This Is Spinal Tap

This Is Spinal Tap -- Movie Review #JPMN

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• published: 26 Oct 2014
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• This Is Spinal Tap (1984) -- Wonderful satire of rock culture, 7/10. TWEET a review with the #JPMN hashtag, and have it featured! WATCH full episodes of Movie Night -- http://bit.ly/JogJPMN ~~ Movie Night Reviews ~~ Your host, and film critic Jonathan Paula reviews everything from opening day releases, recent DVDs, upcoming trailers, and classics from years past. Each "Quick Review" is an excerpt from a full episode, which airs on the Jogwheel channel every weekend, except during the summer. ~~ Watch More Reviews ~~ Browse By Year ----- http://bit.ly/MNYear Browse By Rating --- http://bit.ly/MNRating Trailer Reviews ------- http://bit.ly/MNTrailers ~~ Other Channels ~~ Jogwheel (Main channel) --- http://bit.ly/Jogwheel Jon's World (2nd channel) -- http://bit.ly/JonWorld The Microwave Show --------- http://bit.ly/TMSArchive uStream Live Shows ---------- http://bit.ly/JogLive ~~ Social Media & Merch ~~ Twitter ---------------------------- http://bit.ly/JonTW Facebook ----------------------- http://bit.ly/JonFBFan Instagram ----------------------- http://bit.ly/JonInsta Patreon -------------------------- http://bit.ly/JonPatreon Letterboxd ---------------------- http://bit.ly/JonLetterboxd T-Shirts -------------------------- http://bit.ly/JogStore ~~ Technical Credits ~~ Created by ------ Jonathan Paula Camera ---------- Panasonic HMC-150 Microphone ----- Sennheiser ME 66 Software --------- Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2014 Computer ------- http://bit.ly/JAV010 • Jogwheel Productions © 2014 • ~~ Review Script ~~ This improvised mockumentary from director Rob Reiner was released nationwide in March of 1984, where it doubled its $2.5 million dollar budget. The quick 82-minute experience is an excellent send-up of rock culture, portraying the fictional British heavy metal band "Spinal Tap" during a year on tour with hilarious results. The R-rated picture perfectly satirizes everything from their wild debauchery, musical pretentiousness, performance blunders, and general cluelessness. Perpetually teetering on the edge of realism, it's the extremely subtle and true-to-life humor that not only makes this movie so funny, it also tricked a fair number of audiences into believing this band actually existed. In their first of many such parody-documentaries, veteran comics Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer lead the picture as the titular group of cod-piece wearing narcissists: ad-libbing a majority of their lines in the process. In an inspired bit of casting Reiner appears as an ambitious film director within the film, often interviewing the band on-camera. Later, he sets up the picture's most iconic moment when he questions Guest's decision to label all of his amps with an "11", asking, "Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?" ... the drawn out beat before Chris answers, "These go to eleven" is one of the most legendary examples of comedic timing. Joined by some cameos from before-they-famous actors like Bruno Kirby, Billy Crystal, Fran Drescher, and Ed Begley Jr. - the core group of players make their biting improvisation and witty banter look effortless, but their heavy accents, and talking over one another sometimes makes it hard to follow their conversations. This is one picture that definitely benefits from having the subtitles turned on. Structurally, the movie could really be arranged in any order... each scene works well by itself, but when assembled together, there's very little cohesion or over-arching story here. The fly-on-the-wall visual style lends credence to the picture's unscripted nature too, consistently cutting away to Spinal Tap's many shortcomings and humorous issues during their on-stage performances, like when Shearer gets stuck in a cocoon-like apparatus, forcing him to wail out his bass-solo in the cramped compartment. Indeed, the movie is littered with dozens of little gags like this, including the group's unexplained herpes, difficulties with their overly simplistic album cover, and overtly misogynistic song lyrics. When Guest waxes poetic on a romantic ballad he's been arranging influenced by Mozart and Bach, he then shares that the song's title is "Lick My Love Pump". Despite the absurd and lewd material, their music is actually rather catchy - and should appeal to most rock fans. U2 guitarist, The Edge famously said of the film, "I didn't laugh, I wept. It was so close to the truth." And that is perhaps my biggest issue with the movie: there's plenty of great concepts and jokes, but much like a great "The Onion" article, it often induces more of a soft chuckle than true laughter. Still though, as the only movie on IMDb to be rated out of eleven, "This Is Spinal Tap" is wonderful satire of rock culture worth watching more than once. ~