The Runaways

The Runaways - Dir. Floria Sigismondi (2010)


”Hello, daddy, hello, mom…I’m your ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb.”

Standard formula for the music biopic: aspiring musician struggles with impoverished homelife and/or childhood trauma, quickly rises to fame, pisses it away for sex and drugs. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

The Runaways chronicles the formation of the all-girl rock band and follows that exact same path. However, it is far from the type of polished Oscar bait fare you expect from a film like Ray or Walk the Line. It’s grimier and dirtier picture which encapsulates the music scene of the 70’s.

The film begins with its two central characters Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) and Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart). Cherie, in full-on Ziggy Stardust gear, lip-synchs to “Lady Grinning Soul” for her high school talent show and is met with the cat calls of her schoolmates. Jett plops down a bag full of change to purchase her first leather jacket. She receives guitar lessons from a condescending instructor who tells her, ”Girls don’t play electric guitar.”

One fateful night, Jett meets up with record producer, Kim Fowley (Michael Shannon), and pitches him the idea for a rock band, all girls, no guys. Together, they spot Currie sultrily sulking in the corner of a club and make her their lead singer. Each girl models their on-stage persona on their respective idols. Jett on Suzi Quatro, Currie on David Bowie. Rounding out the band are guitarist Lita Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) and drummer Sandy West (Stella Maeve). In real life, the band went through several bassists, but for the film they have the fictional Robin Robbins (Alia Shawkat), a composite of original member Micki Steele (later of The Bangles) and Jackie Fox who refused to sign off on the film.

The Runaways achieve mild success in the States, but find an overwhelming response in Japan where they are mobbed by fans. It’s in Japan that Curie gives her iconic performance, strutting about the stage in nylon stockings and pink & black lingerie. As the band’s tumultuous relationship with Fowley unfolds, we see how unapologetic he is at marketing the Runaways as jailbait sex symbols. Fowley gives them barely enough money to feed themselves on the road (he never travels) and rides them like a drill instructor. Turning a double-wide trailer into a recording studio, he gets local kids to throw feces at the girls to prepare them for hecklers.

Meanwhile, Currie immerses herself into the world of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll to escape the confines of her dead-end suburban life. She has a mom (Tatum O’Neal) who has run off to Indonesia, a perpetually drunken father (Brett Cullen), a sister (Riley Keough) stuck working at a fast-food place. Her descent into addiction threatens to tear the group apart.

The Runaways was loosely based on Currie’s memoirs, Neon Angel, while Jett served as producer. As such, the film focuses almost exclusively on the two. Ford and West are marginalized while Shawkat’s character gets no lines at all. The spotlight shines directly on Currie and Jett with some girl-on-girl action just for the hell of it. Currie is also the only character to get her personal life fleshed out. Other moments are similarly glanced over, such as the genesis of their signature hit, “Cherry Bomb,” which is ad-libbed in only a few short minutes.

Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning do an amiable job in their roles and sing surprisingly decent covers of tunes like “Dead End Justice” and “Queens of Noise.” But, it’s Michael Shannon, donning thick glam rock make-up, who really brings it as the flamboyant and abrasive Fowley. Shannon is definitely one of the best character actors working today, a 21st century version of Christopher Walken.

Floria Sigismondi, a photographer and director of commercials and music videos, makes her feature film debut here. She manages to capture the look of the 70’s even with a low budget though she doesn’t quite have the eye of someone like Anton Corbijn.

The Runaways is a messy movie, but refreshingly so, even if it feels like the Cliff Notes version of the true story.

Rating: **

Push

Push - Dir. Paul McGuigan (2009)


Push is a worthy successor to Jumper in the crappy films about boring, good-looking people with superpowers genre. It’s Scanners produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, part-X-Men, part-Heroes. The film opens with a prologue explaining that the Nazis experimented on pregnant women to turn their unborn offspring into super-soldiers. The U.S. government continued these projects and created a wealth of individuals with various mental abilities. There are Movers (telekinetics), Pushers (mind control), Shifters (temporarily alter appearances of objects), Watchers (psychics), Stitchers (healers), Wipers (who erase memories), and even Sniffers (who can sense an object’s history by smell).

The Human Torch, Chris Evans plays Nick Gant, a Mover living in exile in Hong Kong, a haven for super-powered expatriates. Years ago, Nick’s father was killed by Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou), a powerful Pusher working for Division (the evil government baddies). He’s been on the run since and doing a decent job of it until a young Watcher named Cassie (Dakota Fanning) knocks on his door. Cassie enlists Nick’s aid in rescuing her mother, a Watcher held captive by Division. In order to do so, they await the arrival of Nick’s ex-girlfriend, Kira (Camilla Belle), who has just escaped Division with the film’s requisite MacGuffin. She’s stolen a briefcase containing an experimental drug that can either kill the test subject or exponentially boost their abilities. Our heroes must evade both Division as well as their counterparts in the Chinese government.

Push is a slickly made actioner, shot guerilla style on the streets of Hong Kong. The set pieces are fast-paced and cool to watch, but the most of the story doesn’t make a lick of sense. The final act features Nick coming up with a secretive plan so convoluted that the villains won’t know what they’re doing. Well, neither does the audience. It doesn’t just feel like the heroes are making things up as they go along, but the writers as well. It seemed as if screenwriter David Bourla was more preoccupied with setting up loose ends for potential sequels than building a film that could stand alone.

Chris Evans does a fair job in the role of square-jawed hero while Dakota Fanning has a fun scene playing an angry drunk. Everybody else is just spinning their wheels. Well, at least, we get Ming-Na Wen and her lovely presence is enough for me to save this from a complete dud.

Rating: *

Coraline

Coraline - Dir. Henry Selick (2009)


Based on the novel by the great Neil Gaiman, Coraline wraps the best and worst of childhood into a mesmerizing fairy tale filled with the haunting imagery they used to have before being Disneyfied.

Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) has just moved from the busting urban life of Michigan to the rainy, remote woods of Oregon. Along with Mother (Teri Hatcher) and Father (John Hodgman), they take residence inside a creepy Old Victorian home that’s shared with a pair of retired actresses (a reunited Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders) named Miss Forcible and Miss Spink and Bobinsky (Ian McShane), a Russian acrobat with an army of trained mice. Coraline is instantly bored and can’t get a minute of attention from her parents who are far too busy putting together a gardening catalog. Like any good writer, her father has grown gaunt and pale while sitting in front of his computer. The closest person to a friend Coraline finds is Wybie (Robert Bailey Jr.), an odd boy who follows her around on a motorbike while wearing a skeleton mask.

While exploring her new home, Coraline discovers a little door that’s been bricked over. One night, she finds the passageway unblocked and crawls through to discover a lavish parallel world. Everything is more colorful and fantastical on this side. She meets her Other Mother and Other Father who look just like her real parents except they have black buttons instead of eyes. They fix her an exquisite feast and take her for a ride in the garden on a mechanical praying mantis. However, Other Mother grows more and more possessive and Coraline finds there’s a heavy price to pay.

Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick mixes his own sensibilities with the Gothic surrealism of the Quay Brothers for this modernized take on Alice in Wonderland. It’s as much a coming-of-age tale as it is a wonderful piece of fantasy with all its Freudian imagery of our plucky heroine crawling through a birthing canal towards a field of blossoming flowers. It’s funny, heartwarming, and a little creepy, but in the most fun of ways.

Traditional hand-drawn animation is still clinging to life against the rampant glut of computer animated films, but stop-motion is a dying art form. Coraline is evidence that the medium still has legs. It’s far more gorgeous than anything you could pull off on your Macs. If you get the chance, view the film in 3D. Coraline manages to use 3D as an enhancement rather than a cheap gimmick where characters throw objects at the audience. It allows the audience to immerse themselves in the world of Coraline and enriches the environment. This is a breathtaking animated film and an easy contender for the Oscar. The achievements of the filmmakers is even more amazing when you take into account that everything was built by hand and shot a frame at a time.

Rating: *** ½