March 29, 2010 by A.S. Van Dorston

I saw the movie Thursday night, and re-listened to all my Runaways albums. It’s fun hearing songs after seeing them performed in the movie. Then over the weekend I played a random mix with them, The New York Dolls (the first band Joan Jett ever saw), her idol Suzi Quatro, and Alice Cooper, The Dictators, Radio Birdman, Kiss, Patti Smith…, Ramones, etc. Basically the trash rock bastard children of The Stooges, MC5, The Velvets and New York Dolls.

I never saw Twilight, but Kristen Stewart almost ruined Adventureland (a pretty good movie otherwise), where she looked and acted like a meth-addicted weasel. So I agreed with The Onion’s assessment that she’s a “dead-eyed talent vacuum.” That said, I gotta give her credit for learning guitar for her part. She was actually fairly believable as Joan Jett, who is way more awesome than fucking Cherie Currie. Dakota Fanning, however, did a great job showing her transformation from an innocent Bowie fan to a jaded, drug-addicted wastoid narcissist within a period of 18 months. There was definitely some thought put into the casting, as they look a lot like the photos of the actual Runaways. The giddy excitement of the first half was definitely ground to a halt by the excruciating, cliched drug-burnout melodrama of the second half. Michael Shannon was brilliant as Kim Fowley. Did anyone read Currie’s book? I’m not sure if he was ever actually accused of molesting them, which would be worthy of imprisonment. Anyway, Shannon was sufficiently creepy. He often plays really intense, scary characters. I saw him in a couple theater productions in Chicago in the 90s – Hellcab and a Chekov play.

“…the guitar sits right on your pubic bone, and when you hit a chord, it just vibrates right through your body. It’s a powerful feeling. So when Kristen would play, I’d say, “Pussy to the wood! Fuck the guitar!” — Joan Jett, Rolling Stone

I loved the live performance shots, which were way too brief. It sounded great in the theater, better than the inconsistent sound of their first couple albums. There were some nice scenes at L.A. clubs like Rodney’s, with plenty of glam in the soundtrack, and even two Stooges songs. I don’t recall seeing any live shot of The Ramones though — was it cut or did I miss it? What really pissed me off is that the movie made it seem like The Runaways never even finished their first album with Cherie. Not true — she was on both the 1976 debut and Queens Of Noise (1977). After Currie and Jackie Fox (with a supposedly 170 IQ, she probably had little interest in conversing with her mental inferiors, ha) left, Jett took over all the vocals on the tight and heavy Waitin’ For The Night (1977), with Lita Ford contributing two songs. Fowley produced that album too. It wasn’t until And Now…The Runaways (1978) that they were emancipated from Fowley, with mostly lackluster results. So the story was pretty incomplete, but it was based on Currie’s book, oh well. Overall the movie did a great job giving a sense of what it was like in those crappy L.A. clubs and on the road, and dealing with hostile men in the headlining bands (Rush were one of the bands that were total dicks to them). The Runaways rock!