I see a trend, a real trend of biopics about dead rock stars and I am not sure I like it because this means that a lot of musicians died very young and many of them were probably murdered…. At least according to these new movies coming up.
First ‘Soaked in Bleach’ about Kurt Cobain’s death, which is sure to counterbalance ‘Montage of Heck’, the other documentary which will soon air on HBO. Actually the making of ‘Soaked’ was announced way before the second one, and since Courtney Love is partially behind this new one, I wonder how much damage control there is into it. I haven’t seen any of them yet, but ‘Montage of Heck’ will sure never touch the disturbing forensic details (the three-times-lethal-dose of heroin in Cobain’s body, the sketchy suicide note, the credit card used after his death, the upcoming divorce…) that will very probably be exposed in ‘Soaked in Bleach’. I am sure Courtney and her entourage is selling a movie about suicide and depression to HBO, whereas the Tom-Grant-advised movie will open your eyes toward a very different aspect of these sad events.‘He talks about taking his life twice in that [virginity] story, which is going to be a revelation for all of these insane conspiracy theorists who think that Kurt didn’t kill himself,’ said director Brett Morgen to the Daily Beast… Insane? Of course this is not surprising when you are in bed with Courtney. But we’ll see which movie is gonna do better at exposing the truth. Personally I don’t trust anything which is endorsed by this woman.
Secondly, Bobby Fuller’s mysterious death: I went to a book launch about his controversial death and the authors, Randy Fuller (his brother) and Miriam Linna, demonstrated that his death, which was declared a suicide by the LAPD in 1966, was very likely a murder. They also say that the book will probably adapted into a movie, so in the following years, expect another biopic challenging the official story and embracing once again a murder theory regarding the death of another musician…
Third, Sam Cooke! Rolling Stone has just announced that a biopic about the famous musician will soon be made, and this one will be controversial too, as it is going to examine the curious circumstances surrounding Cooke’s death in 1964. Cooke was shot dead at 33 by the manager of a Los Angeles motel, but contrarily to the other cases, it wasn’t sold as a suicide, although we don’t know the exact details… yeah, here we go again, another conspiracy. A woman named Bertha Franklin said she acted in self defense and shoot Cooke after he rushed in her office, asking about another woman, who herself claimed to have been kidnapped by Cooke! However many people and Cooke’s family never bought the story as Cooke had visibly been beaten up very badly. According to singer Etta James who saw the corpse, ‘his head was nearly separated from his shoulders, his hands were broken and crushed, and his nose mangled’… It’s simply gruesome. ‘It’s the 60s, you could do it like Selma, but it’s not the direction I’m going with,’ said filmmaker Romeo Antonio. ‘My pitch to them was a murder mystery. Who did this? And it’s being written in that fashion.’
Fourth, Amy Winehouse. The late UK singer will also see her life to be the subject of a new biopic directed by Asif Kapadia this summer. But I hesitated to add this one to this list because there is no conspiracy theory surrounding her death, right? She sadly died of an alcoholic overdose in 2011, but I am sure that, if you dig deep enough you can find a controversy too, after all she allegedly predicted she would join the famous 27-dead club, and she effectively died at 27.