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“Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie” is quite a mouthful of a film title, and it also happens to be one of the most enjoyable, entertaining, inventive, and insane movies of 2026. I know it’s early goings here as far as films are concerned, but I don’t want to live in a world where this hidden gem of a movie doesn’t find a place on my Top 10 list a year from now.
How I came across this movie is a bit of a story. I watched a trailer for the film online, and I couldn’t quite make heads or tails of it. The movie appeared to be some type of “Jackass”-inspired hidden-camera affair in which a couple of off-limits stunt enthusiasts try to skydive off the CN Tower in Toronto into the Skydome during a Blue Jays game. That’s pretty much the gist of the film trailer, and it looked so insane that I made a note to catch up with the movie whenever it popped up on my streaming services.
Over the weekend, my wife and I found ourselves in Burlington for the day. While grabbing some breakfast at a bagel place, my wife noticed the film was playing at a new microcinema called Partizan Film. This new theater concept, conceived by former Mountain Times writer Brett Yates, is a film theater collective where people can purchase memberships to support the theater while receiving discounted admissions. You don’t have to be a member to see a film there, but if you’re looking to support the arts, you can be part of the collective. Wanting to support an independent movie house and curious about a movie titled “Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie,” my wife and I decided to check it out.
It’s difficult in this day and age to go into any movie totally blind, but it can be a fun and thrilling experience. I’ll never forget winning tickets to a radio preview screening in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in February 1996 of a movie called “Fargo” by the Coen Brothers. I had no idea they had a new movie coming out. Talk about going into a movie cold and coming out the other side. That was a wild experience. I knew a little more information about “Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie” than I did about “Fargo,” but not a lot more. And, as it would turn out, what information is given out about “Nirvana the Band” in the movie trailer is just the tip of the iceberg.
The movie is a mockumentary of sorts directed, starring, and co-written by Canadian filmmaker Matt Johnson. He previously directed the great 2023 film “BlackBerry,” and his latest film continues the story of two characters, Johnson and his friend Jay McCarrol, who have developed over the years into gonzo alternate versions of themselves. In the most meta of ways, Johnson and McCarrol play Johnson and McCarrol, two besties who are as close as Bert and Ernie, Bob and Doug McKenzie, or “Ren & Stimpy.” They are pop-culture slackers who desperately want their band, titled Nirvana the Band, to play at a Toronto club called the Rivoli.
As I would discover after watching this crazy film, the pair have been doing this schtick for years, and had a series called “Nirvana the Band the Show” on the now-defunct Vice channel. That series is pretty much the same as the movie. Each episode of that show features the pair coming up with outrageously dumb and stupid ways to try to get their band booked at the Rivoli.
While this may not sound like a concept that could stretch for a two-hour movie, let alone a whole series, the originality and pure enthusiastic go-for-broke nature of these two Stooges push the boundaries and limits of sketch comedy and sitcom to limits I have not seen, and it had my wife and me in stitches from the opening minutes.
The pair’s heartfelt bromance makes the proceedings work. There is an innocent, good-naturedness about this pair’s ridiculous pursuit of getting a gig at a club that all they would have to do to get a show there would be to get off their butts and start performing. The hook here is, they want the gig first, and then they’ll figure out how to do the show.
The opening of “Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie” begins with their latest get to the Rivoli scheme, which is to jump off the CN Tower and parachute into the Skydome. The documentary-esque, hidden-camera approach to filmmaking adds to the hilarity because I am still not sure how real or fake what I watched was. They definitely film many scenes around Toronto without permits or people knowing what they are doing. I’m fairly certain they don’t jump off the CN Tower, but I honestly can’t say that they didn’t.
If all Johnson and McCarrol had up their sleeves was this stunt, it wouldn’t be much of a movie, and after this initial plan to get a gig at the Rivoli fails, I was wondering what on earth the rest of this movie was going to be about. What follows is one of the most original homages to an 1980s movie I have ever seen.
I refuse to tell you more than what was revealed in the trailer you can watch online, because the movie caught me by such surprise, I think it is worth you getting that same experience. I can only tell you that it is crazy and wonderful, and the lengths these two jokers go to secure their dreams are something many of us can relate to. When I wasn’t laughing at the madness, I was awash with a big smile across my face. “Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie” is a classic that deserves to be seen by as many people who can see it. No matter how long it takes, I hope this movie finds an audience, because it’s that darn great.
James Kent is the arts editor at the Mountain Times.
