“TONY” (PLUS 2 MORE BY MATT JOHNSON) - REVIEW

Despite the splash he made with his clever third feature BLACKBERRY in 2023, I’ve only recently come across the work of writer/director/actor/producer Matt Johnson, but if he is anywhere near the gregarious, infectious go-getter of the Matt Johnson of NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW, it should serve as an inspiration to independent filmmakers everywhere.

Taking a different approach, I’ll be reviewing three recent films I’ve seen that all have his name tied to them. Two of them you can watch at home right now, and the other will be in theaters Friday, August 21. Two of them are coming-of-age, summer-set stories about living in denial and being an impulsive idiot in your 20s, and one is about living in denial and being an impulsive idiot in your 40s. They all have interesting relationships to time, and they are all period pieces (sort of). They are all honest, funny, and lovingly crafted.

Below are my mini-reviews for Johnson’s two polar-opposite 2026 directorial efforts, and one which he produced under his Zapruder Films (haha) banner:

“NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE” - REVIEW

This movie is comedy nerd heaven. A whip-smart and incredibly stupid lo-tech buddy comedy/mockumentary hybrid (based on the TV series) about hopping in your time machine to take the road less traveled for superficial reasons, à la BILL & TED cross-pollinated with BORAT; a film which, according to a friend, “simultaneously looks like they made it for free and they spent $20 million on it.”

The less that you know the better, but if you’re familiar with the show, as usual, Matt ropes Jay into a harebrained scheme to get a show at the Rivoli in Toronto. The latest plan: to skydive off Toronto’s CN Tower into the Skydome to announce it. Never mind that they are not booked to perform at the Rivoli (and that a full stadium could never hope to fit into the Rivoli’s 240 standing room capacity —a fact that the movie smartly and hilariously never points out). What follows is a smartly constructed chronicle on lifelong friendship, and on sticking to what’s familiar versus carving your own path while also serving up hearty dumb laughs (I regularly get their version of the alphabet song in my head). This may sound odd, but it also reminded me of a Christopher Nolan movie, both in its use of and commentary about the passage of time, as well as a feat of clever how-did-they-do-that filmmaking.

It possesses the shabby charm of MONTY PYTHON and SPINAL TAP, but takes it in a new, always unpredictable and ultimately emotionally satisfying direction. It has my vote for the funniest movie of the year.

NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE and the show on which it is based are both now streaming on Hulu.

“MILE END KICKS” - REVIEW

Johnson has a producer credit on this warmhearted semi-autobiographical tale written and directed by Chandler Levack (I LIKE MOVIES, and this year’s Adam Sandler-produced Netflix comedy ROOMMATES). Barbie Ferreira (EUPHORIA, BOB TREVINO LIKES IT) is magnificent as Grace, a Toronto-based music critic: young, passionate, intelligent, and criminally undervalued. Set during the summer of 2011, Grace travels to Montreal to work on a book about Alanis Morissette’s album Jagged Little Pill, for which she has already been paid a small advance. She also goes there with a list of goals: write her book, learn French, climb a mountain, and “have actual sex.” Instead, she discovers a band called Bone Patrol and immediately latches onto its moody lead singer Chevy (Stanley Simons, THE IRON CLAW), who works at a shoe store (which gives the movie its catchy title) when he’s not writing songs, performing with his whole heart, and being emotionally obtuse with Grace. She also discovers poetry readings and more of the music scene, becomes the publicist for Bone Patrol, spends a lot of time not writing her book, running out of money, taking advantage of her gracious host Madeline (Juliette Gariépy, RED ROOMS), and finding a more genuine platonic chemistry with Bone Patrol’s guitarist Archie, who has sworn off love (Devon Bostick, DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, OPPENHEIMER). So you know: being 24.

It’s a charming, funny, pleasant slice-of-life in which you can feel the summer humidity, and which has just enough narrative shape and some really dialed-in warts-and-all human behavior that keep you watching Grace go from misadventure to misadventure without judgment. One of the best films I’ve seen recently, along with the next one that I will review, that perfectly captures the folly of youth, and how we all need to get kicked down before we can start rebuilding ourselves. It also features fine performances from Jay Baruchel (also terrific in BLACKBERRY) as Grace’s former boss at the magazine, along with some killer music.

MILE END KICKS is streaming on Netflix.

“TONY” - REVIEW

In his second effort this year, director Matt Johnson tempers his puppy dog energy (just a little) for this scrappy, amiable and profane chapter in the life of the late Anthony Bourdain. A loose adaptation of a couple of chapters from Bordain’s best selling Kitchen Confidential, TONY is not really a traditional biopic but more of a coming-of-age dramedy which happens to be about the young Bourdain (Dominic Sessa from THE HOLDOVERS). Tony, which he insists to be called, loiters about Vassar College, applies for a writing fellowship, can’t admit that he didn’t get it, and uses the lie to follow a cute woman (Emilia Jones, CODA) to Provincetown for the summer, where his cockiness and crudeness get the better of him when he finds himself with a blackeye and broke. He wakes up on the hammock of a beach house belonging to an unnamed chef (a terrific Antonio Banderas), who offers Tony a chance at redemption as a line cook in his boardwalk fish joint, The Flagship. And thus, the movie posits, we have the makings of a chef. If only Tony could admit that.

Brilliantly, the film never gets greedy by capping this story with Bourdain’s eventual tragedy. The movie is simply about, as he wrote in his book and as the movie says right at the top, a “spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive, and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking.“ This movie is all about a guy getting his ass kicked, often literally— late night brawls, early morning cold water wake-up calls administered daily by Banderas— and figuratively when he is constantly shown up in the kitchen by veteran line cooks who have the scars and burns to prove that they deserve to be there, and that Tony has to earn it.

Here, Johnson tell us a story that would also have been well handled in the hands of Peter Farrelly in terms of its regional specificity as well as a transition from broad comedy to curious biopic (complete with the occasional contrivance to make the pieces fit), but Johnson leaves the saccharine on the table in favor of salt and oil: the grimy seaside 70s is lovingly captured by cinematographer Michael Bauman (this being his first film following his Oscar nomination for Paul Thomas Anderson’s best picture winning ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER). Of course, a 1975 set film can never seem to resist a reference to JAWS, but the time period feels very lived-in, and Tony’s kitchen cohorts—a colorful bunch made up of Leo Woodall (TUNER), Stavros Halkias (BUGONIA), and Michael Jiblin (AMERICAN FICTION), along with the Flagship’s hostess/bartender Mary (Monica Raymund, TV’s CHICAGO FIRE)— beautifully flavor this hearty stew. It also features a simple contemplative score by Jay McCarroll (Jay from NTBTSTM, of course), which expresses the inner life of Tony in a way that he refuses to. Lastly, the movie belongs to Sessa: moody, present, angry, and immensely talented, doing an amazing job of playing someone who really lived, yes—but someone who is not Anthony Bourdain yet.

TONY is playing in select theaters, and opens wider on Friday, August 21st.

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Zach is a proud member of the Minnesota Film Critics Association (MNFCA). For more info about Zach, the organization, or to read other great reviews from other great Minnesota-based film critics, click here: www.mnfca.com