"And be warned - expect the more jug-headed critics to begin their
reviews with a 'Top Five Reasons I Loved/Hated This Movie' list."
-- Rob Popick, N-Zone Magazine

Top Five Reasons I Loved This Movie
5. It's fall out of your chair and sprain yourself funny
4. It includes both an excerpt from "Walking on Sunshine" and a reference to Evil Dead II
3. It features both John and Joan Cusack.
2. Catherine Zeta-Jones doesn't speak very often
1. Seeing it meant I didn't have to see Erin Brockovich

High Fidelity stands out in the misreviews archive like a Shonen Knife album in the Rap/Soul rack at Sam Goody. Movies with a five chainsaw rating that aren't animated, spaceship based, or just full of big explosions and doofy one liners are few and far between.

This, of course, means that nobody is going to see it. If you like movies that don't suck, you owe it to yourself to get out there and see this one quickly before short-sighted execs yank it out of the theaters because America would rather watch Deputy Dewey get his ass kicked in a dumb-ass lobotomy flick like Ready to Rumble than watch John Cusack find and lose love in an artfully rendered semi-romantic comedy.

High Fidelity is the story what happened to Ferris Bueller after he grew up. He never quite figured out what to do after high school graduation, but he still has an uncanny knack to appear normal to other people while turning away and talking through the fourth wall. He has become a man unable to express himself in any way outside of a top five list. Top five ways to take a Day Off, Top five reasons Sloane is hotter than Cameron, Top five Jacksons, etc.

Bueller owns Champion Records, one of the top five least frequented record stores in Chicago. Champion the kind of store that people like my friend Steve like.

As far as music goes, Steve's taste is so diametrically opposite to mine that I once forced him out of my house for an entire week by playing the first track of Spice World. Whereas I won't fully embrace a band until they are so hardcore mainstream that their greatest hits CD is being sold in Shell stations, Steve once spent six months overseas in the Peace Corps specifically so that he could find cool indie records that nobody else has.

Top Five Songs That Make Steve Homicidal
5. Straight Up by Paula Abdul
4. MMM Bop by Hanson
3. Electric Youth by Debbie Gibson
2. The Sign by Ace of Base
1. Anything by Tiffany

Unlike Steve, when I walk into a store like Champion, if the nose ring wearing quasi-goth punk working the counter even looks at me, it's only to slather me with a patronizing and acidic tongue-bath when I sheepishly ask if they have anything by Debbie Gibson.

I wonder if people like Steve see this movie and come out of it going, "Yuh, people like that are total losers. I knew a guy like that once..." the same way that I was when I saw Trekkies.

"Oh no, I'm not one of those freaks. I mean, I have the Starfleet Academy sticker in the window of my car and all, sure, but I mean I don't really believe my car is a starship or anything... but it would be cool if it was... dude, I would totally score with all the green chicks!"

Top Five Coolest Star Trek Moments
5. Kirk kisses, then punches out the cute girl with the big eyes - The Gamesters of Triskillion
4. The episode of Deep Space Nine where they went back in time to The Trouble with Tribbles
3. The first time the Enterprise beat the Borg - Star Trek: The Next Generation
2. "Spock, you're out of your Vulcan mind!" – Leonard "Bones" McCoy
1. The Enterprise D crashes and burns, not once, but twice - Star Trek: Generations

Yes, the employees of Cusack's music store were music history encyclopedias, but there was one fatal flaw in the non-stop elitist trivia banter that took place between those dusty racks of obscure vinyl, and that would be the Evil Dead reference. Barry refers to the guy "making Baretta style shotgun ammo in the 14th century" in Evil Dead II. Au contraire, mon frere. Evil Dead II took place in the present in a cabin in the woods, Army of Darkness (Evil Dead III) took place in the year 1300 AD... as close as I can figure.

"Ahh," you say, "I see. So why should I give a crap about that, exactly?"

Well for me personally, it dragged a bowie knife over the grooved wax surface of the credibility of the rest of the seemingly expert banter. I mean, if Jack Black can be so sure that he knows his shit when he's spewing misinformation about the Evil Dead trilogy, who's to say that he's not also butchering the truth about Frank Zappa albums that I happen to know nothing about?

Top Five Musical Trivia Facts that I Know
5. The oldies song "Keep on Dancin'" was sung by the WWF's Jimmy "Mouth of the South" Hart
4. When asked her age in the interview to become a Spice Girl, Geri Halliwell responded, "How old do you think I am? I can be ten years old with big tits if that's what you like."
3. "Weird Al" Yankovic is a strict vegetarian, despite his endless slew of songs about meat-based foods
2. While ABBA is the Hebrew word for "father," the name is actually derived by taking first letter of each band member's first name.
1. Van Halen has sucked since Eddie went sober

While the music and the non-stop prattle regarding it do tie up the film like a big ball of design-element yarn, the main focus of the story is of course Ferris Bueller and his complete inability to maintain a relationship with a woman.

To this, I say good for him. I mean, considering that two of his top five worst breakups of all time starred in The Haunting, I say good riddance. I'd rather be alone and bitter with an apartment full of cats and a goiter than spend the rest of my days having to pretend that I liked any part of that Haunted House Crap-O-Rama. Peee-yooo!

Then again, I am just a jughead.

Did it seem to anyone else that Tim Robbins didn't appear in this movie nearly as much as the trailer led you to believe he did? What was he in, like three scenes?

I was under the impression that the whole thing was another man vs. man to get the girl story. Actually, I'm really glad that it wasn't. The movie that I got was way better than the movie I was expecting, and that's always a good thing.

And does it bother anyone else when John and Joan Cusack play characters that aren't related to each other? "Hi Liz, my platonic friend, I value your advice, though it always kind of creeps me out that you look just like a girl version of me."

At least they didn't sleep together. Now that would have just been sick.