† NillaMora †

Artists who die young are either dismissed as overly hyped (Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain) or hailed as rock 'n' roll immortals (Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain). The truth, however, is always more complicated and hard to reach than we choose to make it.

Shortly before his suicide in April 1994 in his Seattle home, Cobain was slapped with the "spokesman for a generation" label, one that stuck to him long after his death. (The fact that a suicidal heroin addict was named the spokesman for Generation X tells you all you need to know about how the elder generation felt about that particular age group.) But before he was a superstar celebrity, appearing on MTV's "Headbanger's Ball" in a prom dress and filling tabloid pages with his stormy relationship with Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain was just a young…

August 16, 2007

Kurt Cobain About A Son will have its Oscar qualifying run starting this Friday at the Arclight Cinemas in Los Angeles, part of the International Documentary Association's DocuWeek, which showcases some of the year's top documentary films.  This run is in advance of the film's official LA theatrical premiere at the Landmark Nuart, which begins October 5.

Screening dates and times for the Arclight and other DocuWeek films are at the Arclight website and the IDA's online home.

by ALISTAIR HARKNESS

DIRECTED BY: AJ SCHNACK

UNLIKE Joy Division's Ian Curtis, who was a marginal figure when he hanged himself, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was the biggest rock star in the world when he shot himself in 1994.

In many people's eyes that immediately turned him into just another rock'n'roll cliché. While there's no disputing the fact that - like Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin before him - he is another dead-at-27 rockstar who expired at the height of his fame. However, we've mercifully been spared rubbish "live-fast, die-young" films about him.

That's surprising given the lurid tabloid interest in his life, particularly after his marriage to Courtney Love. Instead we've had Gus Van Sant's barely fictionalised film Last Days, which artfully appropriated tiny, mundane details from the singer's life to create a hypnotic, gripping portrait of…

Schnack speaking after receiving an award from the SilverDocs film festival for his film Kurt Cobain About A Son
:: In June I spoke with director AJ Schnack about his wildly creative documentary Kurt Cobain About A Son (blog, MySpace), which is about the deceased Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain. The film uses elements of recorded conversations/Cobain speaking and visuals from three Washington state cities to reveal aspects of Cobain's life that may be unfamiliar to many audience members. See my review of the movie here. This interview happened during the 2007 SilverDocs film festival in Silver Spring, Maryland, about an hour before About A Son won the Cinematic Vision Feature Award from the fest. . Sujewa: AJ, thanks a lot for taking some time out for this interview. So, how did you get into filmmaking &…

August 2, 2007

Remember the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind, the album that made the band—and the word "grunge"—a household name? A naked baby, swimming blithely in pristine water, reaches for a dollar bill—a dollar bill that's on a large fish hook. The image is memorable for its ironic, dangerous, clear message. Courtney Love didn't catch the meaning. Director AJ Schnack does.

Love reportedly made $50 million selling 25% of Nirvana's song catalog in 2006. More recently, she gave some "collectibles association" permission to use Kurt Cobain's likeness on tacky stuff like lunchboxes and key chains. And now—congratulations, gamers—every song from Nevermind will play in Rock Band, an upcoming Xbox title. Wii!

While Love's soul-busting fire sale continues, a filmmaker is highlighting the mystery and sadness of Cobain’s life and death. AJ Schnack’s made Kurt Cobain About a Son, a "moving meditation…

by Pat McGuire | 07.31.2007

“When rock and roll is dead, the whole world is gonna explode.” Somehow it’s more haunting to hear those words spoken by a dead guy. And even further, it’s doubly spooky when that dead guy turned out to be right.

    Kurt Cobain was a lot of things we knew about and a lot of things we didn’t. Genius, druggie, screamer, sage—you know the drill. And so often when someone in the public eye is taken from us too early, we’re force-fed hastily compiled posthumous albums, unfinished symphonies and overbearing journals (ahem) to supposedly remind us why we loved the artist while he/she was on this Earth. Sure thing, $hakur. But until director AJ Schnack’s new experimental film, Kurt Cobain About a Son, we really didn’t know what the spirit of our anti-hero Son, as they say, smelled like.

    Taking audio of Kurt’s…

07/30/07

The director of a much-anticipated Kurt Cobain documentary is rush-releasing the project so it can be considered for an Oscar.

A.J. Schnack has posted a message online announcing that Kurt Cobain: About A Son will open in New York, Los Angeles and Cobain's native Seattle, Washington in October.

The screenings mean the film, which follows the life of tragic Nirvana frontman Cobain, will be eligible for the Oscar race next year.

The documentary features audio of Cobain recounting his life in interviews carried out by journalist Michael Azerrad for his book Come As You Are.

Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard co-wrote the film's score.

-Kurt Cobain Pictures

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)

don't click play if you don't like swear words!
It is scheduled to be released in October.

don't click play if you have sensitive ears!

by Travis Hay 

July 27, 2007 7:00 a.m.

As previously reported, music journalist Michael Azerrad is releasing a film about Kurt Cobain tiled "Kurt Cobain: About a Son." The film has no footage of Nirvana or Cobain (except for one shot of Kurt at the end) and features only images of Seattle, Olympia and Aberdeen being shown while snippets of interviews Azerrad did with Cobain are played over them. It is scheduled to be released in October.

An excerpt of the film made its way onto the Internet and you can view it below. However, a warning to those with sensitive ears, there is some objectionable language in the clip.

In other words, don't click play if you don't like swear words.

But first, here is a clip from a music news show that explains what the movie is about. It also features footage from the film and the bad words…