The Simpsons Movie (2007)

"I can't believe we're paying for something we get on TV for free. If you ask me, everybody in this theatre is a giant sucker. Especially you!"

See? Told you the blog lives! And it's way past time I did another movie. So, er, here's one.

Let's not pretend: this is The Simpsons, so obviously it's brilliant. Let's just take the gushing as read. I'm not going to pretend to not like 83 minutes of The Simpsons: that would just be silly. Also, I'm trying not to just make this review a list of funny bits from the film. Well, maybe a bit. I love the Green Day cameo, with band going down with their ship like the band on the Titanic, the "latest rock band to die" in Springfield. I love the fact that Springfield borders Ohio, Nevada, Maine and Kentucky. I love the tasteful sex scene with the adorable Disney-style animals, which is not as addled with bestiality as it sounds. I love "Why does everyone I whip leave me?" I love… that'll do.

There are lots of nods to the fact that this is a movie, of course. The opening titles are much swankier. The animation is posher, and the credits reveal that an army of South Korean animators was hired for this. The stakes are higher. The opening sequence with itchy and Scratchy makes a nice metatextual reference to the fact that this is a movie based on a TV show, and the Simpsons themselves talk over the closing titles. Maggie's first word is "sequel". But, in spite of all that, this is basically just a really long episode of The Simpsons. It doesn't look particularly different from the TV show, at least on the small screen. And that's no bad thing.

Of course, boring old politics rears its head a bit. America's indifference to the Environment gets a bit of a dig, as does the Big Brother surveillance society that's popping up everywhere these days. But this is essentially just 83 minutes of sheer fun, that throws a countdown in at the climax for the sheer Hell of it.

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

"Well, I don't really think that the end can be assessed, as of itself, as being the end, because what does the end feel like? It's like saying when you try to extrapolate the end of the universe, you say 'if the universe is indeed infinite, then how… what does that mean'? How far is all the way, and then if it stops, what's stopping it, and what's behind what's stopping it? So, what's the end, you know, is my question to you…"

Yes, I know. I've reviewed two musicals in a row, sort of. I love this film, though. It isn't so much that it's laugh-out-loud funny; in fact, considering the subject matter, the humour is actually quite gentle and ironic. There are some nicely quirky bits that are funny because they ring true- Nigel's disgruntlement with the small bread on his rider, and the band panicking at being unable to find the stage being two of the funniest.

The songs are superb, hilarious pastiches from throughout the history of rock from grainy monochrome footage of a mid 60s incarnation reminiscent of the Who to a cynical hippy cash-in from a few years later. They're genuinely great rock songs, and the lyrics are the funniest thing in the film, from the arse-clenchingly ignorant pretentiousness of Stonehenge to the jaw-dropping sexism of Big Bottom, probably the greatest ever song about anal sex, God help us.

Most of the time, though, the band is a piss-take of the heavy metal at the time, with the Stonehenge debacle even being taken from a real life experience of the Black Sabbath line-up of the early '80s. This is heavy metal before the LA-dominated "hair rock" began to arrive in the mid-'80s; the vibe is much more NWOBHM, with flying V's and stage moves taken straight out of the repertoire of Kiss.

One thing that dates this film more than anything is the idea that rock stars are past it by the age of forty-five; that sort of attitude would become passé with the advent of Live Aid just a year later. A real life Spinal Tap would have survived the Yoko issues, the declining audiences and the ropey "big in Japan" period to be raking it in today, no matter how many drummers had to die to get there.

The drummer bloodbath is a prime example of how improvisation leads to so many of the best things about the film. Many of the exchanges remind me of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore in Derek and Clive. It's a real strength of the "mockumentary" format.

This is a brilliantly crafted piece of observational comedy and a compulsory fixture of every self-respecting tour bus, although it probably helps if, like me, you're a total rock 'n' roll anorak. This is a film so good that it inspired not only an album cover but also a considerably less funny pseudo-remake from no less a band than Metallica. Surely there could be no higher compliment.