jcjh20 I thought this was an excellent little piece, and this is some of the most honest portrayal of Kurt Cobain you'll ever hear on audio tapes of actual interviews conducted a year before his death. This is not your average documentary and you will not see any clips of Nirvana or really even any pictures or footage of Kurt at all except for a grand total of maybe 2 minutes of short footage of some photographs taken from a few live performances and a few photo shoots. Besides that it is nothing but locations relevant to his life in Washington, mainly Aberdeen, Olympia and Seattle, the main places he's lived in in the 3 main periods of his life.I found this utterly fascinating and personally I loved the footage of city streets, random everyday people from those cities that Kurt spent his life in, gorgeous views of vistas, cityscapes and other such eye candy to free your mind and let Kurt do all the talking. It never once gets boring despite a great deal of the footage being nothing interesting at all, some parts showing a part of Washington state that is dull, lifeless and depressing, but ultimately it all shows insight into why Kurt became the person he became and gives you images to go with the subjects Kurt is speaking of. I really cannot agree with the negative reviews of this film and I loved it. I am a huge Nirvana fan and I find Kurt Cobain utterly fascinating granted, but I am not a biased fan at all. This is a very very honest portrayal of Kurt Cobain. You might not even like him much when the movie is over. He can be quite depressing and a tragic figure to listen to, but one thing is for sure, he always had something interesting to say and never sugarcoated anything and always spoke from the heart. This is a true look at the real Kurt Cobain in his own words and for that, I commend it highly. My only complaint is that I wish it could have been a bit longer and I wish that there could have been a more complete in-depth analysis of his life as a lot of things were skipped over.

moonspinner55 Utilizing Michael Azerrad's 1992-1993 audio interviews with now-deceased grunge rocker Kurt Cobain as a springboard, director AJ Schnack has fashioned an impressionistic and absorbing, if thinly-derived, account of a reluctant celebrity, one who enjoyed the hungry years much more so than the sudden fame. Born in Abderdeen, Washington, Cobain recounts a carefree childhood up until his parents were divorced around the age of seven (something he found unacceptable); diagnosed with scoliosis in the eighth grade, and quickly turning to marijuana to ease both his spinal and stomach pain, Cobain freely admits he began to exhibit schizophrenic behavior and compulsive disorders. He acknowledges he was offered grants after high school to attend art school (for artwork that we never see) but instead wanted to focus on his music, which got him kicked out of the house. The streets (and friends' couches) seem a bizarre existence for an exceptionally gifted teenager, but Cobain found the independence freeing and fun ("I was being a bachelor!" he says). While Cobain is talking, Schnack's camera roams the streets of Aberdeen, nearby Montesano (where Cobain also briefly lived), Olympia, and finally Seattle, where true success found the icon at last. What appears to be the typical hard-luck road to stardom is shrugged off by Cobain, who always enjoyed the struggle more than the success. The film is a gamble--at times interesting, funny, irritating, and boring--but Kurt Cobain's words speak for themselves, and even non-fans might be intrigued by his unimaginable climb up from nowhere. **1/2 from ****

D A A quiet, slow, but haunting meditation on the late rock hero may be an acquired taste for pre-existing fans, but ultimately ends up being a haunting character study regardless. Why this documentary really sticks out is in it's approach. Guided merely by audio clips of one of Cobain's last, and most in-depth interviews, the director shows long and lingering images of his surroundings while we listen to the troubled, quite misperceived star vent his frustrations with celebrity and recall his modest upbringings.While slightly overlong with silent pauses in between statements, About A Boy is unique, intimate, and ultimately extremely satisfying in distilling some of the myths surrounding this icon and helping to re-humanize him again by giving us the visual counterparts to Cobain's world, without the hype.

bruce_files_3 Cinematic Documentary has blossomed the last 10 years as more and more artists find reality interesting enough to make them stay away from "creating a world of their own", a.k.a. fiction. It was matter of time before the musical documentary would take the lead on this new interest in this genre of film-making -just like on TV before.In those last years countless films have been released on anything that has to do with music -any kind of music. The most interesting of them weren't those about my (or your) favorite artists, but rather the ones that had a real cinematic approach on the way each was presenting the story. Moreover, the best of them were/are those that could be something more than just a "fairy-tale of drugs and self-destruction" or a "scientific musical analysis"."About a Son" manages to pass this "test". Interested or not in Kurt Cobain, you cant ignore its cinematography; and that alone will be enough for you to sit and watch the film. But beyond this, the structure of the movie and director's subtle comments on Cobain's words are what make this a great documentary.This is as close and personal you'll ever get to Kurt Cobain on film. Don't miss it.