Hit So Hard

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Movie Details

• Genre: Documentary, Musical
• Release Date: 2012-04-13 NY, 2012-04-20 LA, 2012-04-27 Limited
• Running Time: 103 min.
• Director: P. David Ebersole
• Cast: Patty Schemel, Courtney Love, Eric Erlandson, Melissa Auf der Maur, Kurt Cobain, Roddy Bottum, Nina Gordon, Kate Schellenbach, Gina Schock, Debbi Peterson
• Producers: Todd Hughes, Christina Soletti
• Writers: P. David Ebersole, Todd Hughes
• Distributor: Variance Films/Well Go USA
• Official Site: Hit So Hard Official Site

In the drug-addicted annals of monster-rock band Hole's lady legacy, there's the one who died (bassist Kristen Pfaff), the one whose husband died (screamer Courtney Michelle), and the one who stayed alive. That's Patty Schemel, the overlooked redheaded drummer close enough to Kurt Cobain that even his Bozo-lipped widow acknowledges on camera, "She was probably more in Nirvana than I was." Fortunately, this means Hit So Hard offers Schemel's lovely personal footage of a vulnerably scrawny Kurt nurturing baby Frances Bean, along with testimonies that Mr. Teen Spirit was privately a "bathroom-humor guy" (!?!), seminal grrrl-rager "Miss World" was recorded during a crystal meth binge, and, according to one astutely hilarious observer, grunge "fashion" was just stolen lesbian style (plaid button-downs, jeans, Dr. Martens). Unfortunately for Schemel, director P. David Ebersole seems to think these pop-up video footnotes are a substitute for narrative development and, more or less, forgets to edit down the rest of the tediously paced rockumentary. Schemel's path from Dairy Queen parking-lot loiterer to Rolling Stone cover face to, well, back to the proverbial parking lot, where a relapsed Schemel ended up stealing drugs while disastrously undermining Celebrity Skin recording sessions, could have been an amazingly told story. Instead, Hit So Hard is just amazing treatment-facility programming.