Is there anyone who doesn't love This is Spinal Tap?

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i believe it was Saxon that shearer went on the road with.

latebloomer (latebloomer), Thursday, 17 November 2005 04:04 (eighteen years ago) link

important to write songs using the open notes on the strings, which enables the bassist to pump his fist in the air and play at the same time.

I don't understand what's so funny about this? I used to do the same thing, but only so that I could drink more beer onstage.

Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 17 November 2005 04:10 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't love it. Or I didn't love it the one time I saw it. Maybe I need to watch it 50 times to properly love it. I love The Rutles though. i do love guffman, mighty wind, and best in show though. and i can't wait for the new one

That's completely insane.

Tap is to Guffman, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind as the Beatles are to Wings, Lennon and Harrison solo. And the new film will be Back Off Boogaloo in comparison.

Good anology. Guest's other movies are great, as is a lot of Wings and Lennon's and Harrison's solo stuff. But the Beatles are the best band I've ever heard and Spinal Tap is the funniest movie I've ever seen.

Nigel (Nigel), Thursday, 17 November 2005 04:13 (eighteen years ago) link

Even better than the urban legends of who did or didn't storm out of the cinema is Noel Gallagher's tale of Liam Gallagher, on seeing the band live last year, storming out shouting "NO! I'M NOT HAVING THAT!!" when, during The Folksmen's support set, Noel had to explain to him that it was the same guys and Spinal Tap weren't actually real...

kit brash (kit brash), Thursday, 17 November 2005 04:44 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't like it

gabbneb (gabbneb), Thursday, 17 November 2005 04:52 (eighteen years ago) link

why not? damn, we had 41 straight posts of praise here! we're trying to make a serious run of unopposed adulation! at least give us a reason!

my fave moment: dancing dwarfs around the tiny stonehenge

fave subtle line: the argument about going on AFTER the puppet show

sleeve (sleeve), Thursday, 17 November 2005 05:54 (eighteen years ago) link

the bonus footage for Best in Show (my fave of the 3 more recent films) is amazing. Did you know the Christopher Guest character collects...Beach Balls?

speaking of...watch SNL in the 80s sunday night (no law and order!) and they showed a few moments of some classic clips from the season with Shearer and Guest, particularly the all-time classic synchronized swimming skit with Martin Short.

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/84/84aswimmers.phtml

Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Thursday, 17 November 2005 06:17 (eighteen years ago) link

Oh, but there are so many great subtle jokes beyond the over-quoted ones (though I do have the impulse to slap anyone that says "these goes to 11")

Even the music itself makes me laugh - there's a great bit at the end of one of the songs where Nigel plays a souped-up Mozart guitar solo. Also when he's playing his piano "composition" and talking about how there are all these melodic lines interwoven when in fact he's just playing these really retarded-sounding blocky chords.

Abbadabba Berman (Hurting), Thursday, 17 November 2005 07:02 (eighteen years ago) link

"too much fucking perspective"

barbershop raga (blunt), Thursday, 17 November 2005 07:33 (eighteen years ago) link

This movie is 10X funnier in the "VH1: Behind the Music" Era.

MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Thursday, 17 November 2005 08:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Possibly my fave moment is the 2 second clip of Mick Shrimpton falling off his drumkit. Any longer than that, it wouldn't have been funny. Also, the gay room service guy making Mick spill his drugs. I think Mick is my favourite character actually.

Matt #2 (Matt #2), Thursday, 17 November 2005 11:20 (eighteen years ago) link

Possibly my fave moment is the 2 second clip of Mick Shrimpton falling off his drumkit.

With ya there, that's a perfect moment of editing.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:08 (eighteen years ago) link

There was once a review in Q magazine of a laserdisc version which sounded like it included all the extra scenes on the DVD, and had a lot more besides. There was mention of an all-girl support band who were linked to the fact that all of the Tap have coldsores around their lips at various points (hence "derek's out of circulation"). I'm sure there was way more stuff mentioned too, but I can't recall what. Has anyone seen this version of it? And does it overlap with the stuff on the amazing-sounding four hour plus version mentioned above?

M Carty (mj_c), Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:19 (eighteen years ago) link

I saw the video for Spinal Tap's Bitch School last weekend.

I think it is time for Tap to come back out of retirement. If you watch some of those current metal shows on Fuse or MTV, there is some comedy gold out there waiting to be mined.

earlnash, Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Does anyone have the Criterion Collection DVD? It supposedly had a different commentary track.

it does, done by the cast, but not in character. it too is very funny. the deleted scenes are different, also - some overlap, but not much.

foxy boxer (stevie), Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:52 (eighteen years ago) link

aha the story I heard was that it was the Scorpions who walked out because they thought it was about them.

They should be so lucky.

I've heard it was loosely based on Saxon and Status Quo. The key word there, however, is loosely.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:56 (eighteen years ago) link

I love it and the DVD bought it all back but I must mention another Guest performance that always has me laughing, which is in Princess Bride. I love it when he runs away.
I'm actually sitting here laughing to myself now. I am sad. He's just one of those people who make me laugh just by standing there. Is he still a real life Lord? In that can he still sit in the House of Lords or was he disenfranchised when they were reformed?

Not really an ILM question I suppose.

Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Thursday, 17 November 2005 13:58 (eighteen years ago) link

I've also heard Michael McKeon reference the band Adges (is that the right spelling? ADGEZ? I forget...)

D.I.Y. U.N.K.L.E. (dave225.3), Thursday, 17 November 2005 14:01 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm just as God made me, sir

Keith C (lync0), Thursday, 17 November 2005 14:03 (eighteen years ago) link

Is he still a real life Lord?

Wikipedia, our friend:

Guest became the 5th Baron Haden-Guest, of Saling in the County of Essex, when his father died in 1996. According to an article in The Guardian, Guest attended the House of Lords regularly until the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999 barred most hereditary peers from their seats. In the article Guest remarked:

"There's no question that the old system was unfair. I mean, why should you be born to this? But now it's all just sheer cronyism. The Prime Minister can put in whoever he wants and bus them in to vote. The Upper House should be an elected body, it's that simple."

As Guest's children are adopted, they cannot inherit his Barony under the terms of the letters patent that created it. The current heir presumptive to the title is Guest's brother, Nicholas Haden-Guest.

Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 17 November 2005 14:05 (eighteen years ago) link

I thank you.
And agree with the good Baron.

Ned T.Rifle (nedtrifle), Thursday, 17 November 2005 14:13 (eighteen years ago) link

"Possibly my fave moment is the 2 second clip of Mick Shrimpton falling off his drumkit. Any longer than that, it wouldn't have been funny."

I laughed out loud just reading this description.

digestion (digestion), Thursday, 17 November 2005 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link

The critic John Mendelssohn notoriously gave the movie a bad review in CREEM upon release, giviing Christopher Guest's performance a few words of faint praise but largely trashing everything else. Coincidentally, (cough cough) Mendelssohn's then-wife was in fact the EX-wife of one of the film's stars! (To his credit, he admitted this bias at the top of the review, tho he didn't specify which actor, just called him "some asshole".)

Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Thursday, 17 November 2005 16:58 (eighteen years ago) link

It's been mentioned before, but this movie is the only example of Fran Drescher and Billy Crystal being in the same room and being funny.

Pleasant Plains /// (Pleasant Plains ///), Thursday, 17 November 2005 18:58 (eighteen years ago) link

This thread inspired me to watch the movie with the commentary again last night. I'd only seen it that way once, and didn't think it was all that great, but I was wrong. My favourite subjects are them talking about Viv's "playing" and everything that's fake aboot Marti DiBergi (or should I say "DiBergowitz"?)

Vic Funk, Thursday, 17 November 2005 22:39 (eighteen years ago) link

I've heard it was loosely based on Saxon and Status Quo. The key word there, however, is loosely.

I seem to have an anthology on hard rock/metal or two around here in which a member of Uriah Heep, probably Hensley, proudly takes some credit. Status Quo and the Heep fit more closely than Saxon if there's any -fit-. They both started out as kind of lame and flailing psychedelic bands, although the Quo had an actual hit. Status Quo didn't have any members die. Heep had personnel problems early on, a bassist actually being electrocuted onstage. Later he died in a bathtup or something. Quo match better in the UL label's regard for them. Despite a big splurge for a feature in Billboard at the time of "Blue for You," Quo were treated with great disrespect in the US. Uriah Heep had it much easier, being arena head-liners for a short time.

They all make nice stories.

George the Animal Steele, Thursday, 17 November 2005 23:32 (eighteen years ago) link

I seem to have an anthology on hard rock/metal or two around here in which a member of Uriah Heep, probably Hensley, proudly takes some credit.

In the latest Entertainment Weekly there's a feature with Rob Reiner talking aboot each of the films he's made, and for the Spinal Tap blurb he says their keyboardist, John Sinclair, was hired away by Uriah Heap before he could be in the movie. He would call the filmmakers from the road, saying things like "We're playing a military base" and they would put it in the film. Reiner also credits Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as the inspiration for getting lost on the way to stage.

Vic Funk, Friday, 18 November 2005 12:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Smell the Glove = Virgin Killer right?

walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 18 November 2005 17:52 (eighteen years ago) link

Smell the Glove could've been a rip on any number of metal sleeves, though, not just the flatly indefensible Virgin Killer.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 18 November 2005 18:33 (eighteen years ago) link

I mean, ultimately `Tap probably weren't modelled after any SINGLE band...they're an amalgam.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 18 November 2005 18:34 (eighteen years ago) link

two years pass...

i will take you there. i will show you how

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/videos/player.html?channel=1804&category=24333&title=05392_00

kamerad, Thursday, 29 May 2008 18:32 (fifteen years ago) link

ten months pass...

"these go to eleven"

Charlie Howard, Saturday, 4 April 2009 10:04 (fifteen years ago) link

prefer 'a mighty wind'

Old Big 'OOS (AKA the Cupwinner) (darraghmac), Saturday, 4 April 2009 14:34 (fifteen years ago) link

Heresy.

Alex in NYC, Saturday, 4 April 2009 15:42 (fifteen years ago) link

yeah no lie

I BLAME JESUS (jjjusten), Saturday, 4 April 2009 15:43 (fifteen years ago) link

"he was the patron saint of quality footwear"

Charlie Howard, Saturday, 4 April 2009 17:45 (fifteen years ago) link

"It's called 'Lick My Love Pump'"

just DO THE STANKY HOOS plain and steen (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Saturday, 4 April 2009 18:07 (fifteen years ago) link

The 'Majesty of Rock' video was on VH1 the other night...This makes me CRY laughing every time I hear it:

The darning of the sock,
The scoring of the goal!
The farmer takes a wife
The barber takes a pole.

Also: I always say "Dobly" instead of Dolby. That never stops being funny

VegemiteGrrrl, Saturday, 4 April 2009 18:22 (fifteen years ago) link

three months pass...

So I finally picked up The Return of Spinal Tap on DVD over the weekend for cheap -- bootleg DVD from all appearances, the original video was released back in 1992 or 1993 or so. It's not a sequel to the film outside of a few sketches but it's fun to see the live show they did in London in 1992; I was at the Los Angeles performance of the tour. Meanwhile the various 'where are they now' bits are good, and Nigel Tufnel's skill with inventions and helping ferrets travel wins on the comedy front.

Meanwhile they played Wembley Arena the other week -- "Big Bottom" with (apparently) Justin Hawkins and Andy Scott from Sweet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fWDumg3qeQ

Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 8 July 2009 15:48 (fourteen years ago) link

have you guys read "Yes I Can" by Sammy Davis Junior?

Apollo C. Vermouth (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 July 2009 16:08 (fourteen years ago) link

Kerrang! reviewed the Wembley gig in this week's issue and gave it 1 out of 5. There's an astonishing bit at the end where the writer names the nadir of the evening being when "[a Tap member] throws a solitary cucumber into the audience," this being indicative of the poor effort made at a stage show

Real Men Play On Words (DJ Mencap), Wednesday, 8 July 2009 16:15 (fourteen years ago) link

Hard to work out the level of ironing going on there.

sonofstan, Wednesday, 8 July 2009 16:17 (fourteen years ago) link

i take back what i said about loving the rutles on here. i watched it again a while ago and didn't laugh once. i guess it was better when i was a kid. kinda wish i had the album though. still don't love spinal tap though i should see it again to make sure. i saw it, like, 20 years ago.

scott seward, Wednesday, 8 July 2009 16:29 (fourteen years ago) link

scott this is the weirdest most inexplicable opinion I have ever heard you express wtf dude

Apollo C. Vermouth (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 8 July 2009 16:31 (fourteen years ago) link

I don't love it either.

My name is Kenny! (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 July 2009 16:37 (fourteen years ago) link

well, like i said, i should watch it again. i've only seen it once. i just don't remember laughing that much when i saw it. maybe i was in a bad mood. i kinda remember thinking: oh, i get it, they're dumb. and that was that. i'll get some good weed and watch it.

scott seward, Wednesday, 8 July 2009 16:37 (fourteen years ago) link

i did laugh when i saw guffman and the dog one. i remember laughing. maybe spinal tap just needed catherine o'hara for me to love it.

scott seward, Wednesday, 8 July 2009 16:38 (fourteen years ago) link

i take back what i said about loving the rutles on here. i watched it again a while ago and didn't laugh once. i guess it was better when i was a kid. kinda wish i had the album though. still don't love spinal tap though i should see it again to make sure. i saw it, like, 20 years ago.

― scott seward, Wednesday, July 8, 2009 6:29 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

rutles is unbelievably shit. i only saw it last year. dire.

FREE DOM AND ETHAN (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 8 July 2009 17:04 (fourteen years ago) link

tap is immortal though, wtf!

FREE DOM AND ETHAN (special guest stars mark bronson), Wednesday, 8 July 2009 17:04 (fourteen years ago) link

UK ilxors, how good are their accents? If they are bad, is that another level of hilarity we are missing?

Philip Nunez, Wednesday, 8 July 2009 17:27 (fourteen years ago) link

“We want the finest dwarves available to humanity. We want them here and we want them now.”

Wile E. Is President (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 1 May 2022 20:09 (one year ago) link

You can't really dust for vomit.

Fifty Centaur (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 3 May 2022 22:05 (one year ago) link

SEQUEL!

https://variety.com/2022/film/news/this-is-spinal-tap-sequel-rob-reiner-michael-mckean-1235265523/

The sequel will be in the style of Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Waltz,” the legendary concert documentary that followed the farewell tour of the Canadian American rock group The Band. “Spinal Tap 2” will also feature real-life musicians in the film. No names have been revealed yet, but it will likely depend on the artists’ touring schedules.

Bono? Boaby?

Honk like the wind?

calstars, Thursday, 12 May 2022 21:01 (one year ago) link

I have very low expectations for this

calstars, Thursday, 12 May 2022 21:02 (one year ago) link

It'll either be bone dry and hilarious, or suck so hard it'll drag the original down with it

assert (matttkkkk), Friday, 13 May 2022 01:00 (one year ago) link

"The Last Waltz" ripe for parody + Christopher Guest's wonderful tried-and-true lead-up to a big show at the end gives me hope for it.

pplains, Friday, 13 May 2022 15:05 (one year ago) link

I thought we already had a modern-day reboot with Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping?

Siegbran, Friday, 13 May 2022 15:08 (one year ago) link

I'm a style boy for liiiiife

Deez NFTs (Neanderthal), Friday, 13 May 2022 15:14 (one year ago) link

The tour video they released after the 1992 shows already was a sequel, really, thanks to the various interstitial/where are they now bits.

Ned Raggett, Friday, 13 May 2022 17:20 (one year ago) link

Plus, the "directors commentary" on the original, massively recommended

Mark G, Friday, 13 May 2022 17:46 (one year ago) link

Just wanted to thank you for the display name nod there, C. Grisso.

Ned Raggett, Friday, 13 May 2022 18:48 (one year ago) link


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