Nick and Norahs Amazingly Annoying Take on a 'Juno' like Indie Comedy

The title says it all, this is a N&N rant.

This weekend, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist comes to theatres, and unlike every other teen out there that likes to think of themselves as 'witty, clever, obscure, and someone with a good taste in music' I DON'T care about this movie.

At all.

In fact, its almost safe to say that I despise it.

I've seen trailers, I've heard other people talk about this movie like its the second  second coming of Christ (if Christ was an 18 year old that liked indie music). And still, I think I'll pass on this movie.  Why?

Because ever since Little Miss Sunshine, movies like this that are considered 'Indie' have been flooding the market, all with some sort of 'edge' that's (for the most part) aimed towards young adults / teens that do at least 8 of the following:

-Drink coffee (and have either a deep love or hate of Starbucks)

- Listen to Indie Music

- BLOG

- Wear vintage t-shirts

- Love irony

- Make witty banter

- Talk about the good ol' days of music (even though most of them weren't ALIVE for those days)

- Listen to the radio.......online

- Plan to go into some wonderful artistic career

- Know at least ONE Shakespearean play inside and out

- Secretly enjoy being called a 'hipster' despite the fact that for the most part, its meant as an insult

- Have dreamed about owning a Volkswagen Mini Bus one day

- Talk about the de-moralization of society

- Despise the American Eagle wearing population of their high school / university

Wow. For the most part there, I've described myself. But anyways, you get the point. This new wave of pricks are getting movies that are tailored made for them to enjoy and love...and no one's really noticed this. The worst part about this movie is that I feel like I've already seen it. I've watched the trailer a few times, and this is what I've gathered:
Nick is an 18 year old kid with a shitty car, and a recently broken heart thanks to his girlfriend who dumped him on his 'b-day'. He's the bass player in a band called The Jerk Offs (some gay band....literally. Nicks the only straight one...its some genre called queer core or something...google it).

His friends/band mates drag him along to a gig. Enter Norah, friend of girl who dumped Nick. She gets hassled about being single. Decides she's had enough of that crap, randomly makes out with Nick and gets him to pretend he's her boyfriend. For some reason, they're all trying to get to some other show or something, hilarity ensues, and Nick and Norah fall in love. Or at least, in like.

Now, I might just go watch the movie and see how close I am to getting the plot right. The only thing that I missed out on was the fact that bands are probably mentioned every 5 seconds, and there is a TON of music in there. DONE. Also, the dialogue sounds HORRIBLE. After hearing a few clips, its trying too much to imitate the witty banter and razor sharp wit of Juno....and it fails. Horribly. What people need to realize is that teens DON'T actually talk like that. Okay...a few do. But they are few and far between, and the rest of the teenage population are a bunch of babbling idiots that couldn't make an obscure reference or funny analogy to save their lives. That's just the way it is, get over it.

So all in all, we've seen Nick and Norah before. Its a teenage romantic comedy wrapped up in an indie-like film inside a time period piece. 

Don't believe me about the time period thing? Think about it: indie bands, dry humour, witty dialogue that tries too hard, most nerdy kids that pass it off their awkwardness as coolness, etc. This is what its like if your a teen in 2008. Nick and Norah is to 2008 as Reality Bytes was to 1994. Its like a year book or time capsule for whats considered cool for teens in this year. This kind of film comes around every few years, where the film itself is nothing special, but it has the stamp of 'Oh, that's so ______' on it. 

In this case, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is so 2008.

Animation Fascination

So recently, the popular site Rotten Tomatoes published a list of what they thought were the 50 Best Animated films. 

Unlike most people, I don't live by the word of Rotten Tomatoes. I've discovered other movie review sites that are much more interesting, entertaining, en lightning, etc. But I was curious to see what RT had cooked up this time around, and I took a hesitant look.

For the most part, I agreed with alot of the movie choices. With films like Persepolis, The Beatles Yellow Submarine, The Triplettes of Belleville, Wall E, Kung Foo Panda, Mulan, and many others that peppered the list, I was content. That being said......the list did manage (of course) to screw up.

First of all, Toy Story 2 was declared the number one animated movie of all time...now, I don't think its the worst animated movie of all time by any means. I remember watching it in a theatre as a kid, and being entertained and loving every second of it. Years later, I watched it again and enjoyed. Why the grudge then, you might ask? Because I don't think its the best animated film of all time. Of course its all a matter of opinion...but I was sticking it out for a Ralph Bakshi film to win.

In case you don't know, Ralph Bakshi was a film maker and animator who revolutionized animated films and the technique of rotoscoping in the 70's. At the time, animation was a dying art, and it was considered to be an art form used only to make fluff films to entertain kids. Bakshi set out and decided to show everyone that this was not the case, and that animation was a good, dramatic medium. He did just this, and produced such films as Coon Skin, Fritz the Cat, Wizards, The Hobbit (and yes, I do mean the original....don't even dare to make fun) and my personal favourite: American Pop.

American Pop outlines 4 generations of a Russian family, and how the influence popular American music. It is a beautiful story with amazing animation, breath taking music, and all in all its an amazing animated film, and I was shocked when it wasn't on the list.

Check out American Pop here. This is the last bit of the movie, but the piano intro used for Night Moves is breath taking. Oh, and here's the RT's list so you can see for yourself if your personal favourite was included.