Original soundtrack

Oh, dear God. Folk music. No, not Mississippi John Hurt or Doc Watson or even Simon & Garfunkel, but that relentlessly perky stuff from the 1960s—the Kingston Trio, the Rooftop Singers, the New Christy Minstrels. Christopher Guest’s new ensemble-cast film promises to do for striped-shirt folk what Best in Show did for the dog-show subculture or what This Is Spinal Tap did for heavy metal. Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer play the Folksmen, kind of a Spinal Tap unplugged reunion. Their six songs here are classics—“Old Joe’s Place,” and a cover of the Stones’ “Start Me Up” with its “she make a dead man kum … baya” tagline. The New Main Street Singers are suitably smarmy, and Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara are wonderful as Mitch & Mickey. A fine soundtrack from a must-see film.