Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Sissy Taylor It's a good and interesting movie, but mostly if you're already interested in Nirvana. The animations are awesome and it does a very good job of showing Kurt as a creative genius and troubled kid, raised within a dysfunctional family. It's the home movie footage with Courtney Love and baby that fans will find the most emotional. The movie covers Kurt Cobain from the cradle to the grave, and it's very moving but if you're looking for some expose on the circumstances surrounding his death, you won't find it here.It doesn't deal with his death at all. He always felt like an outsider, it showed in his music. I just wish that he'd lived long enough to find a little peace of mind.

MisterWhiplash I've been an admirer of Brett Morgen's work for a while, and throughout his films (Kid Stays in the Picture, Chicago 10, 06/17/94), he's constantly displayed a great gift for how to do montages and to expand the form of the documentary, whether it's through voice-over that is (and isn't) right out of a book with corresponding imagery for Robert Evans, or with rotoscoped animation for the trial of the Chicago 7 in the late 60's. So it is logical that if he'd take on a documentary on Kurt Cobain it would be in montage form. The question is is it any good? That of course will depend on how attached you might be to the Cobain "mythos" that has sprouted since (or even before) his death.I didn't have that kind of attachment - I love the band and like his work as a lyricist and musician, but it stops there - so went in to this fairly fresh and only knowing scattered facts about Cobain (all of them petty and none of them really mentioned here). What made the movie work for me is that Morgen sets up empathy with his subject and the audience very quickly, and it's thanks to a treasure trove of archive material. This director had access to so much 8mm home movie footage, hand-held camcorder video from the early 90's, old Nirvana band tapes, audio cassette recordings that Kurt made as a teenager, even a couple of voicemail messages and conversations (if the movie doesn't make you want to check out Over the Edge, it's doing something wrong).But most of all are the journal entries, which is where much of the real meat of Morgen's film comes through. You get a complete purview into who Cobain was, from youth up until just near the end, with these journals and they're full of so many words but also drawings - Cobain was an incredible drawer and artist, and maybe in another life could've been a comic book guy with the sensibility of a more deranged Mike Judge or something - so Morgen uses these to his advantage and leaps off from creating animations from these drawings into animations based on Kurt's words. Possibly the highlight of the first half of the movie comes with Cobain's story of being disaffected, smoking pot, and trying to have his first sexual experience with a messed up fat girl, and it's startling to see how these images unfold.But unlike Chicago 10, the movie's not anchored in this style. Morgen is all over the place at times with his montages, going from behind the scenes footage of music videos to Kurt and Courtney's own home movies. The latter becomes borderline invasive in some way, not too far removed from watching the Tommy Lee/Pamela video from years back, minus the sex (though Courtney Love cant help but show some boob). Perhaps it is necessary to see just what their relationship was like without any media bias; this part is also brought forward with articles that I found fascinating for what could very well have been totally true... or a bunch of BS, and probably the truth was in the middle. They were junkies, they were in love, and the degree to how much they were using colors perceptions for people.Oh, and the movie is with wall-to-wall Nirvana music, from very deep, obscure, super-early-career cuts from punk shows to Kurt recording the Beatles 'And I Love Her' on a little cassette. Morgen has a natural ability to combine images with rapid succession, but I never really felt lost so long as I was paying attention to what was going on on screen. I saw it on HBO, but now regret I didn't get the full visual-aural experience in a theater, since it seems made for that kind of maximum impact.I don't even think Montage of Heck gives a 100% clear view of things that happened for Nirvana or in all of Cobain's life, and yet that's kind of fine - it has enough time to go through the major accomplishments, but it doesn't matter the how completely except that he did it, and at that point now what? But by the end of it I felt like I got enough to see the man in a slightly new way. Before my impression of Cobain was of some cooler-than-thou dude who lived the rock and roll lifestyle too fast. In reality, he was a sensitive dude who loved punk rock and skyrocketed much too quickly to fame. Had Nevermind somehow not been so good, one wonder if he'd still be alive - or what else might've taken him down after a childhood of persona non grata status.

mdroel20 Never has there been a more intimate film produced about the trials and tribulations of Kurt Cobain until now. Director, Brett Morgen, has been hard at work since 2007 rummaging through Cobain's diaries and home movies to take us through Kurt's trajectory from childhood to super stardom and finally to his untimely demise. Ultimately, Montage of Heck is the most honest window into the troubled and tortured soul of Kurt Cobain.Nirvana bassist, Krist Novoselic, sets the tone early with the heartbreaking and remorseful statement, "With 20/20 hindsight, you think, Why didn't I see it? or Why didn't I say something?" Though a sentiment, his ultimate end seemed inevitable.It is no secret that Cobain's childhood was dreadful and home was broken. This film shed further light on the fact, having been displaced from his and multiple family members' homes in his teenage years. He was an outcast and loner through his formative years, to the point where he attempted suicide for the first time, by way of a train, but fortunately fate went the other way. There is solace that his upbringing inspired such beautiful, though at times, twisted, art.If you're not fond of Courtney Love, this film will add more fuel to the fire. The most uncomfortable scene to watch is an array of clips of Kurt and Courtney clearly out of their minds of heroin, being ludicrous. Kurt and Courtney's drug use was no secret, but seeing the effects is undoubtedly the most troubling and painful scenes to watch.One of the overarching themes throughout Montage of Heck was Kurt's overwhelming sensitivity. Novoselic recounts Kurt feeling humiliated and devastated by a small time critic's negative review of their first single. Courtney echoed Novoleslic's claim in telling the cryptic and infamous tale of the Rome incident. Love sheds light that Kurt felt severely betrayed when his wife almost cheated on him, responding by taking 67 Rohypnol pills, overdosing, and going into a coma. This was a month before his untimely suicide at the age of 27.For better, Montage of Heck, ends without going into any detail of his suicide, as it fades to black and merely states the fact on a plain, black screen.This brilliant film does a splendid job of not withholding the gritty details and benefits from exposing the most intimate view of Cobain. There is no other subject as complicated as Kurt Cobain, but Montage of Heck will live as unequivocally the closest idea of the inner demons of Kurt.

retroguy02 Let me say it beforehand that I've never watched a Kurt/Nirvana documentary before this nor read any of the books about him and I'm not a Kurt obsessive, although I've admittedly read up on his death and admire Nirvana's music and their contribution to 90s pop culture (which I am a fan of).This documentary is a surprisingly humanizing look at him, with pretty much zero focus on the circumstances of his death (only a two-second note about it appears on the screen right before the credits roll) - which was quite refreshing since there seems to be a macabre obsession about Kurt's death, almost to the point of overshadowing what he was like as a person. And that's precisely what this documentary does - bring him from this deified rock legend pedestal to the level of a man, what he was like as a son, as a father, as a brother, as a husband and ex-boyfriend.The interviews with his father, sister (it's the first time his immediate family has agreed to one), ex-girlfriend Tracy Marander and his mom Wendy in particular - along with more familiar faces like ex- wife Courtney Love and bandmate Krist Novoselic - are touching, at times uncomfortable and revealing. They map out a sensitive and talented but vulnerable artist who was a little too conscious of himself.Although there's also performance footage here, Nirvana's music is almost a minor footnote and the focus strictly remains on the man himself. The stylized animations of Kurt's journal entries, drawings and narrations of his teenage years fill in the rest of the details about his youth, although the most effective parts are conveyed by various home videos at different points in his life - including some very intimate and unnerving ones that depict his domestic life with Courtney Love and their daughter Frances.In a memorable scene, Courtney is giving baby Frances her first haircut as a visibly impaired Kurt nods off on heroin while holding the baby. It's a baring, unfiltered look – their messy house and unwashed appearance depicts a chaotic domestic life that's far from idyllic. It also shows that despite the rumours, Kurt and Courtney were very much in love and somehow made naturally suitable partners (despite, or because of, their drug habits). Morgen makes the brave decision of letting Cobain come across as a flawed character rather than a romanticized tragic anti-hero, without denigrating him or making him seem unsympathetic.I was also quite surprised by how meticulously documented virtually all his life (even pre-fame) seemingly was - by his family members' home videos since he was a little child to the way he meticulously preserved his possessions, feelings and thoughts (artistic, mundane to-do lists or otherwise) in his journals and the 'treasure trove' of boxes upon boxes of tapes (among other belongings) that director Brett Morgen used to fill in the details of what went on in his mind. Of course, not to mention the baring, rather unflattering home videos of his personal life with Courtney and his daughter. It's as if he was anticipating the opportunity for legend-status fame and preserved his life for it just in case.This documentary is a humbled, humanized view that goes into the deep end of what made Kurt the person he was, rather than the ideal that he was made out to be. It also provides a fairly unfiltered, at times disturbing window in the mind and life of the 90s' quintessential rock star and so-called voice of a generation - without any baggage of the romanticizing fandom that surrounds his tragic death.