“I wish I could have enjoyed it more. It’s only due to the flaws in my character which I’m rather proud of.”
Douglas Adams once told us in his series of Hitchhiker’s Guide books that the secret to life, the universe, and everything is 42. While Adams was a great writer and had a wonderful imagination, his math is a little suspect. Any of us who have grown up with This Is Spinal Tap over the last 40 years, we know the real answer is 11. If that confuses you, then stop reading right now. Go out and rent, stream, buy, or pinch a copy of 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap. Once you’ve watched that film, you can come back and rejoin the conversation on the long-awaited sequel: Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. It will all start to make some sense, and when that happens, then you know you’re gone completely bonkers … and that’s OK. We’ll wait for the rest of you to catch up. Wasn’t that a hoot? Now that we’re all on the same page, we can take a look at the Blu-ray release from Bleeker Street.
40 years ago, Rob Reiner, better known to All In The Family fans as Meathead, teamed up comic geniuses Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer to create the most iconic mockumentaries of all time. Reiner starred as filmmaker Martin DiBergi. He decided to follow an up-and-coming rock group as they tour for their new album, Smell The Glove. The band consisted of childhood buddies Nigel Tufnel (Guest) and David St. Hubbins (McKean) as the leaders on guitar and vocals. Derek Smalls (Shearer) was the bass player, and the film follows the band as they run into plenty of obstacles along the way. They are fighting with Polydor records about the cover and the lack of interest, and organization leads to cancelled shows and one problem after another, not the least which is the fact their drummers keep dying of mysterious causes like spontaneous combustion. The film wasn’t a hit and didn’t really do much at the box office. But musicians and people in love with the business discovered it over the years. The beauty of the film is how deadpan and serious these actors take these parts and how totally out of touch they are to why things keep going wrong. These guys were a band without a clue, and it led to some hilarious material, including the most iconic joke of an amp that has dials that go to 11. For years someone was making a ton of money by selling pots to fit every amp out there that actually went to 11. I had one, and I didn’t even have an amp. I was the singer in those days. The film has long since become what you might call a cult classic.
Jump ahead 40 years. The band has long since broken up and gone their separate ways. Nigel is running a cheese and guitar store. If you think that’s out there, my cousin ran the premier guitar store in Reading, PA for years, and in its final years it went from Fred’s Music to Fred’s Music & Barbecue. You could get yourself a nice Taylor guitar and pick up all of your high-end grilling supplies at the same time. Don’t laugh. It really worked. So Nigel and David have had a feud going on for decades. When their old manager dies, his daughter inherits their old contract, only to discover that the band still owes her one more performance. So the trio come together to meet for the first time in decades, and the interactions are quite reserved and what you might expect. So they find a stadium that had a last minute cancellation of a “An Evening With Stormy Daniels”. So you know this isn’t the Superdome. But the show must go on.
The first problem is finding a new drummer. No one wants the gig, because the drummers always die. You might as well put on a red shirt and beam down to a hostile planet with Kirk, Spock, and Bones. You’re toast. How many drummers have they lost to date? You can probably guess that number. It’s more than 10 and less than 12. They finally get a great rocker in Didi Crocket, played by Valarie Franco. She’s hot, and the boys are loving it until they meet her girlfriend. But she has one of the most important qualities for a Spinal Tap drummer … she’s breathing. So off they go to prepare.
This is where the film finds new comedy gold. Nigel and David are trying to work together, but they keep getting on each other’s nerves. If you’ve ever been in a band, you’ll love the pedal fights. The two actors don’t have to go overboard to sell the irritations. Every musician who has ever played in a band immediately gets what’s going on. These guys might not have worked together in 40 years, but they have a chemistry like you wouldn’t believe.
Of course, just as in the first film, a lot of stuff goes wrong, and you’ll get the necessary sense of deja vu.
There are two extremely golden moments in the film that are worth the price of the disc and the 85 minutes of your time. When the band is in a recording studio trying to work out the songs, Paul McCartney drops by. He’s a fan, and he offers to help them smooth out their issues. They do Cups and Cakes from the first film together, and it’s absolutely incredible. Of course, they end up being annoyed that McCartney interfered, and the post interviews in the film are classic Spinal Tap. McCartney absolutely plays it straight, and you’ll find yourself coming back to that scene often.
Another guest moment happens with Elton John, who is invited to join them for a song. He shows up, and again they have this wonderful performance but end up switching to their iconic Stonehenge song. The rehearsal is fine, but on stage they are trying to make up for one of those setbacks from the first film where the stage prop was a humiliating 18 inches. They go big this time, and let’s just say Elton John starts wishing he never heard of these guys.
Elton may wish that, although not really. But you won’t. This is the kind of sequel that honestly needed 40 years before it could be made. Thankfully everyone survived this long, and I think it’s as good and in places better than the first film. As a musician who has released records and done a little touring, the stuff is so perfect that you find yourself nodding your head often because you’ve experienced something just like it. The film manages to get everything right even when they’re getting it wrong. If that confuses you, then maybe go back and watch that first one again. We’ll wait.
Got it? Get it. That’s all I can say. Get this film. “The more we retreat into the music, the nicer things become. Not to be profound or anything, and it would be a first time for me.”
