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12:20:2002 Entry: "Ann : Rock and Roll Nightmare"

Rock and Roll Nightmare

No dreams last night. We watched "Kurt and Courtney" on the Sundance channel. I never saw it before, and recently, within the past few weeks, have thought I'd be ready to see it once and for all, after four years. I can't explain why I didn't want to see it before...it's an emotional thing. But speak of the devil, so to speak, I checked the channel listings and there it was coincidentally on Sundance. I drank coffee to stay awake (I was quite tired yesterday), and after the movie even after taking two Calms, could not get to sleep. The movie operated on two levels. The first level was like a comedy of errors Spinal Tap. The interviewees that the filmmaker, Nick Broomfield, came up with were right out of rock and roll reject central casting. The amateurish quality of the film almost looked intentional, like how could anything be *that* amateurish without it being intentionally so? Why would a truly amateur film include such gafs like Nick walking into the wrong apartment, microphone and camera in tow, if it wasn't in fact a mockumentary? And no disrespect intended, but Kurt's Aunt Mary reminded me too much of SNL's Ana Gasteyer's music teacher character, although, admittedly, she was one of the brighter points in the film. Then there was another side, the sinister side. The David Lynch films incarnate side. All the while I felt I was trapped in the first part of "Fire Walk With Me" when Agent Desmond was going around asking people if they knew Teresa Banks. "Did you know Teresa Banks? Did you know Kurt Cobain?" Seeing Courtney Love in her nouveau phaux Hollywood plastic surgery persona was revolting. There was just something not right with that picture. Let me tell you one thing, any punk rock woman worth her salt and her words would never do a hatchet job on her face, regardless if her nose reminded her of her despised father or not. Now I'm not one to say Courtney murdered Kurt, but one does have to question her sincerity as a musician and her punk rock ethos. To me, her only ethos was to get famous, and she did it however she could and via any vehicle that was around, and that vehicle just happened to be punk and grunge. It was never about the music for her...it was just about her.

Stan made the comment about Courtney's post-Kurt transformation, "She just became someone else." Which brings up one of my favorite movies, "Velvet Goldmine," executively produced, ironically, by Michael Stipe. That movie was loosely based on Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie along with character hybrids of Iggy Pop crossed with Lou Reed, plus others. However, recalling it now in light of "Kurt and Courtney," I am struck by the similarities between the main character Brian Slade and Courtney. They both "became someone else" after the "fake shooting incident" artificially transmogrified into untouchable megastars, unable to answer to the press when questioned about their past. I did wonder why Ewan McGregor's character of Curt Wild (why the name Curt, eh?) resembled Kurt Cobain more than the actual men he was based on, i.e., Pop and Reed, neither of whom resemble Cobain. Strange, hmmm? Brian Slade sees Curt Wild at a performance, falls in love, steals his ideas, and pretty much ruins his career. The only twist is that in Velvet Goldmine, Slade stages a shooting of himself in order to gain more popularity, rather than offing Wild.

As my brain ruminated through all of this information, it was quite a disturbing night. But it was also ironic how people in the town of Twin Peaks kept turning up dead, wasn't it?

3 Comments

It's strange, but I dreamt about him last night, he had shot himself (like he did) and I could only see his body through a door, not his head.

Posted by Nico @ 08:06:2002:03:51 PM CST

Geez, Nico, sounds like the famous shot of him in that room above the garage after he was found dead. You didn't happen to be tuning in to my tuning in to the movie via some psychic frequency, did you?

Posted by Ann @ 08:06:2002:04:03 PM CST

I might have done that, it seems I'm often messing with your psychic frequency ;)

Posted by Nico @ 08:07:2002:09:03 AM CST

By Ann @ 20:24 AM CST:12:20:02 ..::Link::..