Is This Spinal Tap?

By Michael and Joel

Michael: This...is...SPINAL TAP!!! I love declarative titles. Personally, I feel all movies should have a declarative statement for a title. I tried pitching This is The Island; Armaggeddon, I [Heart]; These are Bad Boys (II); You Should Watch The Lionel Richie Collection; and Hey, Look Over There! It's Pearl Harbor. Unfortunately, Hollywood said declarative titles don't work.

Joel: Yeah, I pitched Now is the Time to Kill, Batman & Robin Aren't Gay, and You're in Bad Company, but the Jews just wouldn't allow it.

Michael: Last year, however, a "director" by the name of Rob Reiner invented the rockumentary and proved the exception of a rule, or made rules about exceptions, or something about accepting rules.

Either way, This is Spinal Tap offers a gritty look at life on the road as the world's first band that dared to turn the volume up to 11, and paved the way for a number of bands that realized some volume dials go as high as 100.

Spinal Tap also won the award for most vibrant album cover in 1985. Just kidding. That was just a joke. Shit we're funny.

The movie follows Spinal Tap, on the verge of the band's latest release "Smell the Glove" and their first American tour, and ultimately acts as a metaphor for how women have Yoko Ono'd some of history's greatest rock bands. It's like Some Kind of Monster, but the guys are better looking.

Spinal Tap was a seminal act that inspired a decade's worth of cock rock and the death of John Bonham, and Reiner's film does them justice.

Which one of these guys got laid the least? Give you a clue--mustache rides were not as popular as many often think, and if you're playing the bass, you might as well be wear a t-shirt that says "I don't want sex."

Joel: True, but what I was disappointed in was Reiner's poor editing choices, leaving audiences to witness some of the band's mishaps and many a Flix Video employee to incorrectly shelve this in the comedy section. Sure, it offers a real insight into the backstage lives of Spinal Tap's members, but having been in a band myself with Michael "Sick Styx" Bay, I know just how hard it can be to find one's way to the stage, or replace death-prone drummers.

Jack Starrett, our original drummer, died by when we flipped our tour jet in 1989. Frank Capra lost his wonderful life to a drug overdose in 1991. He was followed by Stanley Kubrick, whose skull was crushed in an orgy mishap during one of our aftershow parties. Guy Richie is currently the 21st drummer to keep the stool warm.

In fact, the movie brought back many memories of my year's with Ünclë Töm's Cäbïn - A GLAMorous Tribute to Warrant. We shared stages with Vital Signs: A Tribute to Survivor, Sha Na Now: The Sha Na Na Experance Revisited, and Great, Great White.

Uncle Tom's Cabin had a solid live run in the South, but an excess of accents in the name and a subtitle misspelling made it hard to find once the Google generation kicked in.

We even formed Damned Yankees, a tribute supergroup with members of the Mr. Roboto: A Night of Styx, Stranglehold: featuring Theodore Nuegeant III and Night Ranger, and headlined the second stage at the Iowa State Fair. Man, those were some crazy times...

Michael: Yeah, they sure were. A lot of fun, too, until you squandered all our money on yet another drug addiction, and sold the rights for our renditions to Erik Turner for an autographed copy of Cherry Pie, which you traded for a gallon of acid.

Joel: Don't start this shit with me. Just because you couldn't handle your mescaline doesn't mean I was going to stop partying with the groupies.

Michael: Yeah, well, I guess that was a good thing for me. I also didn't impregnate six women.

Joel: Seven, you forgot that chic from the Whitesnake video, Tawny Kitaen.

Michael: Time forgot Tawny Kitaen.

Michael and Joel give This is Spinal Tap: 12

Indefinite Hiatus Part II

Michael and Joel, still at the high-security military base, announced today that they looked up "Indefinite Hiatus" on Urban Dictionary and realized they made a huge mistake. The decision to go on indefinite hiatus in the first place was misinformed, as the duo said they only did it because it seemed like such a popular trend in today's music scene, and admit that at the time they did not fully understand its meaning. They had no idea it would require splitting up and attempting solo careers. For all intents and purposes, the hiatus lasted roughly 6 minutes and the duo is proud to announce that they are back together and will review This is Spinal Tap on Friday.

Indefinite Hiatus

Michael and Joel announced today from a high-security military base that they are going on indefinite hiatus, citing creative differences.

Confusing Crashes

By Michael and Joel

Joel: Ho-ly shit! I'm glad we weren't able to get together for our weekly screening/popcorn/pillow fight this week. I had no idea this was going to be such a spank-tacular film.

Michael: What?

Joel: I consider myself a director first and crashophiliac second. And boy did this movie tickle both of those fancy-bones.

Michael: What are you talking about?

Joel: First and foremost, Crash is a film about boning. The characters in this indie classic, like me, can only achieve orgasm when intercourse is followed by a violent car wreck. As a closet crashophiliac for years, watching this movie was the closet I've ever been to achieving full satisfaction since bumper cars at the local adventure park in the fifth grade. My inability to get aroused in the presence of a female was oft misdiagnosed by my priest as homosexuality, but this flick repaired the damage done by years of mandatory participation in the Scared Straight program.

I want really big tits, out to here, so the audience can see 'em get all cut up and crushed on the dashboard.

--Colin Seagrave, Crash

This movie related to me in such a way that I felt it was made just for me. It stars a film producer who is sexually awakened after getting in a gnarly accident then sees a breast. While he is recovering he realizes the raw sexual power that can be derived from vehicular accidents. He joins a crashophiliac club where they spend their nights watching cars crash (or crashing cars themselves) and then sweet, sweet skin slappin' happens.

Yep. We're not making this up.

... but wait! This isn't your grandma's crashophilia. This is crashophilia 2.0 with stump-fucking action. Trust me, as a director myself I know how hard it can be to convince actors that stump-fucking can be both artful and stimulating to an audience. I tried to orchestrate such a scene between Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore in St. Elmo's Fire, but back in the 80s it wasn't considered socially acceptable. So rather than be bitter, I found it a joy to finally see my vision on the big screen with Estevez and Moore replaced by Rosanna Arquette and the always classy James Spader.

You had sex with all those men in cars? Only in cars?

--James Ballard, Crash

...And just as soon as I find out where Michael went, he can give you his "entertaining" two cents on the film.

*Five minutes later*

Michael: Sorry about that, folks. I had to go kamikaze on the porcelain harbor. Where were we? Oh, yes. Crash...into me...

Joel: Don't you dare!

Michael: ... ... Baaaaby!

Joel: Goddamn Dave Mathews.

Michael: Crash is a film, first and foremost, about race relations, aka, dealing with *whispers* black people.

Joel: What?

Michael: Yes, a film about *whispers* black people, which is why it was a terrible choice to pick such a racist "director" like Paul Haggis. Let's recap:

-Rap star Ludacris--turned into an ironic criminal.

-Mexican dude trying to care for his child? Can't protect her from a bullet; she needs a magic jacket for that.

-Don Cheadle bangs a Latino. Too black for a white girlfriend, Paul?




-South American black lady gets two fingers from the Flamingo Kid, while her black black husband stands by.

-Tony Danza is little more than a glorified extra. Might as well have called The Boss a dego. Apparenntly Italian-Americans aren't even off limits from Haggis' visual lynching.



And the whole thing wraps up with "white guilt," a cheap devise to get votes from the Academy for an Oscar. A fellow friend on the Academy, for instance, thought it was a great idea to vote black, remembering how his co-black led film was held down by the man in 2003. Turns out, Paul Haggis, not so black. Maybe that "friend" will have to finish the Bad Boys trilogy and rightfully clean house like that goddamned movie where all the hobblets ran around with trees for nine hours.

Fucking black people, huh?

-Flanagan, Crash

Any way you cut it, this is heavy stuff for a film that had the working title Speed 3: Crash, a "spiritual sequel" to Speed 2: Cruise Control that unfathomably turns even the homely Sandra Bullock into a racist. Honestly, what the hell--

Joel: What the hell are you talking about? This movie was about car crashes and fucking!

Michael: Joel, just because a movie has a car crash and sex does not mean that is what it's about. I know you get distracted sometimes.

Joel: Seriously, I don't even remember seeing a black person, and I've been sober for 25 days. Just crash, sex, crash, sex, plot burst, crash, sex.

Michael: I'm pretty sure you're thinking of that weekend in Cancun with Nic Cage.

Joel: Dude, who the hell is Paul Haggis? The movie was directed by that hard-fucking guy David Cronenberg.

Michael: ...You...bonehead. You watched the wrong Crash.

Joel: Well, how was I supposed to know? Netflix recommended this based on my history. Why would we watch a movie about racism when we can review artsy, fetish porn, anyways?

Michael: Ahhhh, snigglefritz.

An incident at Toronto

By Michael

If it were up to me, you never would have heard about the incident at the Toronto Film Festival on the evening of Sept. 6 when a fellow critic inadvertently felated me or something. It has been blown...out of proportion. It is of little...er...moderate interest.

The incident remained private until today, Sept. 18, when a mostly accurate account appeared on Wikipedia. I suppose since it happened at a convention with a plethora of nerds in the room, this was indubitably inevitable. Now it has become always been a big deal, raced around the web, and has been exaggerated, except where it relates to size.

A racy foreign film was playing and I was sitting in the aisle seat. Excited by a lesbian four-way, common in French cinema, I pulled it out, as did many others in the theater. Paul Reubens was sitting in front of me as started to slouch in the aisle as his actions became heated. I could not see the subtitles and could not move my head because I decided to wear a neck brace to the show.

My mouth was full of popcorn and my hands covered in butter, so I gave him a light poke on the cheek with my penis and gestured for him to move over a bit. He said, "Don't touch me," and remained in his position. I tapped him again lightly. "I said--don't touch me." He leaned further into the aisle, as if making a point of it. I tapped him a third time, and he jumped up to hit me with his penis, but tripped in such a way that his mouth landed around my member, totally accidentally, and not at all in an intentionally gay way. He sat down, and I defiantly poked him again, this time in the ear so that he could hear me coming.

There was a commotion. Some people stood up and asked him what he was doing, and a person from the studio who was seated behind us across the aisle intervened--aka, wanted to be part of the action. I overhear a conversation with security; Reubens cant' hear anything at this point. He reentered...the theater and took the studio person’s seat. His seat was taken by someone who had been in the rear...of the theater. No more problems.

Jerry and Uwe: At the Movies Answering Fan Mail

Jerry: Hey, everyone! I'm Jerry Fuckin' Bruckheimer.

Uwe: And I'm Ooh-veh Bowl.

Jerry: And this is Jerry and Uwe: At the--

Not so fast! Their reign is about to end faster than it took to finish this piss-poor photoshop job.

*Door to studio comes crashing down. Michael and Joel stand in the doorway, covered in ammunition and really big explosives*

Michael: I don't...*both men pump shotguns*...think so.

Joel: It's check out time, boys...

Michael: I thought we were going with "Suck on this."

Joel: Whatever.

*Michael and Joel take aim and dispatch Jerry and Uwe with a blast and take their seats.

Joel: Boosh!

Michael: Did you really think we were going to let those asshats take over our site? That would be WAAAY to gimmicky of a change for any site to undergo in only its second month.

Joel: True, and we just paid $10 to register the domain name, so there was no way in hell we were letting that happen.

Michael: Apologies, fans, for our lapse of judgment in leaving last Friday's post unattended. I am completely to blame, for I forgot one of the most important days in the history of the world two weeks ago. August 29, 2006 (the day we did one of the funniest--yet most unread--posts since The Dark Knight review) was Dr. Joel Schumacher's 69th, that's right, folks, 69th anniversary of his birth. After Joel spent the week thinking he was being "passively aggressive" by repeatedly calling me an insensitive douchebag, I decided to take him on a fishing trip in the Sahara. It turned out to be sort of a bust--apparently they don't have a ton of water there--but we did coincidentally save the world from the brink of disaster while we were there. So I told Joel he could choose the subject matter for this week's post. Amazingly, he had a really good idea. So, this week we're going to answer some of the fan mail that has been building up, and I promised Joel he could respond to the first question. So let's reach into the bag here and...

Michael B. from Los Angeles writes...Why is Michael Freakin' Bay so awesome, and how can I be more like him?

Joel: The easiest thing to do is forget your BFF's birthday, hog most of the talking time on the show you do together with misinformed debauchery, and generally make a mook of yourself even though your Rotten Tomatoes celebrity rating is only a 9 percent comapred to your co-host, who happens to pull a 35 percent. Oh, it also helps if you think the Sahara is filled with water.

Michael: For the last time, I didn't realize dessert was spelled with two S's.

Joel: How does that make any sense?

Jeremy I. from Little Rock, Arkansas writes...How can squirrels run along electrical wires, and can I do the same thing?

Michael: I'll field this one. Many people say the reason squirrels can run along electrical wires while humans cannot has something to do with being grounded. It is true that (generally) squirrels can and people cannot, but the reasoning is totally incorrect. Think of electricity in terms of magnetics or gravity. In magnetics, you have positive and negative attractions, while gravity is countered-by anti-gravity, or weight. In electronics, you have static and non-static electricity. The squirrel, as evidenced by its tail, is filled with static electricity, while the electrical lines are running non-static, or moving, electricity, which is why the squirrel can run along the lines. This is also why you will never see a hairless squirrel on and electrical wire--no static electricity. In fact, this is why you won't see many hairless squirrels, period.

This rare photo was circulated in the late 90s and is believed to be a shot of one of the last five living hairless squirrels in North America. Hairless squirrels face extinction because their lack of fur means they cannot build the static electricity charge necessary to survive electrical line parkour. But that doesn't stop the adorable little things from trying.

Michael (cont.): Humans, however, do not have static electricity naturally, but that does not mean they are prevented from running along electrical lines. If you rub you shoes really fast across a carpet, you accumulate static electricity, which will allow you to run across electrical wires. You can read more about it in my best-selling book Static Electricity and You: Playin' With Sparks.

SE&Y:PWS was pulled from shelves in 2004 for "factual discrepencies with reality." Whatever that means.

Kevin S. from New Jersey writes...If you could have a superpower or be a superhero, what or who would it be?

Michael: I would have the power to bring Gene Shalit and Roger Ebert back from their graves so that they could continue to watch my films for the rest of eternity.

Joel: I would be Carl Winslow. He fought crime in Chicago slums during the day and raised a family of eight Winslows, including one child that wasn't even his own, by night. I'm not sure which was the more harrowing feat.

Carl Winslow was the world's first African-American superhero, if you don't count Warhammer, Shaft or Dr. Dre.

Ocho Cinco from Cincinnati writes...How are babies made?

Michael: Children are often told stories about the birds and the bees, but I'm going to tell you from experience that including such animals in the baby-making process can be very, VERY, dangerous. Adults are then tought that babies come from inserting the penis in the vagina, so that sperm meets egg and forms an awesome word--zygote. But while this doesn't hurt one's chances of conceiving, it is definitely not as fully-detailed of a description as the question deserves. First there has to be a good-looking woman, and that woman has a better chance of getting pregnant if she is showing a healthy amount of cleavage. She must, at some point, look longingly at the man. The man, who will not be able to resist this mating call, will inevitably find himself in bed with the woman. This is where things get complicated. The man and woman must find a way to cover the man's lower half and the woman's front with a single bed sheet, which is actually more difficult than it sounds. It is actually encouraged that the man's pectoral muscles are showing, and the woman's entire back, included her gluts, may be visible, but anything below the nipples in the front is unacceptable.

Joel: So, true, Michael. And it's important to note that, generally speaking, only married couples can use this technique to produce a child, though there are a number of situations can increase anyone's chances of becoming pregnant. If you are in a situational comedy and sleeping with and ugly guy, on a Lifetime special and the sex was "rough," in an "urban" flick, or you are Arnold Schwarzenegger, you're chances of getting pregnant automatically increase tenfold.

Michael: That's right, and although it is often pondered in films and done by women every day in the real world, and abortion isn't ever socially acceptable in a movie, so don't even think about it.

Christopher R. writes...What did you guys think of the Olympics this year?

Joel: I thought they were overly sexualized. I mean, that buttfucking event came totally out of left field.

Michael: Buttfucking event? That was the paralympics, you maroon.

Murderball's Mark Zupan was not the least bit amused by that last joke.

Dom from Sera says...Guys, I lost my hat on a roller coaster at a Six Flags theme park. I want to hop the fence to get it back, but I've seen a lot of stories about people who have been killed or seriously injured in such situations. What should I do?

Joel: Definitely stop being a bitch and just hop the fence. Odds are, if you're smart enough to write us with your question, the other people who were hit are dumber than you are. Same logic goes for the signs warning you not to enter the restricted areas. These signs are designed only to address the lowest-common denominator of intelligence, or retarded people, and don't apply to you. Why should you lose a hat because mentally handicapped people can't be trusted to move when the coaster zips by?

This old man was flipping Fatburgers until he decided to hop the fence at Six Flags. You too can live the dream.

Ralph N. of Winsted, Conn. asks...Who should I vote for in this year's presidential election?

Michael: Chris O'Donnell

Joel: Being a fan of change, I'm voting for the democratic candidate Carl Winslow.

John G. from Seattle asks...Who would win in a fight?

Michael: I have no qualms about saying Joel. He's got the pain tolerance of a junkie and the strength of a retard.

Joel: Thanks, Michael. I'm going to have to say Carl Winslow.

M. Night S. asks...I'm an aspiring filmmaker, what filmmaking traps should I look out for?

Michael: I'm my experience, bear traps. They fuck your shit up.

Joel: Yeah, or if you're making a sequel to Goonies, booty traps, yuk, yuk, yuk. And also lint traps.

Jonathon Ke Quan, the actor who played Richard "Data" Wang in The Goonies, fell victim to another popular Hollywood trap--child stardom.

Charlie K. ponders...I'm having writer's block, will you please review my attached screenplay and offer a suggestion for an ending? Joel: Last time I opened an attachment from someone I did not know it erased all my fuckin' hard drive. I lost the script for The Number 23 which was to start filming the next week. I had to wing the entire movie. I can't really suggest an ending if I can't read the screenplay, but I offer this gem of advice: Add nipples to everything, even the nipples, and never open attachments.

Shia LB from unknown writes...Last year, I started to question my sexual-orientation. I think I may be gay, but I'm afraid to talk to anyone about it. When did you guys first realize you were gay, and how did you handle telling your friends and family?
Michael: Whoa! Whoa right the fuck right there, Shia.
Joel: Yeah, we're totally not gay.
Michael: Nope.
Joel: Definitely not gay, so it looks like you'll have to take your little queer problem elsewhere.
Michael: Yeah, please keep that gaysauce away from us.
Joel: Ha...ha...yeah. Keep that gaysauce away.
Michael: What a weirdo.
Joel: Yeah, I know. Right?
Michael: Thinks we're gay.
Joel: And we're totally not. We bang gorgeous women every day.
Michael: Yeah...At least two a day so that we can make that statement plural.
Joel: Yeah...That was awkward.
Michael: Let's never answer fan mail again.

Special Announcement: Michael and Joel a no show, site expected to get new hosts

The producers of Michael and Joel: At the Movies have been flooded with emails since month-long site hosts Michael and Joel were a no show for Tuesday's ultimatum after going missing last Friday. As a result, it is expected that Uwe Boll and Jerry Bruckheimer will replace them as the site's key reviewers starting this Friday. Stay tuned for what may turn out to be a groundbreaking post later this week.

Gone Fishin'

The producers of Michael and Joel at the Movies wish to sincerely apologize for the lack of a true post this week. When it came time to write the post, Michael and Joel were nowhere to be found. When we went to find them in their collective dressing room, we found a promotional movie poster on their door that is believed to have been left as a cryptic indication of their whereabouts.


This is an embarrassment to the show and unacceptable to its fans. Michael and Joel will return and make up for it with two posts next week (Tuesday and Friday), or they will be replaced by Uwe Boll and Jerry Bruckheimer.