Eye Candy #274 - "Edgeplay - A Film About The Runaways"

Edgeplay - A Film About the Runaways:  Given the new fictionalized film about the all-girl rock group from the late 70’s that was underappreciated during its lifetime, this documentary, made in 2005, pulls together most of the members for a retrospective of their lives and times. Notably absent is Joan Jett. Through interviews with the members, we learn about the band’s creation at the hands of the VERY weird svengali, Kim Fowley (why any parent would let their children follow along with Fowley after meeting the guy, I have no idea; if David Lynch was a pimp, he’d be Kim Fowley), their rise to somewhat stardom, and then just-as-quick dissolution. Directed by Vicki Blue, one of the former members of the band (she was their 4th bassist), instead of some kind of awe-inspiring inside view of almost rock greatness, we get the gossip and blues of a bunch of bratty teenage girls, most of whom grew up into equally unpleasant middle aged has-beens. It’s no wonder that Jett didn’t want to participate. The late Sandy West (who sounds every bit the developing lung cancer victim and was the drummer for the band) comes across like the mental tent-peg the other women describe her to be. Cherie Currie is a vain egotist still scrabbling for credibility after prancing around in lingerie while still a teenager. Lita Ford is still grappling with her own all-too-brief dance with fame and fortune that managed to elude her not once, but twice. Overall, a sad, view of a band of coulda-been, shoulda-beens, whose greatest success came overseas and who weren’t really judged to be vital until after their dissolution. The film does make you want to go listen to some Runaways, though. What the title, which is a sexual reference, has to do with anything, I have no idea. Woodchuck sez, “Was hoping for better.”