From Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol’s cult comedy series comes an adventure 17 years in the making…Lifelong friends Matt and Jay are back to continue their quest of booking a show at the legendary venue, the Rivoli. When their plan goes horribly awry, what happens next is a form-breaking meta comedy traversing time and space.
What We Though:
If you are familiar with the work of Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol then you will like Nirvanna, The Band, The Show, The Movie. I am not. I have no idea who they are, that their web-series and TV series existed and got absolutely nothing out of the film. It’s not for me.
On paper the film should work. The two leads are musicians who want to play a famous Canadian club, but after years of not going anywhere and all their plans falling apart, they are at a turning point. Jay wants to go it alone, Matt has one more big idea. That all leads to time traveling back to 2008, having a Butterfly Effect drastically change their lives and having to figure out how to get back there to fix it. I love sci-fi. I’m a big Back to the Future guy which the film heavily relies on. It all should work for me.
Unfortunately I didn’t like the two characters. Well Jay I didn’t mind, but the Matt character is just terrible. If you watched their cult programming you’re used to their dynamic. I didn’t like it. I wanted Matt to go away and was happy to see Jay more successful after the timeline change. Matt was the cause of the band going nowhere and all his plans were moronic. I really was annoyed by him and the film because of it.
Nirvanna, The Band, The Show, The Movie is clearly for the fans. I don’t see most people enjoying it if they are going in completely blind. I like that they shot most of it guerilla style without permits and just using people on the street, but the characters aren’t for me.
The Nerds Templar 