DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Andrew (who owns Tap on DVD) points out that This Is Spinal Tap has been admitted to the National Film Registry. This isn’t an empty award; the NFR’s goal is to “ensure that the film is preserved for all time.”

Congressional Librarian James H. Billington explains, “The selection of a film, I stress, is not an endorsement of its ideology or content, but rather a recognition of the film’s importance in American film and cultural history and history in general.”

CNN reports: National Film Registry to preserve ‘Spinal Tap’ (local mirror)

Why does film need to be preserved? Because it’s art, man! Especially This Is Spinal Tap. Read more about film decay.

(On that note, the documentary on the remastering of the original Star Wars trilogy, available on the VHS Special Edition, shows a remarkable amount of degradation in just 20 years. The original prints had turned green — which, now that I think about it, makes me question the efficacy of the NFR’s preservation efforts, given that Star Wars was admitted to the registry in 1989.)