Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with my thoughts on the TENACIOUS D flick: TENACIOUS D IN THE PICK OF DESTINY.
To start off, I want to get my set visit stuff out of the way. I wrote a piece over a year ago after my visit to the set of this film. I've been a long, long time fan of The D and I jumped at the chance to visit the flick. I posted a part 1, which honestly was 90% of the visit. It had the main sequence shot described, with lots of song detail and the interview me and two other journalists did with Rage Cage and Jables.
The main reason you didn't really see a Part 2 was there was very little left. There was a round table interview with Liam Lynch, director. It's a decent interview, but I didn't really say much in that one and felt my desire to transcribe other people's questions slip away. The only interesting part of Part Two was the fact that the filmmakers asked us to fill in background, so at one point in the movie you can see my wide self stroll down the Santa Monica beach area. I guess it's become an unwritten rule that I have to an obligatory cameo in any movie starring Jack Black...
Anyway, you're caught up on that side of things. On to the movie.
On a certain level, I had some major moments of the movie spoiled to me by seeing The D in concert where they performed 2 of the 3 best songs in the film: Kickapoo and Master Exploder. I saw the Katrina Benefit Concert they did in LA and their Comic-Con performance and have had these songs on heavy rotation on my iTunes. The other best song, Beezleboss, I was spared I think because of the reshoots the film was undergoing (hence the long delay from wrap to release).
Also, at Comic-Con last year they played the first 5 minutes, which are great. The song, Kickapoo, plays like a rock opera over the beginnings, the origins of J.B. with some fantastic music cameos and the unbelievably talented Troy Gentile. I think Jack had himself cloned 12 years ago and this kid shares his DNA. He plays Young JB again (having first played the young version of Jack Black in NACHO LIBRE) and it's really creepy how much he looks like Kid Jack, with the mannerisms, eye-brow work, facial expressions and just overall Jack Blackness. This kid rocks. I hope he and Jack Black just walk around dressed in the same clothes, like a real life Mini-Me.
When I saw the film in its entirety, I watched it with my regular group of friends who are all Tenacious D fans and another friend who didn't know one song and had no idea what to expect from the movie. The reactions afterwards is actually kind of interesting. Myself and my Tenacious D fan friends really liked the movie, laughing constantly throughout, but the guy who didn't know Tenacious D as a band at all fucking loved it.
I think you'll see this film act as a gateway to Tenacious D's stuff. Of course, that was going to happen on some level no matter what, but I think it's going to be a much bigger hook than I expected it to be before.
The film isn't perfect... anybody who has seen the HBO specials that introduced The D to most people will recognize many set pieces. They don't completely recreate these scenes, like they did in, say, RUN RONNIE RUN, but in most cases the HBO stuff was much funnier. It could very well be that the HBO stuff is more familiar to me, so I'm protective of it, but I liked the timing better.
I think the D's debut album was gold from start to finish. It was one of those rare albums that didn't have a bad song on it. There aren't any bad songs, really, in the soundtrack, but there are some unmemorable songs.
The good... this movie is Tenacious D all over, especially the fucking crazy-ass ending. I hope that if they do a sequel we'll get even more bizarre and hardcore, like the Butt-Baby short on the Tenacious D DVD, but there wasn't a long lull in laughs anywhere to be spotted. At least for me and the audience I saw the flick with.
There are a ton of cameos, some great (John C. Reilly and Paul F. Tompkins and Dave Grohl and Tim Robbins playing the even crazier Russian version of his character in WAR OF THE WORLDS... maybe not officially, but that's how I saw it).
Overall the companionship of Kyle Gass and Jack Black is a strong backbone and I hope their relationship lasts for decades more. I'd love to see more Tenacious D movies, with them in different scenarios, going batshit insane. Not to mention the albums. I want more music!
That's my take... one of a hardcore D fan. My little brother has seen it twice now... once at the super early screening and one at the last press screening that I missed and he has taken his high school-aged group and they all freaked out over it. Myself, I'm looking forward to seeing it again. I've got the soundtrack going at the moment and I don't think it'll be pushed aside for a little while yet.
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
| 
