Cherie Currie: "I think I'm gonna wear it".....Joan Jett: "Where? To the strip club?"

Biopics about bands and singers don't come around too often. There have been some well made films like The Doors, Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story and Great Balls of Fire. So far, from what I've seen, the best of these kind of Biopics has been The Runaways.
The Story is mainly about Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning), the two leaders of the Punk-Rock group The Runaways. It starts off with showing both girls, before they even started the band. Cherie was in family, who seemed like they didn't want her. Her mom was moving away and her dad was a drunk, and never around. Joan was just trying to reinvent herself and wanted to start a band. Joan meets famous manager Kim Flowley (Michael Shannon) and tells him that she wants to start an all girl band. When Joan and Kim find Cherie, everything starts falling into place and the band starts to write songs. Joan and Kim come up with the song Cherry Bomb, which would be their first hit, and they started to play some shows.
Even though they weren't making much money and weren't playing very big gigs, they were still getting popular. Kim lands the girls a tour, and the band goes to Japan. The bigger the band gets, the bigger Cherie gets in popularity and it starts to overshadow the rest of the girls. Drugs and issues start to get in the way and Cherie begins to lose touch of everything.  Just as soon as The Runaways became huge, that's just as fast as they split. Joan goes her separate way and starts her own solo career, Cherie tries to start acting, but it doesn't go well. The rest of the band goes and does their own thing, like Lita Ford, who became bigger than she was when she was in The Runaways.
For the main two actors in this film, to me, it is the best roles of their careers, so far. Kristen Stewart hasn't stepped up big, until this film. In the Twilight movies, she overacts and doesn't show much. In The Runaways she doesn't a near perfect job at playing Joan Jett. To research and get ready for the role Stewart followed the real Joan Jett around for a week, to get the feel of the woman she was gonna play.
To me, Dakota Fanning did an even better job then Stewart. She has been doing an on par job in her other roles before this, but this is a definite step up. Fanning played Cherie Currie amazingly and added extra dramatics to the film. Her part stood out above the rest and it makes this movie even more exciting to watch. Michael Shannon also did a good job in his role, as the weird and eccentric Kim Fowley. His portrayal is comedic and different, but is fun to watch.
The movie has all the famous music from The Runaways career, their great songs like Hollywood, Cherry Bomb, California Paradise, Queens of Noise, Dead End Justice, I Like Playing with Fire and I wanna be where the Boys Are. Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning even sing their own versions of 2 of the songs, Dead End Justice was really well done. (To me even better than the original).
My Dvd pictures Stewart and Fanning on the front and it also has some good reviews. "I love Rock n Roll and I love this Movie!," says Jan Wahl, KCBS AM/FM and KRON-TV, San Francisco. "Rock n Roll Fans Of Every Gender And Generation Will Identify With This," says A.O. Scott, The New York Times.
The Runaways was released in 2010 and directed by Floria Sigismondi. Released by Apparition, River Road Entertainment and E1 Entertainment.

Collection#:
The Runaways: #396