If you were guessing what Tool/Puscifer frontman Maynard James Keenan would screen in a 24-hour film festival, the works of Denzel Washington probably wouldn’t spring immediately to mind. Yet according to the AV Club, some would definitely be in there. Defining his list as “random stuff somebody suggested,” among the films that helped shape his unique mind are some films you would expect, like David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Harmony Korine’s Gummo, but some mainstream ones, like Napoleon Dynamite, Super Troopers, and The Chronicles of Riddick (in fact, he calls Gummo and Napoleon two sides of the same coin, essentially). The last four hours, however, of his fest are taken up by “Anything with The Denzel.” Not just Denzel Washington, Keenan corrects the interviewer to make sure it’s The Denzel. When asked to describe what it is about Mr. Washington that gets him, Keenan states:
I don’t know. I guess I’m a product of American living. Germans love David Hasselhoff and I just love the Denzel Washington. I can’t explain it. It’s that guilty pleasure. It’s almost like when you’re a kid and you have your blanket. He’s my comfort blanket.
One film that wouldn’t make his list? Queens of Country, a 2012 film that Keenan co-starred in alongside Office Space‘s Ron Livingston and Lizzy Caplan. He described the experience as “fucking dreadful” and said he’ll never do it again. “All the actors in that film are fantastic, but I was dreadful and embarrassing and I can’t even watch it,” he says. So hopefully he’s not reading this, because the trailer is after the jump. You can read Keenan’s whole list here.
