Music Fan Series: This Is Spinal Tap

R | Mockumentary | 1 Hour 22 Minutes | $10.00 General Admission/$6.00 Members

Spinal Tap, one of England’s loudest bands, is chronicled by film director Marty DiBergi on what proves to be a fateful tour. In 1982, the legendary English heavy metal band Spinal Tap attempt an American comeback tour accompanied by a fan (Rob Reiner as DiBergi) who is also a film-maker. The resulting documentary, interspersed with powerful performances of Tap’s pivotal music and profound lyrics, candidly follows a rock group heading towards crisis, culminating in the infamous affair of the eighteen-inch-high Stonehenge stage prop.

Frequently listed as many critics’ top ten films, Spinal Tap spawned scores of memorable lines like “There’s a fine line between clever and stupid” and “He died in a bizarre gardening accident; the authorities said it was best left unsolved” and, of course, the line that has entered our vernacular – “These go to 11”…!

99.9% improvised, Spinal Tap raised the bar on mockumentaries and will have you laughing out loud again and again.

“The film stays so wickedly close to the subject that it is very nearly indistinguishable from the real thing” – Janet Maslin, The New York Times