THE BITERION COLLECTION: The Runaways

From time to time here at the Twilight Blog, we'll be checking in on the careers of the young actors who have had careers launched (or not quite launched yet) by The Twilight Saga. Previous entries can be found in the sidebar.

So last night I saw The Runaways, starring Ms. Bella Swan herself, Kristen Stewart. This, it should be noted, is my first post on my new netbook, and my fingers are still adjusting to the keys. So there may be more spelling mistakes than usual. But fukc it. Rocxk and Rolll right?

So, The Runaways was pretty good! It hit my rock and roll nerve center, if there is such a thing. On my way out of the theater, I kind of wanted to break shit. I think that is a good thing. The biggest problem for people seeing this movie, I think, is can you actually see it? Is it playing in your city? I had to go to the Coolidge Corner theater in Boston, which is a place I usually don't go, because I seem to accumulate AMC gift certificates at a suprisingly rapid pace. And it was playing at the AMC last week, but I guess it got knocked out by The Back Up Plan. That doesn't feel like justice to me.

So the film is a very rock-biopic type movie. The Runaways had a kind of strange career trajectory, but once they start in with the heavy drug abuse and the jealousy-over-Cherie-centric coverage, you can kind of see where it is going. That's been happening a lot lately, though. Shutter Island was nothing particularly new, but it was still good. People have been griping about the comic-book movie conventions employed by Kick-Ass, but Kick-Ass was awesome. I really didn't understand the hate spewed at Kick-Ass by movie critics. It sort of felt like everyone was just falling in line behind Manohla "what's under that skirt?" Dargis. I know that's a really reductive and probably untrue thing to say about critics, but Matthew Vaughn has been outspoken and semi-profane in his lack of interest in the moral implications of Kick-Ass, and sometimes when directors do that you sort of feel like the critics just come after them. The same thing happens to Jason Reitman every time. That's because he's kind of a dick, and he makes a pie chart of all the questions interviewers ask him-- I guess to point out that being interested in movies is stupid? Or that journalism is stupid? Does Jason Reitman think we should just have one big newspaper and be done with it? Does he feel the same way about movies? I'm not sure. Jason Reitman is kind of an asshole. But that doesn't mean he makes bad movies!

My wife pointed out, on the way out of the theater last night, that the controversy over Kick-Ass is especially galling when you see Dakota Fanning doing drugs and smoking and also swearing and doing very heavy petting in The Runaways. Nobody is freaking out about that! Maybe that's because The Runaways is playing in art houses across the country and Kick-Ass is national and because Kick-Ass was inexplicably marketed on TV to young audiences. It might just be a scale thing. That's not to say that I necessarily object to any of it-- I don't think people should get upset about either film. I was a little uncomfortable in the middle of The Runaways though, because the camera really leers at Dakota Fanning sometimes. And she is like fifteen or sixteen. It was gross.

Kristen Stewart is pretty goddamn great as Joan Jett. She pulls off the semi-androgynous thing very well. She actually learned and plays all of the songs, not that they are very difficult, but give the girl a lot of credit for that anyway. I'm fairly sure she was actually singing most of the time too, and occasionally her voice approaches Joan Jett's to a kind of startling degree. A lot of that is casting, obviously. But Kristen Stewart gets to do a lot here, so much more that the Twilight films, and it is fun to see the other tricks she has up her (leather, dejected) sleeve. I also now know what she sounds like shouting "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" so that's good to have in my mind for fan fiction and that sort of thing.

Michael Shannon is in the movie too, and he is also pretty goddamn great. You probably know him as the only reason you kept watching Revolutionary Road, because he blew the doors off the place in that one. He is similarly insane here, and I hope we never run out crazy people for Michael Shannon to play.

Maeby from Arrested Development is in this movie too, but I think her only line is "Cherry Bomb!"

It's a very indie-looking movie-- sort of cheap looking, the occasionally weird angle-- but the period details (when they actually need them) are fine. I don't usually notice that sort of thing anyway, but I've finally started watching Mad Men, so I'm a little more attuned. Speaking of which, Mad Men makes being a hippie or a free spirit look so stupid and disgusting, and I feel like The Runaways sort of re-balanced my moral center. I forgot that I love rock and roll. But I do! Being square is fucking bullshit!

I think the takeaway from The Runaways (see what I did there?) is that we should all be grateful that Kristen Stewart is leveraging Twilight to do cool shit, and not star in a bunch of romantic comedies or Nicholas Sparks-ian romantic tragedies (Robert Pattinson) or slasher movies (Ashley Greene and Jackson Rathbone). I'm in Kristen Stewart's corner.