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re: *** Official NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST Discussion Thread
Bumping this thread to report that my friend David from Pittsburgh, PA just saw the film the other day and with his permission, I reprint his review here for you guys here. Read on below:
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist- ****
Directed by Peter Sollett
September 12, 2008
Some movies just stay on the screen when they are through, but "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" transcends that norm as its radiant truth and naturalistic approach cuts deep through our toughest layer of skin that isn't penetrated very easily. The characters jump off the screen and suggest we hug them. They don't have to ask twice. The outcome hasn't been demonstrated since "Almost Famous" captivated our emotions in 2000. Each film has similar main characters associating themselves with music. Each boy is normal in his appearance but are thrown into a world where rock-stars and rich men would kill for. It's with these characters that each film bases their whole premise around; simple and loveable. You can't teach that in acting school.
There comes a time when a movie achieves intimacy with its audience, and hence, that is how it acquires greatness. First time director Peter Sollett - adapting from a Cohn and Levithan novel - creates magic. He manages to establish a strong enough bond (strongest since "Brokeback Mountain") that allows us to realize what we are watching is not only comedy done to perfection but it can also double as high end drama; almost like a monk who reaches his highest pinnacle during his religious learning's. When comedy can do this, it is hard to beat.
Blatantly breaking away from the infectious raunchy humor which we came to call 'comedy,' comes something out of defiance towards that; a movie that was made from the purest of heart with mounting intentions to create peace and harmony amongst every character. "Nick and Nora" desperately disregards any traits involving vulgar sex, terrible language and did I mention sex? What Sollett forays into is a movie world where sex isn't on everyone's mind. The lone thing that is on everyone's mind is making the other person smile.
A cast of actors led my Michael Cera and Kat Dennings aren't viewed in this movie as the typical Hollywood actors. Instead they are cultivated by the trueness of such a story. They miraculously adapt so well to the landscape around them that they loose their Hollywood image. Manhattan's night life is infested with teenagers looking for love and a good time, and twenty-year-olds looking for a big opportunity, career wise, to come their way. This Manhattan embodies the actors and shapes them to conceive the familiar faces we see when we go for a night on the town. Cera or Dennings have never been better. There gift is playing normal people in a world of wannabes.
Every character is in search of ecstasy, or even trying to forget previous ecstasies they once conquered. Cera's Nick is trying to get over a relationship with Tris (Alexis Dziena), a gorgeous girl who seems to be totally out of Nick's league. Mix tapes are what he tries to win her back with. Good luck with that. She's so cold that she tosses them in a waste basket, only to be found by her best friend/rival (a trait that all high school girls channel) Nora (Dennings), who has a knack for the same music Nick loves. Dennings turns in subtle work here as a girl who has been used all her life due to her father's success. So much so, that when someone loves her for who she really is, she can't understand it.
What follows is a single night with Tris, along with her new boyfriend (a robot male model), Nora and their alcohol loving friend Caroline who cross paths with Nick and his two gay friends. They meet at the boy's concert taking place in a shabby club. What unfolds is as real as you're going to get. Random love flings, trying to find missing friends, searching for the venue where the best band in town is playing and love affairs that will be fixed, broken or ignited new, each are highlighted against a soundtrack that captures the mood of a night that will shape all of its characters forever.
An infinite Playlist can be found on almost every one's ipod. It consists of songs that people can listen to without ever having to hit the skip button. Very hard to create though. Surprisingly, Sollett - his camera tricks are only slow motion shots and flashbacks each are devastating - and his actors achieve that with this movie, and I haven't been a product of it for quite sometime. I didn't want this to end. There isn't a wrong scene, nor does the movie provide anything extra, it just flows continuously like water down a stream.
--David DiMichele
"...so here we go." --"Punch-Drunk Love"
Last 5 DVDs Purchased: Matinee (1993), Demolition Man (1993), Spaced: The Complete Series (1999-2001), Go (1999), Clerks II (2006)
# of DVDs in my Collection: 754
Last edited by Nicholas Vargo : 09-13-2008 at 02:22 PM.
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