Cobain Documentary Fails to Draw Well in Costa Mesa

More than four years after his death, Kurt Cobain can still pack a theater in some places.

Still, rocker-actress-widow Courtney Love might have preferred the Orange County response to Friday’s premiere of “Kurt and Courtney,” the documentary she fought to squelch: Only a handful showed up in Costa Mesa.

Although a West Hollywood theater sold out its late showing Friday, fewer than a fifth of the seats were sold for a 7:30 p.m. screening at Costa Mesa’s 300-seat Edwards Town Center, the only Orange County theater showing the film, which investigates allegations that Love played a role in the 1994 death of her husband, the former Nirvana lead singer. (The death was ruled a suicide.)

Threatening a lawsuit, Love had the documentary by Britain’s Nick Broomfield (“Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam”) yanked from January’s Sundance Film Festival.

Despite another suppression attempt, it went on to play to full houses at a San Francisco theater for weeks. The reaction was similar Friday in L.A. County, where hundreds of moviegoers--from committed Nirvana fans to the merely curious--turned out. At the Laemmle Sunset 5 in West Hollywood, the line for the sold-out 10 p.m. screening snaked around the second tier of the plaza.

Jim Mendes, 24, bought tickets for the screening on his lunch hour and lined up nearly an hour early. He’d read all about the brouhaha at Sundance. (The movie was later screened at the underground Slamdance festival.)

“His death is one of the few celebrity deaths that actually affected me, and not because I was a big fan of Nirvana or the music or anything,” said Mendes, of West Los Angeles, who added that he doesn’t even own a Nirvana album.

That sort of reaction is what fascinated Broomfield, who set out to investigate Cobain’s suicide in the film. In the process, however, he--and the film--get caught up in conspiracy theories about Cobain’s death, many involving Love.

“To make an assumption [about Love’s involvement in Cobain’s death] based on the movie would be irresponsible,” said UCLA computer science major David Strashnoy.

Those expecting an informed documentary about music were disappointed.

“I didn’t think anybody knew what they were talking about,” said Fullerton College student Ryan Parker.

“Except for [Cobain’s] aunt, they were drug addicts and stuff,” added Romney Stanyo of Long Beach.

Not “Kurt and Courtney” was overall talky, not rocking. Broomfield altered the soundtrack after law-suit threats from EMI Music Publishing, which controls Nirvana’s songs.

“I was expecting more music,” said Kenji Easley, a Long Beach musician who cites Cobain as an influence.

With the exception of a few bursts of laughter--such as when El Duce says Love offered him “50 grand to whack Kurt Cobain,” then says he’ll tell more if the filmmaker buys him a beer--the audience was sedate through the whole film.

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Michael Stevens, 28, of Hollywood found the laughter entirely inappropriate. Granted, El Duce, with his executioner hood and sexually sadistic rock band, was a bizarre character. “But we’re talking about a man’s life here,” Stevens said.

Stevens knew what to expect from Broomfield’s work, in which the filmmaker becomes an on-camera participant. Though he noted that the film had flaws, it was an important stand for free speech. “He didn’t back down,” Stevens said. “But people didn’t take it seriously enough. That was the most glaring thing.”

Given the legal threats--attorneys also warned the distributor, Roxie Releasing in San Francisco, that they would be liable in any lawsuit related to the film--three San Fernando Valley teenagers said they considered making a bootleg video of the movie.

Nathan Whitson, Mike Costa and John Abs, all students at Cleveland High School, were the most visible Cobain fans in the audience, each wearing a different Nirvana T-shirt. Costa, 17, wore a cap with the years of Cobain’s birth and death embroidered on the side. The three formed a band called Hemlock that covers a lot of Nirvana songs.

Their disappointment, too, was with the audience. They expected to be awash in Nirvana T-shirts, torn denim and flannel--the uniform of grunge music. If they weren’t in school, Costa said, they would have driven to Seattle to see the film there.

Whitson, 17, said Broomfield should have kept the film focused on Cobain rather than let it get derailed by Love. But he liked that the movie provided some new information about Cobain’s pre-Nirvana life.

“In high school, he seemed sort of like us,” Whitson said. “Picked on.”