RECOMMENDED: Think of The Runaways as a (perhaps lesser) companion piece to Velvet Goldmine, another film about disaffected teens turning their boredom and sex-shame into glam rock in The Long ’70s. First-time director Floria Sigismondi — you may know her from a grip of Nine Inch Nails videos she directed as well — doesn’t have quite the fantastical beast that Velvet Goldmine was in this film, but as an American response, it’ll do. After all, Velvet Goldmine was about composites of the glam rock era, and The Runaways is about real people and, if the tall tale nature of rock bios are to be believed, real events. Which means you get: Michael Shannon in a fantastic performance as rock ‘n’ roll svengali/total creep Kim Fowley; Kristen Stewart as a mopey teenage Joan Jett proving that she can, in fact, act (not a stretch, sure, but it does go some way in advancing the theory that the Twilight movies really are that bad on purpose); and Dakota Fanning in what’s supposed to be her breakout look-at-me-I’m-all-grows-up role but in fact being upstaged by the former two. (And while we’re at it, the soundtrack is no slouch, either.) To its credit, The Runaways isn’t a morality tale when the facts alone dictate that it kind of is. Rather, it’s a dimly lit, strangely claustrophobic affair — you will seldom see a sky or ceiling in this movie, giving it all a boxed-in feeling, and all of the real horror occurs in daylight — in which everyone, when you get right down to it, is kind of a gross loser. As the real-life fable of The Runaways is understood, that’s about right.

ALSO NEW IN THEATERS: Repo Men, starring Jude Law and Forrest Whitaker in a positively Philip K. Dick-y futuristic/satirical romp about a newfangled health care system where organs are repossessed; Mother, the Oscar-nominated Korean film about a mother devoted to proving her son’s innocence in a crime he did not commit; Diary of a Wimpy Kid, one of those wisecrack-y tween movies that makes middle school kids talk like they’re disaffected twentysomethings (please fucking kill me); and The Bounty Hunter, featuring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler sadly not dying in a pit of boiling lava.

For more recommendations on films currently in theaters, visit Philebrity’s Film Sweat archive. And click here for movie times.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 4:16 pm.