EDITOR’S NOTE: Every week I write the movie review for my newspaper, The Ledger. I haven’t been posting my reviews on this blog, but I have decided to start. This is the first of many to come. Stay tuned each week.
Every so often I see a movie that inspires me.
In the journalism arena, “All The President’s Men” fired me up for reporting as I watched a depiction of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein uncover President Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal.
More recently, I have been inspired that the nerdy guy can get the girl.
In “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” Nick O’Leary, played by Michael Cera who starred in “Super Bad,” is in a band with his two homosexual friends, and he is trying to get over an ex-girlfriend, Tris who is played by Alexis Dziena, that happened to break up with him on his birthday.
At the beginning of the story, Nick is really taking the loss of his dearest Tris hard and takes a personal day to create a music mix CD for her.
Little does he know that Tris just throws the CDs away and another girl, Norah Silverberg who is played by Kat Dennings, retrieves all the CDs and greatly enjoys the mixes from Nick, whom she has never met.
Nick’s personal day threatens to seep into the evening, but the other band members convince him they have to go out and perform because it is going to be their first night playing under a new band name, The Jerk Offs.
Of course, the fact that Nick’s favorite band, Where’s Fluffy?, is rumored to be playing a special show at an unmanned location that night helps sway Nick that he should go out and play with the band before hunting down Fluffy.
Norah’s favorite band is also Fluffy, so she and her best friend, Caroline who is played by Ari Graynor, also set out to find Fluffy.
While Nick and The Jerk Offs are playing at their gig, Tris shows up with her new boyfriend, and Norah and Caroline also show up and enjoy music.
Tris sees Norah and makes it a point to take a dig at Norah for being without a man, even though she is the daughter of a famous music studio owner.
Norah refuses to be embarrassed yet again by her schoolmate, so she randomly picks Nick as her temporary boyfriend, unaware that Nick is Tris’s ex-boyfriend.
This sets the stage for a rollercoaster ride of emotion as Nick and Norah search for Fluffy and Caroline, who is lost and drunkenly wandering the streets of New York City, while both Nick and Norah attempt to work out their past relationships with other people.
Drawn together by a love of music, Nick and Norah’s tale of accidental romance goes to show that there is hope in the world.
Nick is a geeky little nerd, and Norah is a pretty girl with an incredible personality.
Usually such a catch would go to the popular jock, not the skinny guy in a band with two gay dudes.
But as the old saying goes, the nice guy finishes last, but at least he finishes. And if he is in fact the last to finish, he must get the spoils of the victory, right?
I think so.
Of course, I also learned how important a piece of chewing gum can be to a girl, even if it has in fact been dropped into a toilet filled with vomit.
“Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” is rated PG-13, and it has a runtime of 90 minutes.
I recommend this movie to anyone looking for a few laughs intertwined with a great plot line.
It isn’t as laugh-out-loud funny as “Super Bad” because it is a different kind of humor, but it is very funny in its own right, which helps make the story more believable.
Now, I just need to wait and see how the inspiration I have received from this movie is going to play out.
Maybe I’ll start a band . . .
