The Girls in the Band: The queens of noise live again in “The Runaways” (Review)
Biopic, Drama, Musical, Recommended, Romance No Comments »“These bitches suck” was Creem magazine’s timeless takedown of The Runaways when the teenage girl band bobbed to the surface of the 1970s.
In Floria Sigismondi’s writing-directing debut, the making-of-the-band, life-on-the-road, taking-of-the-drugs telling of 1970s teen rockers who made it right to the middle (despite mostly sucking, musically) has the right attitude if not a fully fleshed story. It satisfies in bursts, like an erratically track-sequenced album. Based on Cherie Currie’s slim memoir, “Neon Angel,” “The Runaways” is episodic, and Currie’s decline isn’t as interesting as 15-year-old Dakota Fanning’s embodiment of her rapid slip-slide into neurasthenia and diva-dom. (Fanning’s turn-on-a-dime from sullen to sneering as the band assembles the song “Cherry Bomb” is one of her best moments: “Ch. Ch. Ch. CHERRY BOMB!”) Joan Jett’s survival instincts are more indicated than dramatized, and Kristen Stewart, while as watchable as ever, brings more spark than fire. Michael Shannon, playing oddball Svengali Kim Fowley, is bright and funny as a leering loon, but he’s a man we ought to be fearful of as much as mesmerized by. (Shannon’s memorably theatrical styling of lines like “I am the luckiest dogfucker in space!” are more Walkenesque than truly loony.) Read the rest of this entry »









Amy Adams was savorable in the likeable “Julie & Julia.” She’s almost insufferable in “Leap Year.” This awful romantic comedy is scripted by Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan, who also take credit for “Made of Honor” and “Surviving Christmas.” Anna (Adams) makes a living in Boston “staging apartments.” Clients pay her to bait prospective buyers with irresistible temporary furnishings that include the smell of chocolate-chip cookies baking in the kitchen oven. After four years together she notices her cardiologist boyfriend Jeremy (Adam Scott) has yet to ask for her hand and place a ring on her finger. Off he goes to Dublin for a medical convention. She hears there’s a tradition of women proposing to men in Ireland on leap year, so she decides to surprise him there. Travel troubles plop her in an Irish village where further troubles link her with pub proprietor Declan (Matthew Goode) as her traveling companion to Dublin. Fret over their initial mutual hostility. Pray they get where their hearts lead by February 29th. The plot introduces two couples faking matrimony for ulterior motives: both will lead to the real thing. Aww. Anand Tucker lackadaisically directs this incompetent chick flick with no trace of his far better work on the upcoming “Red Riding: 1983,” as well as “Shopgirl” and “Hilary and Jacky.” The recurring schtick of tipsy coots spouting blarney is an affront to some sort of Irish Cultural Heritage Board or Emerald Isle Anti-Defamation Front. With Noel O’Donovan, Tony Roh, Pat Laffan and John Lithgow for only about a minute and a half, thank your lucky charms. 97m. (Bill Stamets)