Maggot Brains
The bizarre premiere of Kurt And Courtney

"It was one maggot on top of another," said a "Nirvana obsessive" who had just attended the February premire of Kurt And Courtney, British director Nick Broomfield's controversial conspiracy- spinning documentary about the death of Kurt Cobain. The speaker was referring as much to the impossibly absurd scene outside San Fransisco's tiny, independently owned Roxie Cinema as to the film, which trots out a motely procession of ex-associates, some of whom imply Cobain may have been murdered - and that Courtney Love has something to hide.

THe night before the premiere, Love's lawyers faxed the Roxie a letter that threatened legal action if the "defamatory" movie was screened. "We considered it a free speech issue," said Roxie owner Bill Banning. (The letter was retracted serveral days later.) You'll recall that Kurt And Courtney was banned from January's Sundance Film Festival after Love's lawyers complained about the unlicensed use of lie recordings by Nirvana and Hole, since excised. "This is all a continuation of what the film is really about," Broomfield said, citing Love's alleged attempts to squash his "journalistic freedom." Love's press agents declined comment.

After the screening, a large crowd filled the street outside the theater, playing spot-the-sublebrity with some of the film's prime characters, including Nirvana photographer Alice Wheeler and Love's estranged (and notoriously unhinged) father, Hank Harrison, who appears in the movie hawking his self-published anti-Courtney screed, Who Killed Kurt Cobain?

"Courtney was disrespecting me and chumping me, man," Harrison said to the assembled. "And I refuse to be chumped." But despite the crowd's giddy sense that they'd just witnessed something forbidden, many ticket holders felt chumped by the director. Said on unsatisfied customer, "It would have been good if he found even one credible person to interview."

Written by James Sullivan

(Sorry for any typos)

Email: jacqui_missworld@hotmail.com