The Funniest Documentary About A Fake Band Ever!!
I heard so much about this movie all of my life, that when I picked January to be the month of documentaries, I immediately thought of this movie. True, "Spinal Tap" is a "Mockumentary", but since it's filmed in the style of a documentary, I figured what the hell. And if the review isn't up to par, it's for the reason that this movie is kind of hard to write about because so much happens, it's better to just see it yourself if you haven't.
Rob Reiner, the director and co-writer, plays film maker Marty Di Bergi. He decides to make a film about the comeback tour of Spinal Tap, the loudest band out of England. The band members, David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls, are played by Michael McKeon, Christopher Guest, and Harry Sherer. David and Nigel both are lead guitar and Derek is bass. Their drummer, Mick Shrimpton, is one out of millions of drummers the band went through, each of them dying under bizarre circumstances, such as "gardening accident" and "choking on someone elses vomit".
They arrive in New York City where they hear their new album cover for "Smell The Glove" has been rejected for being too offensive. Their manager, Ian Faith, decides to copy The Beatles White Album...but all black. The band doesn't like the idea so much.
The rest of the film details other tragagies such as getting lost backstage in Cleveland, plastic pods not opening up, and the usual fighting within the band. Nigel has a problem with David's girlfriend, especially when she becomes way too controling with the band. She gets in a scuffle with Ian about co-managing and he quits. The state of the band goes from bad to worse when they play an air force base, in which Nigel quits.
The film also shows their humble beginnings, when they formed in the 60's they were a Buddy Holly-style band, then went on to do hippie/trippy type music, until finally settling on heavy metal.
Progressively throughout the movie, the tour gets worse and worse, with less people showing up each time. Their album is a failure and most of their gigs keep getting cancelled. It is then when Nigel comes up with an idea to do a show about Stonehedge and he asks for a 18 foot tall replica of Stonehedge, but he got his feet and inches markings (he put " instead of ') and he got a 18 INCH Stonehedge, which was in danger of being trampled by some dwarves.
Depressed and not knowing what to do, they decide to break up when Nigel comes back and tells them they're doing big in Japan and that Ian wants to come back and tour Japan, which they do. The rest is metal history...sort of.
This was a damn funny ass movie and I loved it. Plus it was cool to see some cameos by Paul Shafer, Billy Crystal, and even Fran Dresher for cryin' out loud!! If you really know your metal history, you'd get some of the references made in this movie. There's a scene where the members consider dressing up in "spaced out" costumes. Sound familiar?
I also loved the songs and I want to buy the soundtrack, like, right now. And hey, speaking of round cakes, my girl does got them. Wow, I, like, so know what they're talking about, man.
4 stars.
"This Is Spinal Tap" on IMDb.com:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/