Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

A big slate this weekend. The movie of the moment that everyone’s raving about, me included, is Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married. It’s a must-see, and Anne Hathaway is Oscar’s first It Girl. Then there’s a deck of jokers to choose from—Canada’s Michael Cera, America’s Bill Maher and Britain’s Simon Pegg—in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Religulous and How to Lose Friends and Alienate People respectively. But if you’re in the mood for a thought-provoking drama to accompany world economic collapse, the movie of choice is Blindness. This elegant disaster movie—a Canadian co-production blessed with an unusually wide North American release—is no walk in the park. But with the world as we know it going down the tubes, it has a timely resonance and gives you something to talk about after the final credits.

Saw a couple of delicious movies today, or yesterday I suppose, now that it’s past midnight. Both are American movies with some profile: Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist and The Brothers Bloom so already I’m beginning to question my early grouchy impressions that this year’s line-up of prominent films looks weak. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist stars Canadian puppy Michael Cera (Juno) as a heartbroken New York teen who has devoted himself to making brilliant mix-tapes for the stuck-up vixen who dumped him. One night, after playing a gig with his band—as the only hetero kid in a gay punk band called the Jerk Offs—he stumbles into a relationship with her infinitely more mature best friend (Kat Dennings). And they ride around New York all night, hoping to end up at a secret concert by a cult band called Where’s Fluffy.