Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

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Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
Directed by	Liam Lynch
Produced by	Jack Black Kyle Gass Stuart Cornfeld
Written by	Jack Black Kyle Gass Liam Lynch
Starring	Jack Black Kyle Gass
Music by	Tenacious D score by John King Andrew Gross
Editing by	David Rennie
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	November 22, 2006
Language	English
Budget	$20,000,000
IMDb profile

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny is a rock musical starring Tenacious D, an acoustic metal band that features Jack Black and Kyle Gass. It is directed by musician and puppeteer Liam Lynch. The film was released on November 22, 2006. It also stars Jason Reed as Lee, Kirk Ward as a police officer from the TV show Tenacious D, and Ben Stiller (also one of the film's producers) as "Guitar Store Dude". The film also features Foo Fighters' frontman Dave Grohl as the Devil, Ronnie James Dio as himself, Meat Loaf as Jack Black's father, Colin Hanks, Tim Robbins, SNL cast members Amy Poehler and Fred Armisen, and comedians Paul F. Tompkins, and Neil Hamburger. John C. Reilly also appears, in an uncredited role as the Sasquatch.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Critical response 3 Box Office 4 Soundtrack 5 References to other Tenacious D works 6 Goofs 7 References 8 External links

Plot

As a young man, (Jack Black) is the black sheep of his religious, Fundamentalist Christian family in the oppressive town of Kickapoo, Missouri. After his father (Meat Loaf) beats him for his love of rock and roll and for singing a profanity-laced song about slaying (and sexually violating) a dragon while the family was having dinner ("Kickapoo"), Jack appeals to his lone remaining rock poster, that of Ronnie James Dio of the band Dio. Dio then comes to life and advises Jack that his rock counterpart awaits him in a land called Hollywood in the "city of fallen angels". Jack immediately runs away from home and spends the next few decades roaming around every town named Hollywood in America until he finally winds up in California. Shortly after he arrives in the right Hollywood, he stumbles upon a long-haired man playing acoustic guitar in hopes of donations from passers-by (known as busking). Jack's new acquaintance introduces himself as Kyle Gass, and is very unimpressed with Jack. Despite the fact that Jack improvises lyrics for Kyle's playing off the top of his head and the two vibe immensely ("Classico"), Kyle still rejects Jack's overtures of friendship. Jack, disheartened, wanders off into the city ("Baby"), where he is attacked by a gang of A Clockwork Orange-themed thugs (complete with white overalls, masks and cockney accents). They beat him briefly and run off, whereupon Kyle emerges and chastises the already-fled gang members. Jack, believing that Kyle chased them away, is intensely grateful, and Kyle takes him back to his apartment. Over the next few days, Kyle spins stories of knowing and interacting with a number of rock legends in the course of running his own band, 'The Kyle Gass Project'. Kyle agrees to take Jack under his wing and teach him the secrets of rock. Soon, Jack undergoes Kyle's custom 'gig simulator', which ends disastrously. Immediately thereafter, Jack learns that Kyle is completely fake; even his hair is a wig. He's a failure as a musician, and his parents are cutting his rent off. Enraged by the deception, Jack berates Kyle and says he's leaving. Kyle informs his former apprentice that he will have to return home because he has already spent his last rent check. He reveals a new acoustic guitar with custom decorations, including a 'JB' logo on the lower half. Touched and appeased, Jack states that there will be no moving back in with anyone's parents - that they will pay the rent "with their rock". At the same time, they discover the birthmarks on their buttocks that, when combined, reveal the name of their destined band: Tenacious D, with "Tenac" being on Jack's right buttock, and "ious D" being on Kyle's left ("Destiny"). Tenacious D try their luck at an open mic night ("History", referred to in the movie as "The History of Tenacious D") and receive a lukewarm (at best) reception. It seems that one week later, a competition with a cash prize will be held, which the D desperately need to win to pay the rent. Seeking praise from the open mic host, they are told the contest's competition will be fierce, and they'd best come up with new material. When they attempt to do so, they run into writer's block, frustrating Jack greatly. He throws himself down amidst copies of Rolling Stone, noting that all the bands on the covers are great, and tries to figure out a common element. Kyle, looking at the covers, idly observes that they all apparently used the same guitar pick which is like a green ivory shaped into a skull of a demon with horns. Heading to the music store to see if they can find such a pick, the two attract the attention of the owner (Ben Stiller). He reveals in a dark closet (in which he uses a lighter to create suspense, but Kyle quickly turns on the light swich) that they've stumbled across the legend of the 'Pick of Destiny': long ago a dark wizard summoned up the Devil himself to force him into doing his bidding. The Prince of Darkness had other ideas and the sorcerer quickly found himself on the losing side of a magic-fueled match. A heroic blacksmith, discovering the struggle, hurled a horseshoe at Satan, breaking one of his teeth. This distraction allowed the wizard to put a curse on Satan: he was forced to return to Hell until he was complete again. In gratitude for the blacksmith's valuable help, the wizard formed the tooth into a lute pick that held a part of the Devil's essence. Using the pick would allow the blacksmith to play lute songs that would help him win the heart of his lady love, something that would leave her "moist and wanting." The pick surfaced hundreds of years later in the southern U.S. where legendary black guitarist Robert Johnson used it to forge its own guitar-infused brand of blues, which was later to develop into rock music (Johnson often humorously referred to having made a pact with the devil to achieve his guitar-playing skills and even composed a "Me and the Devil" blues). Stating that he believes the Pick of Destiny to be in the Rock & Roll History Museum, the guitar store owner then ejects Jack and Kyle from the shop, advising them not to meddle with the pick. Jack is determined to get the pick, and after he and Kyle borrow their friend Lee's car, they set off for the museum. In a deleted scene, Jack and Kyle use an impromptu patriotic jam session to persuade a store clerk into giving them the walkie-talkies they will inevitably need on their mission ("The Government Totally Sucks"). While driving, Jack fantasizes about their upcoming performance at the open mic night when they finally get the pick ("Master Exploder"). Along the way, Kyle is distracted by college girls who are impressed by his exaggerations of his band's fame. Kyle wants to go to the sorority party the girls are bound for, but Jack is focused on the pick, especially after picking up a tip on infiltrating the museum from a strange vagrant (Tim Robbins). Kyle abandons Jack to go to the fraternity party, and an embittered Jack sets out for the museum on his own, after smashing one of the car's taillights with a rock ("The Divide"). Along the way, he has a mushroom-induced hallucination where he meets sasquatch, with the hairy myth informing Jack that the rocker is his son ("Papagenu (He's My Sassafrass)"). Jack eventually wakes up from his hallucination, and continues towards the museum. Meanwhile, Kyle's floundering at the party. When he's pressed to sing one of his band's songs, he attempts to sing the song he and Jack sang at open mic night, but he only knows the back-up vocals. Humiliated, Kyle realizes he's only half complete without Jack, and sets out to make things right ("Dude (I Totally Miss You)"). Meanwhile, we see Jack breaking into the museum, following the directions he got from the vagrant ("Break-In City (Storm the Gate!)"). Meeting up with Jack in the museum's air ducts, the two reconcile and set out to steal the pick. When confronted by a "deadly" laser grid, (LASER) Jack manages to tumble and wriggle his way to the end, but is thwarted by the lasers being too close together. A button at waist height will shut off the grid, but he cannot reach it. Kyle urges Jack to use one of the rocker techniques he taught him earlier, the "cock push-up". Jack's now strengthened penis is able to emerge from his jeans and hit the red button. Having successfully used the technique to deactivate the lasers, the two steal the pick and flee from the guards, using another rocker technique (the "power slide") to evade a lowering security door, and finally leaving the vagrant from earlier to take the fall for the theft. As they're nearly home, a policeman attempts to pull them over for their broken taillight. Kyle panics and the two engage in a high speed chase ("Car Chase City"), which ends when the car bursts into flames. The police believe the two perished in the fire, but they've actually slipped into the sewer system. Using the sewers to arrive at Open Mic Night, Tenacious D prepares to go on stage. Greed comes between the two as they fight over who gets to use the pick first, and it ends with the Pick of Destiny broken in half on the ground. They mourn their loss, but the open mic host advises them that the power of Satan isn't in some pick; it's in everybody! Heartened, the two go inside to prepare. Meanwhile, the host picks up the pick, which glows with unearthly green power. The two emerge from the club, intending to use the halves of the pick anyway, just in time to see the host transform into Satan (Dave Grohl) and turn the pick back into his tooth, rejoining it to his body. Exulting in his wholeness, Satan announces that the world will now belong to him, and that Jack and Kyle are first on his list of people to slaughter. Jack interrupts by challenging the devil to a rock-off ("Beezleboss (The Final Showdown)"), which the annoyed Prince of Darkness must accept due to the Demon Code. When asked for terms, Jack announces that if Tenacious D wins, Satan must return to Hell and pay their rent. Jack then gives their penalty for losing: Satan will be allowed to take Kyle back to hell and use him as a sex slave. Satan consents to the terms and they then begin the rock-off. Summoning up an arena of speakers and an array of the finest musical instruments Hell has to offer, Satan sings a song of arrogance and sex - in other words, "a masterpiece", as Kyle mentions. After seeing Satan's skill, Kyle is terrified that he will become Satan's sex slave. But Jack encourages him, claiming they can both win. Heartened, Kyle joins Jack as he retaliates with his own song, right off the top of their heads. Kyle plays his acoustic guitar and Jack dances about proudly, with Kyle harmonizing, shouting his unique style of profanity-laced genius. Despite their valiant effort, Satan decries them as lame, and prepares to send Kyle to Hell. Intending to give his life for his friend's, Jack leaps in front of Satan's blast of lightning, which deflects off the emblem on his guitar and breaks the end off of one of the Devil's horns. Recalling the incantation the dark wizard used hundreds of years ago (related to them by the guitar store owner), "from whence you came, you shall remain, until you are complete again", Jack curses Satan once more to return to Hell. Condemning the rockers individually and swearing his vengeance on the band as a whole, Satan is dragged back to the underworld. The end of the tale sees Tenacious D sitting in their apartment, musing that they defeated the devil "with their rock". They also mourn that they cannot remember even a single note of the amazing song they played in the rock-off (this is a reference to their hit song "Tribute" from their first album). So they decide to simply write a new, even better song, and make use of the "BOD", the Bong of Destiny - a bong fashioned from Satan's horn - for inspiration. The film ends with Tenacious D performing their hit song "POD", as well as their song "The Metal", during the credits.In an after-credit scene, Jack and Kyle are pondering their next song. When Jack hits record on their tape player, the duo pauses for a short moment, waiting for Kyle. When Kyle thinks he feels something, he prepares to play on his guitar, however, the "feeling" turned out to be just gas. The movie ends with a final quote from Kyle, "I thought I felt something." and Jack saying "Let's hear that again."

Critical response

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, loosely based on how Gass and Black met in a glamourised, over-the-top style, had mixed reviews by the critics. The consensus on Rotten Tomatoes is: "Only Tenacious D fans will find this movie hilarious." This suggests that because of the large amount of inside jokes only those who are familiar with the first album or TV show would catch, the film only appealed to those who were already loyal fans. After the film's premiere, the duo appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Both expressed somewhat disappointment over the film's critical response, but claimed they were "shooting for cult film status". Kevin Crust of the Los Angeles Times said "[The movie] might best be enjoyed in an enhanced state of consciousness, a herbal supplement, and we aren't talking ginko biloba."^[1] Stephen Rae of The Philadelphia Inquirer said that the frequent drug-use in the film gives "the term potty humor a new meaning."^[2] Michael Phillips criticized the frequency of the drug-use by saying: "This may be the problem. Pot rarely helped anybody's comic timing."^[3] Stephen Holden of The New York Times suggested that the film could be viewed as a "jolly rock 'n' roll comedy", but he also described the progression of the film as being a "garish mess."^[4]

Box Office

The film was a box office blunder, only grossing a total of 8.2 million in the United States. It debuted with a mere 3 million during its opening weekend at number eleven. With a budget of 20,000,000 dollars it's considered a bomb for Tenacious D wasn't able to gross half the cost of making the piece. After its fifth week in release, the movie only earned 50 thousand dollars and virtually vanished from theaters. Even more surprising was the DVD sales of the project out numbered the box office. DVD sales totaled over 9 million. Prior to filming both Jack Black and Kyle Gass each received 500 thousand dollars and were to share 10% of the total revenue of the film. So for all their labor on the film the duo earned around 600k, repectively.[1]

Soundtrack

Main article: The Pick of Destiny

The soundtrack, which doubled as the band's second album, includes vocals by Ronnie James Dio and Meat Loaf. Dave Grohl plays drums on the album, as he did on their first album, Tenacious D (2001). Grohl also contributes his singing talent on the track "Beelzeboss". A score soundtrack, More Rocktastic Music from the Film, was packaged with the film at Wal-Mart stores. Tenacious D's song "The Metal" (which was featured during the credits of the film, and on the soundtrack) is featured in the video game Guitar Hero III.

References to other Tenacious D works

• In the opening credits, the title graphic looks exactly identical to Tenacious D's first self-titled album.
• "Tribute" - After the Beelzeboss scene, Black and Gass speculate that the song which defeated the Devil was "the greatest song in the world". Afterwards they are unable to remember the song which they played. Also, Dave Grohl plays Satan in the film; he played the unnamed "shiny demon" in the music video for "Tribute".
• "Dio" - Dio himself appears in the poster in Young Jack Black's room.
• "Tenacious D Theme Song" - After one of the tarot cards, their old TV show's theme song plays.
• "One Note Song" - during the film's version of "History", Jack sings "we know you're all robots but we don't care", referencing Kyle's musings on whether humanoid robots might be living amongst humanity in secret.
• "Inward Singing" and "Kyle Quit the Band" - At one point, Kyle chooses a college party over the Pick of Destiny, causing Jack to fire Kyle from the band.
• "Cock Pushups" - Kyle makes Jack try this almost impossible move during his training.
• "Lee" - Lee is the name of the pizza delivery guy that Jack and Kyle befriend and is played by Jason Reed, who played Lee in the Tenacious D TV series.
• "Friendship Test" and "City Hall" - During one of the tarot card scenes after the theft of the Pick of Destiny, the caption on the card reads "Two Kings".
• "Drive-Thru" - At the diner that Black and Gass stop at, Black requests a healthy glass of carrot juice, a drink that is mostly drank to help people watch their figure. In "Drive-Thru", Black keeps ordering tweaked versions of the menu's food in order to watch his figure.
• "Rocket Sauce" - Said in the "Beelzeboss" song. It references the original Tenacious D TV series episodes and the original "Tribute" song.
• Tenacious D requests the open mic host to say something dirty and outlandish, a running gag in the HBO series.
• "Kielbasa" - The after-credits scene is meant to be a lead-in to the first track of the band's self titled album.

Goofs

• It is believed that at the end of the car chase scene, the car's engine flies out from underneath the hood after the car does a barrel roll. However, as revealed in Liam Lynch's commentary on the DVD, it is actually a camera that flew off the front of the car and was completely demolished.
• Hollywood, Florida is located in South Florida between Fort Lauderdale and Miami, not in North Florida as the movie shows. Instead, Jacksonville is located where this is indicated.
• When JB first enters KG's apartment, JB leaves the door open, but in the next shot the door is closed, this is due to an outtake in which Jack tried to kick the door closed and missed, this wasn't refilmed because Liam Lynch thought it would be funny to keep in the film but later changed his mind, as they didn't have time to reshoot it, this mistake occurred.
• During JB and KG's powerslide under the security door at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in one shot you can clearly see KG wearing knee pads so he can slide far and not injure himself.
• When the devil is about to be taken back into Hell, he is shown looking over his right shoulder at the hole in the ground. The camera cuts, and he is looking over his left shoulder, and when the camera cuts back, he is looking over his right again.

References

External links

• Official film website
• Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny at the Internet Movie Database
• Billboard - Tenacious D's 'Destiny' In Sight
• Interview: Jack Black and Kyle Glass Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny
• Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny at Rotten Tomatoes

•  • e Tenacious D
Jack Black · Kyle Gass Jason Reed · John Konesky · John Spiker · Dave Grohl
Discography	Studio albums: Tenacious D · The Pick of Destiny EPs: D Fun Pak Singles: '"Tribute" · "Wonderboy" · "POD"
Videography	TV/DVD/film: Tenacious D · The Complete Masterworks · Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny Music videos: "Tribute" · "Wonderboy" · "Fuck Her Gently" · "POD" · "Classico"
Related	Articles: Discography · Tenacious D 2006-2007 Tour · Sax-a-boom · Lee · More Rocktastic Music from the Film Bands: Trainwreck · Foo Fighters