Al Pacino has signed on for Barry Levinson’s You Don’t Know Jack… an HBO biopic about Jack Kevorkian.  Now, try not to think of an “assisted suicide” joke as it relates to Pacino’s career.  Impossible, right?

Kevorkian, also known as Dr. Death [Editor's Note: ...], assisted in more than 150 cases of suicide and had beaten the state court system in Michigan numerous times, but was finally convicted after he willingly sent a videotape of himself euthanizing a terminally ill man to “60 Minutes.” He was convicted of second-degree murder in 1999 and is serving his sentence in a maximum-security prison in Michigan.  The film will trace his rise as he builds his infamous “Mercy Machine,” conducts his first assisted suicide, and starts a media frenzy with his epic legal battles defending a patient’s right to die.

The only time parody titles work is when the work is an actual parody.  This… doesn’t sound like a comedy.

Adam Mazer (“Breach”) wrote the script, which is loosely based on “Between the Dying and the Dead: Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the Assisted Suicide Machine and the Battle to Legalize Euthanasia” by Neal Nicol. [THR]

And speaking of titles, when did book names start including Google search terms?  If Homer had written The Odyssey in the 21st century, it’d be called The Odyssey: My Big Fat Greek Love Boat, Messin’ With Cyclops, and the Tale of Too Many Suitors! Book titles are like assholes, in that nothing good comes after the colon.