Quick Picks: “Nick and Norah,” “Nights in Rodanthe”

“Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” (Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Ari Graynor, Alexis Dziena)

“I will not be a goody bag at your pity party,” Norah (a quirk-perfect Dennings) curtly informs heartsick Nick (the awkwardly hilarious Cera) in the self-consciously hip but pithy “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist,” and so begins one of the most smart, sweet and satisfying big-screen teen couplings to date. The meet cute unfolds thusly: Newly dumped by his sexpot ex Tris (Dziena), Nick and his queercore band The Jerk-Offs set out for a gig at a dive Big Apple bar. He meets Norah, who’s babysitting her perpetually smashed pal (Graynor), and various hijinks – some funny, a few contrived, one disgusting – ensue. But the disconnected plot matters little: the dialogue is snappy yet believable (take that, “Juno”), the soundtrack is indie perfection and the chemistry crackles between Cera, Jedi master of the bashful zinger, and a sarcastic, smokin’ Dennings. Here’s a pity party worth crashing.

Grade: B-

“Nights in Rodanthe” (Diane Lane, Richard Gere, Viola Davis)

Nothing ruins a pair of subtle but heart-wrenching performances – here delivered by Lane, faultlessly vulnerable as always, and a surprisingly poignant Gere – like schmaltz. And too many scenes in “Nights in Rodanthe” are littered with big, steaming piles of the stuff. That’s hardly surprising – nobody does gag-me melodrama like Nicholas Sparks – but it’s disheartening to those of us itching for a fresh Lane-Gere romance. (Remember “Unfaithful”? Chemistry doesn’t get hotter.) Still, these big-screen vets manage to develop characters that transcend the so-bad-Hallmark-wouldn’t-print-it dialogue. Lane is Adrienne Willis, a wife and mother with a crumbling marriage who escapes to Outer Banks, N.C., to tend to a friend’s (Davis) seaside inn. She finds a kindred spirit in the visibly damaged Dr. Paul Flanner (Gere), and the two stumble into a tentative, life-changing mid-life romance. The manipulative ending’s over-the-top horrible, but it doesn’t get better than Gere and Lane. Prepare to watch your heart melt into your popcorn.

Grade: C+