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J.D. Hansel

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This Is Spinal Tap Review

June 18, 2015 by JD Hansel

I don’t review documentaries.  I just wouldn’t know how.  Generally speaking, the world of film production can be split into two career paths: documentary and narrative.  The difference is actually pretty big since it is the role of the narrative filmmaker to tell a cohesive narrative story with a plot, whereas the documentary filmmaker has to find an interesting way to document history, which generally includes a story of sorts.  Because of this, a documentary can be done in many different ways, and most of them are valid, just as long as the information being conveyed is accurate and/or expressed effectively.  To me, that makes a documentary harder to judge.  Add this to the fact that the writers have limited control over the story since it’s based on reality, and the fact that a lot of documentaries are made for television (while I only do theatrical releases), and it should be pretty clear why I can’t bring myself to review the docs I watch.

Then there’s This Is Spinal Tap, which is a scripted story with fictional characters, making it more like a narrative, but it’s done in a documentary style.  Those in the know refer to this as a mockumentary, although this film calls itself a “rockumentary” because it concerns the lives of members of a hard rock group in the 1980s.  There’s actually very little story, and it seems more like a compilation of SNL-like sketches than a real movie, but that’s where the documentary style really helps.  When I watch a documentary – especially one that’s largely just following musicians around – I don’t expect plot.  I just expect to learn about interesting characters, which is what this film provides.

One of the rules I have for movies is that it should be difficult to watch broken up over a span of days.  Ideally, I should hate to pause the movie for a second (if I’m seeing it first viewing).  If I wouldn’t mind pausing it to go watch something else, coming back to the film to watch the rest the following week, that’s usually a sign that the story isn’t right.  This film, which I felt fine with pausing, can get away with it because it’s simply understood that the story isn’t the point – the only goal is to get laughs. Thankfully, the film meets that goal, although I did not laugh as much as I wanted to.  Instead of laughter of various degrees throughout the film, I actually had a few really big laughs during specific, spaced out parts of the film. Most of the times when I was not getting a good laugh felt like filler, but I may have just been missing the parody of other music documentaries at the time.  Either way, this mockumentary is a good time, and I highly recommend it to fans of documentaries, rock music history, or comedy in general.

59 This Is Spinal Tap

Filed Under: Film Criticism, Tumblr Movie Reviews Tagged With: 1980s Movie Reviews, 1984, Comedy Classics, Essential Classics, Four Stars, Mockumentary, R

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