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One of the biggest comedy cult hits of the 1980s, this truly inspired mock rockumentary about a fictitious British metal band named Spinal Tap is more than a deadpan sendup of dinosaur rock groups like Deep Purple, Status Quo, and Led Zeppelin. It takes hilarious potshots at every aspect of the music industry -- from vacuous contemporary songwriting to lame-o record promotions to pyrotechnic-obsessed concert performances. Almost entirely improvised, it features hilarious performances by Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest as over-the-hill rockers whose hair and egos are a lot bigger than their talent. Director Rob Reiner is the earnest filmmaker who documents the group's disastrous American tour -- which at one point finds them reduced to opening for a puppet show at an amusement park. The "documentary" weaves together performances of Spinal Tap songs like "Smell the Glove" and "Lick My Love Pump," archival footage of the group in an earlier psychedelic incarnation, and interviews in which the dim-witted band members discuss their music and careers. Parodying with understated perfection the ridiculous self-seriousness of many real rockumentaries, Spinal Tap is a comic marvel. MGM's widescreen, special edition DVD includes over an hour of extra footage, audio commentary by the members of the band, rarely seen TV appearances and interviews, Spinal Tap music videos, television commercials and much, much more. Kryssa Schemmerling

All Movie Guide

Largely improvised by director Rob Reiner and his cast, This Is Spinal Tap looks and sounds like a "real" documentary, with Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest as David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls, and Nigel Tufnel, the key members of a going-nowhere British heavy metal band called Spinal Tap. The "group" started as an informal skiffle band, eventually maturing into an R&B act called the Thamesmen (their hit was "Gimme Some Money"). After going through a psychedelic period with "Listen to the Flower People," the band mutated into Spinal Tap, a hard rock outfit responsible for such albums as "Intravenous DeMilo," "The Sun Never Sweats," and "Bent for the Rent." This Is Spinal Tap finds them in the midst of their first American tour in years as they support their new LP Smell the Glove, with filmmaker Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner), who specializes in TV commercials, on hand to document the occasion. Just about anything that can go wrong does: shows get canceled, stage props go wrong, wireless guitar pickups start broadcasting air-traffic reports, no one shows up for in-store appearances, David's girlfriend tries to take over the band, they wind up billed second to a puppet show at an amusement park, and the group teeters on the verge of breakup. After the film's initial release, McKean, Guest, and Shearer did a short club tour as Spinal Tap; the "band" reunited in 1992 for a new album, Break Like the Wind, followed by a full-fledged tour and TV special, The Return of Spinal Tap. Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 883904132585
• Source: MGM (VIDEO & DVD)
• Region Code: A
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound, Dolby AC-3 Surround Sound
• Editions: Subtitled, Dubbed, Bonus DVD
• Time: 1:23:00
• Sales Rank: 26,649

This DVD is also available as part of a box set:

• Music Appreciation 101
• Rock Star Collection

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