In all likelihood, a new documentary about Robert Pattinsontitled Robsessed is a total cash grab and a waste of time. But let’s not completely toss aside the potential of this film, which UK-based distributor Revolver Entertainment has acquired and will release to DVD in the U.S. around the time that The Twilight Saga: New Moonopens in theaters.
I’m reminded of all the late night commercials I used to see for Biggie & Tupac years ago. The way the film was being sold sure made it seem at the time to be as cheap and disregardable as any of those compilation CD sets advertised in the same late hours. I never would have guessed the film was made by such an interesting filmmaker as Nick Broomfield, who I now place within my top five favorite documentarians. If only I’d been a bigger hip hop enthusiast I might have discovered Broomfield earlier than I did.
Likewise, if I’d been a greater Nirvana fan I might have been turned onto the filmmaker through his prior doc Kurt and Courtney (it wasn’t until years later when I wrote a paper on first-person documentaries that I acquainted myself with Broomfield’s films). And speaking of Kurt Cobain, I’m sure some of his young fans rented Kurt Cobain About a Sononly to wind up interested in non-traditional documentary and the further work of director A.J. Schnack.
Could Robsessed really have been directed by a true talent like Broomfield and Schnack? It’s hard to imagine, especially since neither the news release nor Revolver’s website reveals the filmmaker behind this documentary. But since the film may concentrate primarily on Pattinson’s obsessed fanbase, it could at least be as interesting as docs like Trekkiesand We Are Wizards, which deal with devout followers of the Star Trek and Harry Potter franchises, respectively.
I wouldn’t write Robsessed off so much as I’d say to ignore the film’s DVD-set companion, a pre-TwilightRPattz movie titled The Haunted Airmen.
Check out what other film bloggers are saying about the documentary after the jump:
There are a lot of eyebrow-raising moments in this interview with Chicago 10 director Brett Morgan, in which he announces that his next project will be a Courtney Love-approved documentary about Kurt Cobain. Some of it is cringe-worthy, some of it is intriguing, most of it is somewhat WTF? On the good side, it sounds like the film will incorporate some material we haven’t seen before:
…we’ll have the music of course but [also] his home movies. He did stop action animation, which I don’t know if anyone’s ever seen but I saw it and it’s fucking great. I mean it was crude and I’m gonna probably refine it, you know…
…but on the bad side…
I mean one of the things I think with all my movies, if I won the lottery last night you know, one day I’d love to open up a theme park like Disneyland with rides based on all my movies because I think that like when I did The Kid Stays in The Picture, to me it was like the Disneyland ride about Bob Evans. If Disneyland had a ride called Bob Evans The Kid Says in the Picture it’s that? When I did Chicago 10, I kept thinking this is a Chicago experience. This is like Space Mountain with like police coming out at you and whatnot. The same thing with Kurt Cobain, it’s what the Seattle music experience should be in a way. It’s going to be like this 3 dimensional visceral sort of sublime you know movie…ultimately I think the goal for that film is to make sort of a Catcher on the Rye for the next decade?
I love it that that last part is phrased as a question. Anyway, as wary as I am of the notion of a documentary modeled after a theme park ride seeking to usurp the greatest novel ever about teen alienation, I think I’m a little bit more troubled about a few statements Morgen makes which sound vaguely familiar. More after the jump.
The Underwire points to Barackula, “a short political horror rock musical about young Barack Obama having to stave off a secret society of vampires at Harvard when he was inducted into presidency at the Harvard Law Review in 1990.” The ten minute film is not online yet, but we’ll be first in line for its debut.
Speaking musicals that plumb unlikely sources for kitsch, Chuck Palahniuk, David Fincher and Trent Reznor are apparently trying to put together a Broadway show based on Fight Club, to coincide with the film’s ten year anniversary in 2009. American Idol castoffs should start working out now, I guess…
Whoops! According to Andy Baio via Steve Bryant, the slow closing of the theatrical to DVD window, of which one benefit is supposedly the reduction of piracy, is actually making piracy worse.
Pitchfork’s offers a short review of Kurt Cobain: About A Son, sparked by news that the doc is soon coming to DVD. “So basically what I’m saying is if you want your childhood dreams shattered, go see About a Son. (Kidding.) But really, it’s an essential movie for Nirvana fans.”
The apartment that Heath Ledger died in is already on the market––and rent has been jacked up about 15%.
EVERY SENTENCE of Ed Gonzales’ review of The Hottie and the Nottie is too good, I can’t isolate just one. Well, maybe this one: “Fuck this movie.” THAT’s a pullquote!
This is probably the most horrifying celebrity glamour shot that I’ve ever seen. But this, this and this are all kind of amazing.
When filmmakers betray the documentary they’re making. Karina wrestles with The Axe in the Attic, a documentary where the filmmakers hijack their own story by inserting themselves into it. Kurt & Courtney (1998), Nick Broomfield’s attempted investigation into Kurt Cobain’s life and death, is a classic example of the same folly. But AJ Schnack’sKurt Cobain About a Son (opening tonight) sets a new gold standard for self-restraint.
Forget about Manohla’s pan (seriously: has she just been watching too much Behind the Music?): go read this story on AJ Schnack’sKurt Cobain: About a Sonin the Village Voice, and then, if you have the means, go see the film tonight in New York or this weekend in L.A. To quote the inimitable Camille Dodero:
If Cobain’s death is the 9/11 of the modern-rock canon—an epochal tragedy that recklessly opportunistic minds have flattened into a sad, one-dimensional cartoon—then Gus van Sant’s tedious and arrogant Last Days is the World Trade Center of the posthumous Kurt industry: a fictionalized piece of shit by a big-name director. (And Nick Broomfield’s Kurt & Courtney is the Fahrenheit 9/11.) [...] Here Kurt Cobain, the supernatural songwriting god who discovered that the only true fountain of youth is death, is transmogrified into a mere mortal. This is About a Son’s singular objective, and real accomplishment.
We’ll have more on About a Son on Friday’s episode of FilmCouch. Suffice it to say, we’re fans.
AJ Schnack dropped a hint on his blog yesterday about the soundtrack for his new film, Kurt Cobain: About a Son, and I followed the link to Barsuk Records to take a look at it. It looks amazing–21 tracks, songs by David Bowie, Butthole Surfers and Iggy Pop, plus scraps of the Michael Azzerad interviews with Cobain that are used in the film. There are no Nirvana songs, but that’s to be expected (rights-wise, they are alleged to be prohibitively expensive), and really — if you’re interested in the film, you probably already own every Nirvana recording that’s been released.
As David Lowery points out, About a Son begins a one-week Oscar qualifying run today in Los Angeles, as part of DocuWeek. It’ll hit additional cities in the fall.
Filmmaker A.J. Schnack, who usually blogs here, has launched a new blog devoted to his upcoming Kurt Cobain documentary, Kurt Cobain: About a Son. I found the above clip from the film on the new blog, but it’s apparently been on YouTube for a while — behold the 78 comments it’s earned, which include such insights as “Courtney love is bitch. I hope she burns in hell.” and “Kurt Cobain is alive, Gods never dies..”
It’s frustrating to see that there’s still so much anger and speculation surrounding interest Cobain’s manner of death, because Schnack’s film (which, in tone and content, is well represented by this clip) really has no interest in any of the conspiracy theories. Based on audio interviews conducted by journalist Michael Azerad for a circa 1993 book about Nirvana, it’s a poetic and introspective portrait that does a lot to puncture the “Cobain was a God brought down by a harpie devil” myth that I’m sure most reasonable people grew tired of about ten years ago.
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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There are a lot of eyebrow-raising moments in this interview with Chicago 10 director Brett Morgan, in which he announces that his next project will be a Courtney Love-approved documentary about Kurt Cobain. Some of it is cringe-worthy, some of it is intriguing, most of it is somewhat WTF? On the good side, it sounds like the film will incorporate some material we haven’t seen before:
Forget about 
