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List Price: $17.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 8862
Released: September 12, 2000 |
| Our Price: $0.47 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: VHS Tape |
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Editorial Review:
You're about to get personal with one of music history's greatest and loudest heavy metal bands, Spinal Tap! Whether or not you're a die-hard fan of the group, you'll love this detailed "rockumentary" of Engand's legendary Spinal Tap. Acclaimed commercial director Marty DiBergi takes you behind the scenes for an intimate look at a band whose time has come and gone and come again and.... Through interviews, rare footage and lots of musicincluding classic Tap tunes like "Big Bottom" and "Hell Hole"you'll get acquainted with David St. Hubbins (lead guitar), Nigel Tufnel (lead guitar), Derek Smalls (lead bass) and every drummer who ever livedand diedfor this renowned rock band. Be a part of the sights, sounds and smells of this celebrated heavy metal phenomenon. It's an experience you'll never forget.
Description of This Is Spinal Tap (Special Edition):
Director Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) solemnly alerts us to the glory that was Spinal Tap in his introduction to this "rockumentary" about the legendary British heavy-metal group, featuring lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), lead singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), and a succession of drummers whose careers were cut short by spontaneously combusting on their stool, drowning in somebody else's vomit, or otherwise perishing in untimely fashion. Under DiBergi's studious interrogation, the band and their familiars retrace the band's evolution from head-bopping Mersey Beat poseurs to head-banging metal poseurs, each change in musical direction or tonsorial chic having little effect on the surviving trio's sublime idiocy. For, as St. Hubbins (he's the "deep" one, relatively speaking) sagely observes, "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever."
Happily for us, director Reiner, who developed the underlying story line with Guest and former Credibility Gap pranksters McKean and Shearer, stays squarely on the right side of the line, even as his writer-actors remain hilariously trapped on the other side. In lieu of a formal shooting script, the quartet created an extensive and detailed band history ripe with the sort of dead-pan detail that hard-core rock historians and screwball aficionados will savor on countless replays; with the three Tap members also musicians themselves, the "band" developed its stage act under the unsuspecting noses of L.A. club denizens, who accepted them as just as loud, flashy, sexist, and obvious as any other mullet-tressed, leather-garbed brigade of guitar slingers, circa 1984. The resulting footage thus manages to lob its punch lines and build its characters (including some thinly veiled character assassinations of various industry folks) with a loose, tossed-away verve rooted in the improvisational approach. This Is Spinal Tap remains the funniest, and most truthful, look at rock culture ever filmed and a personal best for all involved. --Sam Sutherland
This Is Spinal Tap (Special Edition) Reviews:
This is Spinal Tap 
2008-12-05 - If you like dry, hilarious humor, this is it! Absolutely full of surprises and a wonderful movie. (Just remember that it's make-believe...)
Musicians, Music, Fans, Insanity, Fun, Drama = Spinal Tap!! 
2008-11-08 - A must see for anyone who was ever in a "ROCK" band and or who has been associated with bands for more than a couple of years!!!
This is "Behind The Music" before VH1 and MTV!!! Every facet of every scene was true of someone you may have known, which makes it even more hilarious as all the character's, confrontations, trial's and tribulation's all come together at once... here and now so to speak.
This movie is a highlight reel!!! Too real... too funny ...too close to home!!!
LOVE IT!!!
Commentary??
2008-10-01 - Does anyone know if this release contains the out-of-character commentary from the critereon?
(the version that came out before the special edition (which featured the hilarious in-character commentary)??
Jolly Good!
2008-09-19 - I remember catching this film on MTV many years ago; I caught it about midway through, watched the rest of it (while laughing me bum off), then made a mental note to myself ("I've got to get this movie!"). Well, some twentysomething years later, I now have the Special Edition of THIS IS SPINAL TAP. Better late than never, as they say; was it ever worth the wait.
Tongue-in-cheek parody is comic gold when done well; and this spoof of the heavy metal hair bands of the Eighties simultaneously pokes fun at the genre while paying reverent homage. (Heck, the actors even play their own gigs and songs.) An alleged "documentary", brought to us by legendary (in his own mind) producer/director Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner, who did indeed direct the film), THIS IS SPINAL TAP tells the story of England's "loudest" rock band--and of its three core members: lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest); co-lead guitarist and vocalist David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean); and heavily-moustached bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer, whose poorly-played rifts are hysterical). The band is in America on tour to promote its latest album ("Smell The Glove"); over the course of this tour Murphy's Law reigns supreme, to the detriment of the band--and to the delight of the viewer.
From Guest's outlandish lead solos, to McKean's horrific lyrics, to the actors' over-the-top Manchester accents, to "flashbacks" depicting the 18-year history of the band (and its 37 drummers, all victims of bizarre accidents), this "rockumentary" is hard core comedic bliss. All the scenes are improvved; how the actors got through them with straight faces beats the stuffings out of me. (I'm still in stitches over the scene where the band gets lost trying to find the stage from the dressing room.) Oh, and look for brief appearances by the likes of Bruno Kirby, Ed Begley, Jr., and Billy Crystal. Yet after the movie's over, it gets even better. . .
Special features. This Special Edition includes numerous outtakes (some entertaining, some not so entertaining), some "music videos", some "commercials", the theatrical trailers, and a special commentary that puts the proverbial cherry on this sundae. Voiced over by Guest, McKean, and Shearer, the actors reprise their roles as Nigel, David, and Derek, and comment about the film expressing righteous indignation over the "hatchet job" director DiBergi did about their beloved band. Their ad libbed voice-overs, from scene to scene, are just as entertaining as the film itself, making THIS IS SPINAL TAP a crowning comedic experience.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning
CRITERION version: accept no substitute!
2008-08-11 - I'd give Tap eleven stars if I could. I'd rate my purchase from Amazon Marketplace (from chinaski77) that high as well. Be sure to know exactly what the seller of this rarer version is ready to give you for your money. Fortunately, I got the best deal I could have imagined. My copy looks like it's missing only the original shrinkwrap. The price I paid is not much more than the original price that Criterion lists. As superior as this version is to the "Special Edition," it's not worth being snookered into paying $100+ for it. Shop with vigilence as much as with "confidence."
Now for the movie. Nothing more to say about Spinal Tap than has already been regurgitated for almost 25 years. You either revere it or don't get it.
As for the difference between Criterion's version and the recent "Special Edition," the former includes a terrific commentary track by director Rob Reiner and his production crew, and an equally great one by actors Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Sheerer. These commentaries go a long way toward giving viewers insight into the creative process gone through to make such a complex comedy. The latter DVD release contains neither of those tracks. Instead it replaces them with one done by the actors in character: Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins and Derek Smalls commenting on "rockumentary" director Marty DiBergi's portrayal of them. The mock track did nothing special for my viewing experience.
More simply put, if Tap is on your must-have list, the Criterion Collection's release is the one to buy. Finding a rental is very difficult.
