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Rob Reiner on the Making of His Almost-Didn't-Happen Comedy Classic ‘This Is Spinal Tap'
Rob Reiner on the Making of His Almost-Didn't-Happen Comedy Classic ‘This Is Spinal Tap'

Yahoo

time3 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • Yahoo

Rob Reiner on the Making of His Almost-Didn't-Happen Comedy Classic ‘This Is Spinal Tap'

When Rob Reiner's directorial debut, 'This Is Spinal Tap,' opened in theaters in early 1984, it quickly became a cult classic beloved by music fans and cinephiles alike for its hilarious portrayal of the title band, a heavy metal group plagued by mishaps while on tour promoting its latest album. Told in a documentary style in which Reiner riffed on films like D.A. Pennebaker's 'Don't Look Back' and Martin Scorsese's 'The Last Waltz' to tell Spinal Tap's story, the film was incredibly influential, spawning a whole series of mockumentaries by 'Spinal Tap' band member Christopher Guest ('Waiting for Guffman,' 'Best in Show,' etc.) and television series like 'The Office' and 'Parks and Recreation.' Yet, when Reiner tried to raise money for the movie, no one was interested — even after he shot a 20-minute reel of scenes to demonstrate what he was going for. 'We went to every single studio and got turned down everywhere,' Reiner told IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. 'Nobody wanted it. We went from studio to studio with a 16mm film can under our arms.' More from IndieWire Michael Madsen Remembered by Harvey Keitel, Virginia Madsen, Vivica A. Fox, and More: Late Actor Was a 'Poet Disguised as an Outlaw' Onscreen and Off Ringo Starr Helped Rewrite Scenes for the Beatles Biopics: I 'Would Never Do That' It didn't help that Reiner was known as a TV sitcom actor, thanks to his role as 'Meathead' on the hit comedy 'All in the Family.' 'In those days, there was a big division between movies and television,' Reiner said. 'Television people were peons, and the movie people were royalty. They looked down on us.' Luckily, Reiner got his footage to Avco-Embassy executive Lindsay Doran, who loved it and got studio head Frank Capra, Jr. to agree to distribute the film. Reiner thought he was home free, and then another obstacle sprang up. 'This was after a couple years, so I'm excited,' Reiner said. 'Then Jerry Perenchio and Norman Lear bought Avco-Embassy, and they decided to throw out everything they had in development — including 'This Is Spinal Tap.'' Reiner begged for a meeting with Perenchio and Lear, who he knew from 'All in the Family,' and passionately argued that 'This Is Spinal Tap' would be a big hit with young audiences. 'I heard that after the meeting Norman said, 'Who's gonna tell him he can't do this?' Because I was so passionate.' Reiner and the actors playing Spinal Tap — Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer — wrote an outline for the film but improvised all of the dialogue, and Reiner covered the action as though he were shooting a documentary, with minimal blocking and a vérité shooting style designed to catch behavior on the fly. 'We had a cameraman named Peter Smokler who had shot a lot of rock and roll documentaries,' Reiner said. 'He had a good instinct for where to go, and a lot of the time I would act like a human camera dolly, I would get behind him and physically move him.' For the film's concert scenes, Reiner had three cameras and he shot each song three times to give himself nine angles. While the concert footage primarily mimicked music documentaries like the Led Zeppelin film 'The Song Remains the Same,' the director also had fun recreating '50s and '60s TV shows for 'archival' performances from Spinal Tap's supposed early days as British Invasion rockers and psychedelic hippies. He says those moments came straight out of his own memories. 'I'm the first generation that grew up on television,' Reiner said. 'My father [legendary writer, director, and actor Carl Reiner] was on television before we owned a television. We got a television in 1951 and my dad started with Sid Caesar on 'Your Show of Shows' in 1949. From when I was four years old, I just watched television, so in my computer brain I knew what these shows all looked like, 'Hullabaloo' and 'Shindig' and Dick Clark.' Between the performances and the backstage material, Reiner found that he had a lot of footage by the time he got to the editing room. 'Oh, God, it was just like a documentary, where you have millions of feet of film,' Reiner said. His first cut was four hours long, and that didn't include three hours of interview footage — meaning that the initial version of 'Spinal Tap' ran somewhere around seven hours. Slowly but surely, Reiner and his editors whittled away at the movie to get it down to a tight 84 minutes. Reiner found himself rewriting the movie in the editing room by creating an audio track that had all the best jokes and then cutting the image to match. 'I learned from Bob Leighton, our film editor who I picked because he had done a ton of BBC documentaries, that when you put together a documentary the thing that jars you isn't cuts in the visuals, it's the dialogue,' Reiner said. 'If that doesn't match up, that'll be jarring. Sometimes I was on people was on people who were not talking and the best jokes came from off camera, but that's okay. As long as you can marry them together dialogue-wise you can be on whatever.' While sifting through the endless footage, Reiner found it was easy to lose perspective on whether or not the movie he was making was actually any good. 'You sit there and start to question, 'Is this funny?'' Reiner said. 'And then the first time you find out whether you were right or wrong is when you put it in front of an audience and then they'll tell you if it's funny or not.' In the case of 'Spinal Tap,' Reiner said it took a while for the film to find an audience because some people were confused about whether or not the movie was a comedy or an actual documentary — and some rock and rollers were insulted by what they saw as a mockery of their work. Over the years, however, both cinephiles and music fans — and many musicians, including Jimmy Page, U2's The Edge, and Metallica's Lars Ulrich — have embraced the film, and it's now returning to theaters in a fantastic looking and sounding 4K restoration. Reiner is also preparing a sequel for release this fall. 'It's finished and it's coming out September 12,' Reiner said, adding that although it's essentially in the same style as the original, there will be a few upgrades. 'It's a tiny bit slicker, because Marty Di Bergi [the director played by Reiner in the original] has seen all the reality television shows and all these four-part and six-part docs,' Reiner said. 'But I wanted to try to do it pretty much the way we did the first one.' The new 4K restoration of 'This Is Spinal Tap' will screen in theaters nationwide from July 5-7 via Fathom Events. To hear Rob Reiner's episode of Filmmaker Toolkit and other great filmmaker conversations, make sure you subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. Best of IndieWire The Best Lesbian Movies Ever Made, from 'D.E.B.S.' and 'Carol' to 'Bound' and 'Pariah' The Best Thrillers Streaming on Netflix in June, from 'Vertigo' and 'Rear Window' to 'Emily the Criminal' All 12 Wes Anderson Movies, Ranked, from 'Bottle Rocket' to 'The Phoenician Scheme'

How the genius tactical play from Nottingham Forest is placing them firmly at the top of the Premier League
How the genius tactical play from Nottingham Forest is placing them firmly at the top of the Premier League

The Irish Sun

time22-04-2025

  • Sport
  • The Irish Sun

How the genius tactical play from Nottingham Forest is placing them firmly at the top of the Premier League

THE Champions League anthem will surely ring around the City Ground next season and deservedly so. Advertisement 11 Nuno Espirito Santo has transformed Forest from relegation candidates to Champions League hopefuls Credit: Alamy 11 Centre-backs Nikola Milenkovic and Murillo have been key to their success Credit: Reuters But they have defied belief to consistently be closest challengers to Liverpool and Arsenal. Forest are a unique side tactically with some of the league's most underrated players. Here is how they have shocked everyone this year. Stats just not right When crunching the numbers, Forest's clinical and resilient side are on show. Advertisement READ MORE IN FOOTBALL Attacking-wise, they rank fourth for shot conversation and 14th for total shots, all while having the least amount of average possession in the division. Only So how do they keep so many teams out? Essentially, it is park the bus brilliance. In Nikola Milenkovic and Murillo they have two great box defenders and full-backs, usually Neco Williams and Ola Aina, rarely go forward. Advertisement Most read in Football BEST FREE BETS AND BETTING SIGN UP OFFERS 11 Nuno cuts his team down the middle with a setup that sees six players defend and four attack. When out of possession, they sit on the edge of their own box in a 4-4-2 shape and it is extremely narrow and difficult to play through. Advertisement They are well-drilled in blocking passing lanes, setting traps to win it back and funnelling the ball wide. Forest then back themselves should a cross come in, having aerially dominant centre-back and a keeper in-form like Matz Sels are a must. Teams have so much of the ball but have nowhere to go, it is the magic of the formation. 11 Forest are so compact and there is no way through for opponents Advertisement 11 The gaps between their lines are tight and set traps and block passing lanes Dreaming dreams of our Murillo The Brazilian 22-year-old is not far off He is so good at giving striker's no space to work with and he is the leader of the back four. Murillo does this amazing thing where if the ball's on one side of the pitch, he brings the two nearest Forest players closer to him as he marks the rival centre-forward. Advertisement 11 The team pulls in towards Murillo when a cross comes in When opponents are about to cross, Murillo drops two steps and the rest of the team follow suit. We see players put their hands in the air as a signal before a free-kick and the defensive line then drops. Essentially, Murillo does it in open play. It's amazing. He also bullies the striker before the ball comes in with clever nudges and holding. Advertisement In 11 Murillo and Milenkovic are physical and aerially dominant Don't Look Back, Elanga Against Spurs, Elliot Anderson and Morgan Gibbs-White tucked in to frustrate the inverted full-backs formation that so many teams use, again, giving opponents no space to work with. Advertisement Wood is the focal point and Elanga is free, ready to float around the striker to cause havoc where he wants. The ex- In transition, passes are always aimed towards Elanga to start the counter-attack. And the team pulls apart opponent's defensive structures to help with their quick breaks. Advertisement Wood drops deep to hold up the ball and runners go beyond him, defensive lines then becomes jagged so they can't play offside as Elanga truly doesn't look back and sprints forward. 11 Elanga drifts out wide and starts counter-attacks Where there's Forest, there's Wood You would be forgiven for thinking But the veteran striker continues to be the league's most clinical forward, his 19 goals this season is eight more than his expected goals have predicted (only three of his strikes have been penalties too). Advertisement 11 Going back to him dropping deep, when Forest win it back with a clearance, he positions himself on the opponent's midfield with the wide players either side of him. Centre-backs do not want to leave their zone and be dragged miles out, those jagged backline worries, and Wood is able to win headers and flick it on for his speedster team-mates. 11 Wood likes to drop deep and win flick-ons after a clearance to start counter-attacks Advertisement Forest are also happy to go long from goal-kicks and put it on Wood's head. They have players around him to pick up the loose balls. A throwback centre-forward and it is working wonders. Give 'em Ell Elliot Anderson is one of the most underappreciated players in the Premier League. His awareness of where to help defensively and his positional play is brilliant and key to Nuno's system. Advertisement He can play on the left of a midfield three, the No.6 role, part of a double pivot and further up the field in attack. All action Anderson knows when the likes of Elanga, It is exactly what Nuno demands in a setup that prioritises never being outnumbered defensively. 11 Advertisement

Michael Caine was ‘terrified' by Heath Ledger's Joker transformation
Michael Caine was ‘terrified' by Heath Ledger's Joker transformation

Fox News

time30-03-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Fox News

Michael Caine was ‘terrified' by Heath Ledger's Joker transformation

Michael Caine reflected on working with the late Heath Ledger during the filming of the 2008 film "The Dark Knight." In his new memoir, "Don't Look Back, You'll Trip Over," the 92-year-old actor recalled how he was initially skeptical about Ledger's casting as Batman's classic nemesis The Joker, only to be later blown away by the "Brokeback Mountain" star's performance. "He was a lovely guy, very gentle and unassuming," Caine wrote of Ledger, via Entertainment Weekly. "I wondered how he was going to play the Joker, especially as Jack Nicholson's take had been so iconic. Brilliantly, Heath ramped up the character's psychotic side rather than going for one-liners. His Joker was deeply, deeply warped and damaged, though you never find out exactly why, or what he's really looking for." Caine played Bruce Wayne's trusty butler Alfred Pennyworth in 2005's "Batman Begins," the first installment of Christopher Nolan's trilogy. The two-time Academy Award winner reprised his role in the sequel "The Dark Knight" and the franchise's third and final film, 2012's "The Dark Knight Rises." In his book, Caine wrote that he believed one of his character's most famous lines epitomized Ledger's approach to playing the Joker. "As Alfred says to Bruce, 'Some men just want to watch the world burn,'" he wrote. "And that was Heath's version of the character: the smeared make-up, the weird hair, the strange voice. It was chilling. Absolutely floored me the first time I saw him in action — I was terrified!" Caine explained that Ledger's personality completely differed from that of the Joker when he was out of character, and remembered that the Australian actor shared a close relationship with Christian Bale, who played Batman. "He and Christian were good friends and always having fun together. And then he was transformed into this scheming monster, driving a whole city towards mayhem," Caine wrote. "Looking back, I think Heath's excellence made all of us raise our game," he continued. "The psychological battle between the Joker and Batman is completely riveting. Are they in any way the same? What nudges one man to do good, and the other to do evil? The Joker wants to torment Bruce by convincing him that they're two of a kind." In January 2008, Ledger died at the age of 28 due to an accidental overdose. Caine described the actor's untimely death as "absolutely awful," noting that he remains affected by Ledger's passing to this day. "It still makes me sad to think of it, more than fifteen years on," Caine wrote. "An accidental overdose, just tragic. Heath was only twenty-eight when he passed away. I hadn't even made [1964's] Zulu when I was that age. You think of what he might have gone on to achieve, it's just heart-breaking." Ledger's death occurred while "The Dark Knight" was in post-production, months ahead of its July 2008 release. Caine recalled that the movie's press tour was difficult for the actors in the wake of the "A Knight's Tale" star's passing. "We were all terribly shocked, and it made doing the publicity for 'The Dark Knight' that summer much more intense, because all the journalists wanted to talk about his death," he wrote. At the 81st Academy Awards in February 2009, Ledger posthumously won the best supporting actor Oscar, which his parents Kim and Sally and sister Kate accepted on his behalf. "I was so pleased when he was awarded the posthumous Oscar, because it must have been at least some sort of comfort for his poor family," Caine wrote. In October 2023, Ledger's family in Australia gave his Oscar statuette to his daughter, Matilda, whom he shared with his ex-girlfriend Michelle Williams. The gift of the statuette was to mark Matilda's 18th birthday. Caine recalled that Ledger's Oscar win was bittersweet for "The Dark Knight's" cast. "The truth is, we'd all hoped he would win an Academy Award and thought he should, even while we were still filming the movie," the "Children of Men" star wrote. "So it was just a very sad thing that he wasn't around to accept it in person," he added. "It's a performance for the ages, and even though his career was cut short so soon, he'll be remembered as a great actor, I believe."

Michael Caine Recalled Having To Constantly Talk About Heath Ledger's Death On 'The Dark Knight' Press Tour Only A Few Months After He Died, And The Whole Thing Is So Heartbreaking
Michael Caine Recalled Having To Constantly Talk About Heath Ledger's Death On 'The Dark Knight' Press Tour Only A Few Months After He Died, And The Whole Thing Is So Heartbreaking

Buzz Feed

time27-03-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Buzz Feed

Michael Caine Recalled Having To Constantly Talk About Heath Ledger's Death On 'The Dark Knight' Press Tour Only A Few Months After He Died, And The Whole Thing Is So Heartbreaking

Heath Ledger 's portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight is widely regarded as one of the most impressive villain performances in history. However, the beloved actor never got to see the full extent of the praise — nor collect his posthumous Oscar for the role — as he tragically died just a few months before the movie was released in theaters. At 28 years old, Heath was found dead in a Manhattan apartment in January 2008. A housekeeper discovered his body, and authorities subsequently confirmed that he died from an accidental overdose of six different types of prescription drugs, including Oxycontin, Valium, and Xanax. His daughter, Matilda Ledger, whom he shares with Michelle Williams, was just 2 years old at the time. The death was tragic in many ways — not least because he was about to share one of the most impressive acting performances of his career with the world. And now, in his new memoir, Heath's Dark Knight costar, Michael Caine has reflected on the 'heartbreaking' loss and what it was like for his fellow cast members to have to navigate it so publicly. Praising Heath's transformative performance as the iconic villain, Michael — who played Alfred Pennyworth — said the Australian forced the rest of the cast to 'raise [their] game.' 'The smeared makeup, the weird hair, the strange voice. It was chilling,' Michael wrote in his new book, Don't Look Back, You'll Trip Over: My Guide to Life. 'Absolutely floored me the first time I saw him in action — I was terrified.' Before his untimely death, Heath had already delivered many beloved performances, from Brokeback Mountain to 10 Things I Hate About You. And while remembering him, Michael mourned the fact that his career was cut so short. 'Heath was only 28 when he passed away. I hadn't even made Zulu when I was that age,' he wrote. 'You think of what he might have gone on to achieve, it's just heartbreaking.' The Dark Knight — which was directed by Christopher Nolan and starred Christian Bale as Batman — came out in July 2008. Looking back, Michael said that promoting the film was especially difficult, as Heath's absence was inevitably a huge talking point. 'We were all terribly shocked, and it made doing the publicity for The Dark Knight that summer much more intense, because all the journalists wanted to talk about his death,' he wrote, adding that Heath's passing 'still makes [him] sad to think of it.' 'Even though his career was cut short so soon, he'll be remembered as a great actor, I believe,' he concluded. Well, if one thing is for sure, Heath left a seriously powerful legacy — I love that his collaborators remain dedicated to keeping it alive. Don't Look Back, You'll Trip Over: My Guide to Life is available for purchase now.

In ‘A Complete Unknown,' Bob Dylan's Politics Are Blowin' in the Wind
In ‘A Complete Unknown,' Bob Dylan's Politics Are Blowin' in the Wind

New York Times

time29-01-2025

  • Entertainment
  • New York Times

In ‘A Complete Unknown,' Bob Dylan's Politics Are Blowin' in the Wind

It might at first seem obvious why filmmakers won't leave the subject of Bob Dylan alone. Search 'Dylan' and 'movies,' and the list — from documentaries like 'Don't Look Back' (1967) to fictionalized treatments like 'I'm Not There' (2007) — turns out to be surprisingly extensive. The man was one of our most idiosyncratic and arresting artists during a revolutionary period in our popular music. And for all its diffidence and evasiveness, his was the work most often held up as Important — no small claim in the realm of pop music, especially then — and he was the one ratified as profound, even before the Nobel Committee's intervention. What actor doesn't want to play a charismatically elusive genius? What director wouldn't like to imagine himself or herself as a kindred spirit? But there are other reasons Dylan remains snagged in our collective consciousness, especially now. Though at least two of his songs — 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' — have been irrevocably shanghaied as the examples of Protest Songs of the '60s, his more fundamental role might have been to serve as America's political songwriter for the apolitical. The lyrics for the albums 'Bringing It All Back Home' and 'Highway 61 Revisited' are not only irreverently funny and freewheeling in their pillaging of high and low culture, but they're also sardonic, ambiguous and offhand. They're the opposite of earnest, and when they point out problems, they do it with a shrug. Like many of his countrymen and women, he periodically registered with clarity or even outrage the state of the status quo, but he mostly dismissed any notion that he should extend his fretting over it. Those two albums were recorded roughly in the period covered by James Mangold's 'A Complete Unknown,' the most recent cinematic tribute to Dylan, starring Timothée Chalamet, and the latest stone added to the Everest of such works. Though the drama begins and ends with Dylan's devotion to Woody Guthrie's work, the movie makes vividly clear how much more anarchic and exciting Dylan seemed than folk music's other standard bearers, singer-songwriters like Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, since they were stuck not only lamenting injustice but also promoting an agenda for social change. Dylan's lyrics, on the other hand, mostly seemed to suggest It's All Absurd or, more pointedly, They're All Assholes, a sentiment that adorned more than a few political lawn signs in 2024. A huge number of our cultural heroes, fictional and otherwise, have prided themselves on not being political, on their individuality as their ultimate value. Think of our western heroes, or our private eyes, or the way so many presidential candidates, the very definition of the triumphant insider, try to position themselves as outsiders. And as anyone who has attended one of his concerts knows, the central characteristic of Dylan's career has been to not do what's expected of him, even to the extent of putting out one of the most godawful Christmas albums in the history of the genre. Dylan's version of rebellion much more resembles that of Brando's in 'The Wild One.' When asked, 'Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against?' Brando famously replied 'Whaddaya got?' In 'A Complete Unknown,' that same orneriness causes Dylan to rebel against the expectation that he will be a crusader for social justice, a rebellion we're encouraged to support. Bob Dylan should be allowed to be Bob Dylan, after all, and we Dylan fans know that going electric enabled some of his greatest music. Poor Pete Seeger and Joan Baez are portrayed as sweet and well meaning but also comparatively pallid and hopelessly unprepared for the ferocity of the tumult that's about to upend American life. But while valorizing yourself as unwilling to dance to someone else's tune might make you sound like a revolutionary, and even make you sympathetic to revolutionary impulses, it also most likely leaves you poorly suited to contributing to collective action. Back in 1994, Noam Chomsky demolished Dylan as the model of the progressive artist, putting his finger on what the enshrinement of the personal cost him: Americans like to consider themselves no one's stooges — Rick in 'Casablanca' or the Ringo Kid in 'Stagecoach' may say they wish to be left alone, but they also pride themselves on knowing what's what, and on the knowledge that they would intervene if it became necessary. But the hands-on work of organizing at the grass-roots level for a better tomorrow? That's not for the hero. At its best, 'A Complete Unknown" is not so much about Dylan as about how we react to Dylan: Some of the most galvanizing and successful scenes, like the ones in which we see the first takes of 'Highway 61 Revisited' or 'Like a Rolling Stone' coming together in the recording studio, capture the exhilaration of encountering his music at its apogee. Mangold's visual style, which feels unhurried in its focus on the performers, maximizes that pleasure. Timothée Chalamet evokes an aspect of Dylan remarked upon in one of the first flattering reviews he received in New York — that he looked like 'a cross between a choirboy and a beatnik.' Chalamet presents him mostly as a semi-amiable cipher (which shouldn't surprise us, given the movie's title) who just wants to play his music and be left free of everyone else's ambitions for him. And to a large extent we're willing to grant him that grace, even if presenting himself as political was crucial to how he became the phenomenon that provided him that space and power in the first place. Chalamet's Dylan takes a sly pride in being provocative and off-putting but underplays the wit and only lightly touches on just how self-serving Dylan's progressive gestures at that moment in time might have been. That shrug of surrender spoke to many then and may resonate with even more now. The political nature of Dylan's work has no doubt been an exhaustively contested issue among Dylanologists for decades (I have to assume, since I'm not one). But why shouldn't we separate a work's effects from its creator's intent, or even its creator? The more radical members of the Students for a Democratic Society, the Weathermen, took their name from a lyric from 'Subterranean Homesick Blues': 'You don't need a weatherman/to know which way the wind blows.' But that entire song is about both registering society's oppressive reach and then offering opting out as the only solution: Those intending to go on the Freedom Marches, for example, probably found advice like 'Better stay away from those/that carry around a fire hose' of limited utility. Ultimately, 'A Complete Unknown,' in its determination to focus on the music and remain noncommittal about politics, echoes its subject's preferences. At the end of D.A. Pennebaker's documentary 'Don't Look Back,' about nearly the same period, Albert Grossman, Dylan's manager, teases him as they take a limousine away from his triumphant performance at the Royal Albert Hall. The British press has taken to calling Dylan an anarchist because he doesn't offer any solutions. And Dylan seems struck, but not particularly put out, by the news. He smiles and says: 'Give me a cigarette. Give the anarchist a cigarette.' And having gotten what he wants, he spends the movie's final moments with his chin in his hand, gazing neutrally out the limousine's window.

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