Seen: February (24?), 2007
Format: DVD
Rating: 4
There's a lot of talented people here. There an abundance of experience, imagination and creativity.
And I'm done with Guest's satiric films.
I kept watching Guest's films because the casts were great, the characters largely improvised. There were generally good running gags, all delivered in dead-pan fashion that made you wince.
This is Spinal Tap is brilliant. With each successive incarnation, the cast got larger. More talent was added. New perspectives surfaced. And it got more and more tired.
Finally, they've taken on Hollywood. You'd think that this, of all the films, would be the easiest, because the writers and cast actually live in this world. Perhaps it's this very proximity, a forest-for-the-trees perspective issue which makes this film fail. Perhaps the ensemble knows and sees things that I can't, and rely on a context which I just don't comprehend to create a subtle satire that I just can't appreciate. And if that is truly the case, is that my problem, or theirs?
This is not to say that there aren't good gags. They're there. So are some outlandish and amusing performances. There are new compatriots who shine, perhaps because they're new. There moments both funny and filled with the obligatory schadenfreude. But in the end, its still the same schtick in new clothes.
My final opinion is that they've finally become so comfortable with this process, so glib and polished at their delivery, that they've begun to phone it all in.
Perhaps the answers to all my misgiving lie in the commentary on the DVD. Perhaps Chris could explain it all to me and in a blinding epiphany I'd appreciate all its brilliance.
But there's no way I'm sitting through it again.
The Good: More of the same sly satire.
The Bad: More of the same old schtick.
The Ugly: Marilyn Hack's makeover
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