Film

Funny sounds

Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping

by It’s been nine years since the comedy trio Lonely Island—Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer—made its cinematic debut with the now cult fave Hot Rod. Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping gives them a chance to play in their favorite sandbox: the music world. The results are what feel like the first fully realized Lonely Island movie. Given how damn funny the movie is, let’s hope there are many more to follow. All three members of the Lonely Island contribute as writers and performers, while Taccone and Schaffer handle directing chores. The movie goes along the mockumentary route, clearly spoofing all of those bio films from the likes of Justin Bieber, the Jonas Brothers and Katy Perry. Samberg headlines as Conner 4 Real, a former member of the boy band/rap group the Style Boyz, who has gone his own way with a successful solo career. After that initial success, Conner’s latest solo album is tanking—Rolling Stone rated it a shit emoji—and his career handling has entered the panic phase. He goes on tour with an opening act that’s better than him. He gets sponsored by appliances that play his music when you operate them. And he basically sells out like a whore. A good chunk of the movie features what Lonely Island does best—silly parody songs. “Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song)” has Conner reminiscing about a girl who wants him to do her with the military efficiency that was in force when the U.S. Navy SEALS shot Bin Laden in the head. “Equal Rights” is Conner’s sad attempt to ally himself with the LGBT community that has him subliminally reinforcing his heterosexuality throughout the song. The film revels in the random and weird, including a sequence where Conner has to sign somebody’s dick through a limo window—a dick that, according to many stories on the

internet, belongs to the film’s producer, Judd Apatow—and a wedding proposal gone bad when the wolves supplied by PartyWolves.com become agitated by Seal’s singing voice. A great running gag riffs on the likes of Danger Mouse and Daft Punk, with Conner’s DJ, former Style Boyz member Owen (Taccone, in his best screen role yet), wearing a cumberBob Grimm some helmet that shoots out blinding light and a roar akin to Godzilla’s. bgrimm@ There’s also the final Style Boyz member, newsreview.com Lawrence (Schaffer) who left the group in a rancorous split and became a farmer (perhaps 4 a poke at former R.E.M. drummer Bill Berry). Some of the movie’s best moments involve him being interviewed in his shed among his drab woodwork. Other players include the great Tim Meadows as Conner’s shifty manager, Bill Hader in a quick but welcomed cameo, and Chris Redd as Conner’s wild-eyed opening act, Hunter, who may or may not have orchestrated a gag that made it look like Conner has no dick. Yes, there’s a lot of dick humor in this film. This film might be the all-time king for dick humor. There’s also a blessed appearance by the one-and-only Michael Bolton. The members of Lonely Island are so cool they’ve made Michael Bolton cool. Michael Bolton. Samberg finally gets a worthy follow up to Hot Rod, and he is on-the-mark funny for the film’s entire running time. Taccone, who rocked it as Chaka in Land of the Lost, shows off his versatility as the film’s funny emotional core. The big surprise is Schaffer, coming out of the shadows of Lonely Island to show off some major comic timing and acting chops. Sadly, I just saw a box office report that shows Popstar is going to bomb, big time, so there you have it. Somebody makes a comedy that’s funny from beginning to end, and they get their ass kicked by a bunch of sewerdwelling turtles. Hey, if it’s turtles you are looking for, Popstar features a turtle prominently. Yes, it’s a barfing turtle with a serious bone disorder, but it’s a turtle all the same. Big box office or not, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping will be regarded as a beloved look at a music world gone completely nuts. Years from now, people who passed on this in the theaters will catch it on TV and give it some life. Ω

“Don’t switch the  blade on the guys in  shades, oh no.”

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4Captain America: Civil War This is a nice blast of superhero fun that finds a diplomatic way to include many Marvel favorites, even introducing a few characters to the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe, without feeling crowded or rushed. Front and center, there’s Steve Rogers (former Human Torch Chris Evans), a.k.a. Captain America, still having bro issues when it comes to the Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). Cap wants to back up his former best friend, but the guy committed some pretty shady acts while brainwashed, some of them very hard to defend. Captain America has to make some hard choices. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) thought Age of Ultron sucked for more than the obvious reasons. On top of being kind of boring, it left death and destruction in its wake, as did the far more exciting original The Avengers. World leaders want to put the Avengers in check, using them as a sort of alternative to nuclear weapons. Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr., still owning it) suffering a crisis of conscience, agrees to the proposed accord. Rogers thinks it’s bullshit and won’t sign. This works as a fine setup for an eventual battle between Iron Man and Captain America, where both sides have compelling reasons to fight.

2The Do-Over The second film in the Adam Sandler Netflix era after the horrible The Ridiculous 6 is still pretty bad moviemaking, but it’s a step in the right direction. Director Steven Brill made two of the better Sandler vehicles, Little Nicky and Mr. Deeds, and their third pairing has its moments. That’s thanks in large part to the pairing of Sandler and an effective David Spade, who is cast against type as Charlie, a nerd looking for new start on life. Sandler plays Max, who shows up at their high school reunion, takes pity on Charlie, and fakes both of their deaths so that they can smoke joints and drink for the rest of their lives. The plot isn’t that simple, and the two wind up being pursued by a killer in a fairly funny homage to Die Hard. The film is put together better than most of the later Sandler comedies, and it packs quite a few good laughs. Unfortunately, it also veers into overkill way too many times, and the gross stuff feels discordant and just wrong. Still, I liked the characters, and the film classes up a bit at the halfway mark when Paula Patton enters the picture. She has a fight with Kathryn Hahn that’s one of the better smackdowns in a movie this summer. The movie doesn’t work as a whole, but it does show that Sandler and Spade are a good screen duo when in the hands of a semi-capable director. Also, it has Natasha Leggero in it, and that’s always a good thing. (Available for streaming on Netflix as part of Sandler’s straight-to-Netflix movie series.)

1The Huntsman: Winter’s War When Kristen Stewart made out with the director of Snow White and the

Huntsman, plans for a sequel starring her were scrapped, and a whole new plan featuring her costar and budding movie giant Chris Hemsworth (Thor!) were hatched. What producers didn’t realize at the time is that Hemsworth basically sucks whenever he’s doing anything other than playing Thor. Blackhat, In the Heart of the Sea, Vacation, and now this mighty slice of hell are proof of that. While Snow White was no creative party, it was a tolerable misfire. This is a star-studded absolute mess. It’s a worthless slog of a sequel/prequel. Charlize Theron returns as the evil Ravenna, with Emily Blunt and Jessica Chastain joining the sad party. And, of course, you have Thor on hand as the Huntsman, the most useless, banal role this guy has taken on in his mostly useless and banal career.

4The Jungle Book Jon Favreau’s delightful and funny take on the Rudyard Kipling’s tale of a boy raised by wolves is a winner. A young boy raised in the jungle is pursued by a pissed-off tiger (Idris Elba) who had his face burned by a human when he was young. When plans to leave for a human village are rudely interrupted, Mowgli (newcomer Neel Sethi) winds up staying in the jungle longer than he planned, and he must keep wearing the same pair of red baggy shorts. He encounters Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), an evil temptress snake, and other perils while building a special friendship with a big bear. And, as far as I could see, he never stops to wash those red shorts. A swim in the river doesn’t count. You need detergent. Bill Murray is, indeed, a masterstroke of vocal casting as Baloo, the big bear who befriends Mowgli on his extended jungle trek. Casting Christopher Walken as King Louie, the Kong-sized master of all apes in the jungle, actually tops the Murray casting feat. It gives Favreau’s film an opportunity to become truly weird, very funny, and even a little scary. The highlight comes when Walken’s King Louie, portrayed with undertones of Brando’s Colonel Kurtz, suddenly busts out “I Wanna Be Like You.”

4The Lobster This is as brutal a satire you will ever see. Writer-director Yorgos Lanthimos gives us a world where being single is so frowned upon, you will be transformed into the animal of your choice if you don’t find a partner in an allotted time. Colin Farrell stars as David, a recently dumped man who must stay at a hotel with his brother, who is also his dog, and find a new mate, or become a lobster. He eventually finds himself living in the woods with the leftover single people, who must dodge daily hunting expeditions by people looking to extend their time before animal transformation (they earn extra days for every single person they bag). David eventually meets Short Sighted Woman (Rachel Weisz) among the singles, and he finds himself needing to make some big decisions on how to start a relationship with her. The film is intentionally drab in its look, with all of the actors delivering their lines with nearly no emotion. The effect is just plain nasty, a scathing indictment on a society that puts too much pressure on individuals to become couples. It’s often extremely funny, with an equal amount of necessary unpleasantness.

3The Nice Guys Shane Black, director of the classic Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and the very good Iron Man 3, returns to film noir with The Nice Guys, a grimy detective story starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. The movie is good. Just good. It’s often so good, it’s painful to witness the moments that don’t work. Crowe plays Jackson Healy, an L.A. loser who takes punching requests from people. Folks pay him to rough up child molesters, for the most part. He gets an assignment from Amelia (Margaret Qualley), who wants him to pay a visit to private detective Holland March (Gosling), a visit that turns out to be hilariously infused with comic violence. Holland and Jackson wind up working on a case together, one that involves Amelia, a dead porn star, and a gun for hire named John Boy (Matt Bomer, relishing the chance to be super nasty). When Gosling and Crowe are allowed to go off, the movie purrs on all cylinders. It’s when Black’s script (co-written with Anthony Bagarozzi) leads to a conspiracy involving Amelia’s mother, played by Kim Basinger, that it stalls out. That’s mainly because Basinger is tone-deaf in this film. She doesn’t seem to know what kind of movie she is in, and her line delivery is woefully over-thetop. In short, she’s blazingly terrible in her every scene. The film gets by thanks to the pairing of Gosling and Crowe, who work very well together.

2X-Men: Apocalypse After scoring a huge critical and box office success with X-Men: Days of Future Past, Bryan Singer’s triumphant return to the franchise, 20th Century Fox wisely brought the director back for this one. However, in a move that induces head scratching, Fox cut the budget for the current installment, while padding the cast and upping the action quotient. Actually, this is the studio that screwed up Fantastic Four, so maybe the shortchanging of a reliable franchise isn’t all that surprising. There are portions of the movie that are sloppier than the usual Singer offerings, and quite a few moments have cut-rate CGI. The movie alternates between looking great to looking super bad. The flaws eventually pile up, and while there are some nice, enjoyable stretches, it’s a bit of a mess in the end—despite powerful work from Michael Fassbender as Magneto and new-to-the-franchise Oscar Isaac as the menacing villain Apocalypse. Before the opening credits, which look like shit, we get a quick back story for Apocalypse. En Sabah Nur (Isaac), an ancient Egyptian, merges with some sort of ancient mystical being, thus becoming the world’s first mutant, or something like that. He’s then buried under a crushed pyramid for centuries. Cue cheapie opening credits. What follows are too many characters demanding subplots and, ultimately, the worst chapter in the X-Men franchise.

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