Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping Review

<p>Within the various generations of <em>Saturday Night Live<&sol;em>&comma; there was a comedy trio known as The Lonely Island&period; Their schtick centered around what was called an &&num;8220&semi;SNL Digital Short&&num;8221&semi; which featured many original songs including &&num;8220&semi;Dick in a Box&&num;8221&semi;&comma; which featured <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm1676221&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;tt&lowbar;ov&lowbar;st&lowbar;sm">Andy Samberg<&sol;a>&comma; the star of the trio&comma; and <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0005493&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;nv&lowbar;sr&lowbar;1">Justin Timberlake<&sol;a> sporting outfits and haircuts from the mid 80&&num;8217&semi;s as well as boxes over their&&num;8230&semi;you get the picture&period; After blowing up the internet and re-invigorating SNL for millions of people&comma; they went on to make three albums&colon; &&num;8220&semi;Incredibad&&num;8221&semi;&comma; which was the 8th best selling rap album the year it was released&comma; and &&num;8220&semi;Turtleneck &amp&semi; Chain&&num;8221&semi; and &&num;8220&semi;The Wack Album&&num;8221&semi;&comma; which received similar popularity&period; In between all that came <em>Hot Rod<&sol;em>&comma; a cult film that only added to their genius&period; With their latest film&comma;<em> Popstar&colon; Never Stop Never Stopping&comma;<&sol;em> we have the next logical step in their career&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Lonely Island &lpar;Andy Samberg&comma; <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm1672246&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;tt&lowbar;ov&lowbar;dr">Jorma Taccone<&sol;a>&comma; <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm1676223&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;tt&lowbar;ov&lowbar;dr">Akiva Schaffer<&sol;a>&rpar; have got back together to create their version of <em>This Is Spinal Tap<&sol;em>&period; You could call it this generation&&num;8217&semi;s <em>Walk Hard<&sol;em>&period; You could probably call it many things&comma; but bad isn&&num;8217&semi;t one of them&period; This movie succeeds where other comedies don&&num;8217&semi;t&period; It manages to understand that jokes are funnier when they&&num;8217&semi;re connected to something you care about&period; <em>Popstar<&sol;em> isn&&num;8217&semi;t just about a few people&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s about an entire culture and The Lonely Island are able to almost capture it all in 86 minutes&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;107819" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-107819" style&equals;"width&colon; 1287px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-107819" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03151934&sol;MV5BMTc4OTE0MjQ2NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMTQwMjk5ODE&percnt;40&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;&lowbar;SX1857&lowbar;SY859&lowbar;&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Popstar" width&equals;"1287" height&equals;"859" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-107819" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Popstar&colon; Never Stop Never Stopping&comma;<&sol;em> Universal Pictures&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Samberg stars as Conner4Real&comma; the Justin Bieber-esque musician that proclaims that ever since he was born&comma; he was dope&period; The movie has no qualms with superimposing a baby&&num;8217&semi;s face onto a little person in order to show his character&&num;8217&semi;s genius at infancy&period; We&&num;8217&semi;re introduced into his entourage that includes his &&num;8220&semi;best friend&&num;8221&semi; and ex-bandmate from &&num;8220&semi;Style Boyz&comma;&&num;8221&semi; Owen &lpar;Taccone&rpar;&period; Owen has been emasculated by the everlasting fame of Conner4Real&period; Between being relegated to standing behind a podium while the beats are played on an iPod instead of actually performed&comma; to wearing a Deadmau5-type head that emits an incredibly bright light and the sound that the tripods make from 2005&&num;8217&semi;s <em>War of the Worlds&comma;<&sol;em> Conner&&num;8217&semi;s humiliation to those around him knows no bounds&comma; including to himself&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Popstar<&sol;em> gets a lot of things right&period; While The Lonely Island are vaguely familiar about what makes the music industry humorous&comma; they&&num;8217&semi;re able to break into the feature length format to give the subject the amount of time it truly deserves&period; From the artificiality of EDM and the vapid recklessness of modern rap&comma; the trio possesses an insight and enough respect from the people actually in the industry to portray an outlandish version of reality without crossing over into outright stupidity&period; That isn&&num;8217&semi;t to say that there aren&&num;8217&semi;t &&num;8220&semi;stupid&&num;8221&semi; jokes&period; An on-going joke of a bird shitting on someone may go on for a little long&comma; but they&&num;8217&semi;ve earned a little stupidity along the way&period; At the very least&comma; it makes up for it with intelligent writing and songs&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>That intelligence doesn&&num;8217&semi;t just stem from the writing&period; The amount of insight into the music industry is insane&period; With the amount of cameos in the film &lpar;mostly music related&rpar;&comma; you understand the credibility that these three carry within the entertainment industry and that they&&num;8217&semi;re able to essentially have celebrities that never seem particularly self-aware actually seem self-aware&period; The movie doesn&&num;8217&semi;t just stop at satirizing the music industry either&period; The trio digs their nails into paparazzi and general fandom among people as well&comma; each working to a certain extent&comma; but never taking focus away from the main subject&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;107820" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-107820" style&equals;"width&colon; 1857px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-107820" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03151915&sol;MV5BMTY1NDQzNzQ5OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzUxODQ5ODE&percnt;40&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;&lowbar;SX1857&lowbar;SY859&lowbar;&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Popstar" width&equals;"1857" height&equals;"781" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-107820" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Popstar&colon; Never Stop Never Stopping&comma;<&sol;em> Universal Pictures&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><em>Popstar<&sol;em> and its advertising displayed a stupid film on par with one of my guilty pleasures&comma; <em>Hot Rod<&sol;em>&period; The reality is that it is the smarter&comma; funnier movie&period; It would be unfair to say <em>Popstar<&sol;em> is a 10 minute sketch stretched out to feature-length&period; By adding depth to these archetypes&comma; you are able to notice the detail that goes into the thought process of their actions&period; Their dumb actions make a large amount of sense&&num;8230&semi;if you&&num;8217&semi;re that character making those decisions&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Popstar<&sol;em> is the smartest dumb movie since <em>Dumb and Dumber<&sol;em>&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s the funniest movie since 2014&&num;8217&semi;s <em>What We Do in the Shadows<&sol;em>&comma; which just so happens to be a mockumentary&comma; but that&&num;8217&semi;s not why it&&num;8217&semi;s great&period; You could label this film many things and you&&num;8217&semi;d probably be right with a lot of them&period; This film is fun&comma; ridiculous&comma; crass&comma; smart&comma; dumb&semi; we could go on&period; But it&&num;8217&semi;s most undeniably The Lonely Island&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em>Want more on Popstar&colon; Never Stop Never Stopping&quest; Stop by the Film Fallout Podcast <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;film-fallout-podcast-18-popstar-never-stop-never-stopping&sol;">HERE<&sol;a>&period;<&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;