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Kurt Cobain About a Son
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Kurt Cobain About a Son reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 69 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
6.5 out of 10
based on 17 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 6 votes
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MPAA RATING:

Starring Kurt Cobain

An intimate and moving meditation on the late musician and artist Kurt Cobain, based on more than 25 hours of previously unheard audiotaped interviews conducted with Cobain by noted music journalist Michael Azerrad for his book "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana." In the film, Kurt Cobain recounts his own life - from his childhood and adolescence to his days of musical discovery and later dealings with explosive fame - and offers often piercing insights into his life, music, and times. The conversations heard in the film have never before been made public and they reveal a highly personal portrait of an artist much discussed but not particularly well understood. (Sidetrack Films)


GENRE(S): Documentary  
DIRECTED BY: AJ Schnack  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: February 19, 2008 
Theatrical: October 3, 2007 
RUNNING TIME: 96 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

90
Film Threat Mark Bell
Everyone involved with the film brings their top talents to the fore, and the result is a touching, heartbreaking and an ultimately honest personal experience.
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88
TV Guide Ken Fox
Filmmaker AJ Schnack's hauntingly beautiful film is a bold and successful attempt to recover the human being who disappeared under the heavy mantle of "face and voice of a lost generation," and whose life has been increasingly overshadowed by his sensational early death in 1994.
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83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White
Even without the oral history, this trippy exploration of Cobain's earthy habitations would be worth seeing as a "Koyaanisqatsi" for the Puget Sound area.
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80
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
No single film or book can dispel the cloud of enigma surrounding Kurt Cobain, but simply sitting in the dark and hearing him talk to you for 90 minutes, while the dreary gray-green beauty of his home state moves through your eyeballs and into your brain, goes a pretty long way.
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80
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
The result is a film exponentially more vivid and absorbing than the garden-variety rock-doc or biopic. "About a Son" is a must for anyone who still loves Cobain, or still has hope for cinematic portraiture.
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80
Village Voice Camille Dodero
About a Son is essentially a dead rock star talking about his life for an hour and a half, and—here, jacket-blurbers!—it's deeply moving.
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75
The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
About A Son may not let in anybody who doesn't already have one foot in Nirvana's doorway, but those people are invited in fully, to experience the contradictions and preoccupations of a man whose music defined his era.
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75
New York Post V.A. Musetto
Be advised that this is no ordinary music doc. There are no talking heads and no performance footage of Nirvana. In fact, there's no Nirvana music at all. Instead, Schnack gives us other artists' music that had an effect on the troubled rocker.
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75
Boston Globe Joan Anderman
A lovely piece of filmmaking, a gripping, minimalist marriage of sound and image.
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75
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
It's a study in human behavior, describing how a self-confessed "emotional wreck," through accident and ambition, talent and temperament, became a star.
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70
Los Angeles Times Kevin Crust
There's nothing particularly revelatory about the interviews recorded over a two-month span, but there's an intimate quality that gives the impression you're listening to a private conversation, which, in a sense, you are.
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70
Variety Dennis Harvey
Some fans will find the approach (which avoids Nirvana music and perf footage) too arty and indirect; but others will welcome the specialized theatrical release and the subsequent DVD.
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70
The Hollywood Reporter Sheri Linden
A true gift to fans of this important musician.
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63
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
Near the end, we hear Cobain reveal his disdain for adults who “can’t even pretend, or at least have enough courtesy for their children, to talk to one another civilly.” A painful and unexpected moment.
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50
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Only loosely connected to the story, the visuals quickly grow monotonous, and as the chronicle arrives at Cobain's late years of curdled fame and fortune, his bitterness and cynicism make even the narration hard to take.
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40
The New York Times Manohla Dargis
It’s hard to know who the audience might be for the documentary oddity Kurt Cobain About a Son, but I bet its subject, the guy who’s still being called on to entertain us even after his death, would have hated it.
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25
San Francisco Chronicle Joel Selvin
Never penetrates Cobain's circumstances or character.
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What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 6.5 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Jay H. gave it a5:
A good documentary is one that will engross you in the subject, whether you have an interest in it or not. On this level, About a Son fails. I didn't care about Kurt Cobain before watching, during it, or after it. It is painfully overlong. This is strictly for fans of Cobain.

Paul K. gave it an8:
If you're a fan, this is definitely worth checking out. I thought the re-created images to go along w/ the phone taped interviews worked in some parts but not others. I liked the live photos of nirvana at the end. I wish there would have been more real documentation to accompany Kurt's words. As it stands, it's a detached and odd feeling documentary. Appropriate enough, given the subject.

Puja gave it an8:
As a mile-high Nirvana fan, I was always eager to learn more about not only Kurt but the band itself. This documentary provided some closure for me in terms of Kurt's death, which in turn was the death of Nirvana. It was painful to remember that there would be no more music from such a great band who expressed the unexplainable angst of my generation. However i feel that the documentary, now over 10 years after his death, help the now elder generation come into terms with what happened though it still doesn't explain Kurt's decision. But that's ok, we were never intended to know about it and he never wanted anyone to know much about his personal life. He was just a normal kid with normal problems - like one of us. It was beautiful to hear his voice and feel his pain that he knows we all share.

Charlotte S. gave it a9:
Didn't really know what to expect given the up and down reviews I found online but in the end I thought this was an amazing look into Kurt's world and beautifully put together. It was rather haunting to hear his voice and how conflicted he was.

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