The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
Adult  |  Moonsigns  |  Band Guide  |  Blogs  |  In Pictures
 
Features  |  Reviews
FIND MOVIES
Find a Movie
Movie List
Loading ...
or
Find Theaters and Movie Times
or
Search Movies

Kurt Cobain: About a Son

A cough-syrup trip through the myth of Cobain
By JAMES PARKER  |  October 31, 2007
3.5 3.5 Stars
ABOUTASONinside
EVOCATIVE IMAGES OF DEAD BIRDS: Interesting melancholia.

Now this is interesting. AJ Schnack has taken the interview tapes that journalist Michael Azerrad made with Kurt Cobain in 1992 and 1993, added some evocative images of dead birds, moody high-school kids, and disease-covered Puget Sound, and made a sort of amphibian non-movie: a slow cough-syrup trip through the myth of Cobain, as narrated by the man himself. Azerrad already got a book out of these tapes (2001’s Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana), but this is something else: undiluted on-the-phone-at-3-am Kurt, with one awful prophetic moment where Courtney is heard moaning feebly at him from an upstairs room. Once again we are reminded of the mistiness of the Pacific Northwest and the thorniness of K. Cobain. On dogs: “I dislike them.” On average people: “I just have to confront them and tell them that I hate their guts.” Nothing happens exactly, but melancholia seeps from the screen, producing a silvery smog in which to sit quietly and drink one’s pennyroyal tea.
Related: Kurt Cobain, Scene and heard, State of Nirvana, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Kurt Cobain, Michael Azerrad, Nirvana (Musical Group)
  • Share:
  • Share this entry with Facebook
  • Share this entry with Digg
  • Share this entry with Delicious
  • RSS feed
  • Email this article to a friend
  • Print this article
Comments

ARTICLES BY JAMES PARKER
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   WHATCHAMACALLIT  |  October 15, 2009
    John Gardner, the great teacher and novelist who wrote approximately 413 books before annihilating himself on a motorcycle in 1982, was very big on vocabulary.
  •   CARNAL KNOWLEDGE  |  October 06, 2009
    When I interviewed Nick Cave for the Phoenix three years ago and he told me — drolly, languidly, literarily — that his next writing project was about “a sexually incontinent hand-cream salesman” on the south coast of England, I assumed he was taking the piss.
  •   ENGINE NOTES  |  May 05, 2009
    The big question with Top Gear, the popular British consumer-car show (in perpetual reruns on BBC America), is this: will it succeed in denting my colossal lack of curiosity about cars?
  •   INTERVIEW: ZACK SNYDER OF WATCHMEN  |  March 04, 2009
    "Every movie I've made, starting with Dawn of the Dead, has been, like, death threats."
  •   DIRTY DEMOCRACY  |  December 17, 2008
    Breathe deep, politics fans. What is that odor?

 See all articles by: JAMES PARKER

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed 



  |  Sign In  |  Register
 
thePhoenix.com:
Phoenix Media/Communications Group:
TODAY'S FEATURED ADVERTISERS
Copyright © 2009 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group