Tenacious D

Tenacious D, M.I.A., Dead Weather Bring Swagger To Outside Lands

31 Aug 2009 10:31:00 EDT

Band of Horses, Modest Mouse, Matt & Kim help close out San Fransico fest.
By Marc Hawthorne, with additional reporting by Kyle Anderson

M.I.A.
Photo: Jeff Kravitz/ FilmMagic

With the Beastie Boys out of the picture due to Adam Yauch's cancer, the title of main attraction was up for grabs on the final day of the Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival in San Francisco.

Tenacious D, Jack Black and Kyle Gass' jokey acoustic metal duo, replaced the Beasties as the main-stage headliner on Sunday night, but it wasn't entirely clear if the majority of people who showed up in Golden Gate Park were there to see the D (even despite the chants of "We want D!" prior to their set). The band appeared to have a sense of humor about its fill-in status, selling a shirt at the festival that spoofed the Beastie Boys' Check Your Head album cover and warned, "Check Your Headliner."




	Inside San Fran's Outside Lands Festival

Audience members particularly fond of phallus and Satan jokes — or maybe just the ones who saw Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny — would probably go ahead and give the "main attraction" honor to the headliners, who were playing two days after Black's 40th birthday. In addition to performing songs like "Tribute," "Wonderboy" and "F--- Her Gently," the duo (which had an ace backing band behind them) acted out several skits, including one that played on Black's recent milestone and featured a stunt double doing flips and cartwheels. (Gass then temporarily quit the band when Black wouldn't admit to the crowd that he wasn't actually responsible for the athletic feats.) Black's best stunt of the night was all his own, however, when he closed the night by stripping down to his underwear and throwing his shirt and pants into the audience.

A few vocal audience members during Band of Horses' set at the nearby Sutro stage definitely gave their votes to frontman Ben Bridwell and company, offering up chants of "Main stage! Main stage!" during the hourlong set. The group's countrified indie rock was downright explosive, and Bridwell seemed to be just as impressed with the performance as his fans were. Sporting lots of hair and beards, the South Carolina outfit tore through an excellent selection of songs from 2006's Everything All the Time — including Outside Lands' unofficial theme song, "Weed Party" — and 2007's Cease to Begin, as well as a cover of Gram Parsons' "A Song for You."

Plenty of fans of would have also awarded the highlight crown to the Dead Weather, Jack White's stunningly cool quartet that also includes singer Alison Mosshart from the Kills. Buoyed by White's muscular guitar-playing and a crack set of tunes from their recently released debut, Horehound, the band tore through their set with reckless abandon while still looking cool. It helped that even though they played in the middle of the afternoon, the cloud cover and slight chill from the Bay breeze turned the festival's second-largest stage into a dangerous after-hours juke joint. The climax had little to do with the songs, as the group took a brief moment to jam while Mosshart sultrily smoked a cigarette sitting on the side of the stage. Nobody indulged in a vice with more rock and roll swagger better all weekend than the Dead Weather's singer.

Speaking of swagger, M.I.A. had a convincing campaign judging from the bodies convulsing during her bass-heavy workout on the main stage. Modest Mouse had a much harder sell earlier in the day, when they delivered a set that leaned closer to band favorites rather than fan favorites and included almost no banter from enigmatic leader Isaac Brock. It's a formula that Modest Mouse has used in the past in festival settings, but it's difficult to tell if the band is being contrarian or if adamantly playing by its own rules is a survival technique. Either way, it meant that megahit "Float On" was nowhere to be found, though songs like "The View," "Dramamine" and "Paper Thin Walls" sounded good on the big speakers.

It's safe to assume nobody shelled out a hundred bucks just to see Matt & Kim play the Panhandle stage at 3 in the afternoon, but the Brooklyn duo certainly performed as if most of the people watching them did. With beach balls and audience members bouncing, Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino spent most of their 40 minutes smiling and blasting through their keys-and-drums songs, slowing down only to explain why drummers shouldn't wear big earrings and asking the sun to come out so their solar-powered stage wouldn't run out of juice. Schifino even crowd-surfed before she and Johnson closed their set with a low-fi cover of Europe's "The Final Countdown" and their own "Daylight," which recently received some good airtime thanks to Bacardi.

In addition to the music, the second-annual Outside Lands — which is produced in part by Superfly Productions, the same folks behind Bonnaroo — offered plenty of other diversions, including a salon, pitching and batting cages, the Today Is So Yesterday Lounge featuring an oxygen bar, and a "Beatles Rock Band" lounge. And it being the Bay area and all, there was a wine tent and food options included heirloom watermelon, soju cocktails and portobello skewers offered by local businesses. All that combined with 72 hours worth of experimental rock, crowd-pleasing pop and euphoric R&B made for three days worth of San Francisco-style bliss.

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Beastie Boys Tour The Swing States Before Election Day Because That's Where 'Every Vote Matters'

22 Oct 2008 04:35:00 EDT

Mike D calls upcoming vote 'the most important election of our lives.'
By James Montgomery, with reporting by Tim Kash

The Beastie Boys
Photo: MTV News

The Beastie Boys have plenty in store for fans on their upcoming Get Out and Vote Tour — and not all of it has to do with, you know, voting.

"We're going to work on a lot of dance steps and stuff, because we're setting aside a block of time just for dance stuff. Maybe an hour," Ad-Rock laughed. "And, you know, then the rapping. We've got to work on the rapping stuff. And then just basically physique and toning and tanning. Work on our core. You know, we're going to work on that."

We suspect he's joking (except for the rapping bit), because the Beasties actually have some rather big ideas for the tour — which kicks off October 27 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and will make stops in five other crucial swing states in the week leading up to Election Day. To them, this is the most important election in recent memory, and they hope to get that message across to young voters.

"The decision to play the swing states was like, 'OK, we're here in New York City. It's a foregone conclusion what's going to happen here' — same in California and some other places," Mike D explained. "But let's really get to the places where ... you've got a younger demographic of voter, and they're saying, 'Well, is my vote really going to make a difference? Is it really going to count? Is it really going to be counted?' And I think in this election, in those states, absolutely. Every vote matters. And I think the last two elections were a great precedent — not how they ended up, necessarily — but in terms of if you look at [how the election was] decided by 2,000 votes in the state of Florida. That's a great example of how clear it is that every vote matters."

"And it's a great example of how bad things can get if the wrong person gets into office," MCA added, drawing laughs from his bandmates.

The lineup for the Beasties' tour changes with each city — Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, Norah Jones, Sheryl Crow and Tenacious D are just some of the acts confirmed — but the message remains the same at each stop: Your vote matters. You can make a difference. This is very important.

"We found ourselves — like a lot of people throughout this whole country — sitting around realizing this is going to be the most important election of our lives, for a variety of reasons," Mike D said. "You've got a huge economic crisis, we're engaged in two wars, Social Security is about to run out, [and there are] huge environmental issues and environmental crises. So I think in terms of our lifetime, we thought, 'What can we do to make sure that this is something that's decided by the overwhelming population of the people and not just a few thousand people in one state?' "

The tour wraps in Denver on November 3 — the day before millions head to the polls — and if you're thinking about showing up but worried that a late night might make you groggy on Election Day, don't worry. The Beasties have you covered. Like we said, this is a pretty big deal to them.

"We finish in Colorado, in a very important swing state ... and yes, everyone needs to get up early and get to the polls. So we're going to give them all a gift certificate for coffee in the morning," D laughed. "Actually, I just made that up, so it's sort of a lie, but it's a good idea. I'm going to put that forward to our people. We'll see what happens."

Get informed! Head to Choose or Lose for nonstop coverage of the 2008 presidential election, including everything from the latest news on the candidates to on-the-ground multimedia reports from our 51 citizen journalists, MTV and MySpace's Presidential Dialogues, and much more.

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Projection Booth: Bond, Denzel And Penguins Battle For Holiday Bucks

22 Nov 2006 01:17:00 EST

'Déjàa Vu' joins 'Casino Royale' and 'Happy Feet' in holiday box-office race.
By Joshua Horowitz

Daniel Craig in "Casino Royale"
Photo: Sony Pictures

Put down that second helping of stuffing and stop eyeing that piece of pumpkin pie. Thanksgiving weekend is about more than food — it's about the movies. Traditionally one of the biggest weekends of the year at the box office (What better way to take a break from the family than to catch a flick?), this Thanksgiving looks to be no different, with a film in theaters to match any mood. Though there's no obvious juggernaut like last year's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (which earned $54.7 in its second frame last Thanksgiving), there are a bevy of worthy contenders for the box-office crown.

This holiday is all about families, as Hollywood is keenly aware, so look for a couple of big flicks to duke it out for that audience this year — namely last week's #1 film, "Happy Feet" ($41.5 million) and one newcomer, the Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito vehicle "Deck the Halls." If those dancing penguins could defeat 007 last weekend, don't be surprised if they take out a comedy about rival families on the same suburban block this go round.

Speaking of Bond, "Casino Royale" certainly won't go down without a fight. Barely edged out last week for that coveted #1, this flick could very well emerge on top — especially considering the great word of mouth.

Competing with Bond for those action-hungry fans will be Denzel Washington in the time-travel thriller "Déjà Vu" (see "Denzel Washington Falls For Dead Woman In Mind-Bending "Déjà Vu" "). The combo of Denzel and director Tony Scott has worked well their last two times together ("Crimson Tide" and "Man on Fire") so look for this one to be competitive as well.

If you like your adventures a little more cerebral, then go on and take a journey into the human heart (stop rolling your eyes) with the ambitious psychedelic love story, "The Fountain," starring Hugh Jackman.

Finally, don't ever count out Jack Black, especially when he's fronting the self-proclaimed greatest rock band in the world. The long-awaited "Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny" is out this week (see "Can Tenacious D Follow In Borat's Footsteps, Beat Cult-Comedy Curse?"), and while it may not have gotten the quality reviews of the other flicks mentioned, none of those films feature Satan and Sasquatch. At least we're pretty sure about that — we haven't seen "Deck the Halls."

The Predictions:You know the drill. Three prognosticators enter, one leaves victorious. (Yes, that was a reference to "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome." Pat yourself on the back, fellow movie maniac.) The MTV Movies gang takes on none other than the Human Torch this week to see who can best predict the box office's cloudy future.

What's The #1 Flick? And How Much Is It Raking In?

Larry Carroll, MTV News writer: "Casino Royale" ($39 million) "Bond is going to avenge his — and my — defeat at the hands of those damn dancing penguins last week. Now that all the old people who've loved Bond for decades have a few days off, they'll get out to the theater. I'm predicting $39 million over the long weekend, which would be enough to make even Daniel Craig smile."

Josh Horowitz, MTV Movies editor: "Happy Feet" ($36 million) "It's all about the dancing penguins. I danced with them to victory last week and I expect to be doing a jig with them come Monday morning. Bring on the green for this family flick."

Chris Evans, star of "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer": "Casino Royale" ($21 million) "I'm gonna say 'Casino Royale,' because I think the word of mouth will be great. Let's say $21 million. Do I get a prize if I win?"

Check out everything we've got on "Happy Feet", "Casino Royale", "Déjàa Vu" and "Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny".

Visit Movies on MTV.com for more from Hollywood, including news, reviews, interviews and more.

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Game Clobbers Akon, Takes Albums Chart

22 Nov 2006 12:02:00 EST

Album is MC's second consecutive #1 debut.
By Chris Harris

The Game's Doctor's Advocate
Photo: Geffen Records

While smart money would seem to dictate that Game's sophomore LP, Doctor's Advocate, was a shoo-in to top next week's Billboard albums chart, these days you just never know. Fat Joe could have pulled off an upset with his latest, Me, Myself and I — or he could have pulled a Nader and helped the mighty Akon to trump them both and run off with a #1 debut for his Konvicted.

Well, this time smart money talked, as it so often does. Fat Joe came up short and will land at #14, with Me, Myself and I selling just 60,500 copies during its first week in record stores (comparatively, his 2005 release All or Nothing debuted at #6 on the chart, selling more than 106,500 units). And in the end, Akon didn't have quite enough game to overpower the Compton-bred MC.

With more than 358,000 scans, the Game's Dr. Dre-helmed sophomore effort, Doctor's Advocate, takes this week's title with ease, lifting his record to 2-0 (his debut outing, 2005's The Documentary, also bowed at #1) and outselling Akon's Konvicted by about 67,000 copies. Akon takes the #2 spot with 284,000 sales.

Overall album sales surged over the past week as the holiday season heats up, with 24 newcomers sliding into the top 200. Tenacious D's The Pick of Destiny bows at #8 with week-one sales close to 81,000; the Jack Black-fronted band's self-titled 2001 debut opened at #33 with 42,000 scans. Rounding out the top-10 debuts is the bow from Blink 182-offshoot (+44), When Your Heart Stops Beating, which racked up 66,000-plus scans its first week at retail.

Falling two spots to #3 this week is the 23rd installment in the Now That's What I Call Music! compilation franchise, which features contributions from Fergie, Justin Timberlake, Nelly Furtado, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, and Nickelback, among others. Sales slipped 42 percent during the album's second week of release, finishing with 194,000 scans. Josh Groban's Awake follows at #4 with 150,000 copies sold, while the soundtrack to the Disney Channel original series "Hannah Montana" holds at #5 this week, putting up another 114,000 in sales.

Keith Urban's Love, Pain & the Whole Crazy Thing falls three spots to #6 with 103,000 units scanned, just in front of Sugarland's Enjoy the Ride at #7, which netted another 81,000 in week-two sales. Meanwhile, a 17 percent sales boost helped Beyoncé's B'Day surge seven chart positions to #9, closing out the week with 68,000 scans.

Returning to the chart this week is songwriter Damien Rice and his latest, 9, which sold close to 45,000 copies during its first week on record store shelves, earning him the #22 slot. Staind's career-spanning The Singles 1996-2006 bows at #41 on the chart, generating 26,800 in first-week sales interest, and An Other Cup, the newest studio release from Yusuf Islam — the artist formally known as Cat Stevens — surfaces at #52 with 20,000 scans. Neil Young and Crazy Horse's archival release, Live at the Fillmore East, follows at #55 with 19,700 copies sold (not bad for a 36-year-old recording), while the self-titled debut from Army of Anyone finishes at #56 with just under 50 fewer scans. Young singer Bianca Ryan's self-titled debut takes the chart's #57 spot with sales of 19,500, and Tamia's Between Friends opens at #66 with close to 18,000 copies purchased.

A collection of unreleased Sublime material, issued in the form of Everything Under the Sun, debuts at #97 this week, with 12,500-plus units sold. Offbeat folkie Joanna Newsom's Ys follows at #134 with 9,000 scans, while The Best of Depeche Mode, Vol. 1 claims the #148 slot with 8,100 copies grabbed up. Insane Clown Posse's The Wraith: Remix Albums opens at #158 with 7,500 copies sold, while Goth rockers H.I.M.'s Uneasy Listening, Vol. 1 follows at #162 with 7,300 scans. And finally, checking in at #188, is So Divided, the latest from ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, which sold 6,000 copies its first week in stores.

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Jack Black Playing Muhammad Ali? Hit 'Rewind' And You'll See

22 Nov 2006 06:01:00 EST

Actor 'remakes' 'When We Were Kings,' 'Ghostbusters,' 'Driving Miss Daisy' in Michel Gondry's demented comedy.
By Shawn Adler, with additional reporting by Jeff Cornell

Jack Black
Photo: Peter Kramer/ Getty Images

BEVERLY HILLS, California — It may have been as a member of Tenacious D that Jack Black rose to stardom, but it's his role in a remake of "RoboCop" that could launch the actor to even further heights. Or maybe "Ghostbusters," some say. Even his work as Muhammad Ali in the documentary "When We Were Kings" could turn heads. And that's not to mention his performance as a black chauffeur in "Driving Miss Daisy."

If you have a hard time believing Black would take on any of those roles, try wrapping your head around this: The "remakes" are all part of his next flick, "Be Kind Rewind," the demented story of a man whose magnetized brain erases every tape in his friend's video rental store. That means the two have to quickly refilm every movie in order to satisfy the store's most loyal customer.

"There [were] tons of movies that we did," Black said of the upcoming Michel Gondry-directed film. "We did 'When We Were Kings,' the documentary about Muhammad Ali — I play Muhammad Ali, strangely. We did 'Superman.' I probably shouldn't say that ... we had to change the name of it to something else — 'Incredible Flying Man,' I think. We did 'Ghostbusters,' we did 'Robocop,' we did 'Driving Miss Daisy,' just to name a few."

For someone who suddenly found himself as the pseudo star of some of Hollywood's best-known classics, Jack Black did surprisingly little research, he admitted. "We were under strict orders not to watch any of the movies again, and if we had not seen it, [not to] see it," he explained. "[Gondry] wanted it to look that way, [like it] was based on the commercials that you had seen of the movie. Because there was no time in the movie for us to do any research, he wanted to keep that consistent with us as actors — to not have time to research the movies we were remaking."

Call it controlled anarchy or planned spontaneity — contradictions that Gondry purposively fostered on set, Black said.

"He is a very spontaneous director and super-creative on every level," Black explained of the "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" director. "I guess a lot of the time I felt like nobody knew what was going on except for him. I think he likes to create a little bit of chaos on the set and then, at the last minute, focus it."

See everything we've got on Jack Black and "Be Kind Rewind."

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'The Fountain': Space Odyssey, By Kurt Loder

22 Nov 2006 06:01:00 EST

Return of the head trip. Also: 'Tenacious D,' 'For Your Consideration,' and 'The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes.'

"The Fountain"
Photo: Warner Bros.

In his dazzling new movie, "The Fountain," director Darren Aronofsky reaches deep into the historical past and far out into the future to tell a story of endless love and its struggle against the constraints of human mortality. The picture is visually intoxicating — the images have a luminous psychedelic beauty — and the film's themes emerge elegantly out of the story's intricately-looped tri-level structure. (Aronofsky wrote the screenplay from a story he created with Ari Handel.) It's a new kind of science-fiction movie, and, unusually for that boys'-club genre, probably a great date movie, too. Mainly, though, as they used to say back in the Roger Corman days, it's a trip.

Unlike Stanley Kubrick, whose "2001: A Space Odyssey" this film might be said to resemble, if it resembled anything else at all, Aronofsky has cast his picture with compelling actors. (For his "2001" leads, Kubrick settled for Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood — two icons of inexpressiveness.) Hugh Jackman plays three incarnations of a character called Tom Creo; he's teamed at each stage of the story with Rachel Weisz, as Izzi, the woman he loves. We first see them in 16th-Century Spain, where Izzi is the (fictitious) Queen Isabel and Tom is Tomas, her loyal conquistador. Isabel, who has been seeking the secret of eternal life, the fabled "fountain of youth," is menaced by the growing power of the Inquisition — the Grand Inquisitor has condemned her for heresy and vowed that she will die. But another loyal subject, a Franciscan monk named Father Avila (Mark Margolis), has just returned from the New World to report the existence of a Tree of Life, a Mayan axis mundi that unites Xibalba, the mythical Mayan underworld, with the earth and the heavens above. Isabel dispatches Tomas to return with Avila and a band of fellow conquistadors to find this tree, which, like the Tree of Life described in the biblical Book of Genesis, is thought to be a source of immortality. "When you return," Isabel tells Tomas, "I shall be your Eve, and together we shall live forever."

Five hundred years later — which is to say, now — research scientist Tommy Creo is desperately seeking a cure for the cancer that is killing his young wife, Izzi. He has learned of an old-growth tree in Central America whose bark has properties that could be useful in combating the disease. Experimenting with it, he discovers that it does, in fact, reverse the effects of cancer in monkeys. But Izzi has already come to accept her death as a part of life, and she wishes that instead of frantically seeking a cure to save her, Tom would spend more time with her while she lives. She herself has been passing her remaining time writing a book about the Maya, called "The Fountain." One night, while they're sitting on a rooftop with a telescope, she points out to Tom a faraway nebula, wrapped around a dying star. The Maya called it Xibalba, she says — the place where dead souls go to be reborn.

Shuttling ahead to the year 2600, we find Tom, a spiritual astronaut now, ascending through far galaxies in a globe-shaped spaceship that also contains a large tree — ascending toward Xibalba, and the answer to the mortal question that has haunted him throughout his previous incarnations.

"The Fountain" is a movie of stunningly gorgeous imagery that reverberates ingeniously across the picture's millennial span: falling snow mirrors the stars falling away outside Tom's spaceship; rings of betrothal echo the rings of the Tree of Life. There's also a Mayan priest wielding a flaming sword (like the fiery sword the God of Genesis planted in the Garden of Eden after banishing Adam and Eve) that's a powerful symbolization of stark, primitive mysticism. The outer-space effects are particularly inspired, creating a drifting, gelatinous aura through which Tom's ship rises like an intergalactic elevator. (They're the work of the Oscar-winning English micro-photographer and optical-systems developer Peter Parks, whose footage of petri-dish-size chemical reactions have been blown up to cosmic proportions — an eloquent effect.)

"The Fountain" isn't the sort of movie one might have expected from the man who made the harrowing 2000 addiction elegy, "Requiem for a Dream." But then "Requiem" wasn't the sort of movie anyone would have expected from the maker of Aronofsky's first feature, the sci-fi noir "Pi," either. The director's attempt to say something meaningful in such an emotionally and visually arresting way appears to have prompted some critical snickering already. Whatever. "The Fountain" will almost certainly endure. It's a classic.

"Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny": Them Again

Not as bad as the godawful trailer might lead you expect, but not the gut-buster that longtime fans of the D must have been hoping for, either. Jack Black, who can really sing, and Kyle Gass, who can really play guitar, are still funny together; but after 12 years, their act has lost some of its original unhinged impact, leaving them adrift on a sea of fart jokes, poop gags, 'shroom interludes, and, for want of a more pungent term I wish I could use here, power-appendage skits.

The movie, directed by co-conspirator Liam Lynch, shovels in the duo's backstory, starting with a family blowup between Lil' JB (Troy Gentile, who played a similar Jack-junior role in "Nacho Libre") and his rock-hating dad (Meat Loaf). Praying for guidance to a bedroom wall poster of Ronnie James Dio, young Jack is startled when the metal god springs to life and bursts into song. His advice: get thee to Hollywood. JB grows up, grabs his cheap acoustic guitar, and hops on a bus to L.A. There, he meets Gass busking on the beach in Venice. They hook up after Kyle sort-of saves Jack from a terminal whomping by a gang of street droogs (straight out of "A Clockwork Orange," don't ask why). Billing themselves as The Greatest Band in the World, they make their debut at a little downtown bar, where they play their one and only song, and bomb.

Back in Kyle's lonely-guy apartment (which is equipped with a "gig simulator" mini-stage), they start poring over his collection of ancient "Rolling Stone" back issues, and discover that all of their favorite axe-masters, from Angus Young to Jimmy Page, appear to be using the same guitar pick. On a visit to the L.A. Guitar Center, a burnout clerk (Ben Stiller) fills them in. Yes, that's the "Pick of Destiny," fashioned from a chipped tooth of Satan himself, and now housed in the "Rock History Museum" in Sacramento. They make their way there, grab the pick, return to L.A., and are about to rock some butt back at the little bar when Satan (a pretty hilarious Dave Grohl) turns up in person to reclaim his property.

There are many comic adventures along the way, of course, but not all of them kill. There's a house-party sequence that has no particular point, and a frantic car chase that goes on too long. Tenacious D may not have been The Greatest Band in the World, but they were certainly the greatest acoustic-metal group in the universe, and the funniest, too. The movie might have been more effective if it had been released a little earlier. (It was reportedly shot in the spring of 2005.) At this point, though, "rock on" is not something they'd necessarily be well-advised to do.

"For Your Consideration": Mild Thing

Director Christopher Guest has rounded up his repertory gang again — Catherine O'Hara, Fred Willard, Parker Posey, co-writer Eugene Levy, and of course one-time "Spinal Tap" partners Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, among many, many others — to take a satirical shot at the movie business, and the witless TV infotainment industry that feeds off of it. The picture has some hysterical lines, as you'd expect, and some funny situations; what it doesn't quite have is the bull's-eye bite of such earlier Guest pseudo-documentaries as "Waiting for Guffman" and "Best in Show." It also has way too many characters.

Guest himself plays first-time (and probably last-time) director Jay Berman, who's making a doomed low-budget movie called "Home for Purim" — a Jewish family saga, complete with dying mother, set in Georgia, of all places, and in the 1940s, for some reason. (Unremarked, and thus all the wittier, is the fact that there's not a single Jewish actor in the cast.) Guest hasn't given himself a big part here, but he has a few good moments, as when he instructs O'Hara, prior to shooting a scene, "I want you to do something from the bottom of your womanhood."

O'Hara plays the expiring matriarch, and one day, during a break, she gets word that an Internet movie site has reported that her performance in the film is rumored to be Oscar-worthy. Soon, a few other cast members are being similarly tipped for the big award, and very quickly, as this baseless buzz builds, they all find themselves being herded through the jungle of TV morning shows and talkfests (including a dead-on Charlie Rose-like "roundtable" in which the host's questions ramble on for so long that there's little time left for the interviewees to field an answer). With visions of revived careers floating through their dreams, the actors settle in nervously to await the announcement of the annual Academy Award nominations.

Fred Willard and Jane Lynch (from "The 40 Year-Old Virgin") are hilarious as the smarmy hosts of an "E.T."-esque show called "Hollywood Now." (Willard has never been more blitheringly surreal, popping off such out-of-nowhere remarks as, "You know what they say about blind prostitutes — you really have to hand it to them.") And Ricky Gervais, playing a studio suit, almost steals the show when he marches in to make some suggestions to improve the commercial prospects of "Home for Purim." For one thing, he says, "Tone down the Jewishness." (To which another exec responds, "Why don't we do a different holiday? Easter — just focus on the rabbit.")

Guest's usual approach to the subjects of his films — a distinctive blend of fondness and mockery — tilts a little too far toward amiability here. And there are so many talented people taking part in the picture that their hit-and-run appearances become wearying. In a way, the director is a victim of his own past brilliance. "For Your Consideration" is a good little movie, but coming from Guest, you expect something great. There's always next time.

"The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes": Alien Seduction

This hyper-surreal art movie by Stephen and Timothy Quay draws you into a truly strange world. We see sky and land and sea, and people moving about, but nothing seems really to be of this Earth, least of all the story. The lighting has the blurry halation of old silent movies, and the colors are generally drained down to the most delicate tints. The picture is obscurely troubling, and beautiful to watch.

In an unspecified country that feels like Eastern Europe, a malevolent alienist named Dr. Droz (Gottfried John) has kidnapped a lovely young opera singer, Malvina (Amira Casar), and brought her to his remote villa to appear in a "diabolical opera" of his own composition. In preparation for this event, he imports a piano-tuner, Felisberto (Cesar Sarachu), to service his elaborate musical automata — mechanized objects installed in ever-repeating tableaux. (Droz points one out: "A little row of singing teeth that still retain their pitch.") The doctor is attended by an odd corps of young male gardeners who also double as tailors, and by a mysterious woman named Assumpta (Assumpta Serna). ("Has she showed you her tongue yet?" Droz asks Felisberto.) Seeing a motionless Malvina gazing out to sea from a bench on a lonely beach one day, the piano-tuner resolves to rescue her. Droz, of course, has no intention of letting this happen.

The Quays — a pair of American identical twins who've lived mostly in London since the late 1960s — became well-known for their music videos in the 1980s. (They worked on Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer," among other clips.) They've also found extensive employment in high-end television commercials, and have used the money they've made in that field to finance their primary interests in animation, puppetry, and now live-action films. They clearly have no interest in mainstream filmmaking, and so the audience for this movie will inevitably be, shall we say, "select." To whom might it be recommended? Well, consider Assumpta's line in proposing a piano duet: "You play the black keys and I'll sing the white." There. You know who you are.

Check out everything we've got on "The Fountain," "Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny" and "For Your Consideration."

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Can Tenacious D Follow In Borat's Footsteps, Beat Cult-Comedy Curse?

21 Nov 2006 06:01:00 EST

'Pick of Destiny' looks to avoid fate of 'Mr. Show,' 'Strangers With Candy' movie spinoffs.
By Larry Carroll, with additional reporting by Jeff Cornell

Jack Black in "Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny"
Photo: New Line

LOS ANGELES — The comedic formula seems to play out every couple of years: attract hipsters, become the next big thing, try to make a movie, then die.

When it happened to "The Kids in the Hall," it was unfortunate; when the same fate befell "Mr. Show," no one was laughing. This past summer, it happened again to "Strangers With Candy." And the saddest thing may have been that no one even seemed to notice.

This week, the self-proclaimed "Greatest Rock Band in the World" sacrifices its "next big thing" status once and for all by asking hipster fans to share the theater with mainstream crowds. But now that Jack Black and Kyle Gass have put the finishing touches on "Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny," one question rings more deafening than any riff they could ever devise: Can Tenacious D overcome the cult-comedy curse?

"For some reason, this thing that seemed like it wasn't really going to catch on has ended up becoming massive," marveled Colin Hanks, who has a cameo in the movie and has been a fan of the hard-rocking mock band since the mid-'90s. "[Fans have already witnessed] them actually recording a rock album and going out on tour like a real rock group does. And that all started because they played a bunch of shows in and around L.A. and made these HBO shorts."

"Destiny" tells the comedic tale of how the duo came to rock so damn hard. The real story, however, is equally deserving of its own movie. After aspiring actors Black and Gass met in Tim Robbins' Actors' Gang theater troupe in the '90s, they discovered a shared love for hard rock — and the rich comedic soil its self-important tendencies encouraged. Soon, they were playing small shows for influential Los Angeles crowds and getting their not-so-big break in a Pauly Shore clunker.

"We were in a movie — you probably haven't heard of it — called 'Bio-Dome,' " Black said. "We had a one-minute thing in there where Tenacious D was singing a song. We were like, 'Dude, do you know what we should do? We should go to [L.A. movie theater] the Cinerama Dome, and as people are coming out of the movie theater, we'll be there playing the song we played in the movie!' [We figured] everyone would go, 'Aren't you the guys from the movie?' and then we'd be more famous."

As it turned out, however, their "Bio-Dome" cameo was one of many disappointments that kept the D under the radar. "The movie closed so fast that we never even had time to do it," Black grinned. "We went to the Cinerama Dome — and a different movie was playing!" So both actors kept their day jobs, and occasionally the two gigs would intersect — as in 1999's "Tenacious D" show on HBO, which lasted six episodes. Once Black landed his highly visible role as hypercritical record clerk Barry in "High Fidelity," however, his career began to take off — and the wild-eyed comedian refused to leave his bandmate behind.

In 2001, the D finally released a proper, self-titled album, which included such instant cult classics as "Wonderboy," "Tribute" and "Dio." "To see how it has spread is shocking, because I was a huge D fan for years before I even met Jack," Hanks said. "If you had told me back when I was watching their HBO thing that they'd have an album and be playing Brixton Academy in London, I'd have laughed."

Now, with "The Pick of Destiny" on the way, the days of early adapters like Hanks appear numbered. Then again, movie buffs who remember the box-office failures of "Brain Candy," the "Mr. Show"-spawned "Run Ronnie Run" and the recent "Strangers With Candy" may argue that if "Destiny" doesn't make Tenacious D a household name, it will kill yet another cult act that couldn't dumb itself down enough for mainstream consumption.

Steve Carell admitted that his first inclination was to write off friend Stephen Colbert's "Strangers With Candy" failure as being too smart for the masses — but he became more frustrated when he realized that the argument doesn't hold. "I don't think it's necessarily intelligent comedy. ... Certain things appeal to certain people," he shrugged. "I grew up with Monty Python. Not everybody's a huge Monty Python fan. But I loved it. I thought it was great. Some people are huge Benny Hill fans — and that's a different sort of audience inherently."

There is one recent phenomenon that falls somewhere between intelligent and stupid comedy. It may have paved the way for Jack and Kyle, and it can be summed up in three words: Sacha Baron Cohen. "He's the entertainer of the year," Black said of the "Borat" star. "Sacha dominated the comedy scene, and I can't think of anybody in the drama or action or horror world that has made an impact like that — a slam dunk."

In case you've been living under a rock, Cohen's flick "Borat" (which, like "Destiny, takes characters from a cult TV show and targets movie stardom) has been breaking records over the past several weekends (see " 'Borat' Rakes In Another $29 Million; Will Ferrell Opens At #4"). Baron Cohen avoided studio manipulation, kept the character pure and the jokes outrageous and just may have shattered the cult-comedy curse forever. Commenting on Baron Cohen, Black could only hope that some of the magic rubs off on him. "I don't know what his secret herbs and spices are in his secret recipe for brilliance," the comedian wondered. "He just approaches it like a scientist and a chemist. He has a great mind for it."

"Borat" packed nudity, racial humor and even kidnapping into a flick that somehow landed an R rating. Now, JB and KG hope mainstream audiences will take a chance on a flick that keeps things pure by unleashing the D's naked rear ends, a Sasquatch hallucination and enough F-bombs to make Eminem blush.

"It's a really hard thing to determine: What would appeal to a broader audience?" Carell said of the transition. "Ultimately, once you start thinking that way or along those lines, you're shooting yourself in the foot. You just have to go with what you think is funny, and if you start thinking of what a broad audience will find funny, what was funny in the first place would just be lost."

"It's a gamble," Dane Cook chimed in, admitting that if things aren't kept pure it's the loyalists who will turn on a comedian first. "You just have to hope people show up. ... Beyond just the fanbase, it's about a story and a script that's fantastic enough to draw new people.

"Tenacious D is going to be the example that you don't [have to dumb things down] because I know those guys, and they're not gonna hold back," Cook continued. "If anything, they will set a new tone for guys like myself to be able to come in and pretty much do it the way you'd see it onstage and have that translate to film."

Hoping "Destiny" will finally make the band as enormous as it's pretended to be since the guys stood outside the Cinerama Dome with their guitars, Jack and Kyle swear that they aren't "dumbing down" or "selling out" the Tenacious D act. "When you've got something good, I think it's best to share it. Everyone should get a little taste," Black reasoned. "We've been baking the D pie for many, many years — and it's finally ready for everyone to enjoy. So hard-cores, sorry — we've got to let it out of the bag now. The D is for everyone, not just for you."

"We've completely sold out from top to bottom," Gass joked. "No, you know, people seem to enjoy what we did on HBO, so we pretty much took that world and just blew it up somewhat. I don't think we were too conscious of trying to change us or anything like that. ... We definitely made the movie we wanted to, and I feel good about not catering to [studio whims] much ... We didn't try to make 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' or anything like that.

"There are some 'Raiders'-type segments in it, however," Gass added with a grin.

"We stayed totally true to the D's essence, and this is our pinnacle," Black said. "This is the final piece of the puzzle of the D. We put everything [into it] — we put five years of work into this thing — and it's our 'The Passion of the D.'

"Dude, it doesn't matter," Black finally said. "If people aren't into it, I don't care. I'm so into it, and I love it, and I'm very proud of it."

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Tenacious D Plan To Die On Tour, Say Penguins Are A Threat

16 Nov 2006 06:01:00 EST

Jack Black says R rating will force teen fans to 'buy tickets to 'Happy Feet' and then sneak over to the 'D' movie.'
By Chris Harris

"Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny"
Photo: Zade Rosenthal/New Line Productions

Jack Black seems to think more people will actually see "Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny" when it's released next week than the final box-office take might end up suggesting.

Truth is, he thinks "cute, softie" films, like the animated dancing-penguin tale "Happy Feet," will benefit tremendously from his film's being slapped with an "R" rating. He reasoned that his band's underage fans will just "buy tickets to 'Happy Feet' and then sneak over to the 'D' movie."

He's also worried about his film facing off against "Borat," which has crushed the competition for two straight weeks.

"I'm a huge fan of Sacha Baron Cohen's, and I think he's a comedic revolutionary," Black said of the man who portrays the Kazakhstani reporter. "It's akin to when the Beatles came in and took over rock. So we're Elvis, and I can live with that. I'll have to."

But there's much more to keep Tenacious D — Black and his heavy-metal soul mate Kyle Gass — anxious than their big-screen fate. Black said he's not sure if there will be a sequel, but if there is, "I'm pretty sure we end up in space."

The band just released its second full-length album, The Pick of Destiny. The follow-up to the D's 2001 self-titled debut doubles as the film's soundtrack, and Black and Gass wrote the material around the movie's story line. And yes, Gass said the D were under a significant amount of pressure to replicate the awesomeness of Tenacious D.

"Well, we've only put out one record in 12 years, so we're not working too hard," he said. "But yeah, there was pressure. I thought the first one came out great, and we had to come out with all new songs for the movie. So it was tough." There had to be a balance, he said, with both the record and the film, between pleasing old Tenacious D fans and drawing new ones in.

"We thought about it from the get-go," he explained. "We know the people who like us really like us, but that would only be $100,000 at the box office. So we had to make it so people would sort of get it, and then we didn't want to neglect the base. That's what was tough."

"I never thought about the fans," said Black, interrupting his partner. "We never thought about the fans before we had fans, and that's what got us fans. Why think about the fans now? You just try to make yourself laugh and make it funny for you, and hopefully, you'll get a delicious response. We just needed to write more around the story of the movie, which we really did on the first album too. A lot of our songs came from comedy gigs where there'd be some alternative comedy shows that had themes for the night, and one night it would be a sasquatch theme, so we'd write for that with a deadline."

More importantly, though, was securing metal deity Ronnie James Dio for both productions. Dio appears on the album and has a cameo role in the film. "We could've done it without him," said Gass, "but we wrote the song ['Kickapoo'] with him in mind. We would have to rewrite the song if he'd said no."

But it was the track "Dio," from Tenacious D, that helped turn Ronnie on to the D and the reason he agreed to work with the band.

"He enjoyed the song that we wrote for him on our first album, which kind of was a slam, saying he was too old to rock," Black said. "But more importantly, it was also a tribute to his excellence. And he loved it and he asked us to come do a little part in a music video he was doing, and we said, 'OK, but here's the catch — you have to be in our movie and on our album.' We knew we had him. And it was important. Who would we have gotten if it wasn't him? We'd have to go to Ozzy [Osbourne], and if Ozzy said no, we'd have to go to [Eric] Clapton. But Clapton doesn't have the devil in him, so we might have ended up with Glenn Danzig."

Tenacious D will hit the road starting Friday in Los Angeles for a brief U.S. tour that will hit Denver, Detroit, New York and Washington, D.C., before wrapping December 5 in Atlanta. And they've got huge plans for the concert's production.

"We've always wanted to get some priests out in front of our concerts, yelling, 'Don't go in there — your soul will be damned for eternity,' because that means you've made it," Black said. "Or at least that was the signal for success during the '80s metal days. But at our shows, we start off with a re-creation of Kyle's apartment from 15 years ago. He had a really crappy apartment. We called it 'the Cockroach.' We jam there for a while, for the first chunk of the concert, and then we die, and we go to hell, and the stage is transformed into the landscape of hell.

"Then we form a band with Charlie Chaplin, Colonel Sanders and the Antichrist," he continued. "The rest of the show is in hell, and there are some pretty high production values. Some might complain that the tickets are too much. But we're not making any money — we're losing money on the tour. We're like f---ing Pink Floyd now. Not since Styx's 'Mr. Roboto' has there been such a high-concept tour."

Check out everything we've got on "Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny."

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New Releases: Game, Fat Joe, (+44), Panic! At The Disco, Akon & More

14 Nov 2006 06:01:00 EST

Also due Tuesday: Trail of Dead, Michael Jackson, Clash, Tenacious D, Cassettes, Entrance, Army of Anyone.
By Kurt Orzeck

Game's Doctor's Advocate
Photo: Geffen Records

Coast to Coast: When Fat Joe tapped the Game to appear on "Breathe & Stop," the second single from his Me, Myself and I LP, little did Joe know that he was actually sleeping with the enemy. After all, Game's new Doctor's Advocate drops this week too, which means the two will go head-to-head for consumers' dollars. If the albums are judged by their guest stars, NYC Joe is in trouble. He enlisted Lil Wayne for two Me tracks, "The Profit" and "Make It Rain," plus Scott Storch for production purposes. But Game has him beat: Kanye, Jamie Foxx, Nas, Snoop, Xzibit and Swizz Beatz all contribute to his LP, in varying capacities. And to top it off, Weezy was one of the 20-plus artists who just participated in a remix of Game's new single, "It's Okay (One Blood)."

Name That Band: Blink-182 always said they chose the "182" randomly. But there's no doubting where Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker got the name for their follow-up band, (+44): It's the international dialing code for the U.K. Theirs isn't the most unconventional band name this week, though. That honor belongs, as it always does whenever they rear their scrawny heads, to ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, who have a new CD to share this week as well. While (+44)'s When Your Heart Stops Beating also features ex-Transplant Craig Fairbaugh and Shane Gallagher of the Nervous Return, Hoppus did all the singing, wrote all the lyrics and even played some guitar. Barker did his part by taking piano lessons and chalking up some keyboard contributions. Trail of Dead reached beyond their five-member cast and out to Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer and King Crimson's Pat Mastelotto for help with So Divided, which has some of the most gorgeous album art in recent memory and also includes a Guided by Voices cover song.

'Kon Session: Akon is a singer, not a rapper, and he grew up in Senegal, not exactly one of hip-hop's capitals. But that hasn't stopped Eminem, Snoop and Styles P. from taking him under their respective wings. All three of them lend a hand on his sophomore disc, Konvicted, a release that has bounced around from November 21 to December 12 to this date. 'Kon, who has run into his fair share of trouble with the law, repents with the anti-gangsta track "Runnin' " and branches out even more with a ballad, "Never Took the Time," and an Africa-awareness track, simply titled "Africa." Konvinced?

Tenacious D.G.: Foo Fighters just put out the concert disc Skin and Bones last week and have a DVD version dropping in two weeks, but apparently Dave Grohl is trying to make an appearance every Tuesday in November. He plays drums throughout the "Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny" soundtrack, which was produced by the Dust Brothers' John King and has a limited deluxe version with tarot cards, a guitar pick and special slipcase. Grohl crops up on another soundtrack too: "Rising Son: The Legend of Skateboarder Christian Hosoi," for which he contributed "Vile." That song is actually the product of his teaming with DJ C-Minus — who, incidentally, has collaborated with Grohl buds Queens of the Stone Age in the past.

You and Whose Army?: You might know Richard Patrick as the guy who kept saying, "Hey, man, nice shot," in Filter's song of the same name. But you probably won't recognize the guys joining him for Army of Anyone: They're the Stone Temple Pilots who got constantly upstaged by media darling Scott Weiland. While they're going to war with their self-titled debut, Yusuf is more apt to find a diplomatic solution. You might not recognize him either: After finding mainstream popularity as Cat Stevens, the Islam convert changed his name to Yusuf Islam, and now he's just Yusuf. Among the spiritual and romantic songs on his album An Other Cup, he finds space to set the record straight with a cover of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood," made famous by Nina Simone.

Let the Reissues Floweth: When sales fail, and they sure have been failing lately, there's always the mighty reissue. Labels have been pumping out deluxe versions of today's biggest releases, and this week proves no different, with a collector's edition of Panic! at the Disco's A Fever You Can't Sweat Out hitting stores. The album looks to go beyond its platinum success with this limited run, enhanced with a bonus DVD (tour, live and backstage footage); phenakistoscope (one of those spindle viewer doohickeys); lyric cards; a tour program; and more.

But unlike other weeks, this one also sees a wide range of re-releases by recent but lesser-known bands. In case you've forgotten (we did), Wind-Up — home to Evanescence, Creed, etc. — was originally Grass Records, which put out more indie-friendly releases in the mid-'90s. Commander Venus, a project featuring Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, are recalled with a straight reissue of 1997's The Uneventful Vacation, and New Jersey's the Wrens find their first two LPs, Secaucus and Silver, also re-released in frill-free form. And metal fans get their fill with digipak versions of doom deacons Electric Wizard's Come My Fanatics, Dopethrone and Electric Wizard. All three come with bonuses.

A Clash Indeed: If you ever wondered what Michael Jackson might have in common with the Clash, the mystery has been solved: Both artists are being heralded with monster singles boxes. Visionary: The Video Singles has a whopping 20 DualDisc singles, each of the original tracks plus accompanying videos. The Clash's The Singles falls one CD short at 19 but has six songs never on CD plus a giveaway EP that hasn't been commercially available. Oh, and the liner notes include contributions from the Edge, Pete Townshend, Damon Albarn and more. Can you beat it?

Lovers' Row?: When Noah Georgeson produced Joanna Newsom's 2004 album, The Milk-Eyed Monster, he probably didn't think his girlfriend's follow-up would be pitted against his debut. But that's exactly what's happening this week. Georgeson, who plays guitar in Devendra Banhart's live band, wrote, produced, scored, arranged, etc. Find Shelter beginning in 1999, when he lived with Newsom. Her Ys has just five songs but includes contributions from engineer Steve Albini, egghead Jim O'Rourke of Sonic Youth, not to mention legendary arranger Van Dyke Parks.

... And That's a Fact: This one's for the books, really: Originally pressed on vinyl in 1955, Charlotte Rae Sings Songs I Taught My Mother: Silly, Sinful & Satiric Selections is seeing its first-ever release on CD some four decades later. So who is Charlotte Rae, you ask? Well, you probably know her better as Mrs. Garrett: Rae, now 80 years old, is the woman who played the mentor on "Diff'rent Strokes" and "The Facts of Life" — and she sang the latter show's theme song to boot. Relive the olden days as Rae hums along to "Gabor the Merrier," "When I Was a Little Cuckoo" and "The Sea-Gull and the Ea-Gull."

Song Title of the Week:

"The Sea-Gull and the Ea-Gull" from Charlotte Rae Sings Songs I Taught My Mother: Silly, Sinful & Satiric Selections

Other Notables:

The Low Frequency in Stereo's The Last Temptation of ... the Low Frequency Stereo, Vol. 1: The Norwegian groovesters invoke the Jesus and Mary Chain and other post-psych greats on their third album, which was partly crafted using an old living-room organ. Recorded on analog but mixed digitally, Last Temptation boasts "Jimmy Legs," "Bahamas" and "Red Flag."

Entrance's Prayer of Death: The fourth LP by 25-year-old wünderkind Guy Blakeslee was inspired by, in no particular order, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, LSD guru Timothy Leary and Delta blues legend Charley Patton. Co-produced by and featuring contributions from Paz Lenchantin of A Perfect Circle note, Prayer purports to be "a conceptual meditation on the urgency of life-awareness and death-awareness in a war-torn world." Far out.

Various artists' Cursed - The Head Trauma Movie Project: Ever synced up Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon with "The Wizard of Oz"? It's the same deal here, except label Park the Van aligned unreleased songs by Bardo Pond, the Capitol Years and Bitter Bitter Weeks with "Head Trauma," a grisly indie horror film that appeared at the Los Angeles Film Festival earlier this year. Bet Rob Zombie wishes he had thought of this one.

New Releases: · (+44) - When Your Heart Stops Beating (Interscope) Read: "Plus-44 Address Blink Breakup On LP, Want Fans To 'Hear The Truth' " · Akon - Konvicted (Universal Motown) · Ali B - Ali B Presents ... Air Breaks (Air) · ... And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - So Divided (Interscope) [Buy Now] · April Wine - Roughly Speaking (April Wine) · Army of Anyone - Army of Anyone (Firm) [Buy Now] Read: "Army Of Anyone Want To Be Judged By Their Fifth Album, Not Their Debut" · Bad Astronaut - Twelve Small Steps, One Giant Disappointment (Fat Wreck Chords) · Cassettes - 'Neath the Pale Moon (Buddyhead) · Ronnie Day - The Album (Militia Group) · Disco Biscuits - Rocket 3 (limited-edition EP; Sci Fidelity) · Entombed - When in Sodom (Candlelight) · Entrance - Prayer of Death (Tee Pee) · Fat Freddys Drop - Based on a True Story (Kartel) · Fat Joe - Me, Myself and I (Virgin) [Buy Now] Read: "Fat Joe On September Release: 'Bet The Kitchen Sink On Me' " · Christine Fellows - Paper Anniversary (Six Shooter) · The Game - Doctor's Advocate (Geffen) [Buy Now] Read: "Game Says Song On New LP Makes Him 'The One-Man N.W.A' " · Noah Georgeson - Find Shelter (Plain) · Nanci Griffith - Ruby's Torch (Rounder) · Imperial - We Sail at Dawn (Pluto) · Incredible Bongo Band - Bongo Rock (Mr Bongo) · Jon B - Holiday Wishes From Me to You (Arsenal) · Kenny G - I'm in the Mood for Love ... The Most Romantic Melodies of All Time (Arista) · Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris - Real Live Roadrunning (with DVD; Warner Bros.) · The Low Frequency in Stereo - The Last Temptation of ... the Low Frequency Stereo, Vol. 1 (Gigantic) · Marah - Sooner or Later in Spain (enhanced live LP; Yep Roc) [Buy Now] · Paul Michel - Quiet State of Panic (Stunning Models on Display) · Joanna Newsom - Ys (Drag City) · Nickodemus - Endangered Species (Eighteenth Street) · Joan Osborne - Pretty Little Stranger (Vanguard) [Buy Now] · Laura Pausini - Yo Canto (Warner Music Latina) · Paybacks - Love, Not Reason (Savage Jams) · Polly Panic - Painkiller (Greyday) · The PoPo - The PoPo (Buddyhead) · Damien Rice - 9 (Heffa/ Vector/ Warner Bros.) [Buy Now] · The Red Krayola - Red Gold (EP; Drag City) · Bianca Ryan - Bianca Ryan (Columbia) · Sasquatch - II (Small Stone) · Emilie Simon - The Flower Book (Milan) · Bob Sinclair - Cerrone (Recall) · Tahiti 80 - Fosbury (Militia Group) · Tamia - Between Friends (Image) · Tenacious D - "The Pick of Destiny" soundtrack (limited-edition deluxe version also available; Epic) [Buy Now] · Tralala - Is That the Tralala (Audika) · White Magic - Dat Rosa Mel Apibus (Drag City) · Winks - Birthday Party (Ache) · Yusuf - An Other Cup (limited-edition version also available; Atlantic) · Various artists - Cursed - The Head Trauma Movie Project (Park the Van) · Various artists - ESL 100 (ESL) · Various artists - Fabric 30: Rub-N-Tug (FabricLive) · Various artists - George Jones: 50 Years of Hits (available as a CD or a two-CD/two-DVD set; Rounder) · Various artists - Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba (Hip-O) · Various artists - "Bobby" soundtrack (Rhino) · Various artists - "Casino Royale" soundtrack (Sony Classics) · Various artists - "Rising Son: The Legend of Skateboarder Christian Hosoi" soundtrack (Image)

Notable Reissues and Archival Material: · Johnny Cash - At San Quentin: Legacy Edition (two CDs and one DVD; Columbia/Legacy) · Cee-Lo - Closet Freak: The Best of Cee-Lo Green the Soul Machine (Arista/Legacy) [Buy Now] · The Clash - The Singles (19-disc box set; Epic/Legacy) · Ornette Coleman - To Whom Keeps a Record (Water) · Commander Venus - The Uneventful Vacation (Wind-Up) · Depeche Mode - The Best Of: Volume One (also available with DVD; Sire/Reprise) · Electric Wizard - Come My Fanatics, Dopethrone and Electric Wizard and (digipaks; Candlelight) · Emmylou Harris & Carl Jackson - I've Always Needed You (Music Avenue) · Michael Jackson - Visionary: The Video Singles (20-disc DualDisc box set; Epic/Legacy) [Buy Now] · Nickel Creek - Reasons Why (The Very Best) (with DVD; Sugarhill) · Panic! at the Disco - A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (deluxe collector's edition with DVD; Decaydance/ Fueled by Ramen) · Charlotte Rae - Charlotte Rae Sings Songs I Taught My Mother: Silly, Sinful & Satiric Selections (P.S. Classics) · Slot - The Sweet Black Bear (Small Stone) · Solange - Solo Star (Music World) · Staind - The Singles: 1996-2006 (Flip/Atlantic) [Buy Now] · String Cheese Incident - On the Road: Anchorage, AK - 07-23-06 (two CDs), On the Road: Eugene, OR - 09-06-06 (four CDs), On the Road: Redmond, VA - 08-02-06 (three CDs) and On the Road: Travelogue - Summer 06 (three CDs; Sci Fidelity) · Sublime - Everything Under the Sun (box set with three DVDs and one CD; Geffen/ UMe/ Gasoline Alley/ Skunk) [Buy Now] · Witchcraft - Witchcraft (Candlelight) · Wrens - Secaucus and Silver (Wind-Up) · Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Live at the Fillmore 1970 (with DVD; Reprise) · Various artists - Classic Country: Outlaws (Time Life) · Various artists - If I Sing: The Songwriters Album (P.S. Classics) · Various artists - Retro:Active 5: Rare & Remixed (Hi-Bias) · Various artists - So You Think You Don't Like Swing (Time Life) · Various artists - Ultimate Classical Chill Out: The Essential Masterpieces (five-CD box set; Decca)

Music DVDs: · Asleep at the Wheel - "Live From Austin TX" (New West) · Leonard Cohen - "I'm Your Man" (Lionsgate) · Dillards - "A Night in the Ozarks: An Audiolithograph - The Video Documentary" (Varèse Sarabande) · HIM - "Love Metal Archives Vol. 1" (Republic) · Takagi Masakatsu - "World Is So Beautiful" (Carpark) · Paul McCartney - "The Space Within US: A Concert Film" (A&E Home Video) · Mobb Deep - "Life of the Infamous: The Videos" (Loud/Legacy) · Staind - "The Videos" (Flip/Atlantic) · Junior Wells - "Junior Wells and Guest" (Immortal) · Widespread Panic - "Earth to Atlanta: Live at the Fox Theatre 2006" (two DVDs; Sanctuary) · Various artists - "The Best of the Jammys Volume One" (Relix) · Various artists - "Drive-Thru Records DVD Volume IV" (Drive-Thru) · Various artists - "George Jones: 50 Years of Hits" (available as a two-DVD set or a two-DVD/two-CD set; Rounder)

Coming Attractions:

November 21: · Jay-Z - Kingdom Come (Roc-A-Fella) [Preorder] Read: "Jay-Z's 'Retirement' Is Finally Over: New Album Due In November" · Killswitch Engage - As Daylight Dies (Roadrunner) [Preorder] Read: "Killswitch Engage Turn On The Heavy For Glass-Shattering As Daylight Dies" · U2 - U218 Singles (limited-edition; with DVD; Interscope) [Preorder]

November 28:

Light Grenades

[Preorder]

"Incubus' Mike Einziger Lends Agent Sparks A Hand Making The Best Brunch LP Ever"

Chemically Imbalanced

[Preorder]

Buck Tha World

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Meat Loaf Dishes On Playing Jack Black's Dad, Hating 'Idol' Performance

10 Nov 2006 06:01:00 EST

Rocker says he's influenced everyone from Killers, My Chemical Romance to Kurt Cobain, Axl Rose.
By Shawn Adler

Meat Loaf
Photo: Scott Gries/ Getty Images

Marvin Aday — Meat Loaf to you and me — is the man who "would do anything for love" (but not that!). He's gone from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" to Bat Out of Hell in a career spanning the stage, screen and radio.

In a recent phone interview with MTV News, Meat Loaf discussed his role in "Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny," why he's never hated anything more than performing on "American Idol" and how his work continues to influence a whole new generation of artists.

MTV: Tenacious D claim everywhere that they're the greatest rock band of all time. Where does that leave Meat Loaf?

Meat Loaf: I guess at number 2.

MTV: Is that a happy number 2?

Meat Loaf: [He laughs.] That's fine. I like ["Pick of Destiny" star] Jack [Black].

MTV: Your role in "The Pick of Destiny" is entirely sung. Could you sing the answer to a simple question, say, who you play?

Meat Loaf: I play Jack's father, and he's a religious zealot — absolutely a complete control freak. He's got his wife trained and his other kid trained, and everything is in its place — the dinner table is set perfect, the kitchen is perfect, everything is perfect except for little Jack, and little Jack is far from perfect. He's going to teach him a lesson.

MTV: How did you become involved in this film?

Meat Loaf: For five years, Jack Black has been saying he wanted me to play his father. In every interview he did he always [said], "I'm gonna make the movie 'Tenacious D,' and I want to make Meat Loaf play my father." Every interview. And my daughters, Pearl and Amanda, they kept reading it and [would] call and say, "Jack said it again, Jack said it again." I said, "When he calls me, I'll tell him I'll do it." He did call. He called me himself.

MTV: So he started talking about you in this film well before there was even a film?

Meat Loaf: Oh yeah. Well, he and [co-writer/co-star] Kyle [Gass] had it in their heads. I think they had been wanting to make this film for a very long time — I mean, for five years. So it would be, what, six and a half years ago now that he started talking about it.

MTV: Were you a fan of Tenacious D before this movie?

Meat Loaf: I'm a fan of Jack Black. Jack was originally going to play me in the VH1 movie ["Meat Loaf: To Hell and Back"].

MTV: At that point, though, you had met Jack?

Meat Loaf: No. I had never met him. I just saw him in movies that he had done, and I had heard some stuff from Tenacious D. I said, "This is the guy to play me. He's got the energy, and he understands it." He was going to [play me], then his career took off and [this] movie got postponed. He tried, and I said, "Well, the guy's an idiot if he does it." I said, "Let me see — a studio picture over the Meat Loaf story? Let me think about that for a minute. Gee, I don't know, that's a hard decision."

MTV: Interesting you talk about this continuum from you to Jack Black in terms of high-energy performance. He's a theatrical performer. There's a lot of bands like that these days.

Meat Loaf: Well, that's what I'm hearing. That's what somebody wrote the other day. They gave a review of the new album, and they said that Meat Loaf is gonna have two albums on the chart: My Chemical Romance and Meat Loaf.

MTV: When you look back now do you think about how your career has influenced a whole generation of artists?

Meat Loaf: A few years ago in Spin magazine — I don't know, about 12 years ago — they listed the 25 or 50 most important things in rock history, and they listed Bat Out of Hell at #7. It had an influence on Guns N' Roses, because Axl Rose made a statement about it, [and] Kurt Cobain in several interviews mentioned [it]. And a couple of other grunge bands in the '90s were talking about it also. So I think it's had an influence. I'm so used to being by myself, being alone in the parade, that it's hard for me to deal with people saying Chemical Romance and Panic! at the Disco and Killers [are similar].

MTV: When you say it's hard for you to deal with, you mean just because you're more of a loner in your work?

Meat Loaf: I've always been a loner and all of a sudden they're coming out, and that's OK. Because after this, I'm going away, so it's time for somebody else to take the realm.

MTV: You're still doing film work?

Meat Loaf: I'm doing film, yeah.

MTV: Just no more music?

Meat Loaf: Well, I'm not going to beat the horse to the finish line like I did with [the recently released Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose].

MTV: How did performing with Katharine McPhee on "American Idol" come about?

Meat Loaf: Oh, they just asked me, and it was a moment of sheer terror. I've never hated anything so much in my whole life.

MTV: Why, because of the way it was performed?

Meat Loaf: One, for the way it was performed. Two, just the whole — I don't know, it was just very strange. I could never get the monitors right the whole time in rehearsal or anything, and I was just trying to get the song performed, and it was just a big mess. I have performance anxiety. I'm getting a little better now because I've done so many in the last month that I'm getting better at it.

MTV: Have you always had performance anxiety?

Meat Loaf: Always, always. There's others now I'm finding out as well. Rod Stewart has it. I was reading an interview with Rod, and he was going on about how for years he just wanted to curl up in a ball. And I did ["The Tonight Show"] in, what, '96? They told me I had two minutes to go on, and I ran and hid under a desk. They had to go, "Come on, get out, you're on." If you ever see a replay, I'm kind of being shoved out there as they're introducing me.

MTV: Is it one of those things where once you get onstage it washes over you?

Meat Loaf: No. Well, it did. See the problem with "American Idol" is that I didn't have any music for the first 12 or 14 bars. I was trying to sing from the house speakers, so I could barely hear. I kept trying to get quieter and I kept getting more nervous and quieter and more nervous, and then I was out of time. And when you get out of time on ["It's All Coming Back to Me Now"], the way the chord structure is, the notes don't work.

I had to be live in New York the other night, and I came in early, but it didn't make any difference. I came in four bars early, I sang, and all of a sudden I realized what I was doing. I just repeated two lines. But with that song [from "Idol"], man, if you screwed up, you screwed up. It was a mess. It was a very strange vibe, I think because it was a competition. Usually when you do TV shows, it's like a talk show, not a competition. But this was a competition, so it was a very strange vibe backstage. Now I know why Prince didn't show up until 10 minutes before he went on. They were freaking out.

MTV: Really?

Meat Loaf: Yeah. He didn't show up until about seven or eight minutes until he was going on. They had an idea to do something with Burt Bacharach where we all went out and sang again, but then they canceled that. Prince showed up, so we were OK.

MTV: Do you think at this point people know you more for your singing or acting?

Meat Loaf: I don't know. I think maybe some of the younger generation are hip to "Fight Club" and that kind of thing, and then you go back to silly movies like "Spice World," which was an absolute — I can't even deal with that. I've been in 43 films now. You haven't seen them, you've only seen about seven. Most of them you don't know. If you just watch HBO, you've seen seven.

MTV: What do you think is your favorite or your best work of all the 43?

Meat Loaf: A movie called "Focus." It was written by Arthur Miller, with [William H.] Macy and Laura Dern. "Fight Club" is pretty good. I want to try and erase this "BloodRayne" from the list. "The 51st State," what we shot was really good and what they edited was a little cliché for me, but we shot some great stuff. The last scene with Sam [Jackson] when I die is really fun to watch, I like that one. Actually, this little movie called "Rustin," I like that character a lot.

You might have seen seven of these. Then you can go down and find "To Catch a Yeti" in '95, which was a Disney thing that they spent less than a million dollars on, with a motorized puppet that you can hear in the movie. Every time it moves, it goes, "Vrrmmmmm." They broke the bank. In the first scene when I'm with the puppet, I said, "I can hear him. Wait, I can hear him." And they said, "Don't worry about it. We'll fix it in post [-production]." I went, "Oh, OK." It played on the Disney Channel about 400 times, and every time if you just watched it, you could hear the little monster going, "Vrrmmmmm." It was pretty funny.

MTV: So what kind of movies do you do now?

Meat Loaf: It was very odd — an Academy Award winner two years ago made this statement: "From the minute I read the script, I knew exactly who this guy was and exactly how to play him." Well, if that would have been me, I wouldn't have won the Oscar because I would have turned the movie down, because any time I finish reading the script and I say, "Oh, I know exactly how to play this guy, I know exactly who he is," I'll turn it down every time.

MTV: Tell us about your upcoming flick "Urban Decay."

Meat Loaf: That's a big giant mess. The producer ran off with the money, and they haven't paid the Teamsters, and [the Screen Actors Guild] has confiscated the film. So there you go. That was a cool little thing, though. It was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. I did 22 pages in one day. It was all monologue.

MTV: Will it ever see the light of day?

Meat Loaf: No, not unless I get someone to put it on my reel. They've got, like, $3 million in it. It's one of those horror movie things. I play a radio DJ that hates the world. After I did "BloodRayne," I got nothing but horror-movie offers. But I got "Urban Decay," and I liked the character; I thought he was interesting. It was about a homeless cannibal in Los Angeles, and we were helping to track him down through the radio. I was safe in my little booth.

MTV: Is there a role in your career that you could have done and you didn't and you regret it?

Meat Loaf: Nope. I've turned down a couple of studio pictures that were very big, but when I saw the role that I turned down, I was really happy that I did, because I would have been miserable. I've done studio pictures with smaller roles, and I'm really miserable. I'd rather do an independent where I go in and shoot 22 pages in a day and work, and have it be the most difficult thing ever, than to sit around for four months in a Holiday Inn Express — three days a week doing nothing in the middle of Oxford, Mississippi. I'm just not that kind.

I don't want to be a prop, and some of the studio movies, when they offer you smaller roles, you wind up being a prop, and that's what you feel like. I think that I'm better than a prop — maybe they don't, but I do. "Let's get Meat Loaf, he's a good prop." Well, Meat Loaf doesn't think he's a prop.

Check out everything we've got on "Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny."

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