nick and norah's infinite playlist

Finally saw it. Oh boy.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist had been a project I'd been keeping notes on for awhile, mainly because I've been anticipating Peter Sollett's follow-up since Raising Victor Vargas. Even with an poorly-coordinated trailer and TV spot campaign, my fascination didn't waver in the movie's potential. Up to this point in cinema, it's been a rare occurrence for a legitimate auteur to take on a commercial teen movie. Ever?

And what we get is a contextual masterpiece. I say contextual because similar to Zach Helm's Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist isn't without an occasional kink or potential unrealized. But, this my friends, is a glimpse into Cinema du Adolescence, and broadly speaking, what the scope of cinema has the potential to become. This is what's it about, the new metapop - the subtle revolutions and reappropriations of mainstream culture.

Most importantly, Peter Sollett and the source material does well to embrace reality, embrace the realism of contemporary society. The confusing exploitation of force-feeding sex, aesthetics, consumption and hedonism to our youth and simultaneously admonishing them for taking interest in those same practices are deconstructed. This movie confronts this reality, in which yes, today's youth are at an accelerated level of perversion, but more profoundly, builds from this pragmatic miscalculation. Because we all simply yearn intimacy, connection, are never too far from an epiphany, from realizing that we are more and deserve more than the crude material that binds our flesh and distorts our soul space.

Two particular moments which stand out to me were the scene which involved Nick's ex-girlfriend flaunting herself music-video-girl-style in beam of the headlights while "I Believe in Miracles", one of the most commodified and degraded songs of history is being played. The other, which is truly indicative of the ideals of this generation, has Norah commenting on The Cure. She likes them, they're alright, but why the name "The Cure"? What are they curing? They should be called "The Cause". Self-loathing, hopelessness, and the nihilization of life is sooooooo pre 9-11. Meaning is the aesthetic.