Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie The Review
Graphic by Téa Sklar
The mid-2000s period of Internet-driven programming had to be both the most exciting and utterly terrifying time to be a television creative. For an insulated community like the Hollywood writers’ room, seeing their delicately crafted storytelling get passed over for minute-long webcam/camcorder-quality productions with insipid writing and cringeworthy humor must have driven several toward full-blown insanity. For the few who actually understood how to wrangle control over the fiefdom that was a pre-corporatized Internet and produce quality shows with cross-over online appeal, they were blessed with riches. Unfortunately, most shows reeked of “40-year-olds making bad assumptions on how 20-somethings act”. I will never forget the travesty that is quarterlife.
Naturally, the actually enjoyable shows came from a place of authenticity. Instead of Hollywood producers masquerading as amateurs, most people flocked instead to YouTube for the raucous sketch comedy of TomSka, Smosh, and CollegeHumor, inviting let’s plays of Markiplier and Jacksepticeye, and, quite frankly, some truly disturbing, yet creative horror-comedies like Salad Fingers, Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, and Llamas With Hats. Not to say that legitimate studios couldn’t produce valuable web-exclusive material, they just needed in-tune creators for that magic to strike. It’s no wonder that Clark and Michael, a web series created by teenage best friends Clark Duke and post-Arrested Development Michael Cera, holds up amazingly well compared to its counterparts; they still were in the midst of the “emerging adulthood” experience most writers badly attempted to generalize.
One name somewhat forgotten within the original web-series cannon is Nirvanna The Band (originally with only the one ‘n’), which ran from 2007 to 2009, starring/produced by childhood friends Matt Johnson (grey suit, fuckass fedora) and Jay McCarrol (good pianist, looks like a 2010s tech CEO).
The long-running story of Nirvanna the Band is just a chronicle of Matt and Jay’s increasingly long-winded attempts to be booked at local Toronto bar/music venue the Rivoli (a not-too-dissimilar premise to Clark and Michael, except substitute Toronto for Hollywood and shitty TV pilots for improvisational piano rock.) The “bit” ultimately revolves around how dedicated and obscene the duo’s plans are in getting the Rivoli’s attention when they could simply do the legwork of contacting the booker directly. This is a premise I assume about 75% of those unfamiliar with this show might label as “fucking stupid.”
Despite that inherent silliness and some evidently dated elements, the show is carried to greatness thanks to Johnson and McCarrol’s undeniable rapport, earnestly nerdy humor, and recklessly quotable moments. In line with the notion of web series as a medium, the show demonstrated the power of doing more with less. Their most popular bit, an exclusive short called “Update Day,” is literally just the two dudes riffing off improvisational songs while reading games available in the Wii Shop Channel: something incredibly low-brow, yet completely fitting of its form factor.
Interest was renewed in the series thanks to the production of two official seasons of Nirvanna The Band The Show on VICE (longer title, now two ‘n’s for copyright reasons). In the interim, Johnson would write & direct some feature films of his own (with McCarrol composing their soundtracks), with one notable project of theirs being 2023’s BlackBerry (starring Glen Howerton from Dennis of It’s Always Sunny… fame).
It could be the surprising critical appreciation of BlackBerry that made the duo finally commit to the big idea: Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie. Debuting at SXSW in early 2025, yet only being distributed by NEON to theaters (limitedly) in February 2026, the movie was an out-of-nowhere smash, specifically on my social media timelines. I mean, there’s niche fanfare for an online show’s movie, and then there’s spending months inside Letterboxd’s top 100 movies OF ALL TIME (and hell, it only recently fell to 106!)
When the movie officially impacted my own bubble, I had absolutely no prior knowledge of this show, the duo themselves, or whatever the fuck Orbitz were, yet I still trekked 2 hours by public transit from Staten Island to Downtown Brooklyn (for those not from NYC, yes, it can be that long)... and was left rather cold. In retrospect, I think I was just depressed, and in the completely wrong headspace for the movie’s tone, but for what some hailed as the funniest, most raucous film in years, I came out respecting NTBTSTM more than I liked it, which isn’t something you’d expect to say from a comedy.
However, as the weeks passed from my first watch, I would still receive Twitter posts clipping the movie, making memes and in-jokes about the show, and while I still had the convictions of my original opinion, I had an urge to revisit the film, hoping that maybe fresh eyes and the right environment would help me see what others saw. As such, I immediately jumped on the film’s digital release, went over to my friends’ shared quad, hit several blinkers, and got on for the most enjoyable comedic ride I had in a while: the rush I wished I experienced on the first go-around.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: the film is fucking hilarious. As by my own experience, it may take multiple watches (or an actual run-through of the web series pre-film viewing) to glue into the “bit”, but once that switch is flipped, the zaniness can be appreciated for what it is.
Every element of the 2008 segment (yes, this is a time travel movie, and a self-awarely messy one at that) is goddamn phenomenal: with pristine use of references to media that haven’t exactly aged… gracefully. Both major setpieces with the CN Tower are absolutely stellar in their use of unscripted street interviews, and absurdist logic, and my GOD is that jumpscare in the tour bus hilarious… you’ll know it when you see it.
However, the movie’s more impressive elements arguably come in its visual style. Not only is it incredibly impressive to see how the insane CN Tower/Rogers Centre setpieces were done on such a shoestring budget (hell, see the BTS with McCarroll arming a goddamn leafblower for one of the movie’s most pivotal scenes), but the editing in the 2008 segments genuinely had me losing my mind. The duo reutilized footage from their actual 2008 web series to have interactions between the old and present versions of Matt and Jay, and not only are the cuts between repurposed and freshly shot footage utterly seamless, but the auraboros of metacommentary, nostalgia, and genuine wonder at a concept that should come across as self-congratulatory is a sight to behold.
Most unexpectedly, the film’s got a genuine sense of pathos. The plot stems from Jay’s internal turmoil after decades of putting up with Matt’s fruitless schemes and general feelings of a wasted life. As such, when the timeline is split, Jay’s talents are finally rewarded with his due riches and fame, and Matt remains stuck making hopeless plans (now, with new best friends). However, the undercurrent of eternal friendship leaves Jay hollow across the second and third acts, with some truly poignant acknowledgments of how a life spent with someone you truly cherish is ultimately one worth living, so much so that aging will pass you right by. It builds to a frankly emotionally resonant climax, and for a movie to rely on the GODDAMN power of friendship in 2026 and still have resonance is truly something special.
Hell, while the movie has wrecked my social media timeline with endless clips of its funniest moments, with most of them being of the time-travel hijinks fitting of the movie’s grander scopes (see: Jay replacing Chris Rock for the Will Smith Oscars Incident), there’s something uniquely satisfying that the most circulated clip comes with the two doing what they do best: Jay and Matt riffing back and forth making up a silly song about the alphabet. It’s dumb, has stupid pop culture references, and fourth-wall breaks. However, it is the most classic “Nirvanna The Band” segment in the entire film, and for it to be the biggest success from a movie cherishing the duo’s friendship and body of work together… It speaks volumes. Maybe it’ll be the break that’ll get them to play the Rivoli after all.