Jorma Taccone

Director Dave McCary makes a superb feature debut with this offbeat black comedy, which explores the experiences of a young man rescued after years in captivity. The darker emotions are here, but that's not the focus of this film, which instead playfully keeps the audience laughing as it cleverly weaves a tale that will resonate in unexpected ways. And the fanboy-style premise makes it wonderfully timely.

This is the story of 25-year-old James (played by cowriter Kyle Mooney), who was kidnapped as an infant and raised in a bunker by Ted and April (Mark Hamill and Jane Adams), who claimed to be his parents and told him the air outside was unbreathable. Over the years, he gets his education from weekly videotape episodes of the children's show Brigsby Bear, made by Ted specifically for him. Then when he's rescued and reunited with his real parents (Matt Walsh and Michaela Watkins), they're strangers to him. As is his spiky little sister Aubrey (Ryan Simpkins). To make sense of this big new world, he gets help from a cop (Greg Kinnear) and a therapist (Claire Danes). But he longs to revisit Brigsby's world. So when Aubrey's friend Spencer (Jorge Lendeborg) shows interest in the furry character, James launches an epic plan to make a movie to bring the TV series to a conclusion.

Obviously, all of this is working as a kind of rehabilitation for James, and the film is smartly assembled to bring the audience into his quirky perspective. We've seen an episode of Brigsby, so we understand how it has charmed him with its nutty sci-fi superhero action. And it's hilarious to see James thrown into our world when his only cultural references relate to Brigsby. Meanwhile, Mooney underscores James' obsession with a bright sense of curiosity that's infectious both for the other characters in the story and for us watching it.

Continue reading: Brigsby Bear Review

An astute satire of the pop music business, this raucous mock-documentary is consistently hilarious from start to finish. Some of the jokes are corny, but everything about this movie has a point to make about fame and the music industry. The songs are jaw-droppingly wacky, as is the constant string of big-name cameos. And it's anchored on a riotously funny performance by Andy Samberg.

He plays Connor, formerly one-third of the boy band Style Boyz, alongside his childhood friends Owen (Jorma Taccone) and Lawrence (Akica Schaffer). When Conner decided to go solo, Owen tagged along with him as his deejay, while Lawrence angrily left to become a farmer. But sales of Connor's new album are wobbling, and with 32 people on his personal payroll, he needs to bring in the cash. After a marketing scheme to upload his music to kitchen appliances backfires, he heads out on his Connquest world tour, supported by unhinged singer Hunter (Chris Redd). But Owen thinks that what Connor really needs is to make up with Lawrence, and bring the Boyz back together again.

Samberg is perfect as the too-cute musician who believes all the hype and doesn't have a clue what's really happening around him. Even in his ignorance, Connor is hugely likeable, because he never means to be cruel. This makes his interaction with the people around him thoroughly engaging, and often laugh-out-loud funny, from Sarah Silverman's PR guru to Tim Meadows' enthusiastic manager to Maya Rudolph's kitchen appliance queen. Joan Cusack has some marvellous moments as his dotty mum, while Imogen Poots gets the film's best sequence as the "official" girlfriend he proposes to complete with an ill-advised pack of wolves and live music by Seal. And then there's Justin Timberlake as Connor's singing chef.

Continue reading: Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping Review