The Runaways tore through Sundance on Saturday night, and I'm pleased to report veteran music video director Floria Sigismondi's feature debut did anything but ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb. (Sorry.) Skating just along the candy-colored edge of retro kitsch without ever crossing the line into self-parody, Sigismondi is incapable of framing an unattractive shot.
An all-girl hard rock group with real musical chops but little respect among the male-dominated industry of the time, The Runaways was the brainchild of '70s music impresario and Sunset Strip fixture Kim Fowley, inhabited here with cross-eyed, demented glee by Michael Shannon. He paired a brooding, budding rhythm guitarist named Joan Jett -- a part Kristen Stewart slips into as easily as a well-worn leather jacket -- with Cherie Currie, a trickier fit for Dakota Fanning, who struggles in the underwritten part to find the mojo of the band's jailbait front-kitten. But who really cares. It's feathered, fun, and lightly lesbionic -- everything you'd expect from a movie about the trailblazing twatrockers that made the world safe for Avril Lavigne.
Here's some video of Sigismondi, Stewart and Fanning taking audience questions after the show.
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And here's their inspiration:
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[Photo Credit: Reuters]