By John Corrado
There is something objectively funny about Canadian filmmaker and actor Matt Johnson using the money and industry cred that he received from his 2023 movie BlackBerry to make Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, an idiosyncratic and gloriously entertaining big screen resurrection of his cult web series from 2008.
In doing so, Johnson crafts what might just be the quintessential Toronto comedy, blending winking nods to Back to the Future, with the Toronto-isms of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and the candid camera comedy of Borat. It also feels like something only Johnson could make, with that sustained manic energy imbued in every one of his projects.
Johnson and Jay McCarrol co-star as Matt and Jay, heightened versions of themselves and members of the still-struggling Nirvanna the Band. Matt and Jay are still trying to book a show at The Rivoli, but their continued lack of success after seventeen years together as a band is having a negative impact on their friendship. Jay is getting increasingly frustrated with Matt’s outrageous plans to get publicity, the latest of which involves the CN Tower, and has to be seen to be believed.
A series of mishaps on their never-ending road to The Rivoli has them accidentally inventing a time machine that transports them back to Toronto in the halcyon days 2008 (or an alternate universe where 2009 comedy The Hangover came out a year earlier, but it’s worth it for the joke about how much cultural sensitivities have changed). It’s a time when Now Magazine boxes were on every corner, which feel like just yesterday, but also weirdly in the distant past (2008 also holds special significance to me as the year this site was founded).
Ever the movie geek, this premise allows Johnson to pay elaborate homage to Back to the Future, bordering on loving parody of the 1985 Robert Zemeckis classic. The film is playfully and gleefully inventive, both in narrative and style. It blends modern and early digital shooting formats, with Johnson’s signature handheld, guerilla shooting style adding to the film’s anarchic energy. We also get plenty of in-jokes for Toronto audiences, though the film is entertaining enough on its own to still hold universal appeal.
But, leave it to Johnson to craft a film this high-concept and ridiculous that also feels shaggy and deeply personal in terms of his own career trajectory. It’s extremely funny, but also oddly sweet in its portrait of male friendship. As such, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie is one of the most purely enjoyable films of the year.
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