The Runaways — The Real Story

“Twilight‘s” Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning star as Joan Jett and Cherie Currie in the upcoming film about the pioneering all-girl rock group The Runaways. Before it opens on April 9, it might be fun to take a look at the the real Runaways.
Joan Jett co-stars with Michael J. Fox as siblings who play in a rock band in the under-appreciated “Light of Day.” She gives a confident but sensitive performance that makes me wish she had done more acting. And of course the musical numbers are terrific. She also has a live concert film with the group she formed after the Runaways. And her anthemic “Bad Reputation” is on the sound-track of the upcoming “Kick-Ass” as well as many other movies, from “Shrek” to “10 Things I Hate About You.”

As shown in the film, Cherie Currie left The Runaways to appear in a movie, Foxes with Jodie Foster. She also wrote the memoir that inspired the movie, Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway.

Edgeplay – A Film About The Runaways is band member Victory Tischler-Blue’s documentary about the group.
The movie also gives us a glimpse of DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, known as Mayor of the Sunset Strip. His support of the San Francisco music scene is covered in a documentary by that name that features appearances by just about every music superstar of the era, from David Bowie and the Ramones to Coldplay and No Doubt.

And take a look at Slate’s piece on movies about girl groups by Marisa Meltzer. How many of the cliches do you think will be in this week’s release? Well, how many music groups of either gender manage to evade them in real life?