"Dead End Justice" or another "Cherry Bomb?" - The Runaways Review
I realize this review/promo is a little delayed, but I wanted to do a blurb on Floria Sigismondi’s movie The Runaways. This band…this story is very personal to me. I’ve been an avid Joan Jett fan since I probably was 10 and figure out that my dad had an awesome record collection.
My love only grew as I angstily stumbled through my teenage years. That’s when I really started getting into Jett’s early band, The Runaways. They personified the anger and confusion I felt. Plus it made me feel like a semi-rebel when I told people I listened to them. When you’re in high school, appearance is everything….which only enhances the symbolism that The Runaway’s story holds….it becomes both ironic AND cliché.
The Runaways were the first girls who rocked. They were the lonely females in a man’s world and basically took the lynching for the rest of us. Without The Runaways….there would be no Go-Gos, no Donnas, no Dresden Dolls….and it would have been much harder for everyone from Britney to Lady Gaga.
They broke down all the stereotypes….leading a feminist revolt in the music industry. They pushed every boundary set for them: age, gender, sexual orientation….they tore every one down in a mixture of fiery power chords and rebel yells.
The Runaways were ALSO the first teenaged girls to be drug hyped and sexually exploited into stardom. (sadly this has not ended, but as a whole we’ve become more aware of this serious issue)
And despite the lasting impact they had on rock ‘n roll music, the actual story of The Runaways is quite tragic. To me, these girls were martyrs for the religion of female rock. They were tortured, persecuted, and driven to a premature death….and despite it….they are barely remembered. While almost anyone can karaoke “I love rock and roll” after a few beers….most people my age have never even heard of The Runaways.
(I highly suggest reading “Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway by Cherrie Currie to get an accurate recount of the real story behind The Runaways)
This is why I was so very excited for this movie to be made. I usually don’t enjoy biopics about musicians...(I feel like there is always something lacking in cinematically telling the story of a musician,) but to me this was a chance for people to know about The Runaways. Know who Cherrie Currie was and listen to her story. Learn from it. And maybe finally give her and the rest of The Runaways the recognition they deserved.
I went and saw this movie the first weekend it was out (despite the serious cock-blocking its been receiving in release). I will say that while it didn’t live up to my every hope and desire….it was a bold and acceptable attempt.
Floria Sigismondi is best known for her music videos for the likes of The Cure, Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, Muse, Christian Aguilera, etc. I personally have no balks about her direction of this movie. I would say that her music video upbringing only helped her tell this story. She understands music and how to direct it…very well. The performance pieces of this film were definitely the highlight.
However, I will say that the script could have been a hell of a lot better. Even me, being someone who knew all about The Runaways prior, had trouble keeping up and understanding what was going on. This is why biopics are hard. To tell the story of someone’s life in 2 hours can never happen. No matter how good of a writer you are….important things WILL be left out and overlooked. And THAT is the major flaw of this film.
Way too many important events are left out or fused together and essential feelings get overlooked and written off.
As a whole, the R-rated shock value of this movie helps this 'lack of full-explaination" flaw.
Michael Shannon screaming at 15 year old girls to “think with their cocks” is rather unsettling…..as the story of The Runaway’s should be. It should make you feel dirty and like you are watching something horribly wrong.
Shannon hits dead on with his portrayal of music business legend, Kim Fowley. People who have seen old interviews of him will definitely be thoroughly creeped out at the resemblance.
There was A LOT of hype for Dakota Fanning as Currie. And while I still believe Fanning is the most talented actress of her generation….something seemed to be lacking. People who know very much about Currie will be disappointed with the lack of “MoJo” that Fanning can’t seem to muster up. Granted Fanning is only 15, but so was Currie at the time.
While Currie always seemed like a (cherry)bomb about ready to explode, Fanning brought a more quiet, inner demise to the role….looking distant and annoyed most of the time. Her rebellion felt more like that of a millennial emo kid than that of a 70’s cocaine addicted, sexually abused, rock star.
Fanning does shine though….almost nailing the look and performances exactly. I also applauded her effort in tackling the role to begin with. She’s certainly gotten backlash…for depicting events I wouldn’t have even thought about doing at 15. But Fanning’s maturity is way beyond that of a 15 year old. THAT is obvious given her devotion to accurately portraying this tragic life. To call on David Bowie, “she is quite aware of what she is going through.”
Kristen Stewart. Kristen Stewart. Joan Jett could not have played a better Joan Jett.
Now I understand that Kristen Stewart is no Meryl Streep, but she nailed this role. And definitely proved that her acting abilities will one day outshine the biggest tragedy of her career…(also known as Twilight.) For all the reasons that Fanning couldn’t quite “get it up” for Currie….the same reasons are what gave Stewart the edge on this character.
Stewart IS Jett….if it was just method acting….then props, but it was almost scary how much Stewart looked, acted, and sounded like Jett. Jett was known for projecting badass-ness on this world....hiding the fact that she had the same scared, insecure teenage girl inside her that ALL girls at that age have.
Stewart seems to have this same demeanor going for her. She is one of the biggest stars on this planet right now….but one look at her and you can tell she’s has to pep-talk herself into being “ok” every morning. The pressure of being judged is enough to drive her to rebellious extremes. Jett was the same way….”fuck um all….before they fuck you.”
Both girls do an excellent job in playing out the complex relationship of Jett and Currie. The media seemed to think that calling it a lesbian-love would somehow draw more press….and yes, yes it did, but that is not what their relationship was about. It was about the love that you feel for the first person that understands you and the first person who uses that understanding to destroy you. When you’re a teenager this love is both the most exhilarating and most painful thing in your life. Its not about sex….its about passion.
Overall I would say this movie is good. Lacking in many areas, but it still has enough indie–uhmp to carry it into being a cult hit. This film has received a lot of great reviews (somewhat to my surprise) and I am very glad. While it will probably not do much at the box office….i hope that it will at least become a movie that most people will eventually see. (dvd, tv, or otherwise)
The Bottom Line: If you’re a fan of The Runaways you will not be disappointed. If you’ve never heard of them….it probably won’t mean much to you.
My Advice: Go see it....if you live somewhere that actually has it.
The Runaways: 7/10
and here's the music video for "Cherry Bomb".....awesome!
Cherry Cherry Boom Boom....GaGa
I'm sitting here watching Fuse's "On The Record with Lady Gaga" and found myself with the urge to (yet again) tweet about how much I adore Lady Gaga. As i went to go write my 140 characters or less post, i struggled with what to say....i realized that trying to put how i FEEL about Lady Gaga into 140 characters or less would never work. Trying to DESCRIBE Lady Gaga in 140 characters or less would never happen on its own.
When i go to say something about how amazing Lady Gaga is....I can't help but feel like all i'm doing is jumping on the bandwagon late. To be quite honest...up until about a month ago i really didn't know much about her or care. Her songs were good, i liked them, she was like every other radio star. Then Bad Romance came out and i found myself mesmerized by this being. Her video was a gift from the visionary gods. I have not respected a pop star this much since....probably Michael Jackson. The people that put her down are obviously not listening or maybe they just don't speak her language. Lady Gaga talks to us in a hypnotizing beat of metaphors. It is not for the shallow....it is for the pained.
The Fame Monster is easily my favorite album to be released this year. It is a work of musical genius.
As i sit here listening to Lady Gaga voice these powerful opinions...in the gentlest voice since Janet Jackson, i find myself even more enthralled. She has a beautiful mind. i will right now say that Lady Gaga is my hero...not only as a musician, but as a human being. While there is no doubt there is a tortured soul deep within her....she is full of forgiveness for this cruel world. She outwardly displays a poise and maturity that makes me respect her even more.
Some may says she's crazy.....i say she is misunderstood. like everyone else...but we don't have to be publicly judged for it.
Bring on the Deathly Hallows...
there are very few experiences that are as bizarre as a midnight opening of a harry potter movie. i tend to see myself as a rather delightful geek. i have my weird moments. we all do. but the weirdness found at the harry potter premieres take on a whole new level. i love every weird moment - for - if nothing else, the fact that it makes me feel better about myself.
oh harry potter.
i could and will argue that the harry potter series is the world's greatest piece of modern literature. i know this is true because as i look around me in the theater...the mother of the witch dressed like a sexy hermione is every bit as excited as her child. the types of stories that can bridge these gaps are few and far between. its rare to come across a story so universal that everyone who reads it can find an understanding that is made up of:
1 part "the world"
and 2 parts "their inner being."
what i mean is - that on the base level harry potter is a story full of adventure and drama and it can be appreciated for that sole fact. but on a deeper level it is part of us. its the story of all of us. no matter who we are or where we are from...we feel like we belong in harry's world. we've all felt alone, abandon, confused. we know the pressure of friendship and love and the importance of putting those 2 things above all else. we all fight the battle between good and evil.
Here is my review of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
These movies have come a long way since they first began. i think this is probably the only franchise in history to manage to get better with each installment as opposed to embarrassing themselves. the half blood prince is an excellent movie.
really. the quality of the cinematography, the editing, the acting....is all an improvement.
the movies are starting to feel like actual movies. the half blood prince could stand on its own (if it wanted) - which is a very impressive feat. the story-line felt more true to the book than any of others have. maybe we're just getting used to seeing the sparknotes version?
Actors:
i was fairly impressed with daniel radcliffe's performance. he's been barely staying above water for the past 5 movies, but in this installment he is the one pulling his co-stars up. it's about time harry potter.
rupert grint (ron) and emma watson (hermione) are good...considering. they are not giving much to work with, so i will be excited to see how they take hold of their characters when it really matters. after being downgraded to serving as background and comic relief for the past few movies....i hope they both get the chance to let their characters evolve in the finales.
michael gambon (dumbledore) and jim broadbent (slughorn) were both outstanding. tom felton (drako) did a wonderful job as well. as did the girl cast as lavender...while she was not what i was expecting, she was definitely one of the highlights of the movie.
i was less impressed this time around by alan rickman (snape) and helena bonham carter (bellatrix). although neither got near enough screen-time to do anything. so i will forgive them.
i was thoroughly creeped out by the adorable child they found to play young tom riddle. it was a fabulous casting choice.
bonnie wright (ginny), however, creeped me out too (and not in the good way). maybe its just me, but she has a strong, silent, "able to destroy a person with my eyes" thing going on. i wouldn't want anyone else to play her, but i would appreciate some form of emotion every now and then.
The Story:
oh....this is always the catch and always the main factor to my disappointment.
however, this time around i am a lot less disappointed than i thought i was going to be.
first, my 2 main complaints:
1.) the mix between the muggle world and the wizarding world is not play out well at all. there is like a 10 second clip at the beginning of the movie and that is it. except maybe for one line hermione's says later one. i've always found this transition into muggle world a very crucial part of this story. it is what makes fighting this battle against evil important. it should be known that this is no longer an underground battle but that this evil is spilling out everywhere and will destroy the world - the world that is shared by everyone.
2.) this is not a love story. this is a story about friendship. while i know the books deal with the passage into adult love. that was never the intended focus. this is the story of something deeper than that. unconditional love. the movie seemed focused on hormones rather than the actual important elements of the book.
other than that i was please. i really enjoyed the "i killed sirius black" scene that wasn't even in the book. i thought it was a nice addition. it played out nicely on screen too. the scene of obtaining the horcurx with harry and dumbledore is waayy scary too. the person next to me screamed. i guess the PG rating has gotten lenient.
i was also amused that they gave all 3 of the kids separate scenes where they had to act like they were either drunk or on something. on a side note did everyone hear that the kid who plays crabbe was growing marijuana in his mom's basement. niice. his jail sentence is not so nice tho.
overall i give it an A and a thank you for not letting me down.
my totally cliche remembrance...
today is my 23rd birthday. yesterday marked the deaths of 2 pop culture icons. iran is in uproar. and north korea is suppose to destroy hawaii in the coming week.
23 is one of those weird years in your life where you finally define the person that you were and also who you're becoming. its a pivotal moment where everything you thought you knew about life suddenly comes shattering down.
i just finished the book "Killing Yourself to Live" by Chuck Klosterman. it's about his road trip journey across america where he went to all of these places famous rock musicians died. he spent 2 and half weeks trying to find the meaning of death and what it means to the music industry. basically....is there some kind of relationship between fame and tragedy?
now being in the middle of this kind of read - the death of michael jackson came as a sort of ironic, surreal experience to me. here i am reading this book about all of these famous icons of music who died....and i get a text message telling me that the king of pop just died too. this is the start of my 23 year on this earth. maybe by 24 i will understand...
i was 8 years old when kurt cobain died. and i had no idea who tupak or christopher wallace were when they were killed. aaliyah was unfortunate, but this is the first [definitive] death of a music legend that i have lived coherently through. it really makes you wonder about fame and whether or not it is some kind of horrible curse.
michael jackson's death is something i do have emotions about. to say i grew up on michael jackson would be like saying that i was an american at some point in the past 40 years....so i don't want to do that, but his influence on my life was more than a collection of catchy songs.
my father is and will always be a motown fan. to him anything made by anyone white and after the 1960's doesn't even exist. so i had a healthy dose of jackson 5 growing up. i could sing all the songs by the time i was probably 10. throughout my teen years (i think i though it was still the 80s) the solo works of michael jackson became permanent fixtures in the back of my brain. i think i was one of the few people in the world to buy Invincible and love it. I taped his 30th anniversary special for him and not usher.....i promise.
His death is sad to me. not because he won't ever make music again....because his music will live forever. and not because he died before his time....even though he did. but his death is proof that i am getting old. and what the most disturbing thing i'm seeing is...how the older we get the more immune to death we become. as long as it's not us - it becomes just another event on a person's timeline. we will all become history eventually.
much love to farrah fawcett too who was a truly remarkable person too...both professionally and personally.
R.O.O.T.S
i just wanted to take a few minutes to promote 2 awesome albums....they are on completely different sides of the music spectrum BUT both reflect the talent of the hardworking musicians that made them. Normally I wouldn't dare group Mandy Moore with Flo Rida, but in this case it seems fitting. Each of these albums are the newest from each of these well-known artists, but as I listen to them more and more i know that they are also the most important. Important because they are representing the roots of where each of their [respective] hearts in music really lie....
Mandy Moore stepped up to the alter with Ryan Adams this year and not only married him, but also married some of his musical tastes. She dropped her label and is now opting for a smaller, more "indie focused" label called Storefront. I was skeptical after her less-than-impressive 2007 folk switch entitled "Wild Hope", but as she continues proves to be the smartest and most well-adjusted out of her pop princess peers.....her new album "Amanda Leigh" is soild. While "Wild Hope" felt more like an uneasy attempt to hide her past, this album is all her. She's back to her pop roots without sugarcoating the music to the point where radio with eat it up with milk. It's folk-y and wonderful.
SONG HIGHLIGHTS: Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week, Pocket Phliospher, Fern Dell
Flo Rida.....i like to still call him Flo Rider, but whatever......is probably not the person you'd expect me to promote...the fact is...its a rare day when i can listen to a rap or hip/hop album through in its entirety (unless its eminem or wyclef). This one has been on constant rotation.
While i enjoy "Right Round" and "Sugar" as much as the next girl at the club - musically they were nothing special. He sampled the perfect songs no doubt, but it wasn't anything T-Pain couldn't do. I downloaded the whole cd....well....just because i could. Then thanks to the shuffle setting on my iPod the song "Rewind" came on. It's a slower song with a solid beat and a killer chorus by Wyclef (ha of course), but i immediatley listened to this song 3 times before i moved on. It was amazing. Then i listened to the whole album and found that [in fact] about 80 percent of the album was amazing and the other 20 percent was forgivable because it had suffered the death of mainstream radio. We have all come to know Flo Rida as just another rapper who sings about dancing with girls and being the best, but he is much more than that as his album R.O.O.T.S. will show.
Song Highlights: Mind On My Money, Rewind, Roots
yes we cannabis....showtime's real deal
they say weed isn't addicting, however when its dealt by mary louise parker it seems to be...
season 5 of showtime's weeds starts on June 8th and can say nothing except....I CAN NOT WAIT. i have seen parts of this show over the years, but in the last few months i've watched the entire series straight through and the only word that comes to mind is mind-blowing.
this shows gotten high press over the years due mostly to its left wing story lines and emmy winning performances, but there is something else about this show that has really pulled me in. as americans we have a complex of being the winner, being right, being on top......and most television shows today are based on that. we have shows about policeman and undercover cops solving crimes, we have game shows that create "idols" for us, sitcoms about average jo being average and working his 9-5 job....
weeds is not any of that.
weeds is about being confused. its about doing what you have to and the contradictions in our lives.
loving yourself, but hating who you are
loving your family, but hating the burden they put on you
loving your big house, your bmw, your white collar town, but hating everything it stands for.
and mostly....hating your life, but enduring it all the same.
this is the reason i respect this show so much....because regardless of whether or not we are a suburban, 30 year old, widowed mother who has to sell pot to provide for our family on the outside....that person is inside of us.
plus this show is just so damn funny. this is some good shit.
I love apples....
So I just got my computer back from having to get an new logic board put in it and a new disk drive. It was rough. My computer was very sad, but he is back and doing fine right now. I decided that I would share a funny article from cracked.com to help reinforce my love for macs....despite my recent hardware setbacks. what can i say: once you go mac you never go back...
If Everything Was Made by Microsoft
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Back in the 90s, it looked like Microsoft might take over the world. But after ten years, Vista, the iPod, and a government lawsuit, we feel pretty safe saying that's not happening. But we're equally certain that it won't be for a lack of trying. Whether they're unleashing the Zune or hip new Microsoft Stores, their ambition is only matched by their painful lack of self awareness. So how long until they try their hand at making, well, everything else? We asked you to show us what the world might look like if it really did run on Microsoft. The winner is below, but first the runners up. #18.
#17.
#16.
#15.
#14.
#13.
#12.
#11.
#10.
#9.
#8.
#7.
#6.
#5.
#4.
#3.
#2.
And the winner is...
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Reply All: The Megaphone of Email....?
It's 2:00am....
.....I am officially being spammed. <LAUGH> Hard. And there is nothing I can do about it.
This might be the best spam I've ever been hit with. Appearently there is some sort of campaign for student body president going on at wonderful Bradley University and one of the canidates decided to send out a campus wide email to remind people to vote.
an email sent to the entire campus....
hmmmm.....what to do???
REPLY ALL and REPLY ALL and REPLY ALL.....rinse repeat.
Now, I have to wonder....why the hell has no one ever done this before? the wheels are turning....just how easy it would be to set up a fake email account and send out a mass message of anything that I wanted. An annonomous statment that will not get blocked.
Behold the power of the mass media.
or maybe its just a praise to the creator of the reply all button. the megaphone of email.
(oh and guess what) Im still not voting.
Lets Take It Back To The Start...
Hey everyone ~
So I needed to make a new blog and wanted it to be legit this time...so here it is. Welcome to Trace("Hello World"); It seems like everyday I read, see, or expereince something that has some sort of effect on me. All these things that happen to us everyday...that hold our attention (even if its just for a few minutes) are important. I'm going to make this blog about those things. This isn't a blog about something specifc. Its about all the unspecific things. Obviously it will be catered to me. But hopefully if you read this, you'll be effected by what I post as well.
Trace("Hello World"); - This comes from the geek in me. This is a line of code that can be put into a computer program to test if it is working right. Being in multimedia, I've written many "Hello World" programs. It's a way of testing a part of your code into the world. Thats what i want to do with my blog. I want to take what I find and introduce it into my world and hopefully your world too(if you're reading this). This blog is my function....and I will trace out my thoughts.
*shout out to Amanda Sanchez and Matt Miller who were part of Trace("Hello World"); when it was the best MM313 team ever!
HAPPY LAUNCH/HAPPY EASTER!!!
