Spinal Tap for the Belieber generation is a hoot — and a hit
Here’s a riotous send-up of the music industry’s daftest excesses: Popstar: Never stop, Never stopping is topical in a week when Justin Bieber played a one-star hungover set at V Festival, and rihanna arrived 30 minutes late dressed in a sort of bin bag.
satirical trio Andy samberg, Akiva schaffer and Jorma Taccone, directed with unconcealed glee by Judd Apatow, skewer every aspect of the biz.
Think of callow boybands, moronic superstar Bieber-babes, yowling lyrics alternately desperate to shock with the f-word or to seem ‘deep’ with some maundering surrealism.
The cautionary tale of ‘ Conor4real’ offers a furious Noel and Liam Gallagher-style breakup and a showy breakdown, a trophy pet and trophy girl and divinely silly outfits, plus a vast pointless entou- rage of yes-men including a ‘perspective adjuster’: a short bloke who stands near the star for photos in order to make him look bigger.
There are cameos from everyone from Paul McCartney to Mariah Carey (amazingly, willing to send herself up rotten). There are solemn verdicts from simon Cowell, and in a personal-publicity stunt sequence, Conor (samberg) stages a proposal to Ashley (Imogen Poots) in a flowery garden disastrously equipped with tame wolves howling along to the r&B legend seal (who gamely puts himself at considerable risk).
Best of all in the many star moments, Justin Timberlake plays a downtrodden personal chef: a carrot-carver who longs to sing and is despised by all. The artful trick here is that while mercilessly guying the pop world’s OK-magazine absurdity, director Apatow persuades many of its real stars to ‘debase themselves’ (as his producer cheerily puts it) to prove they’re good sports.
The story is simple enough: The style Boyz were friends, split up; Conor finding solo stardom but then crashing, while another becomes his sound mixer and a third retires to be a moody Colorado farmer.
A disastrous sponsorship gimmick in which all household appliances persistently play the star’s awful music is shrugged off. As one character says: ‘These days if you don’t sell out, people gonna think nobody asked you to.’
Obviously, the original three must have a happy ending; but until then every moment of this hilarious, foul-mouthed, horribly observant comedy delights both weary pop-sceptics like me and, perhaps, younger fans getting disillusioned with being Beliebers.