If you want to see a rap knock off of Spinal Tap, watch Fear Of A Black Hat ;-)
If you want to see a rap knock off of Spinal Tap, watch Fear Of A Black Hat ;-)
I’ve actually seen parts of that. Back when my sister was first starting to date the man she would marry, he rented it and brought it over. I was in elementary school at the time, however, so it went over my head. I do remember, however, a really funny scene where a club doesn’t allow them to wear their hats and they exclaim, “How can we go on stage without our hats? We are Niggaz With Hats!”
I will try to track this down at some point.
—PolarisDiB
@DiB
I’m not sure what you mean by “satire as instructional.” Are you saying that This is Spinal Tap was so effective that rock documentaries shouldn’t be made?
I am saying This is Spinal Tap is so effective that rock documentarists should watch it in order to see how they shouldn’t be made.
—PolarisDiB
OK, got it. Am I’m assuming you’re thinking more in terms of the dramatic storylines/architecture. (I would agree with this point.)
Members of Monty Python and the original SNL crew collaborated on a Spinal Tap-ish take on The Beatles in 1978 called “The Rutles: All You Need is Cash” (very funny BTW). How that applies here is that, in 1984, a legitimate documentary on the Beatles called “The Compleat Beatles” was released that almost repeated the parody’s structure, note for note.
Isn’t “The Compleat Beatles” the one where you can actually see Yoko Ono hovering around Lennon, making the rest of the crew antsy? The one the Beatles tried to bury?
—PolarisDiB
^ You’re thinking of “Let It Be,” another excellent documentary that allows the cameras access to the Beatles recording sessions, just as they were starting to REALLY piss each other off.
“The Compleat Beatles” (narrated by Malcolm McDowell) is a career overview doc that uses archival footage and interviews (lots of George Martin).
I’m not quite the Beatles fan and historicist the majority of people are, so all I’ve seen is Hard Days Night (fun) and Yellow Submarine (starts out like a bad Saturday morning serial and then somewhere around Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and some other song with a strobing chaos cube became something… entirely different, to say the least). I only want to watch Let It Be if I get to have a double feature with Gimme Shelter. The later transcends what Spinal Tap sets out to break down, mostly because it’s realness is surreal. However, I figure the two would make a great “End of the Ideology” night.
—PolarisDiB
For satires to be effective, they must contain elements of closely observed reality which are then exaggerated in some way for comic effect and/or to make a point. This is the sense in which satire is instructional. And it must be noted that not all satires are comic; some are quite savage.
Christopher Guest hits a good, fine line between savagery and comedy, I think. As I said, I’m prone to schadenfreude—some comedy sort of relies on that.
Ricky Gervais has really caught my attention for this. The Office was too much for me, too true. I watched the series pilot and fled. But Extras has a nice balance and I think I’m down to revisit The Office now that I’ve seen other things he’s done.
Now I was having this conversation about Gervais with my coworker Leon today, and we compared to Curb Your Enthusiasm. THAT is humor I understand, but can’t laugh at. It is dry dry dry. At least Guest is goofy sometimes.
—PolarisDiB
I quite agree about Gervais. The tone of his humor is uncomfortable, which I believe is exactly his intention. It is interesting to compare him on The Office with his American counterpart Steve Carell. Gervais’ boss is edgier. After reading Gervais’ interview in Rolling Stone, it is clear that his sense of humor is more savage than Carell’s.
If you’re interested in comedy and satire that is too true, check out Peep Show and The Day Today/Brass Eye. I still struggle to sit through an episode of Peep Show without covering my eyes because it hits way too close to home. The Day Today and Brass Eye are just hilarious but definitely fall under the umbrella of instructional satire.
COCKSUCKER BLUES / SPINAL TAP double feature. Too dark to deal with.
“The tone of his humor is uncomfortable, which I believe is exactly his intention. It is interesting to compare him on The Office with his American counterpart Steve Carell. Gervais’ boss is edgier.”
The second that pilot episode finished I knew there is no way in hell the American Office is the same. I still haven’t seen it, I might end up “liking” it better because it definitely promises to be goofier and easier, but it’s probably not as good. I can see now why the two are commonly compared/contrasted, because Americans do not respond to dry humor quite as much and that is going to change the dynamics of the series.
—PolarisDiB
PolarisDiB
Tonight I finally saw This is Spinal Tap for the first time, after years of knowing what I was missing and having to stave off people’s incredulity that I’d have the audacity to have not gotten around to a classic. Actually, quite a lot of funny coincidences, from scratched discs to changed syllabi, got between me and experiencing this movie. Nevertheless, it is done, and all the jokes I’ve heard a million times I got to see in their original form.
But that’s not what this thread is about.
One thing that struck me about this movie is that yes, if I had been watching this on, say, VH-1 without a clue as to what I was watching in advance, I would have thought it was real. Fine, that’s mockumentary. However, the reason why it works best is how it basically cuts straight through to the typical, cliched rock drama of the VH-1 special genre, which makes this to me a little bit more than, say, Airplane style parody where the the whole thing is just set-up for sight gags, Mel Brooks’ farces, or Shaun of the Dead loving parody/homages: it’s almost an instructional video on how it’s time to retire that story.
It’s ironic then that this movie actually generated real live shows and it ends with a “Spinal Tap will live on” message, because it really seems most like it’s pointing out how the rock doc has lost all its legs. A lot is laid on the age of the band members not only to emphasize their own mortality, but the feeling is almost as if the idea itself is in its forties and already ready to retire. Or maybe it just feels like that almost thirty years after this movie came out, sixty years from the point in which these documentaries started getting made.
Anyway, the only other Christopher Guest penned movie I’ve seen is Best in Show, which I found far funnier (I have to admit I’m full of schadenfreude… did I mention I’ve been watching a lot of Extras lately?), but this one was a lot sadder. Might as well been called This is The End.
—PolarisDiB