Nick & Norah’s Infinite PlaylistNick 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.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)
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(out of 75 reviews)
Review by Mr. Adrian L. Fox for Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
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I am over 50 and even though this movie is probably aimed at teenagers
i found it really enjoyable,this was due to really clever writing and
a excellent cast that seemed to work well together.
I had allready borrowed this movie from my brother and decided after
watching it to buy a copy for myself from the U.S. (i`m in australia)
that`s how much i enjoyed this movie.
The picture and audio is very good as you would expect with blu-ray
and this movie had some fantastic music.
Review by Ed Uyeshima for Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
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I was all prepared to trivialize this movie for what I expected to be another hipster teen comedy taking advantage of the success of Juno and Superbad, especially given that Michael Cera is the co-star of all three films. However, this 2008 movie is really a quirky, sharply played variation on Martin Scorsese’s 1985 After Hours, this time focusing on two misfit teens, kindred spirits when it comes to their taste in music, who find themselves traipsing through New York’s indie rock scene for one hilariously sleepless night. Their chemistry is predestined by their names, a tribute to the scintillating married couple played by William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man series of golden-era Hollywood classics. Their nocturnal misadventures are driven by Nora’s search for her hard-partying best friend Caroline, who escaped in a fit of paranoia out of a van, while gay-band bassist Nick is nursing a broken heart over Tris, the shallow, man-baiting ex-girlfriend who continues to play him.
If the movie simply limited itself to the odyssey, it would have been satisfying enough for its intended audience, but what director Peter Sollett and screenwriter Lorene Scarfaria have done to transcend the genre is make the lead characters’ mutual passion for music the focal emotional point of their growing attraction for one another. Nick keeps sending Tris idiosyncratic mix CDs (like “Road to Closure, Vol. 12″), which she tosses into the trash only to provide Nora an opportunity to retrieve them and listen to reflections of his broken heart. Neither is able to articulate their feelings otherwise, as shown by their comically bumbling conversations, so the music plays a vital part of their burgeoning relationship. I still don’t find Cera terribly versatile, but he has been resourceful in using his now-familiar screen persona of a dweebish sad-sack in suitably well-turned material.
Familiar as Catherine Keener’s edgy but ultimately caring daughter in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Kat Dennings comes into her own as Norah, capturing the insecurity of a character who leaves herself wide open to the pain inflicted by those around her. There are scene-stealing turns by Ari Graynor as the constantly drunken Caroline, Alexis Dziena as self-appointed goddess Tris, and Rafi Gavron and Aaron Yoo as Nick’s club-friendly gay bandmates. There are a couple of Saturday Night Live cast cameos thrown in – “newscaster” Seth Meyers as the horned-up passenger mistaking Nick’s yellow Yugo as a cab (with Scarfaria as his girlfriend) and Andy Samberg as a bum lurking on the steps of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The alt-rock music is appropriately underground to fit the story. There really isn’t that much more to the movie since the fate of these characters is clear from the outset.
It’s simply that the film has good energy fueled by the constant barrage of music and smart dialogue to fill the love story that emerges from their long night’s journey into morning. There are a surprising number of extras with the 2009 DVD starting with two separate commentaries, the first with Sollett, Cera, Dennings and Graynor discussing the production details, and the second with Sollett and the source novel’s writers, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, in which they discuss more of the story and screen adaptation. There are deleted scenes and outtakes, some quite funny but understandably excised, and an amusingly off-kilter Nick & Norah puppet show by Dennings. Rounding out the extras are storyboards, photo galleries, Graynor’s video diary, a music video, and a funny faux-interview with Cera and Dennings.
Review by H. Bala for Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
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When you think about it, nothing much really happens in this movie. NICK & NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST takes place in the course of one day and night, with the crux of the story occuring in the wee hours of the morning. So there’s a bit of an energetic After Hours vibe in this movie, but catered towards the sensibilities of hip teenagers who prowl the New York streets way past their bedtime. But then it also has echoes of Adventures in Babysitting, with Ari Graynor’s awfully wasted Caroline subbing in for Penelope Ann Miller’s nervous Brenda. Going into this one, and me being a huge fan of one of the most fabulous romantic couples in cinema, Nick and Nora Charles (of the Thin Man series), I was already favorably predisposed towards this quirky teenage romantic comedy.
Norah has never met Nick. But she knows about this guy who makes the best break-up mix CDs, most of which were pieced together for his ex-girlfriend Tris (his latest opus being titled “Road to Closure Vol. 12″). But Tris just pokes fun at the poor sap and then promptly discards these mixes, with Norah then un-discarding them and putting them in her I-pod. Because Norah absolutely digs these mixes. So, no, Norah has never met Nick, but she’s probably halfway in love with the guy anyway.
Now Nick may not look like he’s all that (in fact, he looks kinda dorky), yet he plays in a rock band, plays the guitar although he doesn’t quite know how to work the drum machine. And dude drives a broken-down yellow Yugo which people often mistake for a taxi. But being in a band has to count for a couple of cool points, right? The plot MacGuffin is that the legendary rock band Fluffy is scheduled to put on a secret show somewhere in NYC, the rub being, of course, that the time and location are kept a mystery, leaving Fluffy’s fans scouring the city for clues in the form of little white rabbits. Nick and Norah happen to be such fans, and, during this evening, they meet by chance and then are thrown together by circumstances (circumstances being the misplacing of Norah’s unholily inebriated BFF and a half-hearted quest to find Fluffy). And, somehow, someway, it turns out that Nick and Norah just may be perfect for each other.
Segue alert. The special features in this dvd are pretty righteous: two cool audio commentaries – one with Director Peter Sollett, Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, and Ari Graynor (fun!); the other with Peter Sollett, authors Rachel Cohn & David Levithan, and screenwriter Lorene Scafaria; 4 minutes of outtakes; 9 deleted/alternate scenes; an awesome “Nick & Norah Puppet Show” by Kat Dennings (she pretty much recaps the film but also throws in a savage bear); Ari Graynor’s excellent video diary; storyboard animations; a fake interview with Michael Cera & Kat Dennings; Peter Sollett’s photo album; and Bishop Allen’s music video “Middle Management.” All worth checking out.
I really like this movie. See this one especially if you like movies in which two people just mostly hang out and come to find that they’re awesomely sympatico. Michael Cera (Juno (Single-Disc Edition)) and Kat Dennings are terrific together, showing off an easy, natural chemistry. The low-key Michael Cera, with his not-quite-male-model looks, is likeable because he’s so relatable to nerds like me, but he’s also got his act together, not to mention that Cera has that wonderfully dry delivery. Kat Dennings is amazing in this film, with her vibrancy and spunk and wistful vulnerability and just her girl-next-door realness. How can you not pull for her, especially when you find out that her ex-boyfriend was mostly using her to get in good with her influential music producer dad? And don’t discount the supporting actors. It’s cool that Nick’s gay homies aren’t portrayed stereotypically, but more as regular dudes and who really are looking out for Nick. And credit to Ari Graynor for being a good sport in some pretty humiliating haplessly drunk scenes (that scene of Caroline sifting thru a soiled toilet for her bubble gum is funny, but in a really gross kinda way).
Do they ever find the legendary rock band Fluffy? It doesn’t really matter, because this movie isn’t really about Fluffy. There’s no dumbing down here, and there are many moments of great appeal, mostly generated by the two leads. Set in the gritty neon backdrop of the Big Apple at night and with a playlist of cool indie-rock tunes to serenade things along, NICK & NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST, funny and romantic, wistful and unconventional, should please both teens and adults, the night owls and even those who like to turn in early – and thus will never know the delights of experiencing a live Fluffy concert. Although, again, it’s not about Fluffy.
Review by Amos Lassen for Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
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“Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist”
The Music Scene at Night
Amos Lassen
Two people are thrust together for one wild night in New York City and they experience a sleepless world of adventure, of late-night fun and very loud music. Michael Cera is Nick and he is a member of a rock band. He is trying to get over a broken heart. His band where he is the only straight member and plays bass is “Jerk Offs” which is classified as queercore. Nick meets Norah (Kat Dennings) at a show where the band is finishing playing “Screw the Man”. As the two begin their adventure together, Norah questions her assumptions about the world. The two seem to have little in common aside from their love of music but their chance meeting leads them on an all night quest to locate where a band is doing their secret show. They soon realize that they are actually on a first date and involved in some kind of romance that could change their lives. They with Tom and Dev, two gay members of Nick’s band, set out to find the other band. We get a new kind of romantic comedy in which gay people are just people. As Nick and Norah hold hands, they embark on a night that they will never forget.
It is nothing new to see two people make a connection through music and here it is done in a fun manner and as we watch we begin to empathize with the characters and grow to love them. The success of the film is because of the amazing cast, the wonderful screenplay by Lorene Scafaria and the direction by Peter Sollett. The movie succeeds because of these and as a teen comedy it is sweet and gives a balance between Nick and Norah that we do not often see. It is a character driven film and the actors do their jobs with élan. Ari Graynor shines as a ridiculously likeable drunk.
The movie is all about love and if you are not in love, the movie makes you want to be. It also provides laughs and the magic of music. Can we ask for anymore than that?
Review by James N Simpson for Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist
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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!