Eye Candy #445 - "The Runaways"

The Runaways:  This is the fictionalized biopic of the rock band of the same name, focusing on lead singer Cherie Currie (played by Dakota Fanning), guitarist Joan Jett (played by Queen Scowl, Kristin Stewart), and their mercurial manager, Kim Fowley (played indulgently by Michael Shannon, who almost single-handedly steals the picture).  For all that, the film remains aloof from its subjects, content to spend more time on the debauchery and sexuality then who they actually really were, trying to lend more profundity to a story that just wasn‘t all that inherently profound to begin with (unless of course you fell for all of Kim Fowley‘s PR spin).  Cherie gets a bit of a whitewash, even though everything I’ve seen or read about our her, including her own words, reveals her as a raging egomaniac fully aware of what she was doing.  Fanning plays Currie like Little Girl Lost, a victim of her surroundings instead of an active participant in her own self-destruction, a character worthy of pity even if her issues were mostly self-inflicted.  Beyond Jett and Currie, the rest of the Runaways get minimal exposure.  The only redeeming feature of the film is the soundtrack, which is loaded with Runaways songs as well as other punk and rock hits.  The film did lousy at the box office.  The studio said it was because it didn’t resonate with a particular target-marketed audience.  I think it’s because it’s a nearly worthless film.   Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”