Back to One: Hello Cleveland!

This one will go to eleven

23/6/21 Lymond 37

Since there was some discussion recently about the zany 60’s comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. It got me thinking about other great funny movies. I was going to try to step into the 21st century entertainment world this week, but have to back slide to the 80’s, so bear with me.

One of the best all time favorite comedies is This is Spinal Tap. It introduced us to the brilliance that is Rob Reiner in his first directing job and Christopher Guest with his great troupe of collaborators – include Michael McKean and Harry Shearer. It was released in 1984 to very little fanfare but apparently became a cult classic after its VHS video release. I didn’t see it in 1984, I was too young, but I wore out my copy of the video as a teenager.

In case you’ve never seen it – the story is about the making of a documentary of an aging British heavy metal band and their downward spiral of fame.  Christopher Guest plays slightly dim witted guitarist Nigel Tufnel, Michael McKean is the blonde maned slightly dim witted lead singer, David St. Hubbins and Harry Shearer is the extremely dim witted bassist Derek Smalls. A few years before, Eric Idle of Monty Python made a film spoofing The Beatles called The Rutles – so it gets to claim the fame of first rock mockumentary, but Spinal Tap is definitely the best. 

The most popular quote is of course ” These go to eleven” – which Nigel states while describing the bands amps. But, there are so many other great quotes from the film that it’s amazing that there was no script – just a basic outline of how a scene began and ended with the actors improvising all of the dialogue. They apparently shot a hundred hours of footage to make the one hour and twenty five minute movie. Most scenes in the film are from the first take – that’s how good these guys were. Some of the funniest scenes were inspired by actual events that happened to nonfictional rock stars. The scene where they get lost trying to get to the stage in Cleveland was based on the same thing happening to Tom Petty at a concert in Germany. Pearl Jam equated going through five drummers as being “very Spinal Tap of us”, although I don’t think of them died from bizarre gardening accidents. And, 80’s glam rock band Dokken actually thought the film was based on them. 

Basically, if you haven’t seen it – I highly, highly recommend. 11/10

Imagine this scene but with Tom Petty.

My most favorite scene in the whole movie.

This could have been footage of one of REM’s first gigs – they played at an air force base early on in their career.

Of course, I also love Best In Show and For Your Consideration which showcase other Guest alums Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy. So, Deadsplinterites – what are some of your favorite comedies or even just comedic scenes? As always…thanks for your support.

Last week’s poll answer is C). He never workshopped any of his stand up material. I didn’t even know he was a comedian until after the film – I just thought he was a funny guy. And, yes, I hate to say it to you Mel Brooks devotees – he did crack a lot of jokes and he was way funnier than Mel was – but he usually just did it in front of a small group of us.

This week’s poll:

Which director spontaneously came up with the coolest shots on set?
10 votes · 10 answers
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37 Comments

  1. My answer here is “Anchorman.” It is not my favorite comedy of all time — I didn’t even totally love it on first pass — but it’s insanely rewatchable … and incredibly packed with delightful quotes. And as that process began for several of us at a previous job, it was how we communicated for a solid 6 months.

    Bad staff meeting: “That jumped up a notch, didn’t it!”

    Reporter telling me they’d be late on deadline: <eyes squinting> “What did you say?”

    Things going badly: “I’m trapped in a glass case of emotion!!!”

    Finishing something: “Whammy!”

    Hearing worse news: “I’m not even mad, I’m impressed.”

    And at all times: “Sixty percent of the time, it works every time.”

    (and about 50 more I don’t need to list here)

     

  2. Anchorman is definitely a great quote movie. When we have younger crew members that don’t seem to understand the concept of work – we refer to them as ” the fresh faced 32 year old that has the wanderlust.” or if we get attitude we refer to it as “the wanderlust.” 

  3. The Stonehenge scene is my favorite — the screwup where they didn’t understand what a scale model was and their botched attempt to cover up for it, together with their overwhelming self-seriousness was the perfect combination of all of their worst and funniest traits.

  4. I first watched Spinal Tap with a bunch of other recording engineers and we all died.

    D minor is really the saddest of all keys.

     

    Beyond that, there’s a shitload of comedies that I love, but I will do a special call out for Young Frankenstein.  When I was in college I took a course in later British masterworks, and Shelley’s Frankenstein was the first book we read.  We plowed through three other books (Burmese Days which I recommend, Wuthering Heights, which I also recommend, and Emma, which I would rather set myself on fire than be forced to slog through again), and then had to write a paper on one of them.  I decided to write a comparison/contrast between Frankenstein and the Mel Brooks film.  This meant I had to watch the film so many times that I still have huge portions of it stuck in my memory decades later.  One of the interesting things about this film is that–until the not-very-good Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein came out in 1994–it used more direct quotes from the book than any of the other Frankenstein movies from the 20th Century.  Almost all of Peter Boyle’s monologue in the climactic dungeon/mob scene was pulled verbatim.

  5. OK, I shouldn’t really like Mel Brooks because I prefer directors with a little more discipline, but I found The Producers inspired.  And when I saw it as a teenager, I couldn’t get enough of some of the lines.


    Also, the movies of Billy Wilder had a big impact on me, especially his comedies.

  6. I missed last weeks— you worked on men in tights??? That’s fucking crazy! The legends that were in that flick, wow that must’ve been some shit. Any good stories??
     
    Oh yea, and to answer the question, Men in Tights. 

    • Haha – It was the first movie I did once I got in the union. I got hired on for a couple of weeks to help with background and ended up staying on for the whole rest of the movie and wrap. I don’t have a lot of stories because I was working with back ground mostly. That’s how I ended up around Dave Chappelle a lot because I was helping out with the Merry Men and the Sheriff’s soldiers. I did help out with Patrick Stewart – he didn’t want to wear the knitted chain mail that was very light weight – he insisted on wearing real chain mail that weighed a ton. 

        • @Sedevilc – It was a pretty long time ago. It was a super basic pattern because I knew nothing about knitting and learned it fairly easily. We were using the old and dry rotting knitted chain mail from one of the earlier Errol Flynn movies that had been in storage at Western Costume. The guys wearing it were having blow outs almost every take so we were constantly knitting and crocheting patches to repair it and then spray painting them pewter. Everyone who was working with background had to knit or crochet patches when we weren’t on set. 
          If I’m remembering correctly – it was a slightly looser weave than the piece in this pic. If you’re a good knitter – you might know a better pattern. 
          https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/garter-stitch-scarf-for-beginners-2116203
          The beginning of this clip shows the “chain mail” bottoms – they were basically hose attached to boots. 


           

  8. Monty Python and the Holy Grail of course. Who doesn’t quote it extensively? 

    help, help, I’m being repressed!

     

    I’ll second Young Frankenstein.  And I have a soft spot for the original In Laws with Alan Arkin and Peter Falk.

     

     

    Sometimes at the dog park when Fanny is being chased by her friends I’ll yell “serpentine Fanny, serpentine!”

     

     

     

    • Oh yeah, Super Troopers is so funny.   Plus, they use a few SCOTS songs which is awesome!  I loved Beerfest too.  I went to a Beerfest in Vancouver BC that was showing Beerfest on all the screens with no sound & I realized I had watched that movie too many times.  

        • I’m more worried about it happening this early in the summer!  We live on a hill above the sound so it is usually a little cooler here than places inland and we usually get a breeze in late afternoon off the water.  I also have a heat pump/aircon and some big fans if it gets too bad.  Funny thing is we have friends coming in from Hawaii this weekend and they love coming here to get out of the heat.  I warned them and we will be going out near Port Townsend for the 4th where it is always windy and cooler.  If you live inland, hope you already bought a fan or aircon because as every year, people freak out and none will be in any store this week.

  12. For most quotable, Airplane comes to mind.  The first one of course.  Especially because of the time it came out when it seemed like it was disaster movie after disaster movie, you probably are not old enough to remember “sensurround”.  That was big when I was a kid.  Young Frankenstein & anything comedy from Coen Bros. still kill me.  Midnight Run is another great comedy with amazing actors.    A Fish Called Wanda is fun & for anyone else that can’t get enough John Cleese, one super underrated movie of his I love is Clockwise:
     
     

  13. …there are a lot of good choices people have already made but I’d add an obligatory mention of the blues brothers & probably at least one of the gene wilder/richard pryor movies (maybe stir crazy?) more or less on principle

    …I have a feeling it might be one of thoe questions where the longer I spend considering it the more things I’ll think are worthy of consideration…but in terms of most often quoted I guess the princess bride & withnail & I would be the odd couple I come up with…although as it happens the odd couple itself was pretty funny last time I checked?

    • @SplinterRIP – the Princess Bride is a perfect movie. For me – the Odd Couple is one of those movies that is a lot funnier than you think it’s going to be. 
      I’m thinking I’m going to do a Withnail & I rewatch.
       

  14. That looks fun. Have you seen Fierce Creatures? I didn’t think it was that funny at first – but it was a favorite of my mom’s – so I’ve seen it quite a few times. And, I remember sensurround. 

    • No!  I don’t know how I have not seen this.  I need to find it.  I just thought of one more story you might appreciate.  In high school we had a sub that was one of the little people in Time Bandits.  He was so cool and spent the entire class telling us about the movie instead of teaching us anything.  I guess that did kind of teach us something.

      • That would have been so awesome. It’s weird because I work in the film business and I’m just as  cynical and jaded about the process as the next person – but I still love movies and the stories of making them and how the crews came up with stuff. 

    • …I found out a few months back that somehow my folks had never seen clue…so obviously I had to rectify that…can’t remember which streaming service we found it in but it was absolutely as funny as I remembered even if here & there some parts maybe haven’t aged quite so well?

  16. My favorite comedies are a rotation of about a dozen movies. The Biggus Dickus scene from Life of Brian makes me giggle like an idiot just thinking about it, for example.
    There are a lot of movies that have hilarious sequences, too. That Game of Thrones bit in Logan Lucky is a recent one. Some random dude accidentally arguing FOR fucking a chicken in Devil’s Rejects just cut through the grime there.

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