The Runaways
Director: Floria Sigismondi
With: Dakota Fanning, Kristen Stewart, Michael Shannon
I have been a Joan Jett/Runaways fan for more than 30 years, so I looked forward to this movie with some trepidation. Would it be a kick-ass rock & roll movie, or would it be a predictable rock morality play with young people corrupted by the life?
The answer, alas, is more of the latter and less of the former. Part of the problem is the director, who directs music videos, not a genre known for character and plot development. The story is mostly taken from a memoir by Cherie Currie (Fanning) and is told from her point of view.
If you still think of Fanning as the cute moppet, this movie should put that to rest. Her character uses drugs, walks around half-naked and sleeps with anyone she likes regardless of gender. And so it was with Currie.
Stewart plays Joan Jett. I wish we had seen more of her. Her story is a subplot, and Stewart’s performance is low-key. The rest of the band, including Lita Ford (played by Scout Taylor-Compton), get short shrift, with Jackie Fox a non-person.
The only bright spot is Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley. Fowley, a rock & roll original, was a co-writer of Alley-Oop and Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow, alone enough to get him into rock heaven. A relentless self-promoter and madman, he put The Runaways together and was their guiding force.
Profane, nasty, sexist and absolutely right about the state of the music before the punk revolution, he browbeats the girls into being a band. Terrific performance by Shannon.
The Runaways were not the first all-girl band, Isis comes to mind a few years earlier, but they were in that niche before punk, where glam, hard rock and pub rock all went into the mix, with a DIY ethic and a lack of slick professionalism. And, there was Iggy and the Stooges, back in 1969.
Not terrible, but ordinary. A shame. Maybe we’ll get a Joan Jett movie some day.
C+
Date Night
Director: Shawn Levy
With: Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Mark Wahlberg, etc.
This much talent should give us a better movie, but the writing and direction scuttle that possibility. Director Levy is not known for witty comedies, nor for bringing subtle performances out of his actors. The Night at the Museum movies are his best work.
The suburban couple the Fosters, Carell and Fey, two wonderful comic actors, are not given the chance to show what they are best at, and the movie is billed as an “action romantic comedy.” So, if you like a trite set-up for a rom-com, with car chases added, this is for you.
Wahlberg is shirtless in every scene he is in, and this is a running gag, with Phil Foster (Carell) wavering between inadequacy and homosexual panic. Not funny after the first time.
The couple are mistaken for a pair of lowlifes, who have pissed off a mob guy, because they stole a reservation at a trendy restaurant, and the chase ensues. Not that there are no laughs in the movie, but using Carell and Fey like this is like buying a Ferrari and putting recap tires on it.
There are cameos by the likes of Kristen Wiig, James Franco and Mark Ruffalo. They don’t help much. The writer, Josh Klausner, has previously given us Shrek the Third, easily the least of that franchise. The script never rises above the worst of TV skit writing, lame jokes with no follow-through.
Okay, this is not the worst comedy I’ve seen this year, but we so wanted it to be better. All it needed is another writer and director.
C-