The Lonely Island

Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti star in a rom-com ‘Groundhog Day.’

It’s on Netflix right now and it’s hilarious.

Yes, you read that headline correctly. This year’s Oscars could’ve featured an ambitious performance from the comedic musical trio commonly known as The Lonely Island. Could have. But didn’t. “WHY INTERNET WRITER LADY, WHY,” you scream, shaking your fists at the heavens, to which I say unto you: Because the Academy in its infinite wisdom deemed the performance to be “financially and logistically impossible.” Maybe also because they spent their entire budget on a stage that looked like an extreme close-up of Elizabeth Taylor’s bedazzled brain.

These days, we take our amusement where we can. For the past week, the internet has been entranced by the disaster that is the Frye Festival, a supposed music festival for rich millennials that quickly descended into anarchy when musicians and vendors pulled out due to its unsafe conditions. The full scope of the festival’s failure was laid bare in Friday’s piece at New York Magazine, where one administrator  —  or former admin, since she dropped as soon as she realized the full scope of the organizers’ failure  —  spoke candidly about the missteps leading up to the festival. For entertainment value, the Frye Festival just can’t be beat.

It’s been a good long while since Bill Murray brought us a Netflix Christmas special, and who better than Michael Bolton and The Lonely Island to take us through Valentine’s Day? See for yourself in a full trailer for Michael Bolton’s Big, Sexy Valentine’s Day Special, chock full of stars, and already available to stream for next week.

The Lonely Island, the comedy musical trio behind great American classics ‘Dick in a Box,’ ‘I’m on a Boat, ‘and ‘Jizz in My Pants,’ are now movie stars. Or at least they star in a new movie as fake pop stars mocking celebrity culture and the music industry.

It’s been more than 30 years since This Is Spinal Tap hilariously mocked the pop music scene and launched the mockumentary subgenre. If there can be such a thing as a “spiritual remake” of an old movie, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping is it. It takes the same basic structure as Spinal Tap (a fake documentary about life in the music industry) and its narrative framework (a formerly hot pop acts fall from grace) and layers in a whole new generation of jokes about dopey celebrities in the age of social media. It doesn’t break any new ground, and it might not even be its creators’ most effective satire of this subject, but it is funny.

If you’re a fan of The Lonely Island, then you’re probably pretty stoked for Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, which features a whole soundtrack full of new songs from the musical comedy trio. Leading up to the film’s release next week, we’ve already seen a few music videos featuring Andy Samberg’s fictional alter ego Conner4Real — including an amazing Bin Laden-themed video that debuted on SNL. Universal has released yet another obviously NSFW music video from Popstar, this time with a little freestyle action.

It may seem like it’s been forever since The Lonely Island delivered a new Digital Short on SNL, but it’s only been a little over a year (which is like, eight years in Adult Time). In any case, Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone are back with their latest music offering, this one taken straight from their upcoming film Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping — which also happens to be an early contender for the best movie title of the year.

The new Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping trailer made me laugh out loud four times. If we assume the movie is 90 minutes long, and that runtime-to-laugh ratio holds, then this should be the funniest movie ever made.