I’ve just read the screenplay and now can’t wait to see the movie, at a theatre near me, now.

The writer is taking some big chances that will alienate large chucks of the potential audience. She doesn’t hold back on the bad language, the use of drugs and alcohol which appeared to take over the young lady’s lives back in the mid to late 70’s. It might not be fun for young fans of Dakota Fanning when you hear her lines, if you’ve only followed her as a young teen fan. She’s grown up quickly in this movie.

There’s a lot of time spent showing the relationships between the girls and in particular, their possible lesbian relationships. What went on was private between the girls; it’s the music that counts. This movie doesn’t need titillation to send young teens rushing to see it for that reason alone. It’s the timing of the first great all girl band and the effect it had upon girls for the past thirty years since, that lays the groundwork here.

Kristen Stewart will have to act well to maintain the Joan Jett persona, especially as the screenplay calls for plenty of high attitude acting. Michael Shannon, who gets to play music mogul Kim Fowley gets to swear more than anyone else; in fact he doesn’t get to do much else, but I guess it’s all to do with his motivating the girls.

It’s odd that we get introduced to a new bass guitarist. One that didn’t really exist. It could be that rather than introduce four characters into the two hours, they felt the need to have one person play the bass throughout to maintain the audience’s ease.

It’s a good screenplay and I look forward to see how she directs it into The Runaways movie. There’s one point that stands out in this screenplay; the girls went through teenage years like almost no-one else will ever experience. The highs were so high that some of the girls have spent the last thirty years coming down.

Certainly, you can see how it became the launch pad for Joan Jett and Lita Ford. Nevertheless, I remain to be convinced that Joan Jett introduced her mega hit I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll to the band and had to wait six years for it to top charts all around the world as a solo hit. That’s perhaps where reality and the movie screenplay world differ to suit the motion picture style.

Drummer Sandy West would have just loved this movie. It’s where she wanted to be all her life. Sadly, cancer took her from her family and friends in 2006.

The new Joan Jett book and the Cherie Currie Book, Neon Angels are as well timed as the new Joan Jett greatest hits CD. With the screenplay, you have the full package, presuming you already have those six Runaways albums, now on CD.

Press release:

The RUNAWAYS Movie (starring Kristen Stewart & Dakota Fanning, produced by River Road Entertainment, and distributed by Apparition and Summit), In Theaters March 19, Was Based On This Book

LOS ANGELES, January, 2010: When Cherie Currie, the lead singer of 1970s teenage girl group The RUNAWAYS, sat down to write her personal memoir, NEON ANGEL: A Memoir of a Runaway (It Books/An Imprint of HarperCollins; On sale: March 16, 2010; $24.99; Hardcover) she never imagined the book would be made into a highly anticipated movie, starring some of Hollywood’s hottest actors.

Cherri Currie is the original lead singer of ’70s teenage, all-girl rock band The RUNAWAYS. At the tender age of 15, she joined the group, a talented group of girls who could play rock like no other female group before them. On the face of it, Currie’s is a cool story of girl empowerment and fame. But the truth is darker, as Currie and her band mates dealt with predatory men who were not necessarily looking out for their best interests. On the road, unsupervised for months at a time, she had to grow up fast and experience things that no teenaged girl should.

Cherie’s amazing resilience is inspiring. As band mate Joan Jett says in the book’s foreword: “Neon Angel is a chronicle of a remarkable journey, the story of a remarkable woman, who has an uncanny knack of reinventing herself from singer, to actor, to drug counselor, to physical trainer, to mom, to author, to painter, to chain saw carver. While excelling at every turn, Cherie has also exhibited an ironic flair for finding herself in dramatic situations.”

Writing NEON ANGEL itself, was a journey for Currie, and it took more than three decades before it was finally completed. Her story exposes the side of the music industry that fans never get to see. Chronicling the group’s rise to fame, the book recounts their ultimate demise, and Currie’s struggles with drugs, rape, violence and, ultimately, her fight to reclaim her life.

The girls, Currie with Joan Jett, and Lita Ford on guitar and Sandy West on drums, arrived on the Los Angeles music scene in 1975, belting out provocative teen rebellion songs such as “Cherry Bomb.” They quickly catapulted from playing small LA clubs to selling out major stadiums. With her signature Bowie-hair cut and fishnet stockings, Cherie lit up the stage, singing hits such as “Cherry Bomb,” “Queens of Noise,” and “Born to Be Bad.” Playing on Cherie’s name, JOAN Jett and Kim Fowley wrote the worldwide hit “Cherry Bomb” on the spot, for Cherie to audition for the band, one of the many compelling stories Currie tells in NEON ANGEL.

The RUNAWAYS were the first all-girl rock band to have hit songs, record platinum albums (at least 1,000,000 units sold), and tour internationally. But behind the scenes, NEON ANGEL is a story of five teen girls, RUNAWAYS, thrown into a decadent, high-pressure world. As Cherie chronicles the band’s rise from LA clubs to selling out their first US tour, she also weaves in a portrait of an amazing time in punk rock. The RUNAWAYS headlined shows with opening acts such as the Ramones, Van Halen, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Cheap Trick, and Blondie. They played at CBGBs, and got into the London punk scene and hung out with The Sex Pistols.

Cherie’s unique stage persona and fashion style has influenced many of the artists who came after, and that influence can be clearly seen in such very successful performers as Madonna and Lady Gaga.

With the help of multi-platinum hit songwriter and producer Kenny Laguna, Currie was able to have her book made into the feature film, The RUNAWAYS –starring Dakota Fanning (War of the Worlds, New Moon, The Secret Lives of Bees) as Currie, and Kristen Stewart (Twilight, New Moon, Into The Wild, Panic Room) playing Joan Jett. The RUNAWAYS also stars Oscar nominee Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) as manager Kim Fowley, and Oscar winner Tatum O’Neal as Cherie’s mother.

The RUNAWAYS movie is schedule hits theaters nationwide March 19, 2010.

About the author:
Cherie Currie rocketed to rock and roll stardom when she joined the RUNAWAYS at the young age of 15. She’s been described as “the lost daughter of Iggy Pop and Brigitte Bardot.” Shortly after the band’s demise, the rock star landed a coveted role in the Jodie Foster movie, Foxes, and later went on to appear in the films Wavelength with Robert Carradine, Parasite with Demi Moore, and Twilight Zone: The Movie, with Dan Aykroyd.

Currie is still performing, writing, and acting, and she continues to take on unorthodox endeavors. One of the most prominent chainsaw carvers in the world, she was rated No. 7 in the world for chainsaw competition in 2008.

Note: her original book, Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story (Paperback) by Cherie Currie and (Author), Neal Shusterman (Author) was released by PSS Adult (August 23, 1989.)

Rock superstar Joan Jett (and boy she looks good for her age – an unbelievable 51) will be back at the movies again soon, this time to see herself played by Twilight actress Kristen Stewart in a production called The Runaways. This tells the story of Joan’s early career while in the all girl band from 1975 to 1979. Dakota Fanning gets to play Cherrie Curry, the original lead singer of the Runaways.

The movie premieres at next month’s Sundance film Festival.

The first trailer is available now at the movies website http://www.runawaysmovie.com/

Essentially the movie tells the story of an all girl rock group who set the standards in that genre (all girl band) who after storming America went on to claim both Britain and Japan with unique fan bases. Joan Jett has had a consultant’s chair to ensure the movie is both accurate and truthful to its time. Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning get to sing the classic Runaway’s hits of the period. Joan Jett, apparently, loves the finished product, both the singing and the acting.

This isn’t the first film about the Runaways. Victory Ticshler-Blue released her movie (documentary) a film about the Runaways, back in 2004. Called ‘Edgeplay’ it was an outstanding, spellbinding, touching and severely honest film based on the Runaways’ early days. Their manager didn’t come out of the movie very well and unfortunately Joan Jett had no part in the film whatsoever. Whether she didn’t agree to appear or why she didn’t take part is not known; perhaps she had the idea of this new movie in mind. Vicky Blue was the second bass player with the group and later turned to filmmaking and laterly, photography.

Edgeplay is certainly a highly emotional film also featuring lead guitarist Lita Ford and drummer (the late) Sandy West. Sandy perhaps captures the image of the time when she tells the she was disappointed that the band finished, all she wanted to do was play drums.

If a gut wrenching movie appeals to you then certainly ‘Edgeplay’ is a DVD to join your collection. It’s a full top scoring 5 star movie.

Lita Ford went on to great success, especially with Ozzy Osbourne. However, the greatest success story from the Runaways has been the incredible 30+ years since Joan Jett has rocked over the airways, CDs and concert halls. Who doesn’t move a hip to ‘I Love Rock ‘n ‘ Roll?’ She’s believed to have played gigs in war zones at least 25 times to entertain US army personnel.

It’ll be interesting to see what differences the two movies illustrate and to see how close the stories agree.

Lewd, rude and crude. Is this film really a comedy and if so, what type of comedy? It doesn’t get you rolling in your seat and laughing out loud, but it does contain some cracking screenplay writing.

It’s the story of a real jerk, hired by his friends to ensure his date with the girl is so awful that they’ll go running back to the original boyfriend seeing how ‘nice’ they really were. The problem occurs when he falls in love with one of the girls and this goes against the grain for all concerned.

Dane Cook stars as Sherman, called ‘Tank’ by his friends; joke number one. Kate Hudson has taken a chance with this movie. She’s usually ‘careful’ about her movie selections to keep in the safe haven area of general entertainment. Here she gets to swear, have rolling on the bed sex and generally be a crazy kid, unlike her usual activities on film, but I can report she carries off a great performance.

Writer Jordan Cahan’s first screenplay proves to be top of the class. This is an excellent draft using profanity like it’s gone out of fashion and writing vulgar loutish jokes at everyone’s expense. I’d like to have read the script before seeing the movie; it would have given me an insight to what the writer was after.

The trouble is that the movie doesn’t really get moving into top gear. I wonder if a different director and different actors would have produced a different movie. Of course, it would have, but would it be improved?

The flow has its peaks, but also lows. The ten scrapes at the wedding are quite limp and ruin the flow of the movie although they’re there for an obvious set up to lose his girl. The joke with the future mother-in-law is wonderful. You’ll have to see it to know it.

Some complain that it’s too coarse, but that’s the point of the screenplay, to see how ‘low’ you can go in being unpleasant, on a date. The screenplay is not full of clichés, but introduces brand new put downs that no-one would dare use, would they?

The music is good for me, because I liked a number of the songs, but music is always down to the ear of the beholder. Just ‘cos I like it doesn’t mean you will. I would have preferred Joan Jett’s version of Crimson and Clover, but as a movie reviewer, it’s too late to have your say.

With a $65 million budget, it might struggle to get to pay back, but for a first time screenplay writer, Jordan has a bright future.

I have to mention the sponsors, the thank you list. I’ve never seen such a long product placement list ever. Often the list might be seven to ten items. I didn’t count them, but I presume it came in at somewhere around three hundred. I guess most of the financing was from product placement. Whatever, I didn’t remember seeing any of them. Usually when the guy picks up the coke bottle you get to see the coca cola logo for long enough (and large enough) to convince you to leave the movie and go purchase another one. Maybe it’s all subliminal.

Now that would make a good movie idea…