Parky At the Pictures (3/7/2026)

(Reviews of Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie; and Birds of War)

NIRVANNA THE BAND THE SHOW THE MOVIE.

Some will know Canadian director Matt Johnson for such admired features as The Dirties (2013), Operation Avalanche (2016), and BlackBerry (2023). A few others might know him from the DIY web series, Nirvana the Band (2007-09), which he worked up into a short-lived Viceland TV show entitled Nirvanna the Band the Show (2017-18), with musician Jay McCarrol. Now, the pair have revisited the concept for Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, a time-travelling mockumentary that is stuffed with goofball gags, improvised situations, and classic film pastiches. Whether you find it infectious or infuriating, it's difficult not to appreciate the ingenuity and the chutzpah with which it has been made.

In 2008, Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol have big plans to play The Rivoli in Toronto. Matt delivers his spiel to Jay at the piano, as he imagines sending the crowd wild with a two-step shuffle that will take them into their opening number. Seventeen years later, the guys are still clinging to the same dream. But Matt has hit upon the idea of gaining publicity by skydiving off the EdgeWalk at the CN Tower into the neighbouring SkyDome stadium during a Blue Jays baseball game. A nice Libertarian clerk at the Canadian Tire hardware store tries to talk them out of the stunt when they go to buy cable cutters, which temporarily get them stopped by the scanner at the CN security desk. However, they make it to the ledge and jump off towards the arena, just as its roof closes and they land on top and have to be helped down by a fire crew.

Jay is not best pleased by the reckless nature of the failed bid. But Matt is undaunted and hatches a plan to pose as time travellers to convince the Rivoli to book them. He watches Robert Zemeckis's Back to the Future (1985) for clues how to trick up his RV so that it looks like a time machine. Meanwhile, Jay books a solo microphone slot in Ottawa and sets off without knowing that Matt has dozed off on the bus after dealing with a fire after he knocked a bottle of Orbitz into the time machine gubbins.

Realising they have gone back to 2008, the pair scarper across town to their old apartment to find another bottle of Orbitz to propel them back into the future. As their younger selves are rehearsing, they hide in a cupboard with their cameraman, Jared Raab, and spend hours trapped in a small space. When they get out, older Matt goes in search of some Orbitz and wakes younger Jay and tells him he's in his dream to bring him the melody that older Jay is playing for dozing younger Matt downstairs. Jay is so touched by the way in which Matt chats to his younger self that he confesses that he was going to go solo. But Matt is wounded and rubs their plans off the whiteboard and scribbles a note not to play The Rivoli before returning to the RV and powering them back to 2025.

Much to his horror, Matt discovers that Jay is a major star, while he is the drummer in a covers band with three flatmates who all sport the same Jay tattoo on their biceps. They have tickets for that night's show and Matt tries to jog Jay into remembering the time machine, but he claims to have no knowledge of it. However, he is finding the celebrity lifestyle difficult without Matt to being there firing off ideas and wacky schemes. In trying to get to know the members of his new backing band, Jay succeeds in shooting one of them dead and he goes on the run. He goes back to the old digs to find Matt scribbling a plan to fix the time machine and return to 2008 and restore the timeline. Jay offers to help, but he is primarily interested in erasing the murder so he can resume his new lifestyle doing car karaoke with James Corden and being interviewed by Ellen De Generes.

Matt has smashed the Orbitz bottle, so they have to wind an electrical chord across the city from the CN Tower to a junction box in the street, so that lightning hitting the building will fire the RV through time. Once again, Matt has to do the clambering (with Jared again behind with the camera), while Jay reassures passers-by and the occasional cop that everything is under control. Unfortunately, the cable disconnects and Matt has to clamber up the innner tower ladder again and plunge off into the darkness with his parachute. On reaching the street, however, he discovers the line is a couple of feet short and he is torn what to do when he reads that Jay has killed his bandmate. But friendship prevails and he uses the cable cutters to complete the circuit and Jay is able to return to 2008.

Entering their apartment, he changes the whiteboard to read `Play The Rivoli' and the timeline is restored. In the present, Matt re-proposess the SkyDome dive again and Jay agrees, although he suggests they leave a little earlier so as not to crash land on the closing roof again.

Played to the hilt by Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol (who are clearly having a ball), this is rooted in esteemed tradition of the double-act comedy, with flashes of Laurel and Hardy. Abbott and Costello, Hope and Crosby, Meyers and Carvey, and Reeves and Winter illuminating a splendidly silly premise that keeps finding new ways of being even sillier. After all, how hard can it be to get a booking at The Rivoli (even with a show as rubbish as the one that Matt and Jay keep rehearsing)? There are lulls in the buffoonery, while not all of the running gags or the improvised encounters with the unsuspecting members of the public come off, as neither is quite on Sasha Baron Cohen's level when it comes to brass-necking. Nevertheless, this celebration of friendship is time-passing fun that makes few demands on the faculties or the conscience outside noting how time has not been kind to either Bill Cosby or Todd Phillips's The Hangover (2009).

Belying the DIY feel, the action is often slickly staged, with some sophisticated special effects making the CN Tower sequences genuinely unsettling. It's also full of cine-literate gags, most notably leavening the Back to the Future shtick with a borrowing from Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), with Orbitz replacing Chernobyl as the soft drink with a time-travelling kick. Indeed, the plot strand in which Jay becomes a superstar echoes Lou Dorchen's wealth in Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (2015).

The use of slowed-down voices for the monochrome flashbacks is neat, as is the inclusion of the web footage that enables the pair to set the scene and interact with their younger selves. Moreover, Jared Raab's guerilla photography (and the amusing ways in which he is incorporated into the action) is splendid, while a couple of McCarrol's soundtrack songs are delightful. Quite whether the package does enough to send people scurring in search of the web and TV series is open to debate. But it's bound to get people talking about Matt Johnson ahead of the release of his biopic about celebrity chef and travelogue host, Anthony Bourdain, later this year.

BIRDS OF WAR.

The Syrian Civil War (2011-24) has spawned several compelling and deeply disturbing documentaries, including Talal Derki's Return to Homs (2013), Feras Fayyad's Last Men in Aleppo (2017) and The Cave, and Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts's Oscar-nominated For Sama (both 2019). Now, Janay Boulos and Abd Alkader Habak's Bird of War can be added to the list.

In 2016, BBC Arabic reporter Janay Boulos was seeking contacts on the ground in Syria to unearth stories to broadcast to the wider world. She made text contact with Abd Alkader Habak, a videographer based in Aleppo who was committed to exposing the crimes of President Bashar al-Assad. Despite initial suspicions about Boulos's credentials, Habak started sending regular footage after he responded to her request to find people growing vegetables on their rooftops to beat the food shortages.

Originally from Idlib, Habak had started filming protests because he wanted to make sure the voice of the Syrian people was heard. Moving to Aleppo, he recorded bombing raids and street fighting with selfless courage. As we see footage of the chaos caused by nighttime attacks and the strains placed upon his doctor friend, Hamza, he wonders how he has survived and jokes that maybe God doesn't want him.

Having grown up in the Lebanese seaside town of Byblos, Boulos is also familiar with the sights and sounds of warfare. Despite an ambition to become a marine biologist, she had graduated in journalism, but didn't feel she could report freely in her homeland. Consequently, she had moved to London and joined the BBC's Arabic Service, making occasional appearances on news bulletins. But she felt guilty about sitting in safety, broadcasting footage for which her contacts had risked their lives.

Habak also feels pangs of regret when he joins the evacuation of Eastern Aleppo in 2017. He doesn't know if he will be able to return, but he knows he needs to get his hard drive archive out of the city, as he will be targeted by the regime if it's discovered. He returns to Idlib after parting from his housemates and comrades and films the bombed buildings. Boulos visits her Christian parents, who are uncertain what will happen if another war breaks out. She asks Habak if he is thinking of leaving, as the BBC want a story about someone fleeing Syria. But he intends holding firm and invites Boulos to help him show that life is going on as normal and she carries his images of carpet-weaving and pot-making.

They exchange photos of themselves, with Boulos introducing her cat, Fashfash. He is pleased she is not caged and starts calling her `little bird'. She worries when she doesn't hear from him and he misses her when the Internet goes down. Habak also keeps sending her footage, such as the bombing raid on a hospital when he feared being trapped inside. Until now, he has avoided personal attachments because life is so unpredictable. But the images of Boulos at her desk or trudging throught the rain in Queen's Park have got under his skin and they start flirting with each other in the daily video calls they call `interviews'.

Boulos wishes she could be with Habak, who has gone to film a refugee convoy. He shows children getting food handouts and there is a sense of hope. But the location is attacked and a picture of Habak carrying an injured child makes newspapers around the world. In the exchange of texts and voicemails, Boulos urges him to flee because he is more important to her than any footage. He is not just another story. However, the coverage has raised his profile with the Assad regime and he decides to cross the border into Turkey. Boulos comes to meet him and they snorkel and paraglide (like birds) before getting married. However, she knows her parents would disapprove of her marrying a Muslim and she doesn't tell them.

Habak moves into her flat in London, despite feeling guilty about leaving people behind in Syria. They cover the October Revolution in Lebanon in 2020, as Boulos felt she had to be on the ground at such a momentous time. Her parents are sceptical, however, that much will change. Feeling she needs to be working with Habak, she quits the BBC and they cover pro-Palestinian marches and other events relating to the Middle East. When Israel bombs Lebanon as part of its ongoing war with Hezbollah, Boulos feels she should return to be with her parents in Byblos, as she still feels like an outsider in London. But it's the only place she can be with Habak, although he is keen to return to Aleppo when the Assad regime is toppled, as he needs to witness the new Syria for himself having risked so much to cover its struggle to exist. He tours familiar parts of Aleppo to see them in ruins, even the Al-Quds Hospital. But his mother is delighted to see him and looks forward to meeting her daughter-in-law. Boulos also tells her mother she is married, but remains vague about his background. In an exchange of texts, Habak wonders how long they can keep shuttling between their countries and Boulos replies they will have to do so until the wars end.

It's bad form to quote someone else's insight when writing a film review. But, in profiling Boulos and Habak for The Guardian, Bethan McKernan has it spot on when she says, `Birds of War isn't just about war: it is more broadly a portrait of what it means to be Syrian or Lebanese at this precarious time for the Middle East. It is about what it means to belong - to each other, to a cause, to an ethnic group, to a city, to a nation - and the hopes and fears that accompany these bonds.' It couldn't be put any better.

As they are their own cinematographers, it's inevitable that the odd shot of them together has been pre-planned, as the camera would have to have been placed (perhaps on a tripod) in advance. But such details should not distract from the poignancy of the love story and the harrowing nature of the ordeals that each has had to endure in their beleaguered countries. Editor Will Hewitt has done a magnificent job (with assistance from Tanya Singh) in piecing together video footage, voicemails, and texts from the couple's 13-year archive, although care was taken not to show anything too graphic from Habak's coverage of the siege of Aleppo. The development of the bond between the strangers who had chanced upon each other online is established with particular delicacy, with various avian nicknames conveying how its strength caught both Habak and Boulos by surprise.

By all accounts, Boulos only informed her mother that her spouse was a Syrian Muslim before she saw the film. This itself says much about the worlds from which the pair came and one suspects similar complications will continue to beset them when uncertainty is an everyday reality. But one can only wish them and their countries well, as they have deserved a little peace and love.