There was one recurring thought running through my mind while watching Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie: “How in the hell are they getting away with this?!” My only prior knowledge of Matt Johnson and Jay McClintock’s popular webshow-turned-TV-series is a singular clip of the two improvising a song off the Wii Shop Channel music. As a result, I was wholly unprepared for the ingenious insanity that would ensue in one of the wildest Midnight Madness screenings I’ve ever seen at TIFF.
For the uninitiated, the series operates on a simple premise: Johnson and McCarrol–playing fictionalized versions of themselves–are determined to book a gig at the Rivoli and scheme to draw attention by any means possible. The movie opens with yet another one of Matt’s schemes, albeit on a grander scale: attempting to literally skydive off the CN Tower into the Skydome during a Blue Jays game. When that doesn’t work, the fallout between the two seems to call the end of Nirvanna The Band. However, a secondary scheme involving an RV powered by discontinued drink Orbitz sends the duo back in time to the far-off era of… 2008.
As much as I make that joke, it really does feel like a long time ago as one of the earliest jokes the movie makes is how the status of certain cultural icons have drastically changed in that time. It’s easy to say the movie switches into a full-on Back To The Future riff, but there’s so much more going on story-wise that to describe it would spoil some of the funniest jokes. I was completely taken aback at how the deceptively limited budget led to an endless amount of creativity, especially when it came to filming the 2008 sequences.
“Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie is cinematic anarchy at its finest. It’s a love letter to the series and to the city. “
For instance, a scene where the duo come across their younger selves via archival footage, and it’s so seamless you’d think they completely planned the entire thing 17 years in advance. Seeing regular Torontonians react to the shenanigans were a delight. There’s also sudden sequence that already had me nearly on the floor laughing, but then laughed even harder when Johnson revealed in the Q&A where and how they filmed it. (Hint: They used a report of a real-life incident last year involving one of the city’s biggest artists.)
Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie is cinematic anarchy at its finest. It’s a love letter to the series and to the city. That being said, I’m in disbelief half of the gags Johnson and McCarrol do in the movie didn’t get them arrested or sued to oblivion from copyright laws.
When the movie has its eventual wider release, I don’t know how much of it is going to change. But as it stands, I’m so glad a movie so chaotic and so funny even exists like this. If you’re not a fan of lightning-fast, postmodern Internet comedy, it may not work for you. But even if you’re a total newcomer, it’s easily one of the funniest movies of the year.
