Blu Ray Disks: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray]

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray] Review

I'd never actually heard of this movie before seeing it on the shelf one day. I've always quite liked actor Michael Cera in the TV series Arrested Development and in other movies such as Superbad, so I thought I'd give it a go. I had never heard of the other actors in the film but they all play their parts really well as does Cera who granted does play a very similar nice and a bit nerdy guy character to his one in Superbad and other movies. This is a nice simple story, based on the same titled young adult novel by Rachel Cohn. We have a depressed Nick (Cera) not quite facing reality that his ex girlfriend Triss (Alexis Dziena), has dumped him, isn't a very nice person and isn't interested in the latest mixed burnt CD he has made for her. His best friends who he also plays in a band with are as loyal as any friends can ever be and want him to come play a gig with them to get over Triss. Oh did I mention the band has no drummer. Anyway by pure coincidence Nick's favourite band Where's Fluffy, an underground band that only ever plays spontaneous secret gigs is rumoured to be making an appearance in a club somewhere in New York. So with the enticement of tracking down and seeing the elusive Where's Fluffy, Nick decides to play the gig.

Unbeknownst to Nick, Norah (Kat Dennings), a fellow student in his ex's school and victim of her bullying, has been saving those burnt CDs Triss has been ridiculing and throwing in the bin. She is also a fan of Where's Fluffy and hopes to track down them down with her friend Caroline (Ari Graynor), who's putting it nicely a bit of a drunk. What follows is a film with a lot of funny moments, and demonstrations of absolute loyalty and friendship amongst Norah and Caroline as well as Nick and his band/friends. Where Nick and Norah's relationship ends up is a bit predictable yes, but the fun is in getting there! The drunk Caroline provides quite a few laughs as well, and incidentally if you don't think the gum thing would happen in real life then you're probably not old enough to be in nightclubs and such where you often see drunks do a lot worse and stupid things than that. A great character who doesn't have any lines but provides a lot of funny moments and is also the often mistaken for a taxi by drunks, is the yellow Yugo which is Nick's car.

This is a fun feel good film, check it out!

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray] Overview

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is a comedy about two people thrust together for one hilarious, sleepless night of adventure in a world of mix tapes, late-night living, and, live, loud music. Nick (Michael Cera) frequents New York's indie rock scene nursing a broken heart and a vague ability to play the bass. Norah (Kat Dennings) is questioning pretty much all of her assumptions about the world. Though they have nothing in common except for their taste in music, their chance encounter leads to an all-night quest to find a legendary band's secret show and ends up becoming the first date in a romance that could change both their lives.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (+ BD Live) [Blu-ray] Specifications

In the big-screen version of Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's popular young adult novel, two high-school seniors fall in love over the course of one eventful evening. A straight bass player in a queercore band, Nick (Juno's Michael Cera) has just been dumped by the two-timing Tris (Alexis Dziena). He's committed to making more self-pitying mix CDs until his bandmates convince him to help track down a top-secret rock concert. Meanwhile, Norah (Charlie Bartlett's Kat Dennings) and her hard-partying pal, Caroline (Ari Graynor), set off on the same journey. Nora had never met Nick, but she already had a crush on him (While attending the same school as Tris, she's been enjoying the mixes Nick keeps making--and Tris keeps throwing away). When the inebriated Caroline goes missing, they spend the rest of the night racing around the Lower East Side in his Yugo looking for the friend, the show, and trying to avoid Tris (Norah's ex-boyfriend, Tal (Tropic Thunder's Jay Baruchel), presents further complications). Peter Sollett's follow-up to Raising Victor Vargas aims to please several audiences at once. It starts out like a less dirty-minded Superbad, morphs into a post-millennial After Hours, and ends as a Big Apple take on Before Sunset. It's sweet and funny, but could use more of its own identity, though Cera and Dennings make for an appealing couple and the supporting performers, especially Graynor and Kevin Corrigan in a wordless cameo, enhance the proceedings considerably. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Stills from Nick & Norah's Infinate Playlist (click for larger image)