film review no.1 - this is spinal tap (1984)

This Is Spinal Tap - 1984                                  

Rating - 15

Director - Rob Reiner

Written and Starring - Michael Mckean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner

Run time - 82 minutes

This Is Spinal Tap is a 1984 comedy mockumentary movie about the fictional heavy metal band spinal tap who’s core members consist of David St. Hubbins (Mckean), Nigel Tufnel (Guest) and Derek Smalls (Shearer).

The film follows Marty Dibergi (Reiner), a filmmaker and diehard Spinal Tap fan making a documentary following the burnt-out band on their comeback American tour with interviews with the band members in between.

This film is considered a comedy classic and one of my favourite films from the ’80s.

My favourite scene is the Stonehenge scene where Nigel has a plan for a 20 foot Stonehenge replica to be lowered on stage while they perform their song of the same name. Though the plans (scribbled on a napkin), he accidentally wrote in inches. So as they play their song at the concert, unbeknownst to the band, there's a 2 foot tall Stonehenge lowered on the stage to their shock. Then two dwarves come on stage dressed as druids and dance around it.

I love every bit of this film and it's a great piece of music mockumentary to hard to  compare with The Rutles “All You Need Is Cash (1978)” to Bad News “Bad News Tour (1983)” and “More Bad News (1988)” to “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016)”

Score - 9/10