Fresh off its dynamite Midnight Madness showing at the Toronto International Film Festival, in the creators’ hometown, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is currently in the midst of a road show, featuring the star/creators, Matt Johnson and Jay McCarroll, visiting various cities for screenings, before the film gets a release next February.
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie hit Philadelphia last weekend, as part of the Philadelphia Film Festival, with a rabid full crowd and quite a few people there dressed as the characters.
The film has quite a few big laughs and does some creative things with its premise, and it makes fine use of downtown Toronto. But seeing the film under the best possible circumstances… I still don’t quite see it as the full-on instant comedy classic that other people are seeing.
Johnson, who directed and co-starred in the outstanding BlackBerry movie back in 2022, is the director here.
To explain the premise: It’s based on a web series called Nirvana the Band, which later became a TV series called Nirvanna the Band the Show, as a second “n” was likely added at some point for copyright reasons. Johnson and McCarroll play a pair of idiots, fictionalized versions of themselves, who dream of starting a band called “Nirvanna,” despite a lack of talent and seeming unawareness of the legendary Kurt Cobain band of that name. It’s kind of like Tenacious D, except the D actually made music.
The humor is of the mockumentary variety, while also incorporating some Borat-style hidden camera stuff. The film opens with a massive set piece involving the duo seeking to skydive off the top of the CN Tower, into the Skydome, to promote their (mythical) gig at the Queen West venue known as the Rivoli. The Skydome, now called the Rogers Centre, happened to host a World Series game the same night I saw the movie.
The film then segues into an elaborate homage to Back to the Future, with a plot involving a trip in time back to 2008, the characters engaging with old footage of themselves, and McCarroll’s Biff-like, alternate-universe segue into musical success and riches. (In the 2008 scenes, One of the better jokes involves Bill Cosby, on the cover of an alt-weekly, although it might be even funnier to remember that alt-weeklies existed back then.)
Then, the plot returns to the present day for another elaborate stunt.
Once again, there’s a lot of funny stuff here. I admire the film’s irreverent spirit, and there’s plenty of both big laughs and absurd stuff going on at the margins. But I’m just not quite seeing the comedy work of genius that everyone else is.
