The Pick of Destiny (why I am worried)

[Fios]

... or why I have too much time on my hands:

If you care, what follows is why I am worried about 'The Pick of Destiny' (and why I should be writing for a living):

I have some concerns about whether or not the Tenacious D movie is a few years too late. My concerns are as follows:

1) What lent so much of the comic sensibility to the early sketches is
the fact that you had two uniquely talented individuals writing for and
producing the show in David Cross and Bob Odenkirk.

They were at the height of the tragically short "Mr. Show" run so they were, to borrow a sports analogy, in regular-season form. Odenkirk has a minor writing credit on this film but, given his other, major, commitment ("Let's Go To Prison," a film I very much want to see) I question how much influence he had on the script.

David Cross, inasmuch as I can determine, wasn't involved in any fashion and he was the one who discovered the D. That troubles me.

2) What made Tenacious D funny in sketch format doesn't really lend
itself to long-form full-length comedy in my opinion. There was a
certain sort-of dark, quirky sensibility to those shorts that can't
really be stretched into a full-length film.

This means we either get Tenacious D's comedy forced into a format that doesn't particularly play to their strengths or we get an attempt to force what worked in short form to work on the big screen. Neither option is promising.

Additionally, to get this real eased, any studio is going to insist that
the duo's admittedly already not-very dark sensibility be cleaned up to some extent which means we end up with a buddy comedy which, by and large, suck.

3) Jack Black has basically sold out and that is never, ever,
evvvvvvvvvvvvvvver a good sign in comedy. I'm not necessarily condemning him for that but success has a way of robbing formerly funny people of whatever it was that made them tick. "School of Rock" was pretty funny, in a nice way, but what else? His track record is certainly not
encouraging.

4) I'm not a fan of the retrospective format in that in typically isn't all that funny (Jack Black sure was a wacky kid does not equal laughs) and it's necessarily limiting.

We are now forced to spend time doing the whole "this is what they were like as kids" thing, which is a modern comedy crutch. Further it suggests to me that Tenacious D fans are pretty much being disregarded as the studio aims for a wider audience.

Again, that typically means the end result is diluted because the studio moves away from what is funny and toward what is bankable. Factoring in the lowest common denominator is not good for comedy.

I think what we will ultimately end up with is a film that we will say
"Yup ... yeah, that was pretty funny" in that way that means "I laughed
a few times and I'm not terribly pissed that I spent $10 to do so" and
know immediately that we probably will never own it on DVD and that the
D stands for done.

P.S. I would love to be wrong about all that

[Irn-Bru]

I liked Jack Black in High Fidelity, although that's even older than School of Rock and so doesn't give any indication of how he might do in Pick of Destiny.

I, too, and worried about the film. The novelty of Tenacious D has worn off, so they'll have to have some pretty solid stuff to make this film a good one.

[Fios]

I liked him in 'High Fidelity' as well, I should have said post-HF

[ii7-V7]

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tenacio ... f_destiny/

Seems like rotten tomatoes agrees with you. It had a 52% fresh rating. Comedy's rarely get good reviews on RT however.

[Kentucky Fried Hog]

My favorite JB film is definitely 'Saving Silverman', great stuff. I'm not getting my hopes for 'The Pick of Destiny' movie but I am hopeful that the soundtrack will live up to my high expectations.