Last night I caught a preview screening of Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, a mostly adorable teen comedy about teenagers with no curfew who spend the night zipping from one New York City rock club to the next. It's the latest in a short line of music festishizing movies like High Fidelity, Empire Records and Pump Up The Volume, and especially in its early scenes the film never misses a chance to suggest all the great music that its characters listen too (Michael Cera's room is packed with band posters and stickers—he's a Buzzcocks fan).
As a treatise on the state of youthful rock music in 2008, Nick and Nora works pretty well: Cera, for instance, is in a crappy electro-clash band that opens up for a crappy Spoon sound-a-like.
Two (mostly non-spoilery) things I can't resist pointing out, though:
1. When you're underage, it's not called "being straightedge." It's called "being law-abiding."
2. The Counting Crowes aren't nearly the relevant, enduring rock stars that some set designer thought they were. How did their picture end up a pivotal scene in the film?
