001. The Runaways

Watch the trailer for this movie here.

Let me start by prefacing that I'm not a Runaways fan. It's not like I hate their music or anything but I didn't really know them at all before this movie was filmed. The first song I heard by the Runaways was Dakota Fanning's version of Cherry Bomb. I am, however, a huge fan of music and I'm aware of the influence that the Runaways and I guess to a larger extent Joan Jett had on rock and roll and the presence of female rockers in the industry, so when I added this movie to the list it was actually one I was pretty excited to watch.

Sadly, the movie sucks. While there are plenty of interesting moments during the film that deserve some attention--such as a young Joan Jett stubbornly defeating other people's expectations of her by becoming an actual rock star despite her lack of penis-- the movie, in what I can only secretly hope is an homage to Cherie Currie (the lead singer) and the band itself, catastrophically crashes and burns. The pacing is almost incomprehensible and the plot is severely lacking ... a plot I guess. For a band with such a good reputation (a little Joan Jett humour there), this movie makes it come across as nothing worth noting happened during their somewhat short history. It's actually quite sad that you can accurately summarize this movie in 6 sentences or less. I'm really in awe as to what attracted so many people to this project. Dakota Fanning walks around for most of this movie looking like a drugged doe and Alia Shawkat doesn't even have lines (granted she's the one fictional member in the movie). Kristen Stewart looks a tad more constipated than she does when playing Bella in Twilight but her acting is maybe the one slightly above average thing going on in this movie. I don't know Joan Jett but I could believe that Stewart's interpretation of her is actually spot on.

The feminist in me wanted to like this movie. I mean c'mon it starts with a single drop of menstrual blood falling on the pavement and its about women succeeding in a man's world but honestly this movie isn't worth anyone's time. The best part of the movie is the last 10 minutes or so when they play Joan Jett's songs over the final scenes (also known as that song that Britney Spears covered to you younguns)

So not recommended. Do something better with your time...like anything. Anything is a better use of your time.