I have been a fan of Andy Samberg for a really long time. I first found about him in the movie, Hot Rod, and prior to that I had never seen him in anything although he was part of SNL for a while.

This film is basically a parody film of all the musical biopic documentary whatever you call them. I don't think anyone was offended because many of the people that he is pretty directly making fun of like Justin Bieber and Justin Timberlake are actually in the movie, along with a TON of other cameos. He certainly has done his networking very well because everyone from Ringo Starr to 50-Cent make appearances in this movie.

It follows the life of a boy band called Style Boyz and after a nasty breakup regarding credit being paid to one of the members, Conner (Samberg) emerges as a solo star and his arrogance starts to get the best of him. His career starts to falter as his solo project, without the help of the other members of Style Boyz is flopping on the charts.

Whatever, right? The songs are hilarious and include such amazing songs as "Mona Lisa" where he calls the world-famous painting stupid and that she was the "world's original basic bitch." Another love song has the verse "She says she wants me to FK her the way the US government FKed Bin Laden."

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Conner-4Real, as his solo act is called, is completely oblivious to the fact that his new songs are not resonating with the public and all of his entourage are a bunch of "yes men" who will not tell him otherwise, except for his childhood friend "Kid Contact" who is his former band mate from Style Boyz (played by Jorma Taccone, who consequently actually is a childhood friend of Andy Samberg's.) The fact that Kid Contact is telling him the truth actually causes problems that eventually lead to him leaving the band as Connor starts seeing his empire crumble and no matter how he tries to fix it with ridiculous media stunts, something always happens the mess it up.

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The absurd songs and even absurd-er costumes and stage presentations are kind of a glimpse into what actual pop shows are like and just as in true in real life, the audience eats it up. One of my favorite lines in the movie is actually very true for a lot of extremely popular popstars and that is "Nobody gives a shit who writes the songs" ... I might be a little bit wrong about the wording but it is so true. Most of the songs that become pop sensations were NOT even written by said performer. It's true across the board.

To be honest I think it takes a certain type of person to enjoy this film as it might be a bit too juvenile for many moviegoers and that is reflected in the extremely disappointing box-office results for this film as it failed (by a long ways) to make back the $20 million budget. I laughed a bunch but didn't think it was exemplary or anything. I think you have to have a sense of humor like me and also be a bit jaded towards the pop music industry in order to like it. Overall, i think it is worth seeing... just don't try to take it seriously.

6 / 10

Name: Popstar - Never Stop Never Stopping (film): Silly and fun
Item: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping
Author: @gooddream

Glad you watched this one. I'm a huge music nerd, much more so than films and found this to be a good mocking of much of the ridiculousness of the modern era of music. One of those movies that is funnier the more you know about current music controversies. I think my favorite bit is how they parody the U2 controversy (where a copy of their album was sent out automatically and without consent to everyone on iTunes prompting a big backlash) by having Conner's album distributed to smart appliances. The idea of my fridge or toaster playing a bunch of music I didn't want just makes me laugh and also somehow doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility. Glad you took my recommendation. Not to shabby of a way to spend two hours.

6 / 10

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