dave grohl Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Nirvana held on to its legacy for about a decade, but little by little their power and mystery is being stripped away. When I first started hearing their music in movies and television, it didn't bother me nearly as much as I expected it to. "All Apologies" was used brilliantly in a late episode of Six Feet Under. "Something in the Way" was put to good use for an effective scene in Jarhead. But then, it all started to fall apart. "Breed" used in Shoot 'Em Up and a baseball video game? Eight Nirvana songs used, badly, on Cold Case? Just how much heroin money does Courtney Love need? Lately, several films have dealt with the life of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Gus van Sant gave us the staggeringly boring Last Days. I'm eager to see the new documentary Kurt Cobain: About a Son. And Variety has just announced a big-screen adaptation of what many consider the definitive Cobain biography -- Charles Cross' excellent Heavier Than Heaven.

Apparently, "the producers and studio would not address whether they had locked down music rights, or the nature of the story they are trying to tell." Cobain's widow Courtney Love is listed as an executive producer, so I'd imagine they'll have pretty unlimited access to Nirvana's vaults. No director has been announced, but David Benioff will write the script. That makes me a little more comfortable with the idea, because I think he's a fantastic writer. Benioff adapted his novel The 25th Hour for Spike Lee, and that's one of my favorite films of the decade. Still, the whole thing fills me with unease. So much of this could go very wrong and further tarnish the Nirvana legacy. I wonder what they're going to do about Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl? Won't it be a little odd to see those two portrayed by actors? And since their relationship with producer Love is so strained, what if she paints them in a negative light? Ewan McGregor was rumored to play Cobain at the beginning of the year (I could see that), and something tells me Jared Leto is calling his agent as we speak. Ugh. Who would you cast?

And we played the first thing that came to our heads,
Just so happened to be,
The Best Song in the World,
it was The Best Song in the World.
- Tenacious D, Tribute

It was back in 1994 when Jack Black and Kyle Gass first met as members of the Actor's Gang, an ensemble theater troupe founded by Tim Robbins. Up until that point, Black had appeared in small-ish parts in Airborne and Demolition Man, while Gass was barely noticeable in films like Jacob's Ladder and Brain Dead. Not long after that first meeting, the two discovered one very important thing they had in common: A love for rock and roll. Realizing they were far from a couple of gorgeous long-haired rockers, the two foregrounded their weaknesses while combining their love for comedy and music in a two-man band called Tenacious D. And, as they say -- the rest is history.

Shortly after performing their one and only song, Tribute, at Al's Bar in downtown Los Angeles, the duo garnered attention from comedian David Cross who subsequently helped Black and Gass land an appearance on Mr. Show. That led to three half-hour shorts on HBO, an album that quickly went platinum and a legion of fans who simply refer to their idols as "The D." Now, Black and Gass have somehow formed a story around the wacky, foul-mouthed lyrics to all their songs and used their pull in Hollywood to make a feature-length film called Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny. But is it really destiny ... or just a waste of time?