There was a palpable undercurrent of “look how far we’ve come” to last night’s grand salute to This Is Spinal Tap at the Tribeca film festival.
The early days of This Is Spinal Tap sound like the early days of Spinal Tap itself, as a group of idiot-savant visionaries brought their vision to a world not quite prepared for it.
This Is Spinal Tap is in part a paean to pop culture’s losers, to artists intent on doing their own thing no matter who it alienates.
This Is Spinal Tap has transcended its second life as a cult sensation and fully permeated the mainstream, to the point that every office-party yutz can recite the “this one goes to eleven” scene verbatim from memory.