This Is Spinal Tap

The film that gave birth to the rock-mockumentary genre is still its reigning champ, as Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer—the team that later gave us Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show trace their history of rock’s most hapless band from skiffle to flower-pop to heavy metal madness. “It stays so wickedly close to the subject that it is very nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.”— Janet Maslin, New York Times