Kurt Cobain - About a Son
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Movie Reviews of Kurt Cobain - About a Son
Movie Review: Great Movie
Summary: 4 Stars
I am a HUGE fan of Kurt Cobain. At first I didn't think I would like this movie, boy I was suprised, I loved every min. of it.Movie Review: A powerful and touching glimpse of an icon, but feels incomplete to me
Summary: 3 Stars
I purchased this DVD through Amazon and have only watched it once, so this review is based on one viewing on the small screen, 12 hours after the fact. I had a variety of reactions to the film. Early on, it seemed to drag a bit and I felt like it could have been an audio piece instead of video. I didn't feel like the visuals really added much in the first hour or so of the film.
But the format grew on me as the film went on and I was accustomed to it by the end. The effect of seemingly random photographs and video snippets shown to the sound of (usually) one side of a conversation with Kurt Cobain was a kind of disconnect that was probably intentional, but tended to be off-putting at first. If you watch the film on DVD, be sure to watch the extra features, in which Azerrad and Schnack explain the work and some of the choices they made. These featurettes put the film in a better perspective, and made me appreciate what I had seen a bit more.
This film is probably best described as a companion to Azerrad's book, and readers of "Come As You Are" will recognize portions of Cobain's words in the film from the book. That being said, "About A Son" does not seem to be something a casual fan would really enjoy - I would only recommend it to Nirvana/Cobain die-hards and completists.
The movie seemed to be missing something, and that something was the music of Nirvana. I thought it was a nice touch to include music that Cobain appreciated, but I really feel like it would have been a better and more complete "documentary" with music and performances by (or at the very least, more photos of,) Cobain and Nirvana. I don't know if Schnack et al were unable to obtain the rights to these types of materials for financial or other reasons, but the film really suffered in my opinion for the lack of the very music that was being discussed. It felt incomplete, which again may have been intentional. But if it was intentional, I feel it was the wrong choice - this film needed more Nirvana. I can understand not wanting to have tired, old photographs, performances, and music dominate the film - leave that to "Behind the Music" and its copycats - but leaving that type of material out entirely made the film suffer, in my opinion.
All that being said, "About a Son" is a powerful film for fans of Nirvana. It is a warts-and-all look at Kurt Cobain the person (as opposed to Cobain the musician or Cobain the unwilling generation spokesman.) Parts are funny, parts are informative, and parts are just plain sad. It angered me to hear Cobain's rationalizing of his drug problem and it spooked me to hear him discuss his own death (even mentioning blowing his own head off at one point,) in interviews recorded a relatively short time before it happened. For the faults I felt it had, the film was touching and well-made. I am very glad I watched this movie, but I am not sure I need to own it and doubt I will watch it again.
Movie Review: ReHash
Summary: 3 Stars
I am a huge Nirvana and Kurt Cobain fan. I've read countless books and biographies. I have seen a lot of footage.
This movie was unique in the way it was put together but if you know anything about Kurt Cobain or have read anything about him, this will be old news to you. The interviews used have been used before and I felt like I was watching old reruns. I actually fell asleep midway through and woke up toward the end to shut it off.
Movie Review: Good,but not great.
Summary: 3 Stars
A must have for the true Nirvana fan, but a little disappointing. I guess they could not use Nirvana music due to copywrite stuff, if the music was there it would have been great! Would I buy it again? Certainly, for I am a true fan!Movie Review: Disappointing... Very Disappointing.
Summary: 2 Stars
I had actually been really excited about seeing this film. I was 18 in 1992 and just idolized Nirvana. Sixteen years later I still have a soft spot in my heart for Kurt Cobain.
This film was ridiculously terrible! In my opinion, it had no business being a film. The substance of the movie comes from taped conversations between Michael Azerrad and Kurt Cobain that Azerrad used for his book Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana. With the prodding of Azerrad's interview questions, Cobain reveals facets of his personality, interesting anecdotes about his life, and insight into the person he was.
However, AJ Schnack adds NOTHING to the story by turning this material into a film. Sure, there are a few generic shots of the neighborhood where Cobain grew up, where his father worked, and other places Cobain frequented, but this could easily be shown as photographs. In my opinion, Azerrad himself should have released the tapes and included a booklet of photographs of Cobain's haunts, of Cobain himself, as this is all this film really is.
But the rest of the fluff Schnack added, in my opinion, was plain stupid and annoying! For example, when Cobain would be telling a story that happened in a library, you would be listening to his voice, but then looking at the inside of a library. I know what a library looks like, I don't feel like I need such obvious visual cues! The same thing would occur when Cobain would be telling a story that happened in school, a lumberyard... wherever. I didn't feel like looking at the halls of a high school or a bunch of logs being moved really added anything to the story.
What I found the most irritating, though, was the way Schnack would take have these random people look, with forced sad and empty expressions on their faces, at the camera and just stand there. I felt this was Schnack's sorry attempt to be artistic. I felt like he was trying really hard to make an artistic statement with these people (who I guess were supposed to represent "everyday Americans", "alienated youth", and the like), but it really just didn't seem to have anything to do with Kurt Cobain and the story he was revealing. Perhaps if these shots had been of kids in the 90s, dressed the way we did those days, like the kids in the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit", it would have seemed relevant. But they were just people living and looking like they do in the first decade of the 21st century, and I have no idea what this was supposed to do with Kurt Cobain.
Of course, there is no music by Nirvana in the entire film; I believe I heard he couldn't get the rights to the music from the people who now own it. Sure, it was interesting to hear the music that influenced Cobain, but what a movie about him with none of his actual work just seems empty.
My last complaint about the film has to do with the printed words at the end of the film that claim Cobain committed suicide a year later. From my understanding, Cobain only allegedly committed suicide. There is a lot of evidence that suggests a certain person had Cobain murdered. A film about Kurt Cobain, I would think, should at least set forward truthful, verifiable information about him.
This film is worth renting (don't make the mistake of buying it, like I did) just to hear Cobain's stories in his own voice. But don't expect to gain much from the visual content from the film. In fact, I feel it may have been more enjoyable to simply have listened to it with the screen turned off.