True Blue(Jay) Cinema: Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie Film Review
Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol in Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.
There are many reasons to go to film festivals: to support the local film industry, to support great arts organizations like the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF), and also to support independent film as a whole. Another great reason to see a film at a film festival is you will not find a more captivated and rapt audience for a film than in this environment. People are excited to see films, people feeling privileged to see films they have been anticipating months in advance of when they could otherwise see it once it hits wider release. There’s no one on their phone playing Candy Crush at film festival screenings, like you might see at a typical multiplex throughout the year. It’s about the communal experience of finding like-minded film fans that you often don’t get to experience outside of the context of a film festival like CIFF.
This feeling of a communal experience was felt most deeply during the Alberta premiere of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie on Saturday night. I overheard people in line making small talk with each other, asking each other if they are fans of Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s cult 2010s Canadian comedy series, and then once they found out they were, started quoting lines with each other. When asked before the screening to see who was familiar with the series going into that night’s screening of the film, 90% of the audience raised their hand. This was a show that aired on the long-defunct Viceland cable channel and is mostly hard to find now! This was a crowd who burst out into applause when the title card for the film appeared on screen. For a night in Calgary, Nirvanna the Band the Show felt as big of a Star Wars film (and an actual Star Wars film at that, not one of the many diluted spin-offs). For many of the people in attendance, they have been the person hipping their friends to the series, or getting blank looks when they talk about the show, and now finally, they found an entire sold out Globe Cinema full of fans to revel with.
The film, with Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol as “themselves” on their never-ending quest to get their band to play a show at The Rivoli (the Toronto music venue, which was hugely important in the ’80s and ’90s, but is basically just a bar in the present day, adding to the humour of it), is given the feature film treatment here. The hallmarks of the series are present: the blending of reality and fiction, the use of real people and snuck footage in real settings, the increasingly desperate plans written on white boards, the fact that Matt and Jay still haven’t written a song for their quasi-band despite being driven to play The Rivoli. The film introduces the concept of time travel, as we go back to the beginnings of Nirvanna the Band the Show, when “The Show” was a web series in 2008. I don’t want to spoil how it happens, but Matt and Jay find a way back to 2008, and the way Matt Johnson clues into realizing they are back in 2008, as he is attending a sneak preview screening of The Hangover… I don’t want to spoil the joke, but it’s such a brilliant spin on the time travel movie trope of the protagonist realizing he traveled back in time, using the retrograde culture of 2008 as a clue.
I have referenced the Nirvanna the Band The Show fandom in this review, and how stoked the fans of the series were to see their heroes on the big screen, but I want to stress that you do not need to watch the series to get enjoyment out of the film. This was illustrated when a visiting filmmaker from another country, who was at the CIFF screening on Saturday who primarily makes dramas, who had zero knowledge of anything about the series going in, raved about how much he loved it. At its core, underneath the movie references and N64 game playing, Nirvanna The Band the Show is a series about friendship, and the movie is the best version of it yet. The film delivers on its mix of amazing comedy set pieces (rolling laughs that brought me to the days of seeing 2000s comedies on opening night in theaters), ’80s Amblin movie wonder, and genuine heart. You can't believe they got away with getting this film made with Telefilm, just like you can't believe they got away with many of the snuck-footage-in-real-settings moments in the film.
The film will get a wider release in Canada early next year, but I strongly urge you to see the Friday screening as part of CIFF, if it’s anything like Saturday’s screening, it will be among the most memorable and positive screenings you attend all year. Every film festival it plays draws rave reactions, including winning the Midnight Madness award at TIFF earlier this month. This film is proudly Canadian, not stopping to break down the references to certain Canadian public figures, it’s a film that lives and breathes Toronto, taking the mantle from Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (and with all due respect to Edgar Wright, Matt Johnson is born and raised in Toronto, so it’s a true blue(jay) Toronto film!). I appreciate Matt Johnson making Canadian films without being corny, films that cross over to worldwide comedy and film nerds and I can't wait to see what Matt Johnson and the Zapruder Films team makes next (which includes fellow CIFF stand-out, Chandler Levack’s Mile End Kicks, which Johnson and Zapruder Films produced).
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie has a second screening at the Calgary International Film Festival on September 26. Tickets are available at www.ciffcalgary.ca. Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie will be heading to the Vancouver International Film Festival in October.