By Toby Holmes, Second Year, Psychology
In 2008, Matt Johnson (playing himself) and Jay McCarrol (also himself) are in their apartment trying to devise a plan to get their band a gig at the Rivoli. Little do they know, Johnson and McCarrol from 2025 are hiding in their closet, waiting to steal a bottle of a discontinued soft drink from their past selves. And this is one of the less zany concepts in the whole movie.
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie (2025), despite having won seven Canadian Screen Awards is still one of the most criminally underrated movies of the past few years. It was released on the 13th of February in the US, followed by a more limited release in July in the UK, only being shown for one day at the Bristol Showcase Cinema with a longer run at our wonderful Watershed.
I really think more people need to see this movie. It is a genuinely great time-travel comedy. Following Johnson and McCarrol as they accidentally travel back to 2008 whilst trying to get a gig at their local bar and music venue, the movie is made up of a mix of scripted and hidden-camera style scenes filmed in public around Toronto and its landmarks. Based off the web series Nirvanna the Band the Show (2007-2009) and the TV show of the same name (2017-2018), the movie is full of references and inside jokes yet is still a hugely entertaining romp for new audiences unfamiliar with the duo. It even features one song that bagged the award for Achievement In Music - Original Song at the 2026 Canadian Screen Awards. So there really is something for everyone here.
One thing I, and most other people, asked while watching this movie was ‘how did they pull this off?’ From the crazy stunts on the CN tower to bizarre interactions with members of the public to heaps of copyrighted material showing up throughout, NtBtStM is undeniably a hugely ambitious movie. I often found the line blurring between scripted portions and interactions that genuinely happened and had been caught on camera. For example, an airport-style security team at the CN tower never really seems to acknowledge the cartoonish hunchbacks of backpacks under the clothes of our protagonists as they try to get to the top.
‘Everything you're watching is happening for real with people who don't know what's going on, except for the obvious moments where we're working with our friends,’ explains Johnson in an interview with Variety.
The polite, unbothered, and occasionally slightly concerned reactions of the Canadian public to Johnson and McCarrol's shenanigans really enhance the humour and charm of the improvised interactions. This guerrilla-style filming, along with the handheld cameras and the feel of a group of friends having fun, makes the movie really feel like the team's passion project, and is inspiring as you realise how a film like this can be made.
One thing you will notice about NtBtStM, if you haven't already guessed from their band name, is that they are not afraid of using existing IPs (Intellectual Properties) throughout the movie. There is a sequence around an hour into the movie that features so many scenes and references to 2008 pop culture, it is seriously impressive that it was able to be kept in at all. The movie is also unashamedly similar to the 1985 classic film Back to the Future with McCarrol, who also scored the movie, being heavily influenced by (and often mimicking) Alan Silvestri's score for that film.
The movie gets away with the inclusion of these through fair use, which allows them to use this content without the permission of the original owners. For example, the usage of Back to the Future themes and images is defended by the idea that it is being used in parody, which is considered transformative usage of the content. In an interview at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), Johnson said that ‘If you have a strong narrative reason for using the licenses that you're using, there is a way, through fair use, that you can use that stuff without informing the copyright holder and without paying anything.'
Ella Saxton
As Johnson says in the movie, ‘This is going to be a copyright nightmare. If you’re watching this in a theatre right now, count your lucky stars.’ While it might be a challenge to see this in cinemas again, we should certainly count our lucky stars for the pure, unabashed creativity of Johnson and McCarrol. With the recent release of the Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony (2026), which was also directed by Johnson and scored by McCarrol, now is the perfect time to catch up on the creative duo's best work.
Featured image: IMDb / Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie
Are you going to catch this time-travel comedy?
