but doesn’t the fact that it’s improv make you appreciate it more if the jokes aren’t AS funny as if written before hand?
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s hilarious either way, but for shows like “Who’s Line Is It Anyway?”, my standards for laughing are lower knowing that it’s improv.
Humor is in the eye of the beholder. I’m not arrogant enough to say you are stupid for not liking it. To each his own.
Anyone see them when they were on The List with Mick Fleetwood?
Up front, I loved Spinal Tap. It helps that I’m 40, and grew up listening to a host of English heavy metal and “progressive rock” bands. In my teens, I took many of them seriously. By the time I was 23, of course, I knew what utter morons most of those guys were, ESPECIALLY when they were trying hard to be profound!
I mean, I STILL love listening to old Led Zeppelin, Yes, Black Sabbath, and King Crimson records… but my love is tempered by the knowledge that Jimmy Page is a pedophilic coke-head, that Jon Anderson’s lyrics are pretty much New Age drivel, that the COMBINED I.Q. of everyone who ever belonged to Black Sabbath is about 50, and that Robert Fripp is a pompous dweeb.
Heck, in the weeks after John Lennon died, I heard dozens of retrospectives on TV and on the radio, and got to hear John Lennon’s takes on every subject from God to the Viet Nam war, to the world economy… and I swear, he sounded just like Nigel Tufnel!
In short, to appreciate Spinal Tap, it HELPS to be a recovering rock fan- one who still has an affection for the music, but who’s rather amused at himself for taking it so seriously.
**
But as for the original poster… well, if you just didn’t find it funny, what can ANYONE say to change your mind?
I mean, a movie (like a joke) either strikes you as funny or it doesn’t.
In your life, you’ve probably seen dozens of movies and heard hundreds of jokes you didn’t think were the least bit funny. Did ANY of them get funnier after someone gave you a lenghthy explanation of whay they were hilarious?
I loved this movie when it first came out, and I think I love it more now. I appreciate it more every time I see it. When I first saw Tap, I hadn’t seen either “The Song Remains the Same” or “Gimme Shelter” - now I appreciate more of the jokes.
Not only that, but the bass player is playing a double neck bass on bass. When Nigel leaves, they ask the keyboard player if he can play a second bass line (hes already playing one), to make up. You really have to be a musician to notice some of the things in this movie.
I also have a question…
Are we still going to do Stonehenge tomorrow?
I’m moving this puppy to our new forum, Cafe Society.
You lost me, Czarcasm. What scene was that in?
::d&r::
Amazing, I also thought it was “only” mostly improv. All the dialogue being made up on the spot makes it an undeniable masterpiece.
Anyone notice the platter of separated Oreos in the dressing room? I always thought that scene was unrealistic until I read Michael Bolton’s dressing room requirements on the Smoking Gun.
The DVD is a must. There’s at least an HOUR of extra footage, most of which would have been good enough to be included the first time. The bits where Derek is trying to settle his divorce over the phone had me choking for air. (I remember hearing that there was a 5-hour bootleg version, any truth to that?)
And I’m surprised no one’s mentioned the Simpsons episode, which I think should be considered Tap canon (despite the fact they die a horrible death).
“No one rocks harder than Bill and Marty!”
“Well, we don’t know that, do we.”
Where is that Derek scene? Is it in the movie or in the section on deleted scenes?
I didn’t watch the whole movie chronologically on DVD yet, I just jump from scene to scene.
Yes, the fact that it’s improv would make me appreciate and enjoy it more, if I already liked it at least somewhat. But it shouldn’t (and didn’t) cause a complete reversal from hating it to loving it (or even liking it). I’ll cut it a little slack, but it should still entertain me, and keep my interest.
astorian: You’re absolutely right. I didn’t expect anybody to sway me, but just a little insight into what y’all found so great about it. I think I got that, and I thank you.
After thinking about it, I think the fault I have with it may be in the editing and/or direction. There were funny bits in the improv, but there was also a lot of dead space. And from what Max Harvey said, there was a lot of funny stuff left out.
Supposedly, when Rod Stewart saw it he stomped out of the theater because it struck a little too close to home. “I thought it was supposed to be a comedy, not my bloody biography!”
Another contender for the “real” Spinal Tap would be Uriah Heep. I refer you to “The Magician’s Birthday.” If that isn’t really Tap I’ll eat my hat.
All in all, one of the great movies but, as with all parodies, the more familiar you are with everything they are sending up the funnier it will be.
Well I am sure glad that others have stampeded to the defence of This is Spinal Tap. A couple of people have mentioned the DVD (new version is supposed to be better than the Criterion Collection version). The new DVD includes a few videos, and I think that the video for Hell Hole looks like the prototypical 1980’s video. Also, find and listen to their songs. They are truely funny.
Umm…I thought the edit was pretty tight, myself. I watched the DVD, and I found a lot of the extra footage to be pretty boring. Getting the limo driver high was okay, and there were a couple other nice points, but I think the final edit was excellent, and the scenes that needed to be cut, did get cut.
It’s funny, I really never thought of Spinal Tap as having a lot of dead space. In fact, I thought it had very little dead space, but then again, I like slower-paced, character-based comedies more than XTREME 90s style shite.
My girlfriend fits me like a flesh tuxedo,
I want to sink her with my Pink Torpedo!
Poetry. enough to bring a tear to your eye.
as a bit of trivia, Soundgarden used to play a serious version of that song live in their earliy days.
The cast: Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Howard Hesseman,Bruno Kirby, Anjelica Huston, Fran Drescher, Billy Crystal, Dana Carvey, Paul Shaffer, Ed Begley, Jr., the neighbor from The Jeffersons (I can’t think of his name)…
The presence of Gumby throughout the movie
The coldsores
“I think the problem may have been that the set was in danger of being crushed by dwarves. That tended to understate the largeness of the object…” (or something like that)
The limo scene with Bruno Kirby–“fuckin’ limeys…”
“Ah, but it is green”–Nigel explaining that his black t-shirt with a green skeleton on it is exactly what his skeleton looks like.
“I’m sorry, we don’t have that. Do you wear black?”
The Soundgarden cover of Big Bottom was the best thing that I found on an unnamed file sharing service.
Ah yes, the cold sores! I forgot.
Didn’t David have them one day, then Nigel the next?
I saw Angelica Huston in the credits but couldn’t find her in the movie. Maybe it wasn’t THE Angelica Huston. They were listed chronologically and it was right around Paul Schaeffer.
The cold sores were actually herpes sores, that the band all got from the lead singer of their support act. All of this was from scenes that were cut, but all are on the flip side of the great Criterion DVD.
Angelica Houston was the artist who created the 18" Stonehenge model.
What do you mean by serious? I’m pretty sure Soundgarden was aware that the song was meant to be funny.
It is THE Angelica Huston. I couldn’t find her for ages either, but it’s because she looks so different in the movie. She plays Polly Deutsch, the artist who builds the tiny Stonehenge.
Yeah, what is so great about Spinal Tap? Why would someone make a movie about them? They suck!
A classmate said that to me in my first year of high school. I laughed and laughed but didn’t tell him the truth.
“We are not going to do a free form jazz exploration in front of a festival crowd!”
-KillerFig