Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to drink a latte! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the time travelling farce “Nirvanna: The Band The Show The Movie,” the drama “Sirāt” and the coming-of-age story “Pillion.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In the wild ‘n woolly “Nirvanna: The Band The Show The Movie,” a new time travel mockumentary-adventure starring Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, and now playing in theatres, “Nirvanna the Band’s” attempts to book a high-profile gig tests the limits of their friendship and the space time continuum.
CAST: Matt Johnson, Jay McCarrol, Jared Raab. Directed by Matt Johnson.
REVIEW: A punk rock riff on “Back to the Future,” “Nirvanna: The Band The Show The Movie” is a wild ride into the past brimming with creativity, anarchy and comedy and many other complimentary words ending in “y.”
The movie, which blends footage from the 2007–2009 web series of (mostly) the same name, begins with unemployed musicians Matt and Jay (Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol) hatching a plan to land a gig at the legendary Rivoli on Queen Street West in Toronto. Without contacting the club, writing any songs or practising, they decide to parachute off the CN Tower into the Skydome during a baseball game to announce the show in front of a stunned crowd.
What could go wrong? Well, lots.
No spoilers here, but when their skydiving stunt doesn’t get them the Rivoli gig, they (along with their camera guy Jared Raab) find themselves accidentally traveling back to the year 2008, and struggling to find a way back to the future.
There’s more. Lots more. “Nirvanna: The Band The Show The Movie” is never at rest.
Johnson (who directs as well as stars) is not afraid to add in layers of pure lunacy into the action but never loses the thing that makes the story so appealing, the strong friendship between the leads. Their relationship, cockeyed as it may be, brings heart to the escalating antics and gives the eccentric movie its earthbound charm, especially when they interact with their younger selves.
Johnson and McCarrol have chemistry and built-in comedic rhythm. Their affable back-and-forth has a lived-in feel, and each delivers a highly crafted persona. Like Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin or Laurel and Hardy, in many ways they are opposites. Johnson is the over-the-top dreamer, the kind of guy who dreams of parachuting into a sports arena, while McCarrol is more grounded and often exasperated by Matt’s unhinged plans. They are a classic odd couple, mismatched but still a fun comedic fit.
“Nirvanna: The Band The Show The Movie” is a crowd-pleasing story of absurdly ambitious people and ambitiously absurd characters that pulls out all the stops to tell a ludicrous story of best friends on a mission.
On this special episode of “Maple Syrup For Your Eyes” I have an in-depth look at the movie “Blackberry,” the lessons learned from the film, about what it means to be Canadian, why we don’t celebrate our own stories and much more with the film’s stars Jay Baruchel and Matt Johnson (who also co-wrote and directed).
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time when we were not tethered to our smart phones. A new film, “BlackBerry,” starring Jay Baruchel and Matt Johnson, and now playing in theatres, vividly recreates the scrappy story of friendship, betrayal and hubris that began our obsession with our phones.
Baruchel and Johnson play Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin, founders of small tech company Research in Motion. When we first meet them it’s 1996 and they are about to pitch a new kind of pager to hotheaded executive Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton). He’s the kind of Art of War-style boss who snaps at an assistant who reaches for a bottle of water. “Thirst is a display of weakness.”
Too busy trying to backstab his way to the top of the corporate ladder to give the tech nerds his attention, he dismisses the awkward pitch before they even get to the end. But when his latest grab at a promotion gets him fired from his cushy corporate job, he reaches out to RIM with an offer.
Under his aggressive leadership, coupled with Lazaridis’s uncompromising search for perfection and Fregin’s clever engineering and heart, the Waterloo, Ontario storefront start-up soon debuts “the world’s largest pager.” Or is it “the world’s smallest email terminal?” Either way, it is a handheld game changer that combines a phone with the capabilities of a computer.
The odd little phone, with a QWERTY keyboard, encrypted messaging and low data cost, becomes a status symbol, used by some of the world’ most powerful people. In the hands of everyone from President Barack Obama and Justin Timberlake to Katy Perry and Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, the phones helped the world communicate in a whole new way.
The halcyon days of BlackBerry lasted a few years until shady business dealings, ambition and lack of vision relegated RIM’s products to the scrap heap; the “phone people had before they bought an iPhone.”
“BlackBerry” isn’t just a business story or the story of innovation. Instead, it is an underdog tale that emphasizes the human foibles that led to RIM’s downfall, not just the financial ones.
Baruchel and Howerton, as the characters who provide the story’s yin and yang, hand in strong performances.
Baruchel, topped with a shock of white hair, goes deep to play Lazaridis as a socially awkward man with a rich inner life, a perfectionist who can’t help himself from fixing a buzz on the office intercom in Balsillie’s office on the day of their big pitch.
As Balsillie, Howerton is all bluster, a thin-skinned man who covers his weaknesses with a thick veneer of bellicosity. From attempting to buy a hockey team after a rival slights the game to his wanton manipulation of RIM to suit his own ambitions, he is simultaneously the best and worst thing that ever happened to Lazaridis and Fregin.
As director and writer (as well as co-star), Johnson concentrates on the human side of the story, amping up the anxiety with a terrific sense of pacing and claustrophobic close-ups of his cast as their lives and business unwind.
“BlackBerry” is an interesting slice of recent history, made all the more interesting by the study of hubris that makes this tech story so human.
From top to bottom, left to right, Richard on carpet, Paul Gross, Rick Mercer and The Dirties director Matt Johnson. Richard’s other red carpet guests included Jian Ghomeshi, Sarah Gadon, Kim Cattrall, Don McKellar, Katie Bolan, Bruce McDonald, Jennifer Baichwal, Edward Burtynsky, Nicholas de Pencier, Noah co-directors Patrick Cederberg and Walter Woodman, the F-Word writer Elan Mastai and Dr. Cabbie star Vinay Virmani.
