Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Moving on to my second request for a review, this time from a good friend of mine, Cara. 

Cara was the photographer at my wedding and is a truly amazing artist. She had fun taking our pictures, really tried to learn who we were, and never posed us in any way that felt uncomfortable or unnatural. She let my wife and I just be ourselves in these awesome locations where our wedding took place and she took pictures of us enjoying each other. The pictures we got as a result were some of the best wedding photos I've ever seen and I'm not just saying that cuz it's my wedding. Plenty of objective people had told me how neat our pictures are and - yes - even some dudes have said how different they are. Cara has become a friend of ours since the wedding day and she's great to work with. I'd recommend her for anyone who's looking for a photographer who's a people person and who won't leave you with the same old unnatural, overly posed photos. The kind that your parents took in the 70's. That isn't Cara's style. She recommended this movie and since I think highly of her and her opinion, I gave it a go. She also told me that if I didn't like this movie, I was allowed to piss all over it. So thank God I really enjoyed it, otherwise I didn't know how this would go. Before I go into my review, I highly recommend you take a look at Cara's body of work online (click on the link!) and keep her in mind for anything you might need her for in the future.

http://www.cbyatesphotography.com/index2.php?v=v1

Genre: Romantic Comedy

 

Sub-genre: Teenage romantic comedy. More comedy than romance. If you're looking for more romance than comedy, go watch Pretty Woman. 

 

Starring: Perpetual sad-sack Michael Cera (Bleeker in Juno), a fully grown-up and curvaceous Kat Dennings (who you might remember from The 40-Year-Old Virgin), a few girls who are supposed to be in high school but there's just no way high school girls are built like Ari Graynor or Alexis Dziena. Also, Randy. Who's Randy? You haven't heard of Are You Randy?!

 

The overview:  An emasculated teenage boy can't move past his ex-girlfriend. His gay bandmates drag him out to do a show in NYC and hunt for the legendary local band, Where's Fluffy? Meanwhile, boy's ex-girlfriend talks massive shit about how pathetic he was/is, while acquaintence of bitchy ex seems to have a thing for this mysterious faceless boy who makes excellent mix CD's. All these cosmic forces collide in the city later, self-pitying boy wallows in what he did wrong to shitty ex girl, missing out on the obvious vibes from nice new girl. A quest ensues (looking for new girl's drunken best friend and still trying to get to Where's Fluffy?) and there are many life lessons to be learned about a love of adventure and the adventure of love. I stole that last line from The Adventures Of Milo Otis...

Whosacutemisterpuppyandkittymans?!?!?!

Before I sat down to watch this movie, I was afraid I'd find myself out of touch with the "cool" music the two title characters bond over. Any Zach Braff movie left you feeling you this way, unless you were In The Know in regards to indie rock, like The Shins (who Z. Braff is a huge fan of and who are, in fact, a terrific band). This, however, wasn't the case with Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. The music was never thrust at me, none of the characters ever insisted that any band was the best thing since Jesus, with the exception of Where's Fluffy? but they're not a real band and have never laid down a single cool track because they don't exist. The music was just a mutual interest which is always hard to find when you're first getting to know someone. Your taste in music is as unique as your fingerprint but you cherish it more because of all the special memories you relive when you listen to certain songs or an album you played non-stop during a time in your life or just the way a set of lyrics encapsulates exactly what you felt then and there. So for anyone else to have an identical taste in music means something. But for the purpose of enjoying Nick and Norah, you need not be an industry insider or a New York City club rat. So here's what I thought of the movie...

Poor smitten Nick. He's in love with a complete and total bitch of an ex-girlfriend who has no respect for him but he can't see it. Michael Cera plays this role again, the shy, awkward, insecure, almost pre-pubescent, lovelorn, but too cool to know he's cool guy. Regardless, he can't get over Triss and he's just too young or inexperienced or insecure or all of the above to know that there are plenty of other fish in the sea that'll screw him. And I mean have intercourse with him, not screw him over. Although there are plenty of those fish in the sea, as well. Early on in the movie, you develop a fondness for the characters, Nick in particular, but I'll attribute that to Cera's acting. The actors, overall, I feel did the characters justice by playing their teenage roles realistically and by that I mean AWKWARD. When you were a teenager, you didn't say all the right things all the time, especially around someone you were interested in, and you can see Nick and Norah stumble through meeting someone interesting and trying not to come across as too irregular themselves. Yes, even the female love interest gets to play it awkward, which was unexpected. 

At the same time, I've seen the teen genre movie over and over. But to be fair, I wouldn't categorize this as such. Somehow this movie is PG-13 but I don't think it was intended for a 16-year-old audience. The subject matter just seems more mature. Teenagers will laugh at it, some have even read the book it's based on, I'm sure, but they're not gonna get what's going on. Or at least not for another 5-10 years. As the movie progresses, you see Nick and Norah discover how much they like each other a little bit more here and there. But every now and then, Triss (Nick's ex) comes back into the picture because she's jealous of what she can't control anymore (i.e., Nick). When she tries to reel Nick back in, he's a sucker and falls for her. At his age, though, didn't we all do that?! Weren't we all suckers for our first loves? Admit it: you did some stupid shit to keep your first real relationship going because you didn't know any better. Stuff you look back on as an adult and think there's no way you'd do anything like that again (at least not most of you.) And Alexis Dziena plays the perfect bitch as his ex. You hate her so much and it's really enjoyable to watch Nick and Norah piss her off just by being happy together. But the whole pissing-off-your-ex-cuz-she's-jealous-and-can't-stand-to-see-you-happy narrative has been done a lot (think Forgetting Sarah Marshall or The Break-Up) As you watch the film, you just want Nick and Norah to get their shit together already and go for it. You know they're into each other but she's kinda unassertive (except for when she punches him in the throat) and he's a friggin doormat. In fact, when the night is almost over and Nick's gay bandmates (whose band name is A Fistful Of Assholes) take him back to his car, their sits Triss on the hood of his Yugo. 

Even after Nick has just spent the better part of his Friday night touring NYC looking for a drunk friend of Norah's and trying to find the mythical band Where's Fluffy?, he still goes to Triss. Of course, you wince when he does this. After he leaves with Triss, they're talking in his car and she utters the most telling line in the movie, and the one that I think Nick keeps replaying in his head when he realizes this bitch ain't for him. She says:

"You wouldn't have to get over me... If you were under me." 

Now, there's an interesting undertone in that statement... I heard it as, "If you let me tell you what to do, I'll be your girlfriend again." I know she was eluding to humping in the back of his Yugo but I thought that was a great little piece of writing. Shortly after she says this to Nick, he leaves her in the middle of nowhere. A nice snippet of maturity there. This is about the age when you start making decisions equally with your brain and your heart (again, at least most of you...) It should be noted that Norah also has a secret she chose not to share with Nick until she was more or less forced to. She has a "friend with benefits" who's an aspiring Jewish rapper about to drop his debut CD, JewFire on America. He's a complete tool and you'll enjoy watching him ooze sleaziness and then get his ass kicked by a gang of gay guys. 

Of course Nick and Norah end up together. What kind of movie would it be if it ended with each of them going home with their ex's and regretting their decisions the next day? That'd be more like real life and real life is depressing enough. Don't you know we're in a recession?! 

One last observation though... Nick and Norah are each other's musical soul-mates, right? And the night begins and ends with their mutual search for the venue hosting their favorite band of all time, Where's Fluffy? But the search for Where's Fluffy? is, I think, a metaphor for their search for that perfect somebody. It begins with neither of them realizing that someone else could like this band so much AND that Triss doesn't even know the name of the band (it's not Who's Fluffy?, dumb bitch!) As they scour the city looking for the band, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to realize that they're also searching for someone to love. For their own personal Where's Fluffy? Case in point: When they finally have it all figured out (see, you have to find and follow clues to learn just where Where's Fluffy? is playing), they're inside the club, waiting for this epic journey to pay off with what they spent so much time and effort looking for... And it turns out to be a bait-and-switch. Instead of the band they so badly wanted it to be, they got Are You Randy? (Side note: awesome dance scene here from the one and only Are You Randy? fan.) It's at this exact same time in the movie that Nick goes off with Triss, who of course isn't his musical soul-mate and will never be his Where's Fluffy? But when it's all said and done, and Nick and Norah do get together, they do make it to see Where's Fluffy?, and they do ride off into the sunset in Nick's yellow Yugo.

Overall: 10 out of 10. Nice call, Cara. This is a great movie. For dates, for Saturday nights, for a rainy day off, whatever. It's a fun movie and I might even go buy it. And a special mention to the writers for including the conversation where The Beatles were the band that was different from any others before or since because they understood The Big Picture. It's true!

 

Best Scene: When Caroline drops her phone in the toilet and has to go in after it. And I refuse to give away more than that. 

I'd also like to give an honorable mention to the scene where Are You Randy? makes his appearance at the Brooklyn Pool bar. The bar clears out immediately except for the ONE guy who loves Are You Randy? I mean, he fucking loves them. That was kinda unexpected. I laughed like a dummy at that scene. Are You Randy? is actually a real band called Project Jenny, Project Jan. They're not too bad. I'm still trying to figue out how I'd categorize them... Here's one of their videos but it's certainly not indicative of their overall musical styling. They seem to run the gamut. Either way, please to enjoy. And good luck getting this song out of your head...

What my wife said: (Regarding the way Triss treated Nick) "What a @~#*! Wait... Don't put that in your blog. It's not a socially acceptable word and I don't want people to think I talk that way."

 

Who would enjoy this movie: Most people I know. Anyone who's been in a bad relationship. Anyone who knows someone who's been in a bad relationship and had to watch them ignore all the obvious good things going on around them. 

Watch it if you like: Juno. The Catcher In The Rye. Pretty In Pink. Sixteen Candles. Any romantic comedy that's more comedy than romance.

 

Next in the Q: Apaloosa. My final request, this time Shelley picked one. Thanks, everyone! Tell your friends!

 

**Thanks to Google, Wikipedia, YouTube and IMDB for various bits of reference**