As films about music go, on a scale of 1-10, this one's the eleven.

A groundbreaking mockumentary detailing the exploits and hubris of fictional rock band Spinal Tap, this is a constantly referential and ridiculously funny film about a group of musicians taking themselves too seriously, alluding to all and leaving no stone sacred.

Michael McKean, Christopher Guest and Harry Shearer play the unchanged line-up, the Americans lampooning the British accent with uncanny accuracy, with tongue always in cheek. Rock and roll's most hallowed cliches from drummers dying of spontaneous combustion to a Yoko/Linda like girlfriend leading to a split in the band is explored with affectionate genius, and the results are incredible.

Ad-libbing almost throughout, the actors and director Reiner [here playing documentary maker Marty Di Bergi, who introduces himself as a filmmaker who makes a lot of commercials] come up with imminently quotable gold throughout the film, not to mention the hilarious songs that are ironically often better than the many genres they massacre.

Rockers down the ages have expressed both outrage and great grief at the film, seeing themselves reflected in this pretention-bashing project.

For example, an incredible bit of coincidence saw Black Sabbath once straddled with oversized Stonehenge props for a tour after they gave set measurements in feet which were built using metres. Spinal Tap, in its own inimitable style, didn't just do a very similar thing funnier and more memorably, but they did it earlier. Ha. Click here for that video, and go buy the DVD.

Such a fine line between stupid and clever, and you got to hand it to Tap for gliding along that tightrope -- even with armadillos in their trousers.

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