I confess, for several years I was pretty lukewarm on Andy Samberg. I recall not finding Hot Rod all that funny. Over the years, I have been convinced I was wrong about Samberg. Especially with his hilarious performance as Detective Jake Peralta on Brooklyn 9-9 (easily one of my favorite comedies from the past few years). In fact, I am thinking of revisiting Hot Rod to see if my feelings on that film have changed.
I was unsure about Popstar, because while the trailers did look funny, I worried it would be unable to sustain the gag. Popstar is about popular pop artist Conner. Conner is from a popular boy band Style Boyz. He went solo and was propelled to even greater success, while his bandmates had…less success.
His second album is a critical and sales failure. He attempts to sustain his career as incident after incident makes it clear his is crashing and burning severely. While Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is not a wholly original idea, it is well crafted. Samberg and writer/directors Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone have packed the film so tightly with jokes, it overcomes the fairly pedestrian plot.
Samberg’s very clueless and shallow Conner somehow manages to still be likable. And this is where the movie shines. Its satire of the world of entertainment is simple but effective. The film could have overstayed it’s welcome, but they clearly knew when to cut a gag or scene that was unnecessary. Just under an hour and a half, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping has a high rate of jokes that hit their mark. I was laughing throughout the film.
Samberg is supported by a strong cast of comedy veterans, such as Tim Meadows (who seems to have comfortably slid into the straight man role) as Conner’s hard working manager. Chris Redd is very funny as Hunter, a rapper on the rise that is opening for Conner’s shows(he tells Conner, “I wanna be you, kind of, but not white. Like black still, ’cause it’s strong. It’s a strong color.”) and then starts to overshadow Conner.
Popstar was an unexpected comedy pleasure for me, delivers a load of laughter.
When I first saw announcements for the Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn vehicle Snatched…I cringed. Kidnapping for laughs is kind of a weird one. And one that has been pretty done to death. Kidnapping for comedy films are, of course, very divorced from the realities of the crime of kidnapping. And some are better than others.
Written and Directed by Josh Hamburg (most notably the writer of all three Meet the Parents films) addresses a discussion a friend and I were having recently. We were talking about films having familiar plots. My take on this is that I do not generally care if a film has a plot point we “have seen before”. If it does it well? I am not going to be annoyed by it. There are only so many plots, and I cannot think of many films that told a tale that has previously unseen elements. But there is a flip side to this. A story that follows all the familiar points like a rigid map? Rarely is it done well.
Guardians of the Galaxy was a bit of a risk for Marvel Studios. It was really their first film that had little name recognition. It also was their first film not closely tied to the Avengers. And yet, under the guidance of James Gunn, Guardians of the Galaxy succeeded with a healthy dose of humor and action. Towards the end of the film, Yondu mentions knowing who Starlord’s father is. In this sequel, we meet dear old dad.
Right on the heels of the failed American-Zilla Toho answered back with…well, the most Traditional Godzilla they could imagine. No computer generated lizard here (though, there are plenty of digital effects). Just a good old man in a suit. Unlike Godzilla 84, this is much lighter fare.
Instead of just re-editing existing films, American studios got the rights to produce an actual American Godzilla feature. And so, being an American feature, they thought they should rebuild Godzilla from the ground up. So we get a totally new look for Godzilla. But in the end, we get something that kind of looks like Godzilla, but not really.
This Godzilla film was released with a few different titles. Return of Godzilla, Godzilla 1984, Godzilla and Godzilla 1985 (The American Edit). The American Godzilla 1985 brings back Raymond Burr’s Steve Martin. But if you watch the original version of the film (Godzilla 1984 or Return of Godzilla) you will not deal Burr at all. This review is of the original Japanese version of the film.
King Kong Escapes features King Kong fighting a robot version of himself created by an evil organization bent on taking over the world. The leaders of this plot are Madame Piranha (Japanese Version)/Madame X (the American version) and a guy named Dr. Who. While the evil organization perfects Mechakong, an American/Japanese team is hunting for the real Kong, seeking him on Mondo Island.
A direct sequel to 1976’s remake of King King, we discover that that Kong did not die from being shot up and falling from a tall building. He merely went comatose.
Tripping Through Gateways 