This Is Spinal Tap

Dom Robinson reviews

This Is Spinal TapDistributed by

• Cat.no: 74321 65027 2
• Cert: 15
• Running time: 79 minutes
• Year: 1984
• Pressing: 1999
• Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)
• Chapters: 44 plus extras
• Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)
• Languages: English
• Subtitles: None
• Widescreen: 1.75:1
• 16:9-enhanced: No
• Macrovision: No
• Disc Format: DVD 5
• Price: £15.99
• Extras : Scene index by song, quote or location

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Director:

Rob Reiner

(The American President, Ghosts From The Past, Stand By Me, The Sure Thing, When Harry Met Sally)

Producer:

Karen Murphy

Screenplay:

Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Rob Reiner and Harry Shearer

Music:

Spinal Tap

Cast:

David St. Hubbins: Michael McKean (Airheads, The Brady Bunch Movie, D.A.R.Y.L., Planes Trains & Automobiles, The Return of Spinal Tap, Short Circuit 2, Small Soldiers, TV: “Dream On”, “Friends”, “Saturday Night Live”, “Star Trek: Voyager”,”The X-Files”)
Nigel Tufnel: Christopher Guest (A Few Good Men, Little Shop of Horrors, The Princess Bride, The Return of Spinal Tap, Small Soldiers, TV: “Saturday Night Live”, “St. Elsewhere”)
Derek Smalls: Harry Shearer (EDTV, The Fisher King, Godzilla, A League Of Their Own, My Best Friend’s Wedding, The Return of Spinal Tap, Small Soldiers, Speechless, The Truman Show, Wayne’s World 2, TV: “Chicago Hope”, “Dream On”, “ER”,”Friends”, “The Simpsons”, )
Marty DiBergi: Rob Reiner
Plus cameos from Bruno Kirby, Ed Begley Jr., Danny Kortchmar, Fran Drescher, Patrick Macnee, Dana Carvey, Billy Crystal, Howard Hesseman andAnjelica Huston.

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This Is Spinal Tapis a spoof ‘rockumentary’ about heavy metal band Spinal Tap, fronted byDavid St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel and Derek Smalls, who are planning their bigcomeback tour to coincide with the release of their latest album, Smell TheGlove, which starts off with a controversial sleeve design but ends upwith… well, you’ll have to see that one for yourself.

If you haven’t heard of this film, then you must have been crawling under arock for the last 15 years as it features some classic scenes and oft-quotedone-liners, namely David’s girlfriend mistaking the ‘Dolby’ in Dolby Stereoas ‘Dobly’, Nigel Tufnel complaining about a buffet backstage and howimpossible it is to fold bread, the downsizing of Stonehenge during a concert,the pod problems that beset Derek at another and Nigel’s amplifier which goes”one louder” because it goes all the way to 11.

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I do have some reservations about the picture quality though. Firstly, thereare some noticeable artifacts throughout the film which aren’t so bad duringbrightly-lit scenes, but do show up during the rest, which makes one wonderhow come the average bitrate is a high 7.32Mb/s. Also – and this is ratherbizarre – the picture is slightly stretched sideways to the point where it’svery obvious. At first I thought there was something wrong with my set-up as ifI’d altered the mode of my widescreen TV but it wasn’t. If you watch the filmon a PC screen via a DVD-ROM drive, you can adjust the picture on the monitorso it looks normal. Alas, this makes no difference to the picture on a TV, butafter putting on another tried-and-tested DVD I wasn’t getting the same effectso I realised it wasn’t me. Equally odd is the fact that the widescreen imageis not centred in the middle of the screen, but below-centre.

The film is not presented in anamorphic format, a process which provides extraresolution for those watching on widescreen televisions and is usually onlyan option for films with a ratio of 16:9 (1.77:1) or wider, but has beenemployed on Warner’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by TimBurton, which had a ratio of 1.66:1 resulting in black bars all round, albeitnot that noticeable for those with standard televisions which suffer from theusual amount of overscan. This Is Spinal Tap has a ratio of 1.75:1,which could quite as easily have sat within the 16:9 frame, thus solving theoff-centre problems, but this option was not taken.

The sound on the disc is a lot better though, the surround sound presentedin Dolby Digital 2.0, which is clear for the classic lines of dialogue andcomes to life during the loud rock songs such as Tonight I’m Gonna RockYou, Big Bottom, Hell Hole, Sex Farm and the one with the aforementionedset design-fault, Stonehenge.

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Extras : Chapters :One of the plus points for this disc is that there are 44 chapters coveringthe 79 minutes of film, which must mean that this DVD has the highest numberof tracks-per-minute than any other released in the UK. There are a number ofways to access your favourite moment from various menus, depending on whetheryou choose by the song, quote or location. A main chapter selection screenwould have been a useful addition though. Languages & Subtitles :

The film is in English only, but subtitles and onscreen lyrics would have beena nice idea. There are separate lyrics screens as part of the chapter selectionprocess, but you can’t read those while you’re watching the film…

Biographies :

Alas not about the prolific main actors onscreen, but biogs about theircharacters with an additional about the fate of the drummers who came and went.

Menu :

The interactive menu is simple and effective. It is also animated in a subtlefashion, but silent. You can’t skip past the copyright info at the start, unlessyou’ve already bookmarked a scene in which you can instantly access that part.

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Overall, this is a great comedy which should be seen by everyone, especiallyin widescreen format and this DVD is the only chance for UK consumers toexperience this. However, the presentation lets it down mainly with theaforementioned picture problems. There’s some nice ideas with the chapterselections, but the amount of extras pales in comparison to that offered inthe USA.

While the Criterion DVD contains an audio commentary and a handful of otherextras including a trailer, the $100 NTSC Laserdisc set comprises of two fullsecond-audio-track commentaries by Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, MichaelMcKean, Rob Reiner, Kame Murphy (producer) and editors Robert Leighton andKent Beyda. It also includes over an hour of deleted scenes, original industryand theatrical trailers, a 20-minute demo reel “Spinal Tap: The Final Tour”and other material.

Here’s hoping for a remastered, anamorphic UK Special Edition that’s not only”one louder”, but also more than one better.FILM : ****PICTURE QUALITY : **½SOUND QUALITY: ****EXTRAS: *½——————————-OVERALL: ***

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.

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