Voss's credits include Will Smith's debut Where The Day Takes You; the Justin Theroux, Alyssa Milano and Ice-T action film Below Utopia; actress Jaime Pressly's debut feature Poison Ivy: The New Seduction, and rock and roll related films including Down and Out with the Dolls[1] and Ghost on The Highway: A Portrait of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and The Gun Club.
Reader's critic Andy Klein said, "The story bears a certain resemblance to "The Servant;" the difference is that none of director-cowriter Kurt Voss's characters, even the largely loathsome Mathew, are reduced to unreal symbols.
[27] With a 1950-ish jazz score and dark tone (though the film was shot in color), Genuine Risk tells the story of Henry (Peter Berg), a boyishly naive loser at the track who ends up a runner for racketeer Paul Hellwart (Terence Stamp).
[7] Upon the film's theatrical release,[28] L.A. Times critic Michael Wilmington said, "Probably young writer-director wanted the kind of high-style gritty mix Stephen Frears achieves in The Grifters.
"[29] The L.A. Weekly called Genuine Risk "...A chance to show tough-guy untraviolence accompanied by crisp, state-of-the-art sound effects of bones cracking...glossy, vapid, morally bankrupt.
What distinguishes Genuine Risk is the offhandedness of its violence, where people are beaten or die painfully, abruptly and without reason in stagings that capture the disturbing tone of videotapes of real events from surveillance cameras.
"[32] The L.A. Weekly summarized Delusion's plot thusly: George (Jim Metzler), an executive who's embezzled $450,000 to start his own computer firm in Reno, falls prey instead on dat old debbil road to a flaky Mafia contract killer named Chevy (Kyle Secor) and his lippy sidekick (Jennifer Rubin).
"[41] Kevin Thomas of the L.A. Times wrote, "The clever way in which Colpaert and his co-writer Kurt Voss bring "Delusion" to its conclusion allows the film to wryly comment on the capacity of two seemingly very different men to give way to a macho posturing that reveals money is more important than any person,"[42] Daily News film critic Bob Strauss adding, "'Delusion's' climactic sequence injects contemporary strains of greed any misogyny into a classic western motif—it's funny and a little frightening to see that the frontier is not only open, but getting wider.
"[43] "The final verdict on "Where the Day Takes You"-successful street-wise melodrama with roots in grim reality or malodorous vagabond project with too many stars and too much direction-could go either way," wrote David Hunter of The Village View,[44] continuing: "Produced before the spring L.A. riots, written with no intrusive political viewpoint, director Marc Rocco's ambitious tale of teen runaways and career homeless in Hollywood, attempts to marry 80's self-consciousness with 60's group consciousness both in the film's storyline and style of direction.
"[44] From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “The story, which was scripted by Rocco, Michael Hitchcock and Kurt Voss, follows a young man just out of his teens named King (Dermot Mulroney)[45] and his “family” of runaways.”[46] “In This case,” Major continues, “King’s “family” consists of speed addict Greg (Sean Astin), angry and rebellious Little J (Balthazar Getty) wheelchair bound Manny (Will Smith), love hungry and overweight Brenda (Ricki Lake), and philosophical loner Crasher (James LeGros).”[46] The film also features Lara Flynn Boyle, Kyle MacLachlan, Alyssa Milano, Steven Tobolowsky and an uncredited Christian Slater as a social worker.”[47] Major concludes, “In spite of the remarkable stock of fine performances, however, the film’s real gem is it’s [sic] screenplay by Rocco, Kurt Voss, and Michael Hitchcock.”[46] Janet Maslin of The New York Times said, "This is Rebel Without a Cause without the grown-ups and without boundaries.
TV Guide said: "For the third installment in the increasingly tawdry POISON IVY franchise, the filmmakers eliminate the earlier entries' star power, and never apologize for fashioning little more than a straight-to-video soap opera, overflowing with bared flesh and cheap thrills.
"[32] Sugar Town, a micro-budgeted ensemble film satirizing the ruthlessness of the music industry, isn't about reliving the self-destructive cliches of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle: it's about celebrating second chances.
"[67] Time Magazine's Richard Schickel said of Sugar Town, "...Written and directed with casual aplomb by Allison Anders and Kurt Voss...A sweetheart of a movie.
"[68] Anders and Voss did extensive publicity for the theatrical release of "Sugar Town", including modelling alongside the film's stars John Taylor and Rosanna Arquette in a fashion spread in Premiere Magazine.
[69] From Creative Screenwriting Magazine: "Allison Anders and Kurt Voss are guerrilla filmmakers who tell accessible, effective stories about the rarest commodity in movies today: recognizable human beings.
"[70] Variety's David Rooney wrote, "A bruising, personal film based on the early adolescent experience of director Allison Anders, "Things Behind The Sun" centers on the meeting between two people scarred by childhood rape and their struggle to piece together the past and move on.
Scripting with her "Border Radio" and "Sugar Town" collaborator Kurt Voss, Anders' primary theme is the need to return to the past and unearth suppressed memories in order for healing to begin.
"[70] "Things Behind The Sun" earned 2002 Independent Spirit Award nominations for both Kim Dickens (Best Female Lead) and Don Cheadle (Best Supporting Male).
Voss, whose kept busy over the years directing personal indies and straight to video titles, has developed a crisp, expedient cinematic style that may preclude more profound characterizations but that suits a fast-paced rock and roll spiral.
"[77] From the Vancouver Sun: "Voss's prying camera moves from scenes in smoky clubs to skate parks, from fluorescent-lit record shops to tired, wood-paneled diners.
"[79] The film includes "Wry cameos from the likes of NYC's Coyote Shivers, as a heart-throb rock god, and Motorhead's Lemmy Kilmister, as an addled sage" (L.A.
[84] Los Angeles 1980s punk band The Gun Club were a whirlwind of drugs, voodoo and dark imagery...Kurt Voss's captivating film tells their story.
[85] Former collaborators Kid Congo Powers, Ward Dotson, Terry Graham, Jim Duckworth and Dee Pop tell their leader's story with rueful humor, anger and tears.
Anders – who is best known for directing the award winning 1992 indie cult classic Gas Food Lodging – and Voss consider this to be the final film in their rock n' roll trilogy, which includes the 1987 flick Border Radio, a snap shot of the LA punk scene starring real life rockers John Doe from X and Dave Alvin from The Blasters, and the 1999 film "Sugar Town", which stars John Taylor from Duran Duran as an aging rocker.
"[90] During the production, cast and crew drove into the high desert, where they shot an improvisational scene in Room 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn to perform a seance for country-rocker Gram Parsons, who died there.
"[92] Hollywood Reporter said: "Anders and Voss are greatly helped in their effort by a fresh-faced and talented cast, led by (Flannery) Lunsford, whose quiet desperation always has the undertones of a guy almost ready to explode, with Elyse Hollander and Sara Ashley delivering charming supporting turns as friends trying to keep him just on the right side of crazy.
[98] It awaits digital distribution in the U.S., although as recently as July 2014 it has screened at repertory theaters, often with Voss and Anders in attendance to discuss the film's production methods and the viability of crowd source financing.
[73] In addition to his film work, Voss is a founding member of the West Coast punk band The Hindi Guns, an outfit which produced three albums.
[100] Of the debut album, The Hindi Guns (2004, French Fan Club Records),[101] Rolling Stone magazine's Senior Editor David Fricke wrote, "I've already found one of my favorite new bands of the year: a rough, bewitching four-piece from Portland...'I Don't Want To Drink Mercury' is your best ticket into these ten tracks: a bluesy crawl set in dub-like darkness, like early Hole produced by Lee Perry.
The album received college radio play, and an honorable mention in the annual roundup of "Year's Best" by ex-Times pop writer Kevin Bronson.