POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING (US - 2016) Directed by Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone. Written by Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone. Cast: Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer, Sarah Silverman, Tim Meadows, Maya Rudolph, Imogen Poots, Joan Cusack, Chris Redd, Edgar Blackmon, James Buckley, Justin Timberlake, Emma Stone, Will Arnett, Chelsea Peretti, Mike Birbiglia, Eric Andre, Bill Hader, Kevin Nealon, Paul Scheer, Derek Mears, Will Forte, Weird Al Yankovic. (R, 87 mins) The music mockumentary is best represented by the 1984 classic THIS IS SPINAL TAP, though even Christopher Guest and Rob Reiner have cited the 1978 TV special THE RUTLES: ALL YOU NEED IS CASH as its primary influence. The tradition continued in later Guest projects like A MIGHTY WIND and in the early '90s rap mockumentaries CB4 and FEAR OF A BLACK HAT. The latest project from the Lonely Island comedy team of former SNL star Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer, the brains behind numerous viral SNL Digital Shorts like "Jizz in My Pants" and "Dick in a Box," takes aim at the current pop music scene and does a mostly nice job of completely roasting it. Inspired mostly by Justin Bieber but with a generous helping of Kanye West included, Connor Friel, aka Connor4Real (Samberg) is a global pop culture phenomenon, a pop star and ubiquitous social media and tabloid presenc, about to drop his second album, Connquest, the long-awaited follow-up to his record-shattering solo debut Thriller, Also. It's the most anticipated album of the decade from the one-time member of the chart-topping rap trio The Style Boyz, whose biggest hit "The Donkey Roll" made them superstars before disbanding at the end of the boy band heyday when Connor's increased popularity started to keep bandmates Owen, aka Kid Contact (Taccone), and Lawrence, aka Kid Brain (Schaffer) relegated to the background. When a guest verse on "Turn up the Beef," a hit single from a Katy Perry-like diva (Emma Stone) helped launch Connor4Real's solo career, Kid Contact stayed with him as his DJ while Kid Brain released a flop solo single and moved to Colorado to live a quiet, anonymous life as a farmer and woodcarver.
Connquest tanks upon its release, which sends Connor4Real's manager Harry (Tim Meadows) and publicist Paula (Sarah Silverman) into panic mode, securing a promotional partnership with appliance behemoth Aquaspin to have Connor4Real's music constantly blaring from all of their wi-fi-compatible products (remember that U2 debacle?). The backlash is so strong that concert attendance dwindles (thanks in no part to insensitive songs like "Ethpania," the inspiration for which came from Connor noticing that "in Spain, people's S's sound like T.H.'s," and "Equal Rights," a pro-LGBT duet with Pink where all of Connor4Real's lyrics aggressively stress that he's not gay), forcing Harry to bring up-and-coming Hunter the Hungry (Chris Redd) onboard as an opening act. Hunter's presence increases the ticket sales, but Connor4Real is on a downward spiral: his televised-live-on-E! engagement to movie star Ashley Wednesday (Imogen Poots) is marred by wolves mauling guest singer Seal; there's a huge fallout over leaked video from the European tour where he takes a dump in the toilet in the Anne Frank house; a wardrobe malfunction during a concert goes viral when it appears he has no penis; someone's cell phone captures him drunk, starting a fight and getting his ass kicked by Martin Sheen in a sports bar; and he's constantly being overshadowed by the increasing popularity of Hunter the Hungry, whose sets start running long and Connor4Real has to face the realization that even though he's the headliner, nobody's there to see him. All the while, Kid Contact starts feeling more and more marginalized and resorts to PARENT TRAP machinations to encourage a Style Boyz reunion.
A balanced combination of spoof, satire, oddball humor (Bill Hader as a roadie who's a FLATLINERS superfan) and grossout raunch (Connor4Real signing one frantic male fan's dick from the back of his limo after the guy drapes his balls over the half-rolled-down window), POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING does an admirable job of shredding vacuous pop culture figures, annoying trends (Connor4Real goes on tour with an Adam Levine hologram), blasting the fickleness of a fan base (Connor4Real's "Connfidants"), torching industry greed (Paula: "I don't personally like Connor's music, but it makes so many people so much money!"), and taking some merciless shots at the sycophantic media. The periodic cutaways to the TMZ-like bull sessions of the cackling staff at CMZ, who gleefully revel in every Connor4Real misfortune, are absolutely blistering, with Will Arnett doing an absurd and vicious takedown of Harvey Levin, complete with large straws sticking out of an increasingly ridiculous number of cups, mugs, and pitchers as he asks for the most mundane items of "news" ("Does anyone have a pic of James Franco leaving a Denny's?"). As it becomes obvious that the Style Boyz will set aside their differences and triumphantly reunite, POPSTAR loses its caustic edge and gets a lot nicer. But in the first half, where Samberg boldly plays all of Connor4Real's clueless arrogance and megastar entitlement to the hilt--whether he's enjoying the constant reassurance of his entourage of paid enablers and yes-men or callously ignoring the Kubrick-like levels of care that go into the meticulous meal preparations of his devoted and long-suffering personal chef Tyrus Quash (Justin Timberlake)--it has a scathing mean streak and isn't afraid to take some hard-hitting jabs at the artists, the fans, the vapidity of Twitter, and the ubiquity of idiotic catchphrases ("Doink-de-doink!"). Like the protagonists of THIS IS SPINAL TAP, the Style Boyz might be clueless dolts but they're good guys deep down and it's a big-studio summer comedy, so one can't expect something too subversive. It's not about wanting to have bad things happen to Connor4Real, though a further exploration of the public's love of schadenfreude could've provided some more substance. This is bombing hard in theaters, as did the team's HOT ROD (directed by Schaffer and starring Samberg and Taccone, but written by Pam Brady) and Taccone-directed MACGRUBER, but both of those found cult followings later on Netflix. The same seems likely for the often very funny POPSTAR: NEVER STOP NEVER STOPPING.
Short on plot-driven momentum and long on atmosphere and richly-textured characterization, one's gut reaction to INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS may be that it isn't top-tier Coen Bros., but it's still very good. Though written and directed by the Coens, the film belongs just as much to cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, whose contributions earned one of the film's two Oscar nominations (the other was for sound mixing). The Coens and Delbonnel use a muted color palette to bring a snowy, slushy 1961 Greenwich Village to vivid life. Inspired by the real-life Greenwich Village folk fixture Dave Van Ronk, folk singer Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is dealing with the suicide of his performing partner and the tanking of his subsequent solo album. He's homeless, crashing on the couches of area friends, including Jean (Carey Mulligan), who's part of a duo with Llewyn's friend Jim (Justin Timberlake) and is carrying a child that might be Llewyn's or Jim's. Through a series of mishaps, Llewyn's also taking care of a cat that belongs to his academic friends Mitch and Lillian Gorfein (Ethan Phillips, Robin Bartlett). Llewyn's a bit on the misanthropic side and doesn't always set out to be a jerk, but that's usually how he comes off, and the film basically follows him through one week of hassles, arguments, and letdowns, whether it's turning down royalties on a song in favor of the quick payday he needs to pay for Jean's abortion or having to carpool with two other musicians (John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund) to a gig in Chicago that goes horribly awry. In terms of story, it's one of the Coens' slighter efforts, but where it really stands out is capturing the look and feel of a unique place and time, from the work of Delbonnel to the production design to the songwriting (Isaac, in what should've been a star-making performance, performs original songs by T-Bone Burnett and Marcus Mumford). I also liked the recurring visual motif of narrow, claustrophobic hallways and the stunning interior of a massive Fred Harvey restaurant that's almost Kubrickian in its presentation. While not on the level of a FARGO, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, or NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, nor the Oscar magnet that many predicted, INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS feels like one of those films that isn't initially powerful but sticks with you and quietly works on you over time. (R, 105 mins)
BEYOND OUTRAGE (Japan/France - 2012; US release 2013)
After leaving yakuza films behind following his underrated US crossover attempt BROTHER (2001), Japanese filmmaker Takeshi Kitano (VIOLENT COP, SONATINE) spent most of the next decade--except for his 2003 ZATOICHI reboot--in personal art-house projects, most of which didn't connect with his audience. 2010's blood-splattered OUTRAGE was his "give the fans what they want" return to the yakuza genre, and while it possessed an extremely complicated plot that wasn't always easy to follow, it was enormously entertaining in the almost comedic way it kept presenting the same set pieces. You could probably stage a drinking game over how many times a bunch of pissed-off Japanese gangsters would congregate in a room, hurl insults at each other until brawling and gunfire erupted, culminating in someone being obligated to slice off their pinky to atone for their disrespect. The film was such a success in Japan that Kitano has returned with the sequel BEYOND OUTRAGE (or, as the onscreen title reads, OUTRAGE BEYOND). Kitano again stars, under his usual acting alias "Beat Takeshi," as steely, ruthless gangster Otomo, believed dead by his former yakuza associates but actually incarcerated. When a police official and a nightclub hostess are found murdered in a car dragged from the bottom of a river, the police decide they've had enough of the yakuza families overstepping the established boundaries of their cop/criminal arrangement. Going against the wishes of his superiors and colleagues, Detective Kataoka (Fumiyo Kohinata) poses as a dirty cop to get on the good sides of both warring organizations--the Sanno and the Hanabishi. The Sanno are ruled by Kato (Tomokazu Miura), who concedes most of his decision-making to his ambitious young right-hand man Ishihara (Ryo Kase), much to the resentment of the embittered old guard yakuza who don't like that it's all about pressure to meet the bottom line and long for a return to the glory of the good old days ("Fuck hedge funding!" one grumbles). Sensing some discord in the ranks, Kataoka decides to spring Otomo from prison--he's there in part because his former underling Ishihara sold him out--and pull a vintage YOJIMBO by starting a war between the two yakuza clans. Needless to say, much arguing, insults, brawling, and impromptu pinky amputation ensue.
BEYOND OUTRAGE has its moments but it feels too much like a stale retread not just of OUTRAGE, but of other, better Kitano yakuza films in general. As a director, it seems like Kitano's just punching a clock on this one and as an actor, Beat Takeshi is offscreen far too much for what's ostensibly a Beat Takeshi vehicle (he doesn't even appear until 25 minutes in). Most of the violence is confined to the last half hour and it's noticeably more restrained than some of the things seen in the first film. There's so many double and triple crosses and conflicting loyalties that I doubt even Kitano can keep it all straight. Still, when he's the center of attention, he's as much of a badass as ever at 65 (no one twitches more intimidatingly than Beat Takeshi), and it's great fun watching him fearlessly mouth off to powerful crime bosses. But too much of BEYOND OUTRAGE feels like obligation and filler. It's relentlessly talky and it could've easily lost 20-25 minutes and been a much tighter, more exciting thriller instead of the overlong, draggy one it is. There's enough here for die-hard Kitano completists to enjoy and it's not a waste of time by any means (Kitano is smart enough to end it with a great final shot), but ultimately, one OUTRAGE was probably enough. (R, 112 mins)
SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF (UK - 2012; US release 2014)
Anybody remember Mike Figgis? With his melancholy, jazz-and-rain-soaked British noir STORMY MONDAY (1988) to his Hollywood debut INTERNAL AFFAIRS (1990), and the devastating LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1995), which earned Nicolas Cage an Oscar, 1990s Figgis was poised to become one of the decade's top filmmakers. Around the time of 1999's THE LOSS OF SEXUAL INNOCENCE, Figgis seemed to grow bored with conventional storytelling, and 2000's TIMECODE caused a bit of a stir at the time of its release for its unique four-frame split-screen, real-time structure. TIMECODE is the kind of intriguing creative experiment that really only works once, but Figgis beat it to death in the redundant and borderline-unwatchable semi-sequel HOTEL (2002), which no one saw. Figgis has always marched to the beat of his own drum, but since the forgettable Dennis Quaid/Sharon Stone thriller COLD CREEK MANOR--clearly a paycheck gig for the director--bombed in 2003, he's almost completely gone off the mainstream cinema grid, focusing on experimental short films, music videos, and opera documentaries, though he did contribute to the 2003 PBS series THE BLUES and directed one episode of THE SOPRANOS in 2004. Now 66, Figgis has only made two narrative features since COLD CREEK MANOR: 2008's virtually unseen LOVE LIVE LONG, which still hasn't been released in the US, and SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF, which was released in Europe to mostly dismissive reviews two years ago and has only now turned up in the US as a Netflix Instant exclusive. It's a terrible film, insufferably pretentious and unfathomably dull, with a noir-based premise that might've been fun and entertaining in the hands of say, an in-his-prime Brian De Palma, but Figgis is so lost up his own ass that the film is doomed from the very start, opening with a crawl about Karl Marx's "Participation Mystique" and the blurred lines between fact and fiction. Before four minutes even pass, Figgis is already breaking out the BRADY BUNCH squares and a douchebag filmmaker (Eoin Macken) is blathering on about his "film within a film within a film."
Figgis abandons the TIMECODE quadrants around the same time he decides to ditch the notion of a coherent story, as German-born, London-based screenwriter Martin (Sebastian Koch of THE LIVES OF OTHERS) sees his latest script, an erotic thriller, put in the hands of arrogant director Greg (Macken), who casts Martin's daughter Sarah (Rebecca Night) in the lead role. Sarah still lives with her father, who hosts a birthday party for her where he's approached by a French mystery woman named Angelique (Lotte Verbeek of the Showtime series THE BORGIAS), who offers him a joint and disappears. When she's found floating dead in a nearby canal, Martin is a suspect since it also coincides with the 15th anniversary of his actress wife's (Emilia Fox) still-unsolved disappearance. Martin is half-heartedly questioned by rumpled, wheezing detective Bullock (Kenneth Cranham), who seems more interested in getting feedback on his own cop screenplay. Enter Therese (also Verbeek), Angelique's twin sister, who arrives in London to identify the body. Therese stays with Martin and Sarah, leading to dark secrets, sexual tension and still, nothing much happens. Lots of long scenes play out only to be revealed as scenes in Martin's script being filmed by Greg or as re-enactments with different actors in one of the films within the film or as a staging of one of Martin's lectures to his screenwriting class. Professor Figgis frequently halts the action to flash things like "Character Is Plot" and the Webster's definition of "twin" on the screen. At one point, Therese sits down to read Martin's latest script and on the page, it describes her sitting down and reading Martin's latest script. SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF gets so bogged down in endless academic, deconstructionist, meta bullshit that it forgets everything else. There's no mystery, there's no suspense, there's no eroticism, there's no character development...it's just a smug, meandering film-school exercise in anti-cinema that wastes Koch and a very good one-scene performance by Figgis regular Julian Sands as a sarcastically incredulous detective who takes over the case after Martin's criticisms of Bullock's script induce a heart attack in the aging, out-of-shape cop. With cheap production values making it look like a 3:00 am Skinemax offering with less skin and, somehow, even less story, SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF shows the once-relevant Figgis light years removed from the triumph of LEAVING LAS VEGAS and strictly focused on pleasing what's since become his primary audience: Mike Figgis. (Unrated, 107 mins)
There's some intriguing ideas in this occasionally effective but more often muddled horror film that has a hard time deciding what it wants to be. Debuting writer/director Blair Erickson shows some promising technique, knows how to use darkness to his advantage and has a clear knack for delaying reveals to the point of nail-biting agony--plus I'm always a sucker for the inherent unease of instantly disturbing garbled radio transmissions--but the movie's a bit of a mess and once everything is laid out, the finale is too predictable to be the shocking twist that Erickson wants it to be. Predominantly straight narrative but mixing in bits of faux doc and found-footage (ugh...I know), BANSHEE CHAPTER focuses on Anne (Katia Winter of DEXTER and SLEEPY HOLLOW), a reporter investigating the disappearance of her friend James (Michael McMillian of TRUE BLOOD). She has some footage of James ingesting a dose of a liquid drug supposedly used in the US government's top-secret MK Ultra mind control experiments of the 1960s. He got the drug from a source in Colorado and upon ingesting it, immediately senses that "they're coming," and a shadowy figure appears by the window as James' face distorts and his eyes bleed and turn black. Anne's investigation leads her to Colorado where she meets James' source: washed-up '60s counterculture hero and gonzo writer/conspiracy theorist Thomas Blackburn (Ted Levine). Blackburn informs her that the drug doesn't cause hallucinations, but rather, allows the user to become a receiver to see our "alternate reality." All clues point to an abandoned military research station, so the pair hit the road, all the while seeing visions of monstrous figures and hearing a nursery rhyme and gibberish coming from a short-wave numbers station.
Playing a lot like a shaky-cam, road-movie version of Stuart Gordon's FROM BEYOND with the Soy Sauce element of Don Coscarelli's JOHN DIES AT THE END, BANSHEE CHAPTER suffers from a clunky, lugubriously-paced first half that takes forever to get going in a typical post-Ti West slow-burn fashion, and the early found-footage sequences just feel like desperate pandering to make sure the film would be able to find a distributor (Anne even starts out filming her trip in faux-doc style, but Erickson abandons that rather quickly). The film gets a lot of mileage out of a strong performance by Winter and a gregarious one by Levine, playing a character clearly based on Hunter S. Thompson. There are some undeniably chilling moments scattered about, especially the long sequence where Anne is in a lab at the abandoned military facility and looks back eight minutes on the security footage and sees that something has entered the room and must still be in there with her. But too much of BANSHEE CHAPTER is derivative and filled with ostensibly smart characters doing dumb things. While his script could've used another polish or two, Erickson demonstrates enough skill behind the camera that I'm intrigued to see what he does next. Zachary Quinto was one of the producers. (R, 87 mins)
RUNNER RUNNER (US - 2013)
Justin Timberlake's status as an iconic pop music figure and his comedic skills on SNL are without question, but he hasn't had a lot of luck on the big screen other than supporting roles in acclaimed films like THE SOCIAL NETWORK and INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS. Duds like IN TIME haven't done much to establish him as a box office draw and that trend continues with RUNNER RUNNER, a bland, boring thriller that audiences pretty much avoided during its theatrical run last fall. It had potential, considering the script was written by ROUNDERS scribes David Levien and Brian Koppelman, but it seems like all they did was rewrite that script and move it to the world of online gambling while half-assedly peppering it with references to the financial meltdown of several years ago. Timberlake is Richie Furst, a former Wall Street hot shot who lost everything in the collapse and is now struggling to pay his way through Princeton, largely through bookmaking and with commission earned by luring profs and fellow students to an online poker site. When he's ordered by the dean (Bob Gunton!) to shut down his operation, Richie gambles his entire savings on a poker site and loses. Sensing something fishy about the algorithms, Richie learns he was scammed and does what any struggling, broke college student would do: flies to Costa Rica to personally confront online gambling magnate Ivan Block (Ben Affleck), who's able to operate unencumbered by US federal laws. He manages a brief meet with Block, who's impressed enough to hire Richie to work for his operation. Now with money beyond his wildest dreams--and getting to sleep with Ivan's sultry assistant/lover (Gemma Arterton)--Richie is living the life. That is, until he's shaken down by overzealous FBI agent Shavers (Anthony Mackie), who's obsessed with bringing down Block and will do anything to nab him, even planting drugs in Richie's luggage to ensure his cooperation.
Directed by Robert Lorenz. Written by Randy Brown. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, John Goodman, Robert Patrick, Matthew Lillard, Ed Lauter, Chelcie Ross, Ray Anthony Thomas, Bob Gunton, George Wyner, Jack Gilpin, Peter Hermann, Scott Eastwood. (PG-13, 110 mins)
Four years since he last appeared onscreen in 2008's GRAN TORINO, Clint Eastwood returns in the first film he's starred in without directing since 1993's IN THE LINE OF FIRE. Longtime Eastwood assistant director/producing partner Robert Lorenz makes his directing debut with TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, and also demonstrates the same laid-back, leisurely-paced feel of many of Eastwood's late-career behind-the-camera efforts. Unlike a lot of non-Clint-directed films that he probably backseat-directed but didn't care enough to take the credit (meaning, THE DEAD POOL or PINK CADILLAC or anything supposedly directed by his decades-long pal Buddy Van Horn), Lorenz probably was in charge on TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, if for no other reason than its utterly generic, Hallmark Channel TV-movie feel, right down to the bland, manipulative score by the usually reliable Marco Beltrami. Eastwood's been composing his own jazzy scores for years. There's no way Beltrami's by-the-numbers score would be on this if it was Eastwood's movie.
TROUBLE finds Clint in his now-standard "Get off my lawn!" mode, playing crusty old Atlanta Braves baseball scout Gus Lobel. Gus is having prostate issues, needs a hearing aid, and his eyes are going bad, so the last thing he wants to deal with is the smug condescension of a snotty colleague (Matthew Lillard) who thinks he's an outdated relic and wants to push him out of the organization. Gus has the support of front office exec and longtime friend Pete (John Goodman), who cajoles Gus' tomboy, baseball-loving lawyer daughter Mickey (Amy Adams) into accompanying the old man on a scouting trip to observe a much-ballyhooed high-school prospect in North Carolina. Mickey's got plenty of unresolved issues with Gus, starting right after her mom's death in 1984, after which Gus sent six-year-old Mickey to live with an aunt & uncle.
The fill-in-the-blanks script by first-time screenwriter Randy Brown leaves no cliche unutilized and no heartstring untugged. It would be pretty hard to take if not for a cast of pros, all of whom almost certainly signed on without even reading Brown's script just to get a chance to work with Clint. And at this point in his life and career, all the man really needs to do is show up and be Clint and we're hooked. Even at 82, he's still got the same screen presence he had nearly 50 years ago in A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, and as he's gotten older, no one has cornered the market on gruff, crotchety old bastards like Eastwood. He doesn't try very hard here, because he doesn't have to, and he turns in a very natural performance that demonstrates a cozy familiarity that his fans, especially the now-elderly ones who've been with him since his TV days on RAWHIDE, clearly welcome.
But if you're looking for a realistic portrayal of "the game," this ain't it. Demonstrating a definite anti-MONEYBALL mentality, TROUBLE gets behind Gus and his disdain for "those damn computers" that can't replicate the gut feeling that an experienced scout gets while watching a prospect. Truthfully, TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE isn't very good, but it gets a tremendous lift from the believably lived-in feel of the performances of Eastwood and Adams, plus Justin Timberlake as a burned-out former Braves pitcher turned White Sox scout. There isn't a single plot development you won't see telegraphed 20 minutes before it happens. Chances are, you'll even predict the maudlin dialogue before the actors even speak it. But it just goes to prove how much a film can coast on someone as iconic as Eastwood. He initially planned to retire from acting after GRAN TORINO, and TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE does feel rather slight and frivolous considering how much of a perfect screen career capper GRAN TORINO would've been. But hey, it's Clint onscreen again, with his pants hiked up, chomping on stogies, scowling and bitching about everything, so why complain?
