Green grass and high times
Movies
“THC: The Audience Is Baking.”
With that opening-credit exhalation in the face of George
Lucas, Tenacious D (that’s Jack Black and Kyle Gass)
and director Liam Lynch (Sarah Silverman:
Jesus Is Magic) offer up a none-too-subtle theory about what might be going
on in the theater parking lot prior to any given screening of Tenacious
D in The Pick of Destiny, a film about how The D became The Greatest
Band on Earth. And not to be blunt, but it’s likely a case of the pot calling
the pipe black, judging from the half-baked ideas packed into this exuberantly
tasty rock operetta.
Pick of Destiny departs from Kickapoo, MO, where a Weeble-shaped kid
sporting a Black Sabbath shirt is arguing through song with his fundamental
Christian dad (played by Meat Loaf in the most obvious casting ever) about the
importance of loud music. “Now go, my son, and rock” is the advice dispensed by
the poster of Ronnie James Dio (same lush pipes, same
repugnant mug), so the boy straps his guitar across his back and lights out for
Hollywood. He
surfaces on the West Coast as the full-grown — but no less juvenile — JB
(Black, reliably manic), falling under the tutelage of arrogant rock god KG
(the unfortunately named straight man Gass). KG
schools the eager manchild in the art of the powerslide and the importance of “cock push-ups.” Then,
after JB calls his bewigged bluff, aligns with his former student to form a
band called Tenacious D.
The aforementioned skills will prove hilariously handy
(there really are some things you can’t unsee) during
Tenacious D’s marijuana-fueled quest to locate the titular pick, which they
believe to be the key to greatness. They’re aided in their mission by an overly
dramatic clerk at GuitarCenter (a frizzy Ben
Stiller), who tells The D where to find the pick, reportedly the tooth of the
Devil. So Pick of Destiny becomes a
road movie, featuring a bimbo-induced rift, a car chase, plus a bongload of cameos, like John C. Reilly as Sasquatch (um, there’s a mushroom incident as well), an über-hammy Tim Robbins as a Dracula-accented musician also
on the tooth’s trail, and Foo Fighter Dave Grohl as Mephistopheles himself, back to reclaim his former
chopper via the requisite rock-off.
It’ll be interesting to see how Black does as Kate Winslet’s love interest in next month’s romantic comedy The Holiday, because he’s forged a
career out of being JB, that frenzied energy alternating with plump stoner
serenity, those wicked eyebrows threatening to jump right off his otherwise
cherubic face. And while Gass may not get the
choicest lines, he is a phenomenal guitarist, and Tenacious D is all about the
music anyway. The lyrics rival those of the South
Park gang in both cleverness and profanity, whether Black is singing about
“rocking and fucking rolling” to Bach’s Brandenburg
Concerto No. 3 or making some chick “gargle mayonnaise” (no, not… you got
it).
Pick of Destiny is
stupid, silly, forgettable fun — perfect counterprogramming
to the cerebral film glutting theaters at year’s end — but you don’t actually
need to be high to enjoy it. I myself was not in any way recreationally altered
when I saw the movie, although lately I have been huffing stuffing.
Conversely, those who indulge might want to sober up for The
Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, lest the good people at the Dryden Theatre
be burdened with mopping your blown minds up off of their nice floor. The
second feature film by cult filmmakers Stephen and Timothy Quay (1994’s Institute Benjamenta was their first) is a trippy fairytale rooted in
German Expressionism about a mad scientist, his captive opera singer, and the
smitten piano tuner who is a dead ringer for the diva’s lost love.
Piano Tuner‘s
storyline, however, is secondary to its ghostly imagery, a fever dream of
silent-film faces (especially the lusty Assumpta
Serna as the enigmatic housekeeper), washed-out colors that bring to mind a
living daguerreotype, as well as the Quays’ singular brand of stop-motion
animation, which derives its intricate inspiration from the bizarre work of
Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer (his Lunacy screened at the Dryden a couple
weeks back). Probably best known for their video work (they did Peter Gabriel’s
“Sledgehammer,” among others), the Quays are often miscredited
with those haunting, sepia-toned Tool videos from the mid ’90s, featuring
cracked doll faces and pulsating meat. That’s because everyone has their
disciples.
This article appears in Nov 29 – Dec 5, 2006.
