Movie Review: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Having caught all of one commercial for this movie, I figured it would be a good "compromise" film for me and Kat. We have some overlap in our tastes and so this looked like a good bet to fit in that space.

We loved it.

Directed by Peter Sollett and written by Lorene Scafaria (who has a funny cameo), from the novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, the story follows a bass player named Nick (Michael Cera). He's been pining for his ex-girlfriend Tris (Alexis Dziena) for a month, making pitiful phone calls and mix CDs in a half-hearted attempt to win her back. He wants to bail on his band's gig in the city (NYC), but his two gay bandmates Thom (Aaron Yoo) and Dev (Rafi Gavron) have had enough; they pry him loose from his depression by dropping a rumor that the underground band "Where's Fluffy?" is supposed to play that night. Intrigued, Nick goes along.

The same rumor sparks New York plans for BFFs Norah (Kat Dennings) and Caroline (Ari Graynor)... who also happen to know Tris.

Converging in the bar where Nick's "queercore" band is playing, the hunt for this underground concert becomes a pretext for a long, loving look at the Big Apple, from the point of view of teens who are seeing the world through the eyes of love, jealousy, insecurity and hope. Do they make it to the show? Does one character go off the rails for an extended side journey, leading to a hilarious reunion? Well, can't really say.

Cera is great as Nick, playing the melancholy "nice guy" who deserves the girl but in real life rarely gets her. He has the soft-emo groove down, the shyness thing works for him-- but he needs to stretch some in his next roles. Not that he's bad by any means, but it would be a shame for this kid to get typecast so young. He handles his emotional rollercoaster ride well throughout, hitting the appropriate beats with deft skill; his chemistry with Dennings in particular is fantastic.

Dennings is likewise great as Norah. She plays off Cera's quiet doofiness, showing a young woman who's got serious self-doubt but is never weak. Norah is a good friend to Caroline, yet her best scene is in a quiet moment at the end when she and Cera trade philosophical snippets.

Ari Graynor steals the movie as Caroline, developing a persona who is lovable, sweet and completely out of control from one moment to the next. Her personal struggles are totally familiar to anyone who ever woke up somewhere and wondered "how the heck did I get here?" The movie comes alive in several of her scenes, particularly one wherein she reclaims a missing piece of gum.

Alexis Dziena was a complete surprise. Kat and I figured she was an honest-to-God teenager, since she looks decidedly younger than her co-stars... so imagine my surprise to find she's 24. Wow. She gives a terrific performance as Tris, the high school hottie who uses guys and gets away with it. Her scenes with Cera and Dennings have a snappy bite to them that show she has an A-game in her. (And is it just me, that she reminds me of Mila Kunis?)

Yoo and Gavron are fun as Nick's bandmates, realizing before he does what's happening and figuring out a way to help-- with some clever gifts at the right moment.

The movie was clearly shot in New York-- Kat and I were chuckling about how many landmarks we recognized (and how many of the restaurants we had visited)-- and as I said, it is a love letter to the city and to being a teenager. Really enjoyed it, so go see it.

Sept. 11- Seven Years Later

Everyone has their "where we you?" anecdote about 9/11. Here's mine:

At 8:30 that morning, I was up and getting ready to go to the library at my school, the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, and do my twice-weekly stint helping out. Contemplating a morning no more demanding than shelving books, working on a library-sponsored website and maybe some other light paperwork, I was only halfway listening to the TV when it came in.

News of a plane crash at the World Trade Center.

I thought it was pretty damned odd that someone would hit one of the Twin Towers. It was crystal clear outside, beautiful weather and perfect visibility. Had the pilot had a heart attack? I had no idea, but got ready to leave and went to the library.

Wasn't long before someone came in and said, "The other tower was hit."

Okay, one might be an accident, two is... terrible.

We--that is, the two or three other people in the library and I-- hurried upstairs from the third to the fifth floor, where we would have a view of Lower Manhattan and the WTC. Sure enough, the buildings were nearly invisible inside the biggest puffball of smoke I could have imagined. They had not yet collapsed, btw, but then, collapse was inconceivable.

We went back to the library.

Wasn't long before someone came in and said, "One of the towers fell."

And the day spiraled down from there. I went back upstairs but there wasn't much to see. So, needing information, I headed to my dorm for my tiny portable TV (not thinking that the biggest TV antenna around had just fallen). I found Kat about a block away, heading toward my school building--I like to think she was trying to find me--and we got my TV but found the school was already being evacuated and the students dismissed.

Among the other students, we talked about what it could mean and how it might have happened, and milled in the courtyard in front of our building. Kat and I headed to my dorm room with her friend, then watched TV for a couple of hours trying to absorb what had happened. I called my mom and she called her dad, then I escorted her to where her dad waited to take her home. (It was my first meeting with the man I now call Pop and the first time Kat ever talked to my mom.) We'd only been going out for less than two weeks but sharing that awful afternoon somehow cemented a bond between us.

The rest of the day passed in a haze of grabbing lunch at the nearby deli (which miraculously had not closed or run out of food), searching for a place to donate blood, and hearing that our gym (the Golden Dome) would be a temporary relief station and staging area for rescue operations in New York City.

The weather that day, and for days after, could not have been better. It was astounding, as if Nature wanted to console us with all its beauty and give the rescue workers the best chance they could have.

By that afternoon, we knew we'd been attacked. I felt this murderous rage that was slow to disperse; even to this day, I want revenge against the people who did this to my country. I wish we had gotten it.

9/11 has a powerful place in our nation's history. My only hope now is that something will eventually come out of the madness and panic of the past seven years that is better than what we've endured-- that this dark age has not been endured in vain. We'll see if history validates me or not.