Soundtrack: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist-- Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Yes, the playlist is here... but is it infinite?

Based on the hip, wildly popular young adult novel by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist follows the young, romantically burned bass player Nick (Juno and Superbad’s Michael Cera) over the course of an adventurous, sleepless night lived after hours in the underground indie rock scene of New York. Joining him in his musical scavenger hunt to discover the location of a secret show featuring a legendary band is the far worldlier Norah (Charlie Bartlett’s Kat Dennings). And the two opposites attract over their taste in killer tunes in director Peter Sollett’s cinematic adaptation of Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

Arguably the Fall release that’s been receiving the most buzz in the film world with infectious trailers and interactive opportunities for fans to build their own streaming musical playlist, video, or photo filled widgets from Sprout Builder and Sony Pictures, while the film itself doesn’t open until October 3, the soundtrack has been garnering pre-orders since August.

Set to hit the street on September 23, the jam-packed, eclectic and catchy fifteen track album (which will also be released in limited edition in vinyl directly from Atlantic Records), offers listeners the chance to play musical detectives right along with Nick and Norah as we groove to the alternately snappy and splendorous offerings by some of indie rock’s finest bands who have yet to catch on to the general public.

After only a few listens, with refreshingly a different artist for each and every tune, I was hooked. Ready to track down more from nearly every act included and thankfully via MySpace and band websites, you’ll be able to locate them far quicker than Nick and Norah do in the film. Of course, had they just grabbed a laptop, there would’ve been no need for a book, let alone a movie.

The disc opens with the melancholic yet pretty “Speed Of Sound,” by the late Chris Bell which helps evoke Nick’s heartache audibly as it laments tragedy throughout the endlessly depressing lyrics making the beauty of the track seem like an ingeniously ironic counterpoint. However, Devendra Banhart’s “Lover,” a toe-tapping and peppy propositional come-hither tune with a great hook about ninety seconds in, establishes the sheer joy and optimism of whimsical and surprisingly funny new young love.

Ratcheting it up several decibels, Bishop Allen’s “Middle Management,” a ska-punk lite track is a highpoint and used throughout promos for the film and can be heard as one of many soundtrack tunes in the veritable musical scrapbook that is the film’s official trailer.

Theatrical Trailer

The quirky electronic keyboard sounding “Ottoman,” seems oh so much sweeter than one would assume given the band’s far scarier sounding name of Vampire Weekend. Additionally, it’s one of several tracks that I felt a kinship with as a fan of other experimentally prone bands like Belle and Sebastian and The Magnetic Fields as strings and other instruments join in while it continues. The retro sounding “Riot Radio” by The Dead 60s is exactly the type of bar band jump up and down song one would associate with the underground scene the characters navigate, not to mention it makes killer use of the guitarist. And wearing its punk roots proudly, it manages to work in a police siren as well, causing me to check my rearview mirror each and every time it played in my car.

The innocuous, lighter and gentle “Fever” by Takka Takka backs off from the loudness of the previous number and serves as a great intro to one of my absolute favorites on the disc, “Xavia” by The Submarines. An epic track that actually ends and restarts, it invites a sing-along more than any other offering in a truly great collection and the musicality augments the female singer’s voice to breathtaking effect. Picking up the pace and fitting to the film and plotline is the addictive “After Hours” by We Are Scientists, followed by the groovy yet minimalist Band of Horses offering “Our Swords” which uses the lyrics and singer’s delivery as a sort of a call and answer with the rest of the band who accepts the challenge and strengthens the piece.

Army Navy’s affable “Silvery Sleds,” is radio-friendly and has “now heard on the CW channel” written all over it. It builds with angst filled lyrics, sure to strike a chord with numerous characters on the teen friendly network and rocks harder as it builds. “Baby You’re My Light,” by Richard Hawley slows the album down with a romantic ballad, but just to make sure that we haven’t nodded off, Shout Out Louds serve up “Very Loud,” that deceptively begins slowly until it does grow very loud “little by little” as the lyrics promise, with a great hook again heard in the official trailer.

Paul Tiernan’s “How To Say Goodbye,” is unabashedly romantic and makes due with an appropriately minimal amount of instrumentation. Tiernan wistfully sings about love gone wrong with only keyboard accompaniment and his voice decreases into a little above a whisper as he bids the song farewell and strings come in at the last moment, possibly to bid him a mutual adieu. The Real Tuesday Weld’s aptly titled “Last Words” is the last vocal track on the album and again reminded this listener of Belle and Sebastian with its majestic, quiet beauty until the album wraps up with “Nick & Norah’s Theme.” The sole composition from the original score is by the ridiculously talented Royal Tenenbaums, Bottle Rocket, and Rushmore composer Mark Mothersbaugh.

As quirky and inventive as Mothersbaugh’s more famous works, it provides a terrific capper to a stellar album of mostly obscure artists. And no doubt that’s part of the reason they’re so damn cool and warrant including in a film about knowledgeable and hip music fans that you probably wouldn’t see caught dead listening to adult contemporary radio or Hannah Montana.

While initially, I worried that the eclectic mix may seem a bit too far flung to go together well or as a friend bluntly phrased it, fearing that it appeared as though “a hipster party threw up.” Instead it is just the opposite and will no doubt serve as a gateway album to get listeners more acquainted with the other work from the bands and no doubt making other legendary soundtrack compilers jealous such as the king of cool movie music himself, Mr. Cameron Crowe.

Complete Track-Listing

1. Chris Bell – “Speed Of Sound”
2. Devendra Banhart – “Lover”
3. Bishop Allen – “Middle Management”
4. Vampire Weekend - Ottoman”
5. The Dead 60s – “Riot Radio”
6. Takka Takka – “Fever”
7. The Submarines – “Xavia”
8. We Are Scientists – “After Hours”
9. Band Of Horses – “Our Swords”
10. Army Navy – “Silvery Sleds”
11. Richard Hawley – “Baby You're My Light”
12. Shout Out Louds – “Very Loud”
13. Paul Tiernan – “How To Say Goodbye”
14. The Real Tuesday Weld – “Last Words”
15. Mark Mothersbaugh – “Nick & Norah’s Theme”

House Bunny (2008)

Even Elle Woods couldn’t “bend and snap”
this film into a success.

Director: Fred Wolf

In screenwriting team Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith’s big screen adaptation of Amanda Brown’s novel Legally Blonde, Reese Witherspoon taught Jennifer Coolidge (a.k.a. Stiffler’s mom) how to “bend and snap” men into submission by offering them the most flattering view of their figures. However, while Witherspoon’s ditzy character’s transformation from sorority bimbo to Harvard law student garnered critical acclaim and award nominations, in recycling their Blonde script into the far more degrading House Bunny, McCullah Lutz and Smith offer us a film that’s all about the proverbial “bend” with none of the refreshing “snap” of Blonde’s witty dialogue. Although I didn’t worship Legally Blonde as much as most viewers, I still feel it’s a frothy, forgettable, and escapist film that served its purpose brilliantly in making us laugh after the tragic events of 9/11 (when it was re-released specifically for that purpose the second time that year) mostly due to Witherspoon’s undeniable charm.

Cut to seven years later and likewise the similarly themed Bunny benefits from the vastly underrated Anna Faris. She first caught my attention with her scene-stealing turn in Lost in Translation (until I realized that Sofia Coppola most likely modeled her on Cameron Diaz which makes the caricature seem a bit mean-spirited) and later impressed me again as one of the brightest additions to the final season of television’s hit show Friends.

In Strange Wilderness director Fred Wolf’s House Bunny (produced by Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions), Faris is cast as Shelley Darlingson, a Playboy Bunny who’s ousted from Hef’s mansion the morning after she turns twenty-seven. No longer able to lounge around in bikinis at the pool, flirt with celebrities, shop on Hef’s dime or drive the company’s pink Prius, Shelley eventually lands in jail after being mistaken for a prostitute, which offered the writers the first opportunity to gently season their lighthearted comedy with a subtle commentary about Playboy’s objectification of women, yet they missed the mark completely.

Of course, after they’ve turned from ugly ducklings to Spice Girls, Shelley and the girls realize that inner beauty is what counts and in a perfunctory fashion the screenwriters try to work in this message half-heartedly far too late into the picture. Ultimately even the likable Anna Faris can’t make up for House Bunny’s complete lack of respect for the intelligence of its audience and especially its narrow and sexist view of women and men alike.

Let’s just say that McCullah Lutz and Smith may joke via Shelley that they “know what boys like,” but obviously they don’t know what thinking men and women like. And as a feminist who not only adores men but as a film lover — who has a circle of mostly male friends — I’m proud to say that a large majority of both genders will find this ridiculous. However, as a woman and one individual, I can only speak for myself in saying that when it comes to representing our gender, I rank McCullah Lutz and Smith in the same regrettable company as Dr. Laura along with the contestants on The Bachelor, Wife Swap, and America’s Next Top Model.

This is especially unfortunate as Faris, a sunny, guileless beauty who will do anything for a laugh, tries her hardest to make the script work, playing her role as a sort of cross between Marilyn Monroe and Judy Holliday. It’s definitely most notable when we realize that as a Playboy Bunny she’s never actually been on a real date and struggles with coming on first too ridiculously sexy and then as a faux intellectual. For the fullest effect, check out these priceless clips as she tries to win over Colin Hanks’ (yes, the son of Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks) earnest do-gooder over the course of two monumentally awful dates.

Date 1:

Date 2:

And you know it’s bad when Hugh Hefner earns the most audience sympathy in a few choice comedic scenes and our romantic leading man plays a character so one-dimensional, he may as well have just been dubbed “Shelley’s Date” instead of even given an actual name. Although he’s had little opportunity to prove himself in other work, Hanks is likable (it runs in his family after all) so therefore it’s woefully unfortunate that the writers were so compelled to include a romantic subplot that they didn’t even try to offer us anything new, creating yet another one of these bland, interchangeable, asexual, and neutered romantic comedy males (think Michael Vartan in Never Been Kissed or Mark Ruffalo in 13 Going on 30). I couldn’t help but think that the film would’ve benefited from deleting his character altogether and making it solely about Shelley’s Pygmalion-like journey with the other girls as they each begin to bring out the best in one another. Although that wish was dashed from the start when it begins structured like a fairy-tale without a trace of irony with Hef’s mansion as the film’s version of a royal palace and Shelley’s ultimate goal to become a centerfold.

Admittedly, as ultimately a sorority plot-driven film, I knew it wouldn’t be as bold or daring as the Christina Ricci independent vehicle Pumpkin which found her superficial character overcoming prejudice in falling for a mentally disabled athlete. But after viewing these two early House Bunny scenes of Faris and the girls (shown below), I was sorely disappointed that when you have a cast filled with talented stars including both Emma Stone and Kat Dennings, it’s a shame that more wasn’t done with the young women’s storyline other than forcing Stone to go through a humiliating “sacrificing of the virgin” jello lava slide into punch at an Aztec-themed party.

Introductions:

Clubbing:

Therefore, all in all, while Witherspoon’s Elle Woods will never be mistaken for a celebration of sexual equality, compared to Shelley Darlingson, she seems like a modern-day version of Gloria Steinem. And while I have no doubt that some will call my reaction to the film overly harsh and typical of my gender (and I predict, to misquote the title of Paul Thomas Anderson's 2007 epic, "There Will Be Comments"), I must assure you that it has nothing to do with those facts nor that as the same age as Shelley’s character, I’m not upset that the film informed me that I’m fifty-nine in bunny years.

No, instead, I just feel that wisdom should go along with age and no matter how old you are in bunny years, you’ll take it upon yourselves to seek out just what makes something truly funny and heartfelt for both men as well as women. And as Elle Woods might say, may I be as bold as to suggest going for something with much more “snap,” and a bit less “bend?”

Charlie Bartlett

Director:
Jon Poll

In Charles Schulz’s beloved Peanuts comic strip, eight-year-old enterpriser Lucy van Pelt ran a psychiatric version of a children’s lemonade stand offering questionable advice for the budget price of a shiny nickel, and in the hit 1970’s television series Happy Days, the compulsively leather jacket clad Fonzie commandeered the men’s room at Arnold’s which he turned into his “office” in order to share his own brand of questionable pearls of wisdom to the Milwaukee teens, preferring his age group’s highly coveted currency of cool points in lieu of coinage. More than thirty years later, when it comes to the perilous task of coming-of-age-- whether you’re eight or eighteen-- popularity still reigns supreme. And in the feature filmmaking debut from both director Jon Poll and writer Gustin Nash, the two combine the aforementioned pop culture concepts with pharmacological precision, managing to mix in classic teen films from the decades that followed including Harold and Maude, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Say Anything, Clueless, Rushmore, and Mean Girls to create the perfect prescription cocktail with minimal side effects, aside from a high likelihood of audience addiction to their film, Charlie Bartlett.

In the titular role, television actor Anton Yelchin turns in a winning performance as the mischievous yet terribly bright wealthy high school student Charlie Bartlett who, after getting ejected from the latest in a string of prep schools for unacceptable behavior including running a fake ID laminating press in order to be liked by his classmates, finds he’s left his exasperated, neurotic mother Marilyn (Hope Davis) no choice but to pack him off to public school. Fearing he’d make the wrong impression by arriving via his family’s chauffeur, unfortunately Charlie (like Jason Schwartzman’s Max Fischer in Rushmore) neglects to realize that perhaps wearing his prep school uniform and packing an attaché case isn’t the wisest way to fit in and sure enough, after first accidentally boarding the “short bus” for challenged students with special needs, he arrives only to find himself the victim of a toilet “swirlie” by the school bully Murphy Bivens (Tyler Hilton). Undaunted, he continues to try and put his best foot forward by greeting everyone with “Hi, I’m Charlie,” even going so far as to write it in a note to Susan Gardner (Kat Dennings), the beautiful girl who’d originally caught his eye but assumed he was a teacher, although ultimately Charlie ends up sitting with his friends from the short bus at lunch.

After spending time with the family shrink they have on retainer and being erroneously prescribed Ritalin, Charlie has an epiphany to recruit Murphy to become—if not his friend—then his business partner in selling the prescriptions at the school dance. Soon enough, Charlie’s access to mood altering medication makes him the go-to guy for all of his fellow classmates who begin lining up in the hallway for their opportunity to have a psychiatric consultation with the precocious new kid. By this time, Charlie has not only begun reading psychiatric and medical books to aid what ails his classmates but has also started shrink shopping to get the right pills in the hands of the right students who want to avoid parental embarrassment and HMO woes on their path to mental stability.

Naturally, the long lines for the men’s room begins to garner the attention of Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.), who not only has professional concern for the well-being of his students but is especially irked when he realizes that his daughter Susan has become the target of Charlie’s affections. Worried the boy is just after his daughter for bragging rights, Principal Gardner tries to put a stop to all of Charlie’s extra-curricular activities, alienating himself from his colleagues, students and Susan in the process before viewers begin to realize that-- despite their age and situations-- Gardner and Charlie have much more in common than one would think as they both desperately want to be liked and are prone to self-medication,with the principal's preference being unwinding with a bottle of booze while piloting a motorized boat in his family’s pool. In a different world, it’s apparent the two could have been friends but when fatherhood and professionalism enters the equation, all bets are off. However, it’s the genius of the writing by Gustin Nash and in Jon Poll’s sensitive direction, that they never manage to sweep these issues under the rug, making every character equally vulnerable, equally innocent, and equally culpable in the scheme of things.

And while it seems like it’s the darkest subject matter for a teenage comedy to involve such a plethora of prescription medication, the filmmakers don’t handle this lightly at all, as Charlie’s actions do involve consequences, yet the tone of the film is far sunnier and more approachable than the superior yet icy Wes Anderson film, Rushmore. With a strong homage to Harold and Maude throughout as Cat Steven’s “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,” is utilized numerous times to great effect, Bartlett seems to be the latest Generation Y incarnation of Matthew Broderick’s Ferris Bueller in that you just know he’d never do anything to actually endanger a fellow human being, instead realizing that-- much like his clueless friends-- he’s also lost the unattainable map directing them on their path from adolescence to adulthood as they struggle to find their way.

And while Bartlett's final act seems a bit rushed and far fetched to believe, the intelligence of the writing and the refreshingly earnest and sweet natured approach to the otherwise tired and overpopulated genre of crass, highly sexualized and cynical teen films, not only reminded me of a junior companion piece to Lawrence Kasdan’s Capraesque Mumford (also starring Hope Davis) but also earned Bartlett a spot at the head of the class of 2008 as this reviewer’s pet.