute (but sad) little movie. It's ALWAYS on TV, and every time it's on, I watch it. It's not a great film, but it makes time pass nicely. Since I must have watched it more than 20 times, I can probably recite the lines by now.



But a movie I've watched more times than I'd like to admit (and probably more times than La Bamba) is Notting Hill. It's not that I'm a fan of Hugh Grant, or of British movies that come in a can, or of chick flicks, but this movie is also always on TV, and I also watch it every time that it's on. I bought the DVD in Beijing for about 80 cents CAD, but I'm not going to tell you how many times I watched it. Sadly, I've probably watched this movie more times than any other movie out there. There's just something about this reverse-Cinderalla story that I just love. It was so inspiring to see an average guy get the girl of his dreams, and the thing is, the same thing happened to me. Too bad it didn't last.


My all-time favourite movie has got to be Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, the 1989 time travel movie starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. I watched this movie when I was quite young, and it really had a profound influence on me: it sparked my interest in history. Perhaps this movie, as well as most of the others out there, are full of historical inaccuracies, but it's fun to watch these movies anyway. It's fun to distinguish fact from fiction, and I can be understanding when scriptwriters take some liberties with some facts and sequences in order to make a story flor better. Anyway, I had absolutely no clue who those historical figures were when I first watched that movie, but that changed really soon. As with High Fidelity, I couldn't find this movie on DVD in Beijing either, and I never had a copy in Canada. Fortunately, it was shown on TV relatively frequently, so I could watch it at least twice a year or so. The sequel is funny, but it lacked the history aspect of the first, so was a bit less interesting for me.