Lazy Movie Weekend: My brain is a genius

Normally when I sit down for a Lazy Movie Weekend, I watch a movie I've seen so many times I could quote the entire movie to you without having to watch it. I love every movie that I cover in these posts so I've always struggled with the idea of writing one about a movie I'm seeing for the first time. But I also like a challenge and what better way to challenge my movie watching/blogging skills then to let someone else select the movie for me? This weekend's movie was selected by my friend Michael. You might remember him as Bad Shakespeare from a few crossover posts we did previously. Michael is a movie aficionado; he sees all the movies and while we may disagree on Billy Joel, we usually agree on movies. Except La La Land; I'm never going to love La La Land like he does. I'd be the one being interrogated in this SNL sketch because of my feelings towards this movie. I'm a monster.

Regardless of our differing opinions on that movie, I decided to take Michael's suggestion for a LMW post and watch the mockumentary, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. I was not disappointed. I'm not entirely sure what I am when I comes to this movie but disappointed is not involved. I don't know if this movie is for everyone, but I think you should check it out just in case it's exactly for you. It recently premiered on HBO and I hope this will help it become the cult movie it is. With that said, take a walk over to your Aquavision refrigerator, let it play you a song, and grab some carrots (cut into one of nine shapes), join me for Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.

• At it's heart, this is a movie about friendship. Thank goodness it begins with a "before they were famous" friendship montage. If I'm ever famous, I would like there to be a "before they were famous" friendship montage made of me. Everyone needs this kind of montage to remind them of who they truly are.
• The Style Boyz - I want them to be a real band who goes on tour so I can go to the show and relive my adolescence except with humor and alcohol. Akiva Schaffer is my favorite Lonely Island member and slowly steals this movie from Andy Samberg beginning in the Style Boys videos.
• So many cameos! If you blink you'll miss every member of the SNL cast from Samberg's years to the present plus all of the musicians: Questlove, Nas, Carrie Underwood, Usher, Mariah Carey. Ringo Starr is in this movie! Genius.
• Conner4Real is loosely based on Jutin Bieber and it's hard not to think of the Biebs throughout most of the first part of the movie. Samberg nails the narcissistic, clueless pop star perfectly. It's like he's been practicing for this movie his whole life.
• No thank you Adam Levine cameo. At least he's not wearing a deep V-neck shirt like always. 
• Mariah Carey talking about the Conner4Real song "Humble" is one of the funniest things Mariah Carey has done in her entire life.
• Tim Meadows! I told you every SNL cast member is in this movie. Tim Meadows needs to be in more movies. He's a national treasure.
• Two new job goals: umbrella wrangler and perspective manipulator. I may have had to pause the movie to get myself under control after the perspective manipulator was explained.
• So the songs. This wouldn't be a movie about a popstar if there weren't songs. The first new single Conner releases ("surprise releasing it on Thursday at noon) is called "Equal Rights Song." It's a parody of the Macklemore song "Same Love" and is so laughingly terrible you can't stop watching. I put the Lonely Island guys up there with Weird Al on their ability to write great parody songs. Pink, on a unicorn at one point, makes a cameo in this song and you can't help but love her more.
•  Emma Stone! Can she be a popstar for real? "Costco samples like a motherfucker" should be everyone's catchphrase.
• When we return to Lawrence, now living on a farm, we're basically watching every episode of CSI that involved the origins of a serial killer. So perfect.
• Aquaspin - this is probably our future. Our appliances will come preloaded with crap music and then eventually try to kill us. It's like a terrible U2 album meets Maximum Overdrive. 
• Paula (the great Sarah Silverman): "We'd like to get to the point where Connor is everywhere, like oxygen or gravity or clinical depression."
•  CMZ! I laughed so hard at these segments. They all nail the TMZ impersonations. At the end, when they get sad about their lives until they can show James Franco at a Denny's? So funny.
• Joan Cusack as Conner's mom! I love her. She should probably be in every movie.
• Ditto to Justin Timberlake. Describing his catering business and how Conner likes carrots in nine different shapes. If you don't like Justin Timberlake we probably can't be friends.
• "Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song)" so not my jam but a bizarrely wonderful moment on tour with Conner4Real.
• "Things in My Jeep" - Lawrence's rap song is the kind of rap song I'd probably write. 
• "Thirty Seconds to Mars is the name of the band. It's not a fact." - Harry (I snorted when he said this.)
• And then the story returns to the downfall of Conner, the rise of Hunter the Hungry, and the plan Owen has to "parent trap" Conner and Lawrence to get the Style Boyz back together. There might also be an appearance by Seal, a wolf attack, and a short sequence with Imogen Poots during this chaos.
• The Donkey Roll! I can totally see this being a thing at middle school dances. 
• "There's not fun in collating." Harry is the best.
• Was that Doyle at the turtle funeral? 
• "We're three Tom Pettys AND the Heartbreakers." Lawrence
• And then we end at an awards show called the Poppies. It's a song called "Incredible Thoughts" and it features Michael Bolton, a person dressed as a fish, and the kind of stream of consciousness song writing that would probably be called insane if Lawrence had become a serial killer rather than rejoining the pop band he once belonged to. It's amazing. And yes, that was Weird Al.

In the great tradition of Christopher Guest movies, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping joins the list of my favorite mockumentaries. It's ridiculous, hilarious, and so over the top. You have to see it to believe it.

Have a movie you want to get the Lazy Movie Weekend treatment? Let me know by posting in the comments. I'll do my best to cover it in a future post.


Popstar poster