I posted these status updates on my Facebook while I was watching this movie, in lieu of doing anything productive last night, and thought I'd repost them here because I found the process pretty enjoyable. Which, I might add, is more than I can say about the movie.
4 min: Started watching Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. 4 minutes in and it seems like cringingly poorly written hipster tripe. Can I survive all 89 minutes? Will my opinion improve?
7 min: You can tell Norah's 'alt' because she's always wearing headphones, even with her friends, and you can tell that Nick's 'sensitive' because he's always looking at the floor.
10 min: I wonder if any actual hipsters like this movie. I'm betting no. Maybe hipster girls. Who are still in high school.
20 min: Survived first twenty minutes, with horribly contrived rock club scene. Now Nick and Norah are in the car. Michael Cera literally just said "I don't really subscribe to any label."
27 min: People keep mistaking Michael Cera's charmingly crappy car for a taxi, which it of course looks nothing like. How whimsical!
35 min: Mathematical equation for this movie: 'Before Sunrise' minus decent writing, plus late 2000s Great Hipster Cash-In, plus several unnecessary subplots. Also, the National's 'All The Wine' is on the soundtrack now and the guy th...at played Commissioner Burrell on 'The Wire' has a small role as a ticket taker. Mixed feelings about that.
41 min: Hey, it's guy who plays Harold in Harold and Kumar. I wonder if he feels inadequate because the guy that plays Kumar has a job at the White House convincing Indian teenagers to vote Democratic and he's stuck with walk-ons in movies like this. Plus, the gawky young dude from Tropic Thunder plays Norah's annoying ex-boyfriend!
43 min: Wacky Korean shopkeeper alert!
55 min: Norah feels like an outsider because she's the daughter of someone rich. Also because she's never had an orgasm. And she's only got one day left to decide whether or not she wants to go to Brown for college. Deep. As mixed as my feelings are about Juno, that movie is about a million times better than this one.
59 min: Thirty minutes left! Will there be a twist ending revealing that Nick's ex-girlfriend is, in fact, a cannibalistic serial killer? Because I think they're foreshadowing that.
67 min: Can't believe it took over an hour for Modest Mouse to make an appearance on the soundtrack.
70 min: I can't believe Michael Cera followed Superbad with this and Year One. I'd be worried, but Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is a mortal lock to be awesome.
78 min: The past two scenes have featured Norah a.) drowning her sorrows in food and b.) being a terrible driver. Non-stereotypical female characterization FAIL. Also, the song on the soundtrack right now was also on the soundtrack of Burnout Revenge.
81 min: Spoiler alert: they bone in a recording studio at the end. Although they were fully clothed, so maybe he just fingered her.
89 min: And there's a Vampire Weekend B-side over the credits. I'm not going to front, I probably would have enjoyed this movie in high school. Still, I hope that everyone who comes away from this liking it has a chance to see Before Sunrise at some point in their lives and realize what an inferior rip-off this is (see also: Garden State and The Graduate)
Bonus Commentary: Having had a while to think on Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, I've come to the realization that while it's pretty much just a harmlessly mediocre movie, there's one aspect in which it could actually be pretty dangerous. I didn't mention it in my liveblog, but it's mentioned early on that Norah's attracted to Nick before she actually meets him, because she's heard the mix-CDs that he made for his improbably evil ex-girlfriend (who didn't appreciate them, natch).
Now, the danger here is that every male music fan under 30 already secretly or not-so-secretly believes that the right combination of songs on a mix CD functions as a sort of Rosetta Stone for getting chicks to fuck him. I myself have made more mix CDs with that very goal in mind than I care to recount, and as much sense as it's always made at the time, now it sort of seems unlikely to me that a decent mix CD would really be the tipping point between going balls-deep in some indie chick and suffering the cruel lash of rejection. I'm going out on a limb here; for all I know, mix competency could be the main criteria for sexual selection in the Pitchfork era, but if I'm right, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist isn't going to help matters.
In the end, of course, the mix-CD as a mating ritual isn't so much about the music per se as it is a method of attempting to demonstrate that one is a man with a developed and modern aesthetic. It's essentially today's equivalent of reciting a romantic sonnet or soliloquy, which may also have not really made that much of a difference in the ultimate outcome re: fucking or lack thereof. However, it at least required the dude to read something, rather than just iTunes click-dragging an assortment of album tracks from Elliott Smith and The Cure along with an 'ironic' song from Britney Spears or the Black Eyed Peas. Don't be surprised if a bunch of Michael Cera wannabes start making mix CDs for potential conquests with songs by the National on the backs of this movie. I'll have them know that I was already doing that way back in 2007. Fucking kids.
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