Director: Stephen Frears
Cast: John Cusack, Jack Black, Lisa Bonet, Iben Hjelje
Have I Seen it Before: Oh, well. Where does one begin with a question like that? I’m not entirely sure just how many times I saw this movie in the spring of 2003 (for reasons) but I do know it was a lot. Change popular music to movies, and I felt a lot like Rob Gordon there for a little bit about twenty years back.
Did I Like It: We’re a different world now. I’ve changed, and even Rob Gordon (Cusack) has changed*. Can a movie which lived so aggressively rent free in my head at one time mean the same thing now? Should it?
As with many other movies I have seen dozens of times before, I had half a dozen other things going on while it was playing, but I couldn’t help dropping those other things and once again being transfixed by the movie. I doubt I’ll ever have it on repeat again like I did back then, but the memories are all still there, and enough time has passed to make them something akin to pleasant. I wonder what Rob is like now. I’d like to think that he would have the same morbid fascination with his prior antics that I do.
Aside from that, every note of the movie feels correct. The soundtrack is great top to bottom, and that has almost nothing to do with the memories it inspires. Jack Black arrives as the movie star we now know him to be. It is truly impressive that the filmmakers were able to change the location of their adaptation from London to Chicago, aside from the long runner where Rob goes on and on about the hypothetical man “called Ian (Tim Robbins)” and I don’t think any American has ever avoided the verb “named” that resolutely.
* Played most recently by Zoë Kravitz in a recent television series that absolutely should have gotten a second season, but I digress