Spinal Tap was rightly praised for skewering the music industry when it came out. Rob Reiner’s mockumentary has been the source for my giddy excitement for Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (I LOVE that tagline). Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island deliver a worthy to successor to the gold standard of the music mockumentary, delivering jokes at a relentless pace, crafting catchy tunes, and really delivering some strong indictments of the current state of excess in the industry.
Samberg plays Conner4Real, a Bieber/Timberlake lovechild and face of the Style Boyz, a group formed with his best friends from childhood, Owen and Lawrence. Owen (Jorma Taccone) sticks around the tour, DJing Connor’s shows, but Lawrence (Akiva Schaffer) and Conner had a giant falling out, with Lawrence choosing farming as a solace. Things come to a head when Conner’s 2nd album, CONNquest, fails miserably. Conner is forced to take on a hotter opening act (Chris Redd) and deal with real disappointment for the first time, worrying his manager Tony? (Tim Meadows, former member of Tony!Toni!Tone!Tony?) and publicist Paula (Sara Silverman).
The Lonely Island injected life into Saturday Night Live when they came on the scene. Their Digital Shorts were as slickly produced and enjoyable as anything since SNL’s Will Ferrell Era. Popstar is a great movie follow-up for the group, since it allows them time to craft a series of very catchy, very disturbing pop songs. The soundtrack to this movie will be as exciting for me to experience as the movie itself. These guys walk an amazingly tight rope: the lyrics are clever and biting (a song about equal rights that Conner inserts “I’m not gay” into constantly), they are also damn catchy and fun as hell for dancing, and the concert settings are impeccably crafted to sell the songs. When Conner goes out to sing a new song, you pop out of your chair, excited for what you might see: a deadmau5-type helmet, fascinating costume changes, or guitar playing men in fish costumes. If you liked the Digital Shorts, Popstar is a string of equally strong ones that you will quote back and forth to your friends.
Popstar also has some strong stuff to say about the state of the music industry (though the plot is pretty standard: dealing with failure). The movie’s at its most skewering when modernizing what Spinal Tap was discussing. Connor puts his entire life on camera (his publicist says she’s trying to make him like air, just everywhere), including post-masturbation satisfaction, and when the world doesn’t want to see him, he doesn’t quite know how to deal with that sort of criticism. A TMZ knockoff with will Arnett nails the vapid and unfunny joke telling of Harvey Levin as his cackling yes men. Yes Men in general get skewered a few times, as well as how many weird workers are on artists payrolls. In general, Popstar points out how a life constantly in the spotlight blurrs what you identify as friends and what are cold calculating leeches. It also has hella fun showing off the excess Conner gets to show off, particularly with a poorly chosen wedding proposal.
Andy Samberg is fine as the titular Popstar. Samberg has basically been playing Connor since SNL. He and his buddies, Jorma (who is very good here in my opinion) and Akiva, basically get to play versions of their real life friendships, with Samberg hogging the spotlight and those guys playing background fiddles (like the Apatow boys on This Is the End). Of the cavalcade of supporting players, Sara Silverman and Tim Meadows are decent as Connor’s support system, partially bloodsucking, but also partially good people. If there is a breakout here, it’s Chris Redd, playing an ultra intense Shug Knight/DMX combo. Redd’s got some terrifying eyes.
Time will tell if Popstar can have long legs. I think the movie has all the goods to be remembered for a long time: a catchy soundtrack, abouding jokes, and an endless supply of cameos. Seriously, how did Samberg land all these people? Half of my audience would whisper at each new cameo “Aw hell no, how’d that boy pull that off???” Maybe Justin Timberlake should get a producer credit; I’m sure he helped a bit, 4real.