As close as American comedy ever got to Monty Python.

Rating: 8/10 (12 July 2001)

From the moment you see Carl Reiner use the word "Rockumentary" with such earnestness, you know you're in for a treat. This is one of the best movie satires of all time, and of a subject richly deserving the treatment--the overblown world of rock music in general and heavy metal in particular.
I don't think this movie did well at the box office, initially; a lot of people weren't clear that it was actually a comedy. I remember seeing it when it first came out, in one of those shoebox cineplexes that sprung up everywhere in the 80s. The audience--about 12 people--were evenly split between those of us who got the joke (yes, I WAS in that category) and some thick-as-a-brick metalheads who didn't and thought this was about a real band. I think they started to catch on when the dwarf starting kicking around the itsy-bitsy Stonehenge model, but I can't be sure.