It’s really, really, really fucking funny
Look, no one knows if a movie is going to be a hit or not. These days, the only real guarantee is if you can slap the Marvel logo in front of something (and not even that was enough to save the likes of recent Fantastic Four or X-Men incarnations). For as much as film fans lament when the original and idiosyncratic likes of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World fail to connect with the mainstream, it’s not like it comes as a complete surprise when a film like fails to connect, not when even surefire-seeming products of corporate synergy crash in flames.
But man, sometimes a film flops and it just makes no sense. You look at all the elements that went into it, at the talent involved, at the quality of the finished product, and you just wonder, ‘Why did no one show up?’
I don’t know why no one showed up for Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. But now, a year after it tanked at the box office, the film has hit HBO, which means you are out of excuses. It’s time to steal your parents’ password and tune in to one of the best comedies in recent cinema.
For those who missed it (and, statistically speaking, that’s most of you), Popstar is a mockumentary about a former boyband member turned solo superstar Conner4Real (Andy Samberg), whose career takes a sharp downturn with the release of his second studio album. Filled to the breaking point with appearances from musical stars ranging from Questlove to Ringo Starr and featuring a murderers’ row of comic talent including Sarah Silverman, Will Arnett, Tim Meadows, Bill Hader, and more, Popstar bounces between a cutting, laser-accurate satire of modern music and fandom and the broad, bizarre, and often surreal comedy stylings that have come to typify the Lonely Island.
The Lonely Island (a comedy trio consisting of Samberg and Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer. All three wrote and appear in the film, and Taccone and Schaffer co-directed) have been honing their aesthetic across dozens of Digital Shorts on SNL, music videos, albums, and other feature films, and Popstar is a sort of cumulative statement on what these three guys are capable of together and what sets their style of comedy apart from the pack. The Lonely Island humor typically comes from taking a familiar genre or situation, replicating it exactly, only to then push the central concepts to lunatic extremes, and then even further, and then further still, until you end up with something that is either beyond stupid, beyond brilliant, or so stupid that it becomes brilliant.
Like so:
The Lonely Island has taken plenty of stabs at the big screen prior to Popstar, either together or separately, but none of their previous efforts communicated such a pure distillation of their voice or the sweetness that elevates Popstar to something truly special. Hot Rod (directed by Schaffer, starring Samberg and Taccone) is an underrated hoot, but seemed at times to be handcuffed to the saccharine formula you expected from Lorne Michaels in 2006. It’s like the guys were struggling against their own movie to make something specific to themselves.
Meanwhile, MacGruber (directed by Taccone) and The Watch (directed by Schaffer) represent the polar ends of the group’s skillset. MacGruber is their deconstructive, post-narrative approach taken to its sociopathic conclusion, while The Watch was mainstream to a fault, a film that toes that company line to the bitter end and only manages sporadic and infrequent glimmers of the mania and creative spark that fuels their other work. And while Brooklyn 9–9 is a terrific sitcom, and Samberg is frequently terrific on it, there’s a sense of absolute confidence and abandon to his work with the Lonely Island that isn’t often called upon in the more grounded universe of that show.
No, Popstar is the one where it all comes together, the one they’ve been building to all this time. Part of it is that specificity that I mentioned earlier. The Lonely Island have an almost cellular-level understanding of modern music, and so many of the songs they crafted for this film feel like they might have a place on modern radio, only for the lyric to spin off into stranger and sillier place.
Take ‘Finest Girl’, which flows like any number of a million pop-rap songs that clutter our airwaves. Except the song is about, well, listen for yourself (suuuuuuuuuuuuuper NSFW):
Or the group’s epic take-down of the kind of self-aggrandizing ‘empowerment’ ballads popularized by guys like Macklemore. Their riff is so vicious, I hope it made that idiot cry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XScfgezjoN8
That specificity extends to the visual aspect of the movie as well. Brandon Trost has been quietly becoming the secret weapon of the Apatow/post-Apatow comedy school, creating visual canvases that have room for the kind of free-wheeling improv that define this generation of comedy without sacrificing an actual cinematic feel. For Popstar, Trost gives the film a sleek sheen, finding shots that typify the kind of self-mythologizing done by the likes of Katy Perry or Justin Bieber in their own docs. And Trost, Taccone, and Schaffer make great use of the documentary format, recreating the looks of decades past as they chart the evolution of Conner’s music and career. You can sense endless adolescent hours inhaling MTV and VH1 in the exacting nature of the recreations.
But while Popstar is the crowning work of the Lonely Island as satirists (and as comedians, full stop. For as much as I may praise the minutiae and craft of the film, the core of my recommendation is that Popstar is really, really, really fucking funny), what puts it head and shoulders above their other work is the core of sweetness and, gasp, sincerity to Popstar.
In making a movie about a trio of childhood friends who find success only for one to be anointed with a higher degree of stardom than the other two, the Lonely Island give new meaning to the idea of ‘writing what you know’. While the degree to which the emotions surrounding the acrimonious split between Conner’s first band, ‘The Style Boyz’, is meant to be autobiographical is debatable, there’s no hiding that this Lonely Island film is ‘about’ the Lonely Island and about their relationships both professional and personal. There’s an easy camaraderie and chemistry between the guys that’s evident whenever they share a scene together, and the bedrock of the film’s emotional narrative (“emotional narrative” being a strange thing to say in affiliation with a film that features an offscreen flamethrower battle with a giant queen bee) is a celebration of spending time with your friends, enjoying each other’s company and just making cool shit because it’s fun.
It’s enough to give this profoundly, proudly silly film a feeling of real stakes, which in turn gives the gleefully stupid final song a feeling of real triumph (in that way, Popstar is not dissimilar from the other Judd Apatow-produced parody-musical flop co-starring a scene-stealing Tim Matheson, Walk Hard, which so nailed the beats of a biopic that it A) rendered the ‘serious’ entries in that genre unwatchable and B) ended up being sincerely moving despite the sheer ridiculousness of what it was doing [WHY DON’T YOU PEOPLE GO SEE THESE FUCKING MOVIES?!?!? TIM MATHESON ASKS FOR SO LITTLE.).
And maybe all of the above is why Popstar didn’t catch on. Maybe it’s time for the Lonely Island to admit that the kind of thing they do, while hugely successful in 2–3 minutes videos on YouTube, just isn’t going to translate to the kind of mainstream theatrical success that you see for someone like a Ferrell or a Schumer or a Rogen.
And that’s fine. Really it is. Because movies are an industry where no one can ever be sure what’s going to hit, it might be better to just hone your voice to the strongest it can possibly be and trust that audiences will find you, regardless of the medium or distribution you find. Popstar suggests that all three of these guys are operating at the height of their powers and only stand to get even better.
So, until we get the next thing, excuse while I steal my Dad’s HBO password and watch Popstar 40 million times over the next few weeks. I hope you’ll join me.