Jack Black is very funny. He steals movies where he has supporting parts like High Fidelity, and his performance with Will Ferrell at the Oscars was the highlight of a very predictable awards show. Black's persona is a fascinating paradox; I like the oxymoron that Entertainment Weekly recently created for him: the frenetic slacker. Black's characters seem to be very passionate, but that energy is reserved for activities that seem to serve little "productive" value in our current economic order. Hence Barry, the part-time clerk who puts in full-time hours at Championship Vinyl in High Fidelity and berates customers whose tastes he finds offensive. Where the lead character Rob comes to the realization that emotionally he's been living in an extended adolescent state and opts to grow up, Barry and the Black persona more generally -- represents those dudes who, into their thirties, still behave like college sophomores.
Richard Linklater, whose breakthrough film,......
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