Because Doris asked me

So in response to my good friend Doris (as well as some hinting from my darling Cathy), I will now express how I felt about "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist".

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)
directed by Sollett

At first glance one could probably see NaNIP (Nick and Norah's...u know) as another hip teenage romantic comedy in the same vein as "Juno" or even "Superbad" to some extent. In many ways it is, with a rather predictable plot and Michael Cera being...Michael Cera. However, NaNIP has an undeniable charm that allowed me to look past all of the cliches (Michael Cera included) and enjoy the quirky characters in their wild night in New York City.

Plot

Michael Cera (or Nick, it's pretty interchangeable at this point), is terribly depressed after his girlfriend Tris dumps him. But, despite his teenage angstiness, his two gay friends/band mates, Thom and Dev, convince him to play a show downtown in the hopes that they can see their favorite band "Where's Fluffy" that night. Norah (Kat Dennings) and her best friend Caroline also hear about the potential appearance of Where's Fluffy at their prep school and decide to hunt down the elusive band that night as well. Coincidentally, Tris also attends the preschool, and is a (hated) acquaintance of Norah and Caroline. Because of this, Norah knows of Nick before the two ever meet. The two parties eventually meet downtown where Nick and his band are performing, and what follows is a frantic and unforgettable search for the enigmatic Where's Fluffy. Friends are lost (both figuratively and literally), hot dogs are eaten, and new connections are made under the bright late night lights of the Big Apple.

Good

I loved the use of New York City and its busy indie music scene as the backdrop for this movie, a welcome change from the ho hum suburbs and quaint neighborhoods of other teenage love stories. The characters were all lovable with their own little subtle personalities (with the exception of Caroline who was simply perpetually drunk) and solidly acted, with nothing ever feeling too forced or corny. It was also great that the gay characters in NaNIP were not portrayed in a stereotypical light, with the gay never being central to the character, like so many other films tend to do. In fact, Thom and Dev were probably my favorite characters in the movie.

Like Juno, the humor was also more subtle, mostly relying on comedic timing and ridiculous situations for laughs. But despite all of the wacky predicaments, I also loved how the movie felt very real and honest, as if all of it could very well happen on a typical Saturday night in the Big City. There are no deep themes or moral dilemmas in NaNIP; it is a fairly straightforward story, but that honestly should not come as a surprise. Likewise, the end of this movie is fairly predictable, but it doesn't mean that it's and less enjoyable to watch.

Bad

A strange thing to note is that while watching this movie, I had a very strange sense of deja vu, as if I had seen this all somewhere before. It could have been the emphasis on indie music, the colorful friends, or Michael Cera, but it all just felt rather familiar. This kind of goes hand in hand with the general predictability of the plot, which will probably not take any viewer by surprise in the least bit. Unfortunately, the characters, while quirky and lovable, tend to be somewhat two dimensional in many respects (we get it Tris is a bitch).

Bottom Line

If you don't mind the somewhat predictable plot and occasionally flat characters, NaNIP is a fun and charming trip through adolescence behind the eyes of a group of indie rock lovers. There are times where you will wish that you were there with the characters in their adventure through New York's indie underground, but most of the time you will probably be wondering, "Damn, why wasn't it like that for me in High School?" Definately a "See" from me.

Why I will never buy an xbox 360

So, yesterday was Valentine's Day, and my darling Cathy and I wanted to do something romantic to celebrate. After pondering the question for a little while we both thought, "what could be more romantic than brutally murdering quasi human alien dudes together?". Nothing, that's what. Therefore, we decided to rent the lovely "Gears of War 2" from our local video rental shack, having already played through the first one. Oh, and we rented "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" too. Brimming with anticipation, we raced back to Cathy's house to play our alien murder simulator. I popped open the game case, expecting to see the "Gears of War 2" DVD staring back at me. It took me ten seconds to realize that it was not the Gears 2 DVD at all, it was just Gears 1. Awesome. So back to the video shack we went.

After finally getting the REAL game in my hands, I eagerly awaited the bloodbath that Cathy and I would be participating in. With the DVD in the Xbox tray, we stared at the TV screen, waiting for the awesome to assault our senses. What greeted us was certainly an assault, but not an awesome one.

"The disc cannot be read."

What the fucking fuck. It was already too late to return to the game shack so we were essentially stuck with our scratched up shitty disc until the next day.

After the initial rage had subsided, we consulted the Internet, mecca of all answers. A few minutes later, we came upon our solution: it involved toothpaste (paste not gel), double sided toilet paper, warm water, and a soft towel. No joke.

Step one is to squeeze some of the toothpaste onto the the toilet paper and rub the paste into the DVD until it is completely covered. Step two is to run the DVD under warm water and rub all of the paste off in an up and down motion. Step three is to dry the DVD with the soft towel, making sure that you do not rub, only dab and press. Once the DVD is dry, pop it into the Xbox and see if it works.

Turns out it did not work for us. Many of the visible scratches were gone, but it was not enough to get the game running. We even tried the toothpasting again, and again, but to no avail.

We ended up just watching Nick and Norah's for the rest of the night. Not nearly as romantic as massively burly men shooting chainsaw machine guns at other equally burly aliens, but still good I suppose.

The lesson here? It sucks that "next generation" sixty dollar video game media can still be ruined so easily. Get a better media delivery system Microsoft, especially if you plan on charging customers so much for a DVD.

So who the hell are you?

I'm glad you asked mystery floating title!

My name is Duncan. I live in Irvine, CA and attend the University of California Irvine. I am currently a third year informational and computer science major, but I hope to change that by next year because of the constant soul crushing realization that I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. This will mark my third, and hopefully last, major change. I have a beautiful and lovely girlfriend of five years whom I love dearly, and I live with five other male UCI students who are all like brothers to me.

But anyway on to the happy stuff! While I still have no clear idea about what to do with my life in a professional sense, one thing is for certain: I will continue to play video games, love gadgets, and enjoy movies until the day I die. I also love writing, and expressing myself with the written word is one of the few non technological activities that I enjoy. And so that is how this blog came to be, a combination of my favorite pastimes on one handy dandy page. I hope you will excuse me If I ever go on a random tangent, but I am a passionate man, and by passionate I mean that I passionately hate many things, all of which I will eventually share with you at some time. So without further adieu, welcome to Games, Gadgets, and G...Movies, I hope to see you again sometime very soon...

(I think I'm the one on the right)