Review of This Is Spinal Tap: Special Edition

Introduction

The first and best `Mockumentary` ever.

We follow the British rock band Spinal Tap on the US leg of their comeback tour with hilarious results. The whole film is fimled in a dead serious documenmtary format which just adds to it`s entertainment.

Highlights include the specially designed amps that `go all the way to 11` for that extra loudness, the 18" high stonehenge and the many deaths of the drummers........

The US stars do an excellent job of sounding British and every character is a perfect spoof of the music business.

Video

The original was never the greatest quality but they have done an excellent job on the transfer, colours look good, no digital artifacts and the blacks are black (which is important for a band like Spinal Tap - you need the right black :)

The DVD menu is also rather excellent and a lot of thought has gone into designing a unique way of starting a disc off!

Audio

Excellent, there`s rock music coming out of every pore, it`s loud and it`s silly. perfect.

The spoken track is a bit muddles in places but this is due more to the style of the film that the quality of the soundtrack itself.

The songs by Tap (they hate being called Tap) are the best, they actually sound pretty good but the lyrics are hilarious.

Features

Shed loads. There`s extra footage (over an hour!), interviews with Rob Reiner, press conferences, trailers........

some of it is real and some of it is in character and some of it is just funny but it`s all excellent.

I`m not finished, don`t go.......

There`s some stormingly funny rock videos and tv ads and then there`s the commentary.

Some people may know of the (now hugely rare) Criterion edition of this film that featured an out of character, serious commentary by the members of the band. It was ok, but not really in the spirit of the film. Well, this time around we have a in character commentray by the band as if the whole thing were a real documentary and it`s the funniest and best I have ever heard. It`s almost so funny that I`d recommend it as the best way to watch the movie.

This is a long features section isn`t it and i`m not quite fininshed.

The intro to the disc is also wonderful and, well buy it and find out.

Conclusion

BUY THIS DISC.

Even if you have never heard of Spinal Tap, get it. It`s a perfectly done spoof, it`s funny and it`s one of those films you`ll want to come back to again and again, just to see the dwarves dancing around stonehange.......

It`s definately the best dvd I`ve seen to date, and worth a space in any collection.

Now to see if this reviewer can hack the site to give it an 11........