Okay. As you know I have been waiting to see this movie FOREVER!! Since they previews first started showing I have been excited. I L-O-V-E Joan Jett and the story of The Runaways, an all teenage girl band that unknowingly broke barriers for generations of female rockers after them, has always intrigued me. Well The Runaways tells that story with Dakota Fanning as the 15-year-old (which she really is) wide-eyed innocent Cherie Currie, the Bowie-esque lead singer of the band, and Kristen Stewart as the hard-rockin', hard partyin' Joan Jett. These two are the focus of the film and the story leaving the other members of the band, Sandy West (Stella Maeve) Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) Robin (Alia Shawkat) and Cherie's twin sister Marie, played by Riley Keough (who happens to be the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley, granddaughter of Elvis) to fill in the spaces. Kim Fowley, played by Michael Shannon, was an apparently scummy manager of several 70s music legends like Kiss and Helen Reddy, but he first helped put together, with Joan, The Runaways. Finding the girls on the Sunset Strip at rock clubs and introducing them to one another, Kim wanted to shock the world with the teenage lust of girls doing crotch-rock, but was pleasantly surprised when these little girls could actually PLAY! Shannon is an excellent actor, nominated for an Oscar for supporting actor for Revolutionary Road, but he is given little more to do than scream and hurl vulgarities at the girls. It pains me to admit that Kristen Stewart was actually not that bad in this movie. By giving her someone to imitate, the incomparable Joan Jett, it seemed to free her of her bad habits and otherwise dreadful acting that plagues all her other movies. This film really belongs to Dakota Fanning though. At the ripe ol’ age of 15, Fanning gives a nuanced performance of a young girl caught up in the hardcore world of rock-n-roll, drugs, sex and despair. Fanning, who I am sure has never done drugs in her life, seems to have done her homework because girl looks messed up in her druggie scenes. The lesbian tryst between Jett and Currie is handled carefully, but not glazed over. The scenes had to be shot in certain ways due to Fanning being underage, but it leaves little to the imagination as to what these girls were doing. UNCOMFORTABLE!! Ha. The film overall seems to skip a lot of what might have been going on with these girls, basically ignoring the other members of the band and the fact that The Runaways never really hit in America, but I would say, as far as rockumentaries go, this one has it’s merits. It’s a good time with good music and good performances. Pretty solid. Check out the soundtrack if you get a chance.
Monday, March 29, 2010
REVIEW: THE RUNAWAYS
Okay. As you know I have been waiting to see this movie FOREVER!! Since they previews first started showing I have been excited. I L-O-V-E Joan Jett and the story of The Runaways, an all teenage girl band that unknowingly broke barriers for generations of female rockers after them, has always intrigued me. Well The Runaways tells that story with Dakota Fanning as the 15-year-old (which she really is) wide-eyed innocent Cherie Currie, the Bowie-esque lead singer of the band, and Kristen Stewart as the hard-rockin', hard partyin' Joan Jett. These two are the focus of the film and the story leaving the other members of the band, Sandy West (Stella Maeve) Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) Robin (Alia Shawkat) and Cherie's twin sister Marie, played by Riley Keough (who happens to be the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley, granddaughter of Elvis) to fill in the spaces. Kim Fowley, played by Michael Shannon, was an apparently scummy manager of several 70s music legends like Kiss and Helen Reddy, but he first helped put together, with Joan, The Runaways. Finding the girls on the Sunset Strip at rock clubs and introducing them to one another, Kim wanted to shock the world with the teenage lust of girls doing crotch-rock, but was pleasantly surprised when these little girls could actually PLAY! Shannon is an excellent actor, nominated for an Oscar for supporting actor for Revolutionary Road, but he is given little more to do than scream and hurl vulgarities at the girls. It pains me to admit that Kristen Stewart was actually not that bad in this movie. By giving her someone to imitate, the incomparable Joan Jett, it seemed to free her of her bad habits and otherwise dreadful acting that plagues all her other movies. This film really belongs to Dakota Fanning though. At the ripe ol’ age of 15, Fanning gives a nuanced performance of a young girl caught up in the hardcore world of rock-n-roll, drugs, sex and despair. Fanning, who I am sure has never done drugs in her life, seems to have done her homework because girl looks messed up in her druggie scenes. The lesbian tryst between Jett and Currie is handled carefully, but not glazed over. The scenes had to be shot in certain ways due to Fanning being underage, but it leaves little to the imagination as to what these girls were doing. UNCOMFORTABLE!! Ha. The film overall seems to skip a lot of what might have been going on with these girls, basically ignoring the other members of the band and the fact that The Runaways never really hit in America, but I would say, as far as rockumentaries go, this one has it’s merits. It’s a good time with good music and good performances. Pretty solid. Check out the soundtrack if you get a chance.
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