BEFORE: I suppose this requires a bit of explanation, because obviously today's film is NOT a documentary, it's a comedy that's made in the style of one, we all know the term for that by now. I was looking for a way to work it in with fiction films, and the links just weren't there, BUT there are famous rock musicians IN this film, so the most obvious way to get HERE would be to link from a documentary, 90% of all documentaries have Paul McCartney in them, or Elton John if they somehow don't have footage of the Beatles. So it seemed ideal, after the Doc Block ended, just come here, and then this naturally leads to tomorrow's film, which is nearly impossible to link to if I don't go from HERE to THERE. But, umm, then what?
The original plan was to end the Doc Block with Billy Joel, then come here, but then after tomorrow the chain just dies, UNLESS I withheld one documentary, move it all the way to the end, like a musical coda, and that documentary has some good linking possiblities to it, lots of actors who are in other things, and one of those stood out as a good place to go before the summer ends, you'll see when we get there. But this means dropping a couple of comedies into the Doc Block, or rather dropping the documentary format for a couple of days, and then finishing strong. Again this is NOT a true documentary, I know this so they don't get a state to profile and there's not a ton of archive footage (although, there is some...)
So the target date for finishing the Doc Block is in just two days, I may still be in recovery due to my ankle injury, so right now I don't know when I can go back to work, at either the theater or the stadium, I might have to cash in some sick hours and stay home and watch movies, oh darn. Well, I don't want to injure the ankle any worse, I need to stay put and elevate it and go from there.
So, yeah, Paul McCartney and Elton John carry over from "Billy Joel: And So It Goes", and this is not a bad place to be, except that Rob Reiner died and therefore tonight's comedy is also a bit sad, but I can't do anything about that. Sorry.
THE PLOT: After a 15-year break, the band reunites for one final concert.
AFTER: It's been over 40 years since the original "This Is Spinal Tap" film came out, which introduced the concept of the mockumentary to a lot of people - wait, what do you mean, it's not REAL? It all seemed ridiculous enough to be real, and afterwards there were a lot of rock bands who swore that they were the ones who got lost backstage trying to find the stage in Cleveland. Before "This one goes to 11" became a household phrase and back when you could still make fun of really short people. I think maybe eventually we all had to determine that the people involved were clearly actors, mainly because we recognized Rob Reiner from "All in the Family", though he looked older than he did before, and wait, isn't that the guy who used to be on "Laverne & Shirley", and isn't that guy playing the more famous rock star also the guy who was Johnny Fever on "WKRP in Cincinnati"?
Yeah, we had to burst that bubble, though it might have been more fun to keep living in a world where Spinal Tap was a real band and those guys didn't all turn up in the cast of "SNL" a few years down the road, and Fran Drescher became super-famous for starring in "The Nanny" after playing press agent Bobbi Flekman. (There were many other future stars in there who made cameos, like Bruno Kirby and Dana Carvey, but I digress...). We shouldn't have had to wait so long for a sequel, I mean we had "A Mighty Wind" but that really isn't the same thing. 40 years may not be a record number of years between a film and its sequel, but it's still far too long. Maybe they were all afraid of ruining a classic comedy, but that shouldn't hold people back - perhaps everyone was just busy with other projects and it took 40 years for everyone's availability to sync up. (The internet tells me that three Disney films took even longer to produce a sequel, "Bambi" (64 years), "Fantasia" (59 years) and "Mary Poppins" (54 years))
Anyway, 40 years down the road, in the fictional Spinal Tap-verse, filmmaker Marty DeBergi has checked in with the members of "Tap" and the other people he interviewed back then. Only David St. Hubbins is still working in the music industry, however he's crafting background tunes for crime podcasts and customer service systems that play music when callers are on hold. Nigel Tufnel has been running a cheese shop in the UK with his new life and/or business partner, and Harry Shearer runs a Museum of Glue (it should be a Glue-seum, but what do I know?) after losing his fortune and money from his bandmates in an ill-fated cryptocurrency scheme. That tracks. Meanwhile David's ex-wife (the source of friction in the previous film) is now a nun, promoter Artie Fufkin sells those inflatable car-dealer waving men and Bobbi Flekman is still a press agent, however she's too busy and not interested enough to work with Spinal Tap ever again.
The band's old manager, Ian Faith, passed away (which means the actor, Tony Hendra, did) but his daughter, Hope, has somehow inherited the band's contract and she has the right to have them perform one more show, which seems kind of illegal as well as ill-advised. But they'll need to find a new drummer and also work around a concert promoter who has no idea what he's doing, also the band members are older, out of shape, and prone to fighting over past events that went bad, much like Cheech and Chong IRL. Yeah, there's a lot here that kind of holds up a mirror to not only the nostalgia rock tour thing but also the social media trends and also the ridiculousness of making documentaries and having Artist Brain in general, like the band is certainly old enough to retire, two-thirds of them are semi-retired or on their third ridiculous career, kind of like Billy Joel, right? But still they can't imagine a world where there isn't an upcoming concert to look forward to and rehearse for.
Supposedly Garth Brooks has gone viral after singing a cover of "Big Bottom" with his wife, Trisha Yearwood, and that creates a trend and a motivation to get the band back together. Nigel is still mad at David for sleeping with his wife and causing their break-up, and David swears that never happened, but they're the heart of the band, they're Tap's Lennon & McCartney or Billy Joel and Jon Small, without them working together, there's no band. Anyway that was 15 or 25 years ago when that thing happened or didn't happen, so who cares? If Fleetwood Mac can still play together after all of their affairs and band-cestual encounters, why can't Spinal Tap work together for one more show?
So they gather together in New Orleans and start rehearsals, plus they call a bunch of famous rock drummers, none of which want to take their lives into their hands by risking a gig with a band that's had so many drummers die over the years. The last auditioner is the best, and she's a woman, maybe that can break the curse, besides it's the 2020's now, women have been in various bands for a long time now, it's only the aging Tap core members who have a little bit of trouble with a female drummer, at first, anyway. Paul McCartney drops by to play "Cups & Cakes" with the band and then Elton John pops by to sing "Listen to the Flower People", funny how Elton's been on the road for decades and never met Spinal Tap in person before. But they invite him to play "Stonehenge" at the big concert with them, what could possibly go wrong?
Ah, it turns out in real life that one reason no sequel was made was that the stars and creators of the first film were involved in a long legal battle over not being properly compensated for the film's success, thanks to "Hollywood accounting" they had not received proper royalties from music sales, royalties and the case took four years to settle, after which the trademarks and licensing would be owned by the four creators of the film going forward, meaning the film and the band were now their intellectual property again and they could profit from making a sequel, so sure, let's do that now.
The sequel film doesn't repeat the same jokes, not exactly, but it does have new versions of the same jokes. Like in the first film the joke was that the "Stonehenge" prop was made too small, here they've gone in the opposite direction and accidentally made the prop much too big. instead of giving the doc film director a tour of his guitars, Nigel here shows him an overly complicated set of foot pedals, most of which he doesn't even use on stage. The concert promoter thinks it would be great publicity if one or more members of the band were to die on stage, which is a terrible thing to suggest, and also be careful what you wish for. The drummer manages to survive and breaks the curse - or does she?
A few months ago I would have said this was exactly the sequel we needed right now, something light to entertain us that we wouldn't have to think too hard about and we could forget about the constant floodings and the still-rising gas prices and the war in Iran, but then Rob Reiner had to go and get himself murdered by his own son, so now it's hardly the laugh-fest that it could have been. Maybe it was if you went to the movie theater to see this last year, but I waited until it was on HBO, who knew that would turn out to be a mistake?
Directed by Rob Reiner
Also starring Christopher Guest (last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Michael McKean (last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Harry Shearer (last seen in "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project"), Rob Reiner (last seen in "Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan"), Valerie Franco, CJ Vanston (last seen in "Danny Collins"), Jean Cromie, Kerry Godliman (last seen in "Mascots"), June Chadwick, Griffin Matthews (last seen in "Your Place or Mine"), David Furnish (last seen in "Elton John: Never Too Late"), Chris Addison, Kathreen Khavari (also last seen in "Mascots"), Brad Williams (ditto), Nina Conti (last seen in "For Your Consideration"), Robert Walker Branchaud (last seen in "Queen & Slim"), Annie Gordenier, Jason "Wee Man" Acuna, Josh Ford, Don Lake (last seen in "John Candy: I Like Me"), Derrick Rossi, Justin Miles (last seen in "Old Dads"), Rajeev Jacob (last seen in "The Big Short"), Dorothea Taylor, Matthew Ramsey, Andrew McLean, Steve Hickman, Quintron, Scott Allen Perry (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Thom Lowry, Soroush Rajabnik, Greta Pasqua, Bart St. Germain and the voices of Ryan Farris, Judith Owen.
with cameos from Garth Brooks (also carrying over from "Billy Joel: And So It Goes"), Fran Drescher (last seen in "Pamela: A Love Story"), John Michael Higgins (also last seen in "Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion"), Questlove (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Paul Shaffer (also last seen in "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not"), Chad Smith (last seen in "Count Me In"), Lars Ulrich (last seen in "Sound City"), Trisha Yearwood (last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), Henry Diltz (last seen in "Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation"), Lucy Faust (last seen in "Renfield"),
and archive footage of Ed Begley Jr. (last seen in "Strange Darling"), Tony Hendra (last heard in "Belushi"), Russ Kunkel (Last seen in "Funny People")
RATING: 6 out of 10 tourists on the New Orleans "ghost house" tour (Hey, I've been on that tour!)
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