"This is Spinal Tap" (1984)

                                  I feel like I'm in a unimaginably tiny minority when it comes to This is Spinal Tap, the landmark 1984 mock-umentary about a mediocre 80's hair metal band. This is Spinal Tap is grossly overrated, not so much as a movie (because its importance and ambition can't be denied) but as a comedy. I never found the movie funny.
                                 My antipathy toward the film may have to do with a certain cynicism I have with the mockumentary genre itself. Us millennials have been fairly inundated with shows like The Office and Park and Recreations to see through the stagey-ness of fake verisimilitude. The satire, though considered clever upon initial release, feels heavy-handed and obvious today. The joke gets old really fast. Not to mention that it relies on improvisatory dialogue, which I'm not particularly fond of because it has a forced awkwardness that doesn't feel organic. Humans, by nature, are banal and don't have such wildly funny responses to stimuli. That may sound nitpicky but relying too much on improv will only give you the 2016 remake of Ghostbusters.
                             Then again, I like Best in Show (another Christopher Guest joint), so I guess there are exceptions to the rule. Well, let's back up a little. Mockumentaries can be funny, but they usually benefit from a little structure. This is Spinal Tap, excluding the third act, is plotless. It feels very much like a series of sketches that would play during commercial bumpers on Late Night with Conan O'Brien. Like "Before we go to break, here's this week's entry on our favorite band, Spinal Tap!" which I guess could be funny on their own terms but not plopped together for an 82 minute running time.
                             Another reason why I never found it funny is because the characters are annoying and underwritten. I get that they're supposed to be delusional egotists but it doesn't really make for engaging humor. Because of the mock reality of it, the characters come across like pathetic sad sacks. When Nigel Tufnel is complaining about the size of the bread for his sandwiches, it's not so much funny as "I want to punch this guy in the face."
                             Is there anything I found funny about it? I liked the Stonehenge sequence because it's a perfect send-up of those pretentious 70's prog rock bands who staged elaborate shows and wrote mystic, obtuse lyrics about some sort of Norse god. And I do think the movie is more or less aware that the hair metal thing will be a passing fad, and this is in '84, when hair metal was at its peak. And I do think the actors involved are extraordinarily talented and funny, but.....I don't know.

                             This is Spinal Tap is a movie that I want to like in theory, but it just never clicked with me. Then again, it's one of those movies that, like A Christmas Story, pop culture over-saturates to such a degree that it begins to feels tired. I've seen it three times and I've given it the benefit of the doubt, because I believe multiple viewings do deepen appreciation, but.....sorry, Spinal Tap.

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