In it, these two overweight wannabe rockers (Jack Black & Kyle Gas) crammed themselves into a mall’s karaoke booth, rigged it into a recording studio and sung about an impromptu jam they once wrote that just so happened to be the best song in the world. Granted, they couldn’t exactly remember how it went, but that didn’t matter—this was a tribute. And really, “greatest and best song in the world”? That was just a matter of opinion, anyway.

Needless to say, after discovering this treasure the D became my new favorite thing. I bought their album, ate up concert videos and their short-lived HBO sitcom from which most of the material on the CD originated, became well versed in all things Jack Black and, honestly—no joke—began seeing rock music a little differently.

You see, “Tribute” isn’t the only piece in the D’s illustrious canon that’s commemorating something. Their whole debut album, every track, it’s as much a love letter to Dio, Maiden, Sabbath and the self-important, animalistic, bombastic life of rock n’ roll as it is a mockery of those things. “Kielbasa” and “Double Team” are about sex and how good (and uninhibited) sex can be with rock stars; “The Road” is the obligatory woes-of-touring track; “Kyle Quit the Band” covers inter-band rivalries and casts Black as the abusive and temperamental lead; “Explosivo” makes little to no sense but starts with an a cappella number about weed then erupts into directionless ass-kicking; “Fuck Her Gently” shows off the guys’ softer side; and then there’s “City Hall,” the social reform epic.

It’s all here: Drugs, Sex, and obscene amounts of Rock n’ Roll. There’s even a jab at the soulless state of modern radio in “One Note Song,” where Jack excitedly calls Kyle in to listen a tune he just wrote that consists of nothing more than steady monotone plucks on the same string–except with “bendies” thrown in every 3 or 4 plucks to liven things up.

“But it’s one note,” Kyle deadpans. “Anybody could’a wrote it.”

“But guess who did write it,” Black fires back. “Me, baby. Me!”

Utterly brilliant.

What transforms Jack and Kyle’s “effort” into “opus” here is, aside from the fact that it’s hilarious and completely observant of its genre, these guys really do have serious talent. “If Kyle’s fingers be silver, Jack’s voice, then, be gold”—and really, seriously, they both are. Kyle Gas is as adept a guitarist as they come in any band—folk-parody duo or otherwise; and Jack Black can really, really sing. Then for good measure they throw Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nivana) on the drums, and what we get is an album that works on a surprising amount of levels*.

*Try not to sing along to “Rock Your Socks;” try not to bang your head to “Explosivo;” try not to at least giggle to “Friendship Test,” when Jack sheepishly tells Kyle that he loves him, only to shy away and pretend that it was a only test when Kyle doesn’t reciprocate. “Whoa-ho-HO, man!” he laughs, “Wh-wha-what happened before, when I said I love you—that was a test. …Because, man, I could’a made a total ass of myself!”

These are a couple of guys who truly do love and revere rock music, but they have sense of humor enough to acknowledge the big joke of it all, and enough talent to squeeze a small place for themselves inside its canon. Sure, they could lose a few pounds and add some *actual* sex appeal to their dynamic—but then the jokes wouldn’t be half as funny. Relentless self-aggrandizing hits hardest when you’re bald and out of shape, climbing onto an Open Mic Night stage to shred on the ax and point out in the crowd all of the possible “Backstage Betties” you’re considering hooking up with after the show.

When I was initially structuring my Top 50, it didn’t immediately occur to me to include the D’s 21-track masterwork. I mean, it isn’t even really an “album” in the traditional sense of the word. It’s an album in as much as something like “The Jerky Boys” or Adam Sandler’s “What the Hell Happened to Me!” are albums—more comedy than music. So where’s the line? Then it struck me: “album” or not, the D, and “What the Happened to Me!”, equally cracked me up at different stages of my life (remember the talking goat sketch? And of course the old cockn’balls standby.). And just as much as any of my other picks, they’re both completely steeped in context. I remember when I was little I would only listen to Adam Sandler albums when my parents weren’t around, with the volume turned low at sleepovers or when they’d leave for groceries or walks. And when I was dating my first girlfriend, for months I was embarrassed to rock the D in front of her. But what it really comes down to here is that Jack and Kyle took a gimmick and mastered it: the loser rock gods, the fat guys strapped with acoustic guitars, thanking Ronnie James Dio for all he’s taught them, then announcing that he’s “too old to rock” and that it’s time he gave his “cape and scepter” to their new rightful owners. I can never stop loving that.

In The Pick of Destiny, Tenacious D’s origin story and biopic, Jack Black makes a guy’s head explode from the sheer, raw power of his rock. Then he apologizes, seamlessly turning it into the very next verse in his and Kyle’s song.

Nonchalant and unsympathetic, he sings:

“Sorry

I did not mean to blow your mind

But that shit happens to me all the time.”

If you can find me a more unabashedly rock n’ roll lyric in anything in the history of rock n’ roll, good God… no doubt, my head will be next.
 
 
Listen/Watch:

CHECK OUT THE REST OF THIS WEEK’S REVIEWS HERE

Let’s stop beating around the bush. When it comes to the “premier” cable channels, when it comes to *quality*, I think we can all agree on a pretty cemented hierarchy.

Anybody who knows me (or knows TV – zing!) knows that on the top of this tube totem I’m about to construct is going to be HBO. HBO is so good it’s silly. It’s like the paella of premier TV stations: with chopped up Sopranos; dashes of Six Feet Under; slices and hints of The Wire and Tell Me You Love Me; and just when you think you couldn’t fit any more onto your plate, robust and juicy chunks of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Flight of the Conchords, In Treatment… The list goes on.

Showtime, then, would have to be #2. Dexter, Weeds (which everybody seems to love), This American Life, P & T, (and I still haven’t seen Nurse Jackie, or The United States of Tara, or The Tudors)….

Then, all the way down toward the bottom of the list are the channels you sometimes forget the names of. Your Cinemax–which I’m pretty sure is half-porn and original series-less. And Starz, which maybe I never gave enough credit.

Class is in session at the University of Life. Here’s a truth bomb: Nobody nowadays watches “movie channels” for the movies. Boom. Roasted.

It’s just the way it is. Red Box rentals cost a buck a piece; Netflix has in stock basically everything ever transferred to disc; and, most importantly, with any of these cheap and quick alternatives, You get to decide what’s on TV tonight. So the movie channel model has more or less become obselete. Which means that to be taken seriously in the market these days, channels like these have to prove that they can create quality original content, content that’s so good people will spring an extra 10 or 20 spot a month to see it–”premier content.”

What works with this model is, well, a ton of stuff. One thing: channels like HBO and Showtime aren’t bound by FCC regulations, so they can curse and cover their characters in blood and take off their clothes and no one bats an eye. Awesome. But what’s really the seller is the fact that they’re not bound by sponsors. They’re bound by you.

Shows on these channels don’t compete in the same way that shows on Fox or NBC do with other networks. These shows not only have cultivated an air of exclusivity about them, gathering a viewing base that’s willing to commit for 30min or an hour at a time without getting fidgety, but they’re able to do this because they’re able to tell their stories differently, construct differently the very base of their drama. Most shows, they have to prove to you in about 2minutes before the title sequence starts that this week’s episode is worth watching, or else you might change to something else or get up during commercial and forget to come back. So they have to be flashy and loud. These “high cable” channels, though, don’t have to do that. You’re on their time. And that means their plotlines can be more sprawling, less hot-and-cold and punchy. They don’t have to worry about commercial breaks and cliffhangers. They’re allowed to think less about holding your attention and more about keeping your interest. Which is an entirely different thing.

Like everything else, there are exceptions. And right now, the major network exception seems to be AMC. With only 2 original series to its name so far–Mad Men and Breaking Bad–they’re off to an amazing and focused start. And you almost have to wonder if this is so because they simply trust and respect the intelligence of their audience. Mad Men is in a league all its own where it is, but just look where its creator, Matthew Weiner, came from: HBO, late-series Sopranos work. When Mad Men goes to commercial, it doesn’t get frantic and hysterical; it kicks up its feet and lights another cigarette. It’s as if its transitions are only pauses before the start of another scene, even often fading out to them instead of quick-cutting behind noisy, screeching strings (coughLostcough). It goes to commercial break trusting that when it comes back, you’ll be waiting. And then it carries on. What a concept.

What makes Party Down special isn’t so much a sense of anti-sensationalism or freedom; it’s that it’s plain funny, and pretty deceptively smart. It reminds me a bit of a show like Arrested Development, a show that everyone will agree got screwed by its network. Constantly moved from its timeslot, advertised badly and mismarketed, Arrested never settled and found a home on Fox. It had to perform immediately for them and it couldn’t; it wasn’t that kind of show. A show like Arrested Development would have survived on an off-cable brand. Or, if nothing else, at least it would have died gracefully.

I know that in turning this meant-to-be highlight into a pretty-full-fledged essay I’m completely betraying my idea two weeks ago of “one topic, one post” entries, but when it’s flowing you have to follow it. Let me just say to wrap that I absolutely love movies. I love them. But there are very definite things about excellent TV that even excellent film just can’t match. And I think that, in large part, is thanks to these “exclusive” channels and their original content–a phenomenon that probably started as a means to keep up, a marketing gimmick, but somehow flourished in the sink to become a kind of dying medium’s penicillin.

As for Party Down, what’s to say? The videos are there and I wouldn’t want to spoil anything, anyway. It was created by Paul Rudd (Role Models), Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars), John Enbom and Dan Etheridge, it’s hands-down one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in awhile, and up to about three weeks ago I didn’t even know it existed. It’s one of those great, blue moon Netflix finds.

The start of Season 2 of Party Down airs April 23rd @ 10:00PM on Starz. And Season 1 is available now–for free–on Netflix.

A couple posts ago I was talking about all that you could get away with in poetry. Well, this piece, I look at it today and it still makes me laugh, that I not only dedicated an evening to putting it together but that I actually had the balls to bring it in front of a class and read it aloud. People are writing diddies about their grandmothers and their tatoos, ex-boyfriends and alcohol, depression and sex. And I’m busy in my room crafting an ode to HBO’s The Wire, only with dogs instead of people. Oh, how I crack myself up.

I was just looking for a reason. When you’re in the middle of one of the best tv series ever made and in a poetry workshop in your last year of college and you overhear dogs going crazy in the distance at a dog park, it’s only natural that you imagine them warring over territory, that some dog drug deal has gone bad and there’s a badass vigilante pooch somewhere in the bunch out to disrupt the trade. Only natural.

I had a lot of fun with this one. It’s from March 15, 2009. It’s called “The Altercation at Poochie Park.”

The Altercation at Poochie Park

A white one with a bushy tail flashes her teeth
like they were switchblades or pistols
to prove she’s not a chump. She barks,
as if to say, “Play or get played,” then growls
like she owns the corner she’s crouching in.

Across the way, mongrels peddle Milk-bone
and Beggin Strips. They’re panting, giggling
as they hustle their stash. “Shit’ll sell,”
they’re repeating to each other. “Dumb mutts
don’t know it’s not bacon.”

Pure breeds line up like a gang against whitey,
their matted fur black and their eyes washed out
in hate. They bark back like gunshots, these canine gangsters
in a row, these racist Labs and Shepherds and Pomeranians.
The puppies in back are the wildest, shaking and yelping
at the cowards up front, saying, “We gotta stand tall!
She ‘aint nothing but an east-side bitch!”

Then the bitch tires of talking and attacks,
lunging from her corner toward the leader, a Lab
with a scar down the length of its face. They’re entwined,
loud and fast and tangled together—until hands come
and push them apart, pulling at their platinum collars
and hitting their noses. The gang disperses, yelling, “5-0! 5-0!”

And as the bitch is getting pulled away, she looks up
at the man dragging her toward a car. Her tail is between her legs
but she stares at him defiantly, as if to scoff,
as if to say, “I can jail.”
 

This made sense to me. As funny as the first 2 seasons were, they were incredibly wacky. Not a bad wacky, but a kind of wacky that could easily go all crickets if the novelty was to wear or the writing got less clever. So, in a way, even though it might have meant no more episodes of Flight, no more Murray, no more Pretty Prince of Parties, bongo solos or racist fruit vendors, I had to feel this was the right decision. To go out on top. To only go on talking if you still have something worthwhile to say.

But, now it’s been confirmed that Flight is dead and it feels more bitter than it does sweet (well, not sweet, but you know what I mean). This statement was posted on their site yesterday:

Bret, Jemaine and James (co-creator/director) said “we’ve noticed the less we say about the future of the show, the more people want to talk about it, so in an effort to reverse this trend we are today announcing that we won’t be returning for a 3rd season. We’re very proud of the two seasons we made and we like the way the show ended. We’d like to thank everyone who helped make the show and also everyone who watched it. While the characters Bret and Jemaine will no longer be around, the real Bret and Jemaine will continue to exist.

So that’s that, I guess. Flight’s finished. And I don’t mind telling you I’m half-sad about it. Still, season 2 did have its iffy spots and I’m pretty sure this is for the best.

This is for the best…right?

No matter what, let us never forget the deep-seated social change the hipopopotamus and rhymnocerous brought upon in their short tenure. They truly did break it down to build it back up again…

But me, I wasn’t able to get that excited. I didn’t see the clips, or any video for that matter; I wasn’t familiar with Millar’s series. All I had to go off of were some screenshots–which were interesting, but still. It wasn’t until last week that official video was released, a teaser, and I was able to get an actual taste. And, well, it does look like a lot of fun. But I think for now I’m still holding off on going all giddy bananas. Check it out embedded below.

The idea gets me more than anything else: this young, geeky guy gets bored and decides to play superhero, get in costume, give himself a name, fight crime–all without any kind of powers. Then his friends join in. It all sounds right up my alley. And now with the trickle of advanced screenings started, a whole new wave of hype is building. Peter at /Film says a friend of his saw it and called it “one of the best movies” he’d “ever seen,” and another declared it the “best superhero movie ever made,” and a third likened it to a cross between The Matrix and Shaun of the Dead.

To echo the insightful musings of a young Joey Lawrence circa NBC’s Blossom: “Whoa.”

Here’s the first official trailer below, but it’s a Green Band and apparently patchy, bereft of some of the more bloody, hardcore elements that were shown at the Con. So maybe reserve final judgment till the R-rated Red is released. I know I am. I love the style here and I love the promise of seeing brutal violence being doled out (specifically, it sounds) at the hands of innocent little Hit Girl in a story about fake superheros. But still, I still need some convincing.

Kick-Ass is expected April 16th of next year.

You know how when you discover a word you’ve never heard before and all of a sudden you hear it everywhere–in class, at the bank, carved on doors in bathroom stalls? That’s how it was with me and We Live in Public. Apparently Josh Harris was the “Worhol of the Web” in the ’90s with his creation of “living in public,” living for over a decade in an apartment rigged with dozens of webcams filming his and his girlfriend’s every move. But I only first heard of him through an episode of Errol Morris’ First Person I caught just last month. After that, some friends were talking about him. Then I heard about this documentary.

From Ondi Timoner (DIG!), We Live in Public won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, making Timoner the only director in history to win the award twice. And it’s not just about Harris and the 5,000 hours of footage he recorded in his apartment; it’s also about the 100 people he got to live together in an underground bunker for a month in front of cameras. It’s about virtual reality, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, human behavior–the very notion of identity. Or, is “persona” a better word?

“Everything is free except the video we capture of you,” Harris says of those in his bunker–”that we own.”

We Live in Public’s distribution has been spotty, shown in museums and brought around from city to city one at a time. So if you get the chance to catch this on a big screen, jump at it. This one seems like it very well could define a generation–or at least a generation that might have been.

Youth in Revolt

What happens when “Mr Nice Guy” Michael Cera falls in love with a girl who only loves bad boys? He turns his life–and himself–upside down to win her affection. Talk about comedic hi jinx!

Two things excite me about this preview:

One, it’s great to see Michael Cera trying something new, breaking for awhile from the George-Michael/Paulie Bleeker/Evan from Superbad awkward shy guy thing. He’s great at it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s good to see him stray from the formula, see what else he’s capable of. And here we get both sides of him, some old and some new. So score.

And two, despite my bad impersonation of a Rob Shneider-esque movie pitch at the beginning, Youth in Revolt’s premise actually does ring pretty true, depressingly enough. I think it’s something every “nice guy” has dreamed of at least once: giving in and turning himself into the asshole, if for nothing else than to see what would happen. Start wearing shades inside, smoking cigarettes, acting all distant and unaffected. Hey, it works for Don Draper.

The cast lined up here is pretty interesting, as well: Justin Long, Steve Buscemi, Zach Galifinakis, Ray Liotta. I’m expecting a pretty good time out of this one.

Youth in Revolt will hit theaters early next year on January 8th.

Precious

Here’s one I’m not sure I’d have included on my list right-off because of the elements in it that feel Oscar bait-y. The underdog story, the inspirational figure, lines like, “People do love you, Precious. Your baby loves you. I love you!”–all those things are definitely here. But so is this great tragedy to the character that I really don’t see being too easy to wrap in a neat pre-credits sweater of warm fuzzies. Which I like.

When I was little, playing in the family room of my grandmother’s house, there was usually 1 of 5 movies on in the background: My Girl, Sister Act, Curly Sue, Ghost Dad or Who Framed Roger Rabbit. After so many years though, movies you watched when you were little start lumping together into a kind of sub-category. They actually start to become their own nostalgia and you maybe take for granted that anything you used to watch back when you were a kid was just that–a kid’s movie, corny and classic but never actually any good.

That’s how it went with me, anyway. Until I came across Roger Rabbit on TV one night years later and kept it on for the memories. I was shocked to find it different than I remembered, different than I left it. This wasn’t just a simple nostalgia pick, this movie was awesome! This weird and incredible stylistic mix of film noir and colored pencil. Heavy shadows and cigar-smoking babies. Weasles in double-breasted trench coats and a hard-boiled private eye. Fedoras and gin together with a “bad guy” who’d kill cartoons–literally kill them–by lowering their bodies into toxic vats of what he called “dip.” And this would disintegrate them, wisps of steam from their dematerialized carcasses wafting from the bubbling green slime.

Even at 22 it scared the hell out of me.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit to me is one of those true pieces of rare movie magic, capturing a sense of everything that cinema is capable of similar to ways The Wizard of Oz did or Willy Wonka, of stealing you, just for an hour or two, showing you something unbelievable but making you believe it. And there’s a grown-up quality about all of it, too. So much of what they get away with would never fly in a more modern animated film geared at least in part toward children.

So a sequel. The great innovator Robert Zemeckis, with titles like Back to the Future, Beowulf and the upcoming A Christmas Carol to his credit, has announced that recent advancements in animation have given him a good idea for a second installment of RR, one that doesn’t rule out the use of 3D motion capture. The characters from the original won’t be dimensionalized, he says (thank God), but maybe others will, or maybe the 2D models will be animated through motion capture? For a fuller look at Zemeckis’ hinting go HERE.

The point is, it’s in the works, with original writers Peter Seaman and Jeffrey Price working on a script even as we speak. And there’s definitely a lot to be excited about. A sequel like this could very well set another standard for what’s possible in animation, incorporating these new elements. But lightning…it usually doesn’t strike twice. Back to the Future II is kind of barely passable, so is Ghostbusters II and so many other second attempts at real, inspired life. And if the edge is taken away from something like this to make it more PC, if the bad guy stops melting toons and starts just locking them up, if you take away the drinking and the smoking and the sex jokes, then all you’d have is annoying Roger Rabbit and some cutesie CG talking animals. And that would be bad, the dead returning to life but with bolts in its neck, loose stitching barely keeping it all from falling apart.

But hey, as long as the sultry Jessica Rabbit’s in the picture I’m on board. What a fox. That she would ever waste her time with that Roger character is simply laughable, I’m sorry. Talk about unrealistic.

Enjoy the trailer for the original embedded below and keep your fingers crossed for #2. Here’s to novelty.

The first picture has been released showing the animation style of Ricky Gervais’ upcoming HBO comedy based on his radio show. Take a look below. (I love how Karl looks like an older, more aloof version of Charlie Brown. That round-headed chimp.)

Here’s what we know:

• The Ricky Gervais Show is the most downloaded podcast of all-time.
• This won’t be the first time Gervais and his partner Steven Merchant have worked with HBO (check out Extras if for some ungodly reason you haven’t already)
• The show will be “based” on the podcasts (as in using original TRGS recordings)
• And Karl Pilkerton will be the star (how you could have a “star” of an unscripted cartoon radio-based show, I have no idea)

Here’s what we don’t know:

• Really, everything else.

I honestly don’t know how this show is going to work, how it’ll make sense and seem worthwhile, but I trust Gervais. And I trust his excitement for the project. Here’s something he wrote about it on his slice-of-celebrity-life blog:

“It’s weird. I’m really excited about The Invention of Lying and Cemetery Junction and the tour and the Flanimals movie and everything else I’m doing, but when I watch a new animatic or talk about the press campaign for the HBO thing I actually get an adrenalin rush. I want it to be a success like I’ve never wanted anything else to be successful. It’s partly because I love working with HBO. It’s partly because it started out as a laugh – a labour of love. It’s partly because the animators have done an amazing job. And it’s partly because there’s nothing quite like it.”

And here’s something else he posted. If you’ve never seen or heard Karl, the famous idiot-savant-ish character he is, this will give you an idea of what he’s all about.

I’m so ridiculously on board for this. Expect it after Christmas.

Here’s a quick quote from Roger Ebert’s review of The Invention of Lying:

“The Invention of Lying isn’t strident, ideological or argumentative; it’s simply the story of a guy trying to comfort his mother and perhaps win the woman he loves. Gervais, who co-directed and co-wrote with Matthew Robinson, walks a delicate tightrope above hazardous chasms.”

I like this quote because, even though I’d argue that the movie is a bit ideological, I get what he means: that it’s not ideological like religious fanatics or politicians are ideological, like born-again Christians or elitist atheist “intellectuals” are ideological. That it might have an agenda, be making some pretty strong, er, suggestions, but it isn’t making them in an aggressive way, a way that alienates. Which is why I liked the movie so much.

To me, the whole film’s set-up, by basically debunking God-based religion, kind of creates this contemporary, modern-man’s, science-age religion in its place. One where we can have a sense of humor about tradition; put the commandments on pizza boxes; break it all down and say, “Look, this is all pretty ridiculous – but so what?”

It just comes down to morality. And at the movie’s core, it’s about striving for happines and goodness, treating people well, ignoring other’s rules and following your heart. The universe may not be run by a “Man in the Sky” but it is still ultimately moral. It’s demystified, sure; all the grand white robes and mountainsides are gone. But isn’t the message the same?

Just a few extra thoughts.

When you get a chance: Take a look at Ebert’s fantastic blog. It’s not just about film. He writes about anything, his history in journalism, his youth in Chicago, joining AA and taking his last drink. Very interesting stuff. He updates every couple of days.