4 stars****

This remake of the seventies original of I Spit on Your Grave is a well produced and finely scripted movie. The attacked woman is less ‘out in the open’ for all to see and her revenge is not as outright bloody as many a horror film would indulge.

So what’s it all about?

Writer Jennifer Hills (Butler) takes a retreat from the city to a charming cabin in the woods to start on her next book. But Jennifer’s presence in the small town attracts the attention of a few morally depraved locals who set out one night to teach this city girl a lesson. They break into her cabin to scare her. However, what starts out as terrifying acts of humiliation and intimidation, quickly and uncontrollably escalates into a night of physical abuse and torturous assault. Before they can kill her, Jennifer sacrifices her broken and beaten body to a raging river that washes her away. As time passes, the men slowly stop searching for her body and try to go back to life as usual, but that isn’t about to happen. Against all odds, Jennifer Hills survived her ordeal. Now, with hell bent vengeance, Jennifer’s sole purpose is to turn the tables on these animals and to inflict upon them every horrifying and torturous moment they carried out on her… only much, much worse.

The difficulty with this movie is not that we all know who the guilty perpetrators are, but would we convict the lady for her actions, if we were sat on a jury? On their own, her vengeance might equal anything the SS could have thought up in East Germany. Nevertheless, the attacks on her require some pay-back.

For the men out there, this doesn’t equal the violence on Jodie Foster in The Accused which was the first time men actually understood, by visual medium, how wrong those acts of violence were. This movie doesn’t make those scenes a tease, but they don’t show the same level of complete humiliation, which is perhaps a good thing, these days.

Stuart Morse’s screenplay builds very well. We know that an attack is imminent, but he holds off as long as possible to build the momentum. The attack is prolonged with a mixture of camera and video footage. The clues as to the revenge are in the attack backed up with plenty of visuals around the caustic acid and tool shed. The revenge isn’t tiresome and many of the audience will be encouraging the lady into worse violence.

This movie gets the mix right; although the attack and the revenge is way beyond most of our lifestyles, we can see the building of characters on both sides. You’ll leave the cinema satisfied that Sarah Butler sought her day, but worried about the rest of her life. You should also be worried that she’ll find it difficult to work again after taking this role. The original movie was banned in many countries around the world and not many customers have bothered to take up this remake.

Was it worth the remake? Yes this version is better, but not as threatening to your own dreams. It’s amazing that such a good movie can be made on such a small budget; just $1.5 million.

Personally I don’t like the title and I won’t usually choose to watch movies that set out to denigrate women in this manner, but Jodie Foster’s ‘Brave One’ movie comes to mind as having similar structure. The movie’s poster tells you all you need to know, before deciding whether to spend your ticket money.

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.)

• Nim’s friends: featurette
• Abigail’s journey: featurette
• Working on water: featurette
• Deleted scenes
• Adventure commentary with Jodie Foster and Abigail Breslin
• Commentary with Directors Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett

The Blue Ray version will help you feel as though you’re on the island with enhanced sound and vision.

The movie is reviewed here and the trailer is here

So what’s been happening since you saw the movie in the theatre?

Fluent French speaking Jodie Foster hasn’t any films listed for future release at the moment, but then that’s become the norm for Ms Foster recently where her movies have been separated by large time scales, but each one well worth waiting for as she brings up her young children. It appears the press just want to dig deep in dirt about who her relationships are with these days. We don’t care; just keep making those great movies.

Abigail Breslin has been busier. She has one 2008 movie called ‘Kit Kittredge: An American Girl’ and one further movie lined up for 2009, ‘My Sister’s Keeper’. However, as she’s only twelve years old, she has plenty of time to grow into movies the way Jodie Foster did, herself.

Garard Butler has been very busy with the recent release ‘RocknRolla’ from the Guy Ritchie stable with ‘Game’ and ‘The Ugly Truth’ in post production for 2009. He’s also filming ‘Tales of the Black Freighter’ and ‘How To Train Your Dragon.’. If that’s not enough he’s also involved with ‘Law Abiding Citizen.’ We’ll be seeing a lot more of this guy over the next two years.

Joseph Kwong and Paula Mazur did an excellent job writing the screenplay of Nim’s Island. I hope to see more work from them soon, but can’t find anything listed just now.

The budget of $37 million wasn’t the highest, but I guess they thought the response would be limited to people wanting to watch children’s films. Money moving through the cinemas has been around $85 million. Once you allow for the cinema’s 50% share, the movie appears to have just broken well into profit. DVD sales have been pushing the profits through the roof. It’s in the top five of sales charts all around the world, and that’s not counting CD sales of the soundtrack.

I’m surprised we don’t have Alex Rover novels out yet; that should keep the ghost writers busy.

4 stars****

Jodie Foster just has to be one the best actors currently working. I may have to add the word ‘ever’ to that phrase soon, or perhaps I should already before she’s even reached fifty. She works in an elite group, along with Jack Nicholson and Michael Caine; you know their performance on screen will be completely incredible, at worst.

Foster brings another side of her acting quality to this film; comedy, which she doesn’t get to use very often in her high drama movies.

Abilgail Breslin marks a brilliant position in taking the lead role in this film. She has already turned over the ten film mark before reaching her teens, and will be pleased to observe that Ms Foster’s movie making route took a similar course.

Nim, looks for assistance from the author of her favourite adventure book series when her father, a scientist, goes missing. Nim lives on an island in the South Pacific. Alexandra Rover, the author (as in Alex Rover whom Nim thinks is a man) is living in San Francisco and suffers from agoraphobia. The writer overcomes her fears and sets out to look for Nim while Nim attempts to overcome her fear of losing her father. It’s a film for all ages so everything will be okay in the end. It’s a Hollywood movie!

The film is suitable for all ages; my 5 year old enjoyed it and while she wasn’t scared, she was slightly worried at some parts of the film.

It moves along at a good pace; the animals are marvelous in their co-staring appeal. They’re particularly helpful when a ship full of tourists try to borrow the private island.

Nicely photographed throughout, the editing is excellent as is the script which brings the package together nicely for the marketing people.

The only reason it gains just three stars is because it tries to appeal too much to all ages. The end comes too quickly and too easily. We almost missed the formulaic ‘ooh-er’ moment just before the end. However, Jodie Foster is wonderful, in case you didn’t get that first time.

The update is here

The update is here