Matt and Jay discuss fair use in an extended version of the “How Not to Get Sued” interview with TIFF, posted February 13, 2018.
Nirvanna the Band the Show (Vice)
Each episode follows two zoo animals – excitable monkey Matt (voiced by Johnson) and a quieter bird named Bird (McCarrol) – who attempt to escape into the outside world. Combining hand-drawn animation that recalls Canadian studio Nelvana at its Babar peak with an improv-comedy sensibility familiar to the NTBTS fanbase, Matt & Bird is both nostalgic and refreshing. There is no garish CGI (hello, Cocomelon and Pinkfong), no irritating cutesy performances (stop it, Blippy) and no corporate mandate to push toys (Paw Patrol, Bakugan).
To understand just how much of a game changer nirvanna the band the show is, it’s best to start with describing what it isn’t. It is not a sloppily spelled Kurt Cobain cover group. Nor is it an ode to Buddhist enlightenment. It’s not about a band or even a show, in the traditional sense. Instead, nirvanna the band the show is a new television series courtesy of Viceland – a wild, subversive, mostly unclassifiable work of new-media pastiche that might save its upstart network, cement the bona fides of its polarizing co-creator and, just maybe, revolutionize the Canadian television landscape.
*correction – Barry claims Matt and Jay are the same age at time of writing (32), but we believe technically Matt was 31, and Jay would have been 33.
But if you know where to look – both inside TIFF and outside – there are signs of a new wave of Toronto-based filmmakers who are challenging whatever musty definition of Canadian cinema still haunts the industry. Their work is raw and scrappy, urgent and intense, and driven by a keen sense of frustration – with life, with art and with the system that is supposed to produce homegrown films in the first place. The filmmakers make do with little money and either shun traditional funding bodies or partner with them reluctantly. They focus on the vast, diverse identities that make up Canadian culture, but do not feel bound by any staid, maple-syrup-swigging, hockey-loving, Tragically Hip-listening presuppositions.
Barry released a semi-follow up to the above article, highlighting new Toronto filmmakers (including Ben Petrie!), and an update on the directors profiled in the above article. You can read that here or here.