{"id":72760,"date":"2020-03-21T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-21T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=72760"},"modified":"2020-03-20T21:47:37","modified_gmt":"2020-03-21T02:47:37","slug":"opinion-hulus-high-fidelity-wasnt-really-an-satisfying-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2020\/03\/21\/opinion-hulus-high-fidelity-wasnt-really-an-satisfying-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Hulu\u2019s ‘High Fidelity’ reboot doesn’t check all the boxes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a music and vinyl enthusiast, I have always loved the John Cusack led film, \u201cHigh Fidelity.\u201d When I saw Hulu rebooted the story in a mini series with Zo\u00eb Kravitz, I couldn\u2019t wait to watch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hulu version does a great job at updating the story — adding women, social media, a gay friend\u2026they check all the boxes. The part they failed to update? The most important one: music.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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John Cusack in the “High Fidelity” from 2000. Image courtesy of IMDB.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For those unfamiliar with the early 2000s film, John Cusack experiences serial heartbreaks and tells his story through a series of \u201ctop-five lists\u201d and directly addressing the audience. This of course parallels the kind of \u201ctop five\u201d mixtape a true audiophile would make. He also works in a record store with his only friends and music-snob employees, played by Jack Black and Todd Louisa.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To me the best parts of this film are the references to music\/musicians paired with a beautiful soundtrack full of the Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder. So imagine my disappointment in finding that he new version references many of the same artists and barely reaches into the past decade of music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I get the notion of nostalgia and I\u2019m sure the writers wanted to appeal to audiences who knew the original movie. I get that vinyl collectors like older albums. But someone who works in the music industry as Kravitz character (Rob) does, would also listen to new music. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Zo\u00eb Kravitz stars in the 2020 Hulu series, “High Fidelity.” Image courtesy of IMDB<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

To me the series missed a great opportunity to highlight newer alternative artists and mix them in with the legendary David Bowie and Marvin Gaye records we hear.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The set designer included modern albums in the record store, but we never get to hear them. Mitski\u2019s Be the Cowboy<\/em> from 2018 hangs on the wall, but none of those tracks are included in Rob\u2019s love-themed playlist? Truly an atrocity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aside from the posters and records in the store, Rob mentions Ariel Pink once. In episode nine, we finally are blessed with Frank Ocean\u2019s \u201cNikes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the show isn\u2019t bad. Zo\u00eb Kravitz does a great job and has an inspiring wardrobe. I\u2019m just saying that if you\u2019re going to update a story about music…you should probably update the music in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a music and vinyl enthusiast, I have always loved the John Cusack led film, \u201cHigh Fidelity.\u201d When I saw Hulu rebooted the story in a mini series with Zo\u00eb Kravitz, I couldn\u2019t wait to watch.  The Hulu version does a great job at updating the story — adding women, social media, a gay friend\u2026they check all the boxes. The part they failed to update? The most important one: music.\u00a0 For those unfamiliar with the early 2000s film, John Cusack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20163,"featured_media":72763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3226,15],"tags":[8460],"class_list":["post-72760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-culture-articles","category-featured-on-kjhk","tag-high-fidelity"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/hih.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}