Popstar -- Never Stop Never Stopping

Plot: Conner (Andy Samberg) and  his two friends form Owen(Jorma Taccone) and Lawrence (Akiva Schaffer) form a boy band. Afterwhile they get in a fight and Conner begins a hugely successful solo career. Conner gets all the trappings of stardom and then becomes an asshole to his old friends and everyone else. After while his stardom fades and Conner has to deal with it. The film is cut like a documentary that is intercut with interviews with music types from Ringo to Simon Cowell. [imdb]    [photos]

Review: Popstar is a comedy and a satire. It pokes fun at the music business and the culture of celebrity. There isn't much plot or character development is a simple sitcom story that is mined for jokes, including some subtle jokes. It is refreshingly free from potty humor -- though there are a lot of penis jokes, and a very funny missing penis joke.

Some of it was very funny, but it is pretty forgettable too. It was always interesting, and mostly fun-to-watch. It would have been better if the characters were a little deeper. 

Cast: Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer who form the music/comedy group Lonely Island

Directed by: Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone

Written by: Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer

The Music: Many songs by Lonely Island; some very funny.

The Visuals: They had a big enough budget to all the scenes they needed. The big venue shows look good. 

Rating: 2.5 stars: At the theater, I liked it well enough for 3 stars. On the other hand, it is devoid of serious ideas and interesting relationships, but it had funny parts. 

 

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The Nice Guys (2016)

Plot: In 1977 Los Angeles, two private eyes, Jackson (Russell Crowe) and Holland (Ryan Gosling), search for the cast of a pornographic art movie before they are killed by unknown thugs. Holland's daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) tags along. They criss-cross LA with parties, meetings, car chases, and shoot-outs.   [imdb]    [photos]

Review: The Nice Guys is both a detective movie and a spoof of a detective movie. It emphasizes exaggerated characters instead of a high joke count. The plot mocks the twists of thrillers, and it sets-up humorous sitcom scenes.

I liked Russell Crowe, and he commanded the scenes that he was in. Ryan Gosling played an unlikeable character, and I didn't care for him. I don't know if it was the writing or the acting. Angourie Rice's character provided the lightness to the movie and gave it personality. I am certain we will see the fifteen year old in a more movies.

I was entertained but some parts dragged. They achieved a high body count, but most of the fighting not bloody. There was one scene where they come up an elevator into a gun fight, and they just stay in the elevator and go down without people seeing them. Pretty funny.  I did not care for the political parts or trying to blame crime on the auto industry. 

Cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice 

Directed by: Shane Black

Written by: Shane Black and Anthony Bagarozzi

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The Music: 70's oldies with drum-heavy orchestral music during the action sequences. I wish it was all 70's disco. You can skip Kiss and America.

The Visuals: The outdoor scenes of LA were great and the initial shots at Holland's house impressed me.  The action scenes are just OK. 

Rating: 2.5 stars: Kind of fun to watch. 

 

More: The Nice Guys was based on a true story! From Wikipedia:

Most of the interjected humor for the plot are based on the true events of Jay Joseph, a Marine Corps veteran who also worked as a private investigator and mole while stationed in Beaufort, South Carolina in the mid-to-late 1990s. Producer Joel Silver had briefly met Joseph while he was performing contract work at Silver's Auldbrass Plantation estate in 1999. Joseph's adventures as a young, new investigator, paralleled with his tenacity as a Marine, seemed to always lead to him being placed in comical - albeit dangerous - situations. Silver always thought that some of these events would be great fodder for a detective plot. Some of these stories, simply through word of mouth, were also used in the 2005 film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, written by Shane Black, who also wrote The Nice Guys. One quote in particular for this movie, ''You're the world's worst detective'', was a line that was actually spoken by Joseph's younger sister after he told her a story about sleeping with a woman that he was supposed to be conducting surveillance on for adultery.

Even More: Writer Shane Black is responsible for Iron Man 3 and the Lethal Weapon movies.

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