John Cusack stars in a romantic comedy about love and quarter-life identity. After Rob Burton (Cusack), the manager of a record store, loses the his girlfriend Laura (Iben Hjejle), he categorizes his love life into humorous lists. In an effort to understand his failed relationships, he obsesses over these lists and contacts his past lovers. Jack Black plays his insensitive, obnoxious friend, who knows even less about love. Rob wonders where he went wrong, until a family tragedy gives him a new perspective and understanding.
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The review of this Movie prepared by Erica Whitney
Rob Gordon (Cusack) owns a record store that is failing. Incidentally so is his relationship with his current girlfriend, Laura (newcomer Hjejle). When she walks out on him, Rob is forced to look back over his list of his top five memorable break ups to figure out if he is doomed to remain a failure at love.
The review of this Movie prepared by Patti Illsley
Rob Gordon (Cusack), a thirties-something in Chicago who owns a small alternative record store in a bad neighborhood, has just lost his latest girlfriend Laura (Hjelje), a yuppie lawyer who has hooked up with a brainy New Age type upstairs (Robbins). Rob thinks about his "Top 5 Break-ups" (seen in hilarious flashbacks), and assures himself that Laura wouldn't make the list. He also commiserates with his two store employees, shy Dick (Todd Louiso) and brassy, rude Barry (Black), who tends to browbeat potential customers. Transferred from the British setting of Nick Hornby's 1995 novel (Cusack helped with the screenplay), and briskly directed by Stephen Frears, this 2000 romantic comedy has no deep significance but is very satisfying -- especially with its first significant exposure of manic Black.
The review of this Movie prepared by David Loftus
John Cusack plays the owner of a record store who can't commit to his live-in girlfriend of years. She moves out in disgust and he obsessively, hilariously reviews all of his bad break-ups, directly addressing the camera, and tries to figure out what went wrong in each case. In the meantime his two bizarre employees (of whom one is Jack Black) are giving him all kinds of grief in the record store, as he seeks a relationship that will always be exciting and new. Magnificent soundtrack, lots of brilliantly geeky record-store-clerk conversations about records and movies, an uplifting ending that doesn't soften the film's cynical, ironic stance, and a magnificent scene in which Jack Black tells a customer why his daughter really doesn't like Stevie Wonder.
The review of this Movie prepared by Juniper Glimpse
