There are people to this day who believe this is an actual documentary of “England’s loudest band”.
Warning:
If you have never seen this movie before DO NOT VIEW IT WHILE EATING. You could very easily choke to death laughing. Really. No bullshit. I almost did watching the scene when Derek gets stuck in the fucking pod.
Look for [among others]: Bruno Kirby, Ed Begley Jr., Billy Crystal, Howard Hessman, Paul Shaffer, Fed Willard, Fran Drescher, Angelica Huston.
IMDb
[b]The actors are all competent musicians, and the soundtrack is actually them playing.
Much of the dialogue was ad-libbed.
After the film opened, several people approached director Rob Reiner telling him that they loved the film, but he should have chosen a more well known band to do a documentary on.
Ozzy Osbourne has stated that when he first watched the film, he was the only person who wasn’t laughing…he thought it was a real documentary.
This is the only movie on IMDb that is rated out of 11 stars.
Rob Reiner was originally going to be one of the band members, but ended up directing the film after Harry Shearer commented that “he didn’t look good in spandex”.[/b]
wiki
[b]A 4½ hour bootleg version of the movie exists and has been traded among fans and collectors for years
In 2002, This Is Spinal Tap was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry.
Critics praised the film not only for its satire of the rollercoaster lifestyles of rock stars but also for its take on the non-fiction film genre. David Ansen from Newsweek called the film “a satire of the documentary form itself, complete with perfectly faded clips from old TV shows of the band in its mod and flower-child incarnations”
The movie cut a little too close to home for some musicians. Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, Dee Snider and Ozzy Osbourne all reported that, like Spinal Tap, they had become lost in confusing arena backstage hallways trying to make their way to the stage. Singer Tom Waits claimed he cried upon viewing it and Eddie Van Halen has said that when he first saw the film, everyone else in the room with him laughed as he failed to see the humor in the film.
U2 guitarist The Edge said in the documentary It Might Get Loud that when he first saw Spinal Tap “I didn’t laugh, I cried,” because it summed up what a brainless swamp big-label rock music had become.[/b]
THIS IS SPINAL TAP
Directed by Rob Reiner
[b]Marty: So in the late fall of 1982 when I heard that Tap was releasing a new album called ‘Smell the Glove,’ and was planning their first tour of the United States in almost 6 years to promote that album, well, needless to say I jumped at the chance to make the documentary, the, if you will, rockumentary that you’re about to see. I wanted to capture the, the sights, the sounds, the smells, of a hard-working rock band on the road. And I got that. But I got more, a lot more
…
Marty [reading from review]: “This tasteless cover is a good indication of the lack of musical invention within. The musical growth of this band cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad poetry.”
Nigel: That’s just nitpicking, isn’t it?
MARTY: ‘The Gospel According to Spinal Tap’: “This pretentious ponderous collection of religious rock psalms is enough to prompt the question: “What day did the Lord create Spinal Tap and couldn’t he have rested on that day too?” The review for “Shark Sandwich” was merely a two word review which simply read “Shit Sandwich”.
…
Limo driver: Excuse me… are you reading “Yes I Can”?
Band groupie: Yeah, have you read it?
Limo driver: Yeah, by Sammy Davis, Jr.?
Band groupie: Yeah.
Limo driver: You know what the title of that book should be? “Yes, I Can If Frank Sinatra Says It’s OK”.
…
Nigel: You can’t really dust for vomit.
…
Ian: The Boston gig has been cancelled…
David: What?
Ian: Yeah. I wouldn’t worry about it though, it’s not a big college town.
…
Bobbi: You put a greased naked woman on all fours with a dog collar around her neck, and a leash, and a man’s arm extended out up to here, holding onto the leash, and pushing a black glove in her face to sniff it. You don’t find that offensive? You don’t find that sexist?
Ian: This is 1982, Bobbi, c’mon!
Bobbi: That’s right, it’s 1982! Get out of the '60s. We don’t have this mentality anymore.
Ian: Well, you should have seen the cover they wanted to do! It wasn’t a glove, believe me.
…
Ian: They’re not gonna release the album because they have decided that the cover is sexist.
Nigel: Well, so what? What’s wrong with bein’ sexy? I mean there’s no…
Ian: Sex-IST!
…
Nigel: Really the young girls quite fearful—that’s my theory. They see us on stage with tight trousers. We’ve got, you know, armadillos in our trousers. I mean it’s really quite frightening…
…
Nigel: Look…this guitar still has the tag on, never even played it.
Marty: [points his finger] You’ve never played…?
Nigel: Don’t touch it!
Marty: We’ll I wasn’t going to touch it, I was just pointing at it.
Nigel: Well…don’t point! It can’t be played.
Marty: Don’t point, okay. Can I look at it?
Nigel: No. no. That’s it, you’ve seen enough of that one.
…
Nigel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and…
Marty: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel: Exactly.
Marty: Does that mean it’s louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel: Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you’re on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty: I don’t know.
Nigel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty: Why don’t you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel: [pause] These go to eleven.
…
Marty: The last time Tap toured America, they where, uh, booked into 10,000 seat arenas, and 15,000 seat venues, and it seems that now, on the current tour they’re being booked into 1,200 seat arenas, 1,500 seat arenas, and uh I was just wondering, does this mean uh…the popularity of the group is waning?
Ian: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no…no, no, not at all. I, I, I just think that the…uh…their appeal is becoming more selective.
…
Nigel: It’s like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black.
…
Marty: Given the history of Spinal Tap drummers, uh, in the past, do you have any fears, uh, for your life?
Mick: When I did join, you know, they did tell me - they kind of took me aside and said, “Well, Mick. It’s, you know, it’s like this…” And it did kind of freak me out a bit. But it can’t always happen to every, can it? I mean, really…
Marty: Because the law of averages…
Mick: …The law of averages…
Marty: …Says you will survive.
Mick: Yeh
…
[Nigel is playing a soft piece on the piano]
Marty: It’s very pretty.
Nigel: Yeah, I’ve been fooling around with it for a few months.
Marty: It’s a bit of a departure from what you normally play.
Nigel: It’s part of a trilogy, a musical trilogy I’m working on in D minor which is the saddest of all keys, I find. People weep instantly when they hear it, and I don’t know why.
Marty: It’s very nice.
Nigel: You know, just simple lines intertwining, you know, very much like - I’m really influenced by Mozart and Bach, and it’s sort of in between those, really. It’s like a Mach piece, really. It’s sort of…
Marty: What do you call this?
Nigel: Well, this piece is called “Lick My Love Pump”.
…
Artist: Um, I’m not understanding it. What do you mean “the actual piece?”
Ian: Well I mean…I mean when you build the actual piece.
Artist: But this is what you asked for, isn’t it?
Ian: What?
Aetist: Well this is the piece.
Ian: This is the piece?
Artist: Yes.
Ian: Are you telling me that this is it? This is scenery? Have you ever been to Stonehenge?
Artist: No, I haven’t been to Stonehenge.
Ian: The triptychs are…the triptychs are twenty feet high. You can stand four men up them!
Artist: Ian, I was…I was…I was supposed to build it eighteen inches high.
Ian: This is insane. This isn’t a piece of scenery.
Artist: Look, look. Look, this is what I was asked to build. Eighteen inches. Right here, it specifies eighteen inches. I was given this napkin, I mean…
Ian: Forget this! Fuck the napkin!!![/b]
You know what’s coming! And the look on David’s face!!
[b]David: I do not, for one, think that the problem was that the band was down. I think that the problem may have been that there was a Stonehenge monument on the stage that was in danger of being crushed by a dwarf. Alright? That tended to understate the hugeness of the object!
…
Ian: Nigel gave me a drawing that said 18 inches. Now, whether or not he knows the difference between feet and inches is not my problem. I do what I’m told.
David: But you’re not as confused as him are you? I mean, it’s not your job to be as confused as Nigel!
…
Derek: David and Nigel are both like, uh, like poets you know like Shelley or Byron, or people like that. The two totally distinct types of visionaries, it’s like fire and ice, basically, you see, and I feel my role in the band, is to be kind of in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water, in a sense.
…
Jeanine: Oh, no! If I told them once, I told them a hundred times: put “Spinal Tap” first and “Puppet show” last.
…
Jeanine: We’ve got a big dressing room, though.
David: What?
Jeanine: Got a big dressing room here…
David: Oh, we’ve got a bigger dressing room than the puppets?
[Asked by a reporter if this is the end of Spinal Tap]
David: Well, I don’t really think that the end can be assessed as of itself as being the end because what does the end feel like? It’s like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say, if the universe is indeed infinite, then how - what does that mean? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what’s stopping it, and what’s behind what’s stopping it? So, what’s the end, you know, is my question to you.
…
David: I’ve always, I’ve always wanted to do a collection of my acoustic numbers with the London Philharmonic.
…
Marty: David St. Hubbins…I must admit I’ve never heard anybody with that name.
David: It’s an unusual name, well, he was an unusual saint, he’s not a very well known saint.
Marty: Oh, there actually is, uh… there was a Saint Hubbins?
David: That’s right, yes.
Marty: What was he the saint of?
David: He was the patron saint of quality footwear
…
Marty: Do you feel that playing rock ‘n’ roll music keeps you a child? That is, keeps you in a state of arrested development?
Derek: No. No. No. I feel it’s like, it’s more like going, going to a, a national park or something. And there’s, you know, they preserve the moose. And that’s, that’s my childhood up there on stage. That moose, you know.
Marty: So when you’re playing you feel like a preserved moose on stage?
Derek: Yeah.
…
Nigel: [on what he would do if he couldn’t be a rock star] Well, I suppose I could, uh, work in a shop of some kind, or… or do, uh, freelance, uh, selling of some sort of, uh, product. You know…
Marty: A salesman?
Nigel: A salesman, like maybe in a, uh, haberdasher, or maybe like a, uh, um… a chapeau shop or something. You know, like, “Would you… what size do you wear, sir?” And then you answer me.
Marty: Uh… seven and a quarter.
Nigel: “I think we have that.” See, something like that I could do.
Marty: Yeah… you think you’d be happy doing something like-…
Nigel: “No; we’re all out. Do you wear black?” See, that sort of thing I think I could probably… muster up.
Marty: Do you think you’d be happy doing that?
Nigel: Well, I don’t know - wh-wh-… what’re the hours?[/b]