Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (Matt Johnson, 2025)

[brundlefly]

Teasing Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.

[The Narrator Returns]

I was very lucky to see NTBTSTM two weeks ago when its traveling tour came to Chicago. A unique marketing challenge in many ways, first the “who the fuck are these guys?” factor for 99% of the audience and more important the fact of how much of it really needs to be experienced with no idea of what’s about to happen. In lieu of the anti-trailer that would suggest, largely selling the first 15 minutes like the Rogue Nation ads is probably the best idea.

[brundlefly]

Teasing Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.

I was very lucky to see NTBTSTM two weeks ago when its traveling tour came to Chicago. A unique marketing challenge in many ways, first the “who the fuck are these guys?” factor for 99% of the audience and more important the fact of how much of it really needs to be experienced with no idea of what’s about to happen. In lieu of the anti-trailer that would suggest, largely selling the first 15 minutes like the Rogue Nation ads is probably the best idea.

The trailer, which may not be a good idea.

[TechnicolorAcid]

I feel like Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie will probably go down as one of this decade’s best comedies and I can’t imagine anyone here not at least admiring it for the fact that it even exists at all. There’s a clear playful sense of improvisation that make you think you’re initially going to be just watching a fun little mockumentary about 2 guys trying to book a gig at a dive bar in increasingly wackier ways until it hits you with a jaw dropping sci-fi switch up only to then hit you again with an earnest message about the value of friendships like Matt and Jay’s. I never knew what gag or plot point the movie was going to hit me with next and there was an anticipation in trying to guess what the movie was going to throw next at you that really thrilled me, especially in trying to figure how they were able to pull off a lot of the stuff that they did. Probably the most fun I’ve had in a theater in a while and I highly recommend watching it in a theater because I can’t imagine anywhere else being even half as satisfying without a crowd (alongside the fact that’s 2 moments in the movie that only really work watching it in the theater).

[therewillbeblus]

Everything involving the CN Tower, five stars

[TechnicolorAcid]

Everything involving the CN Tower, five stars

100% agree, I love the conversation they about pliers with a store employee and I especially loved when

Spoiler

as they’re falling from the sky on their parachutes, the audio keeps cutting off before we hear briefly the audio again and it’s them screaming, the whole theater burst into hysterics at that part

[TechnicolorAcid]

Using this thread as a way to discuss Matt Johnson’s work overall here so I tell everyone to watch The Dirties because I think it will go down as one of the best debuts of the past 15 years. Fundamentally both this and Nirvanna are very similar, turning the mockumentary style into a free-form look inside the relationship between 2 life long friends slowly beginning to crumble down as a result of the straight man of the group slowly beginning to tire of Matt Johnson’s antics and both heavily indebted to a very web-based style of guerrilla filmmaking. But where Nirvanna finds an optimism in repairing the outsider pair’s bond and Jay’s eventual acceptance of Matt’s erratic plans, The Dirties is built on the tragic consequences of realizing you and your close friend simply have drifted too far away from each other with Owen allowing himself to grow and become accepted while Matt, like a sadder version of himself in Nirvanna, refuses to grow up with the whole final act coming partially as a result of him wanting to disobey his teacher’s criticisms and double down on the violent nature of the titular short film by actually shooting down “The Dirties”. It’s that quality that allows us to pity Matt because we see that he isn’t a bad person, just someone awkward and casted out from his peers, and we as an audience want him to grow and change as a person, which is what makes the moment the whole film has been building towards so much more bleaker than something like Van Sant’s Elephant (which personally feels like it plays its incident purely for shock value) since we’ve already grown so understanding of Matt through scattershot fragments of his story through home movies, as though we’re playing detective and trying to figure out how this could’ve even happened.

The film of course does have its bits of black comedy (the previously mentioned deranged video project Matt and Owen show their teacher) alongside some genuinely beautiful sequences (Matt and Owen playing on the beach), but it’s all building towards the fatalist ending and thus still allows a sense of dread to creep up on the viewer even during those sweeter moments and makes us reflect on how someone we view as sweet or funny could allow themselves to carry out such a violent act.

The Dirties is also, in my personal opinion, a reflection of queer outcasts and specifically trans outcasts. Matt is constantly demeaned and called gay in a derogatory manner and even when it’s unintentional (the gender bender line comes to mind), it still cuts deep to Matt while the scene with Matt staying up late at night staring at the shot of him dressed in women’s clothing to play the femme fatale character in his short, cuts especially deep to someone like me who has had to silently confront their own queer identity many times. Also while the film plays up the moments of Matt saying he’s a psychopath or crazy as him simply being edgy, it does definitely reflect a lot of queer teens’ experiences when realizing their identity of feeling like something has to be wrong with them or that they’re mentally ill because what else could possibly explain why they are the way they are and I think because of all of that, the film acts as a great double feature pairing with I Saw the TV Glow because under the trans interpretation, both films become about how the refusal to accept one’s identity in the face of growing loneliness can only lead to devastating consequences for that person, especially while all everyone else does is just laugh in their face or stare down at them with at best, slight tolerance.

If there are any trans people in the forum, please correct on my interpretation but that’s just what I took out this film.

[The Narrator Returns]

For sure I was taken aback by the trans barely-subtext (“it’s a bit of a gender-bender”) and the TV Glow parallels when I rewatched this. It can be very dangerous when you’re figuring out your identity solely from the media that’s the only thing you can talk to others about. It’s especially perfect to tie that to Charlie Kaufman, whose oeuvre has some of the very least metaphorically trans art to ever find favor with the “film bros” Johnson is so viciously portraying.