Hey folks, Harry here in London... I'm not real sure what I think about doing a Kurt Cobain film right now. The last thing I want is some by the numbers, safe flick.... I also don't want some angsty piece of bollocks either. It could be a fantastic story if done proper, and I've read some quite wonderful reviews on the bio, HEAVIER THAN HEAVEN! Here's the story, which references an original break by Dark Horizons!!!
Depending on how you look at it Harry, the following could be classified as good or bad news, but most likely will just fall into the realm of "uncertain".
Perhaps you are already familiar with the outstanding 'Kurdt' Cobain bio that was released last year entitled "Heavier than Heaven." If not, an absolute reccomend, you should go and pick it up while you are doing the whole book tour circuit. I have yet to stroll into Barnes and Noble and pick up my copy of "Aint it Cool?" but as for now, "Heavier than Heaven" is the definitive biography imo.
For me, biographies are still works of fiction. Mathematically speaking, its a lot like the graph of an exponential function. No matter how much insite and perception it may bring to a person's life, no matter how close it may come to recreating personal experiences, it can never be regarded as an absolute true account of someone's life. Hell, this is still the case even, or especially I might add, when the subject of the biography is still alive and contributing to the source material (though I don't possess an atom of doubt that "Aint it Cool" will rock my fuckin socks off). It's flat out impossible to take the entirety of somebody's life, take every significant and insignificant moment which they had to live through, which in turn inadvertently contributed somehow to who they became, and just cut and paste it onto 200 or so pages. Distortion and hyperbole are unavoidable. However, "Heavier than Heaven" comes the closest I hav! e ever seen to breaking every limit listed above.
Now, according to Dark Horizons, one of the writer/directors of Pumpkin (most likely Adam Larson Broder) is penning the screenplay for "Heavier than Heaven" and plans to make this his next project. According to most of the reviews I read for Pumpkin on AICN and elsewhere, the movie itself is a fairly good Farrely Bros.-esque comedy, but nothing phenomenal by any means. Well, not having somebody phenomenal to tackle the life of Kurt Cobain is about as disrespectful as hiring Samuel Bayer to direct the movie (as you probably heard, Kurt Cobain absolutely hated the video for "Smells like Teen Spirit," though funnily enough what shows up comes from his own concept). I mean, I realize passing judgement this early on on somebody whose first film I haven't even seen yet is most common sin that talkbackers commit, the dumbshit ones I mean, but I still can't shake the idea that a first time director whose first product wasn't eve! n hailed to be that great in the first place is moving on to something as complex as Kurt's life. Why not Richard Kelly? Sure Donnie Darko had some flaws here and there, but the overall product was superb. Or Ted Demme? Damn, a truly tragic death, as universally it was believed Blow would serve as the bridge which would allow Demme to cross over to a new level of quality as a filmmaker. At least he died on the highest note of his career, unlike Raul "M. Bison" Julia, rest his soul.
Anyway, enough straying off subject. I've learned quite obviously over time that AICN doesn't just reprint news bites from other competing websites. With that in mind, I mostly hope that this will just bring interest to this project, seeing as you can make or break almost any film.
