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They
rocked: (l-r) Fanning and Stewart in The Runaways.
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Queens
of Noise
By
John Brodeur
The
Runaways
Directed
by Floria Sigismondi
It
seems impossible to make a rock biopic worth a damn. At least
that’s how you’ll feel after watching The Runaways,
which is about as half-assed a feature on a historical subject
as you’re likely to see, a color-saturated blur of sex and
drugs and rock & roll that curiously manages to underplay
any of those three key elements. Barring the language, most
of the picture plays like the network- television edit of
a heavier film.
But that’s not to say it isn’t fun. Separate yourself from
the idea that this is a real story (mostly) about a real band,
and The Runaways is kind of a blast. Written and directed
by Floria Sigismondi, the film follows the formation and brief
but colorful career of the first all-girl rock band who mattered,
with a focus on the relationship between principal members
Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart) and singer Cherie Currie (Dakota
Fanning). Formed in 1975 by Jett and drummer Sandy West (Stella
Maeve) with help from producer-svengali Kim Fowley (Michael
Shannon), the group made five records in four years and helped
to break down doors for generations of female rock musicians
to come—all before the band members turned 21.
Not that you really get a feel for the band’s impact, or any
sense of timeline. (To wit: The first shot of the band in
the recording studio comes 15 minutes from the film’s end,
and coincides with Currie’s departure from the band.) What
you do get is a snapshot of girls behaving somewhat badly,
shot with the gloss of a Björk video. That makes sense, as
Sigismondi’s history is in directing music clips, but it’s
also a liability: The performance shots are staged like music
videos, lacking any real grit or immediacy. For a band who
were supposed to be dangerous, these scenes are far too controlled.
The rounded edges carry over offstage, where the band’s excesses
come across as little more than teenage frolicking; even when
Currie hits her inevitable low point, it seems like just another
“oopsie.”
The performances, however, are pretty great. Stewart portrays
Jett with a sneering cockiness not seen in her other work—coached,
no doubt, by the rocker herself, who served as one of the
film’s executive producers—and Fanning carries the lead role
like the seasoned actress she is, even if her vocals don’t
quite match up to the menace of Currie’s originals. (Unfortunately,
Alia Shawkat, as fictional bassist Robin, might want to look
into getting a new agent—she’s given nothing to do here but
hold an instrument.)
Best of all is Shannon, who chews up and spits out every frame
of his screen time as world-class weirdo Fowley. The film’s
best bits are in the cramped trailer that doubles as a practice
space, with Fowley haranguing the fledgling group with the
fervor of an NFL head coach. It’s the kind of foaming-at-the-mouth
performance that could accidentally win Shannon another Oscar
nomination.
Get
Kraken
Clash
of the Titans
Directed
by Louis Leterrier
Zeus and his celestial court may have been omnipotent in the
classical world, but in Hollywood they tend to turn to cheese
as surely as the gaze of a gorgon can turn a man to stone.
In Louis Letterier’s gory remake of the 1981 camp classic
Clash of the Titans, Zeus (Liam Neeson) wears an iridescent
suit of armor and gripes about the lost love between him and
his fondest creation, humankind. Not even Neeson’s imposing
baritone can give Zeus enough gravity to overcome the script’s
inanities, but soon enough, Hades (Ralph Fiennes) appears
in a belch of smoke to challenge Zeus on how to control the
wayward humans who would prefer to live without the meddling
of jealous and amorous deities. The gods live in Olympus,
shown as a hovering, heavenly plane invisibly suspended above
the earth, and seem weirdly detached from the rest of the
movie.
Typical of villains, though, Hades gets to have all the fun,
setting up the warriors of Argos for failure and using the
fires of the underworld to turn their best efforts to cinders.
And it’s Hades who controls the Kraken, a gargantuan sea monster
that can destroy even titans. Once again, immortal storytelling
is used as merely a framing device for a panoply of special
effects. For Clash 2010, CGI replaces stop-motion creature
effects, with mixed results. Nasty harpies convincingly swoop
about their prey, yet Medusa seems comically artificial compared
to the creepy gorgon of the original. And the last-minute
addition of effects shot specifically for 3D is noticeably
out-of-place.
But the people have a hero, however reluctant, in Perseus
(Sam Worthington), the son of Zeus who was raised by a simple
fisherman. The film’s smattering of mythology sends Perseus
upon a quest to save Princess Andromeda from becoming a human
sacrifice. Worthington, who apparently used up what little
acting skill he has in Avatar, is so bland he practically
blends into the scenery—at least until the scenery is chewed
up by the other actors. Only Mads Mikkelson (Casino Royale)
as Draco, Perseus’ mighty ally, manages to create a compelling
warrior (and the Pegasuses are kind of cool, too). Not that
feats of strength have much to do with the quest’s success;
when pitted against giant (but clumsy) scorpions, gorgon sisters
with withered flesh instead of faces, and an alienlike race
of nomads with LED eyes, divine intervention is more handy
than swordsmanship. Especially since the film hurtles through
so many CGI obstacles that the audience may feel even more
pounded by fate than Perseus and his comrades. When the Kraken
finally roils the sea en route to claim Andromeda, its uncoiling
tentacles provide more relief (the film is almost over!) than
dread.
—Ann
Morrow
 American
Antiheroes
By
Shawn Stone
The
Last Flight (Warner Archive)
Central
Airport (Warner Archive)
Once
stardom is established, it’s infrequent that a male movie
star’s persona changes. Gary Cooper was a hero from the beginning
to the end; Jack Nicholson has always been a wild man. Hero
or villain, Bruce Willis is an iconoclastic loner. Alien or
angel, John Travolta is an unrepentant egoist. Steve McQueen
couldn’t be anyone but Steve McQueen.
Of course, as Joe Jackson sang, “it’s different for girls.”
Katharine Hepburn kept in the game by transitioning from spunky
independence to brittle, lovelorn middle age; Bette Davis
turned into a cartoon version of herself; and Meryl Streep
moved from diva-like lead roles to character parts. For women
stars, it’s reinvent yourself or retire.
It was also different for silent- and early talkie-era star
Richard Barthelmess. He made his name playing the clean-cut,
all-American boy in D.W. Griffith’s Way Down East,
scampering across an ice floe to save willowy Lillian Gish
from a watery grave; Barthelmess cemented his status in Henry
King’s moving pastoral drama Tol’able David, as the
kid brother who has to defeat a trio of inbred hillbillies
to save his family (in a hand-to-hand fight that’s still shocking
in its brutality).
At the end of his career, however, he played characters who
were alienated from traditional American society. It was a
remarkable transformation. In Heroes for Sale (1933,
available in the Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 3 DVD set),
he’s a morphine-addicted veteran. In G.W. Pabst’s A Modern
Hero (1934), he’s a social-climbing heel; in Massacre
(1933), he’s a Native American who has turned his back on
his tribe.
While the last two films turn up occasionally on Turner Classic
Movies, another two Barthelmess dramas were recently issued
by the video-on-demand Warner Archive imprint.
The
Last Flight (1931) is a “lost generation” drama set in
1919 Paris; it’s in the style of Hemingway’s The Sun Also
Rises. (You could say it’s a rip-off, but since The
Last Flight avoids the racism and anti-Semitism of its
model, much can be forgiven.) And it’s as haunting, and haunted,
as any work about that era.
Barthelmess is Cary, a World War I pilot who survived the
crash of “last flight,” but maimed his hands in the process.
His war-damaged comrades are even more lost: One (Elliot Nugent)
is a narcoleptic ex-gunner; another (Johnny Mack Brown) is
a cheerful thrill freak compelled to prove his manhood in
crazy ways at exactly the wrong moments; and his best friend,
Shep (David Manners), has a nervous eye tic that compels him
to stay drunk. (Or, as Shep says in the parlance of the day,
“I’m going to get tight and stay tight.”)
The lost boys meet a lost girl, Nikki (Helen Chandler, as
otherworldly as she is in Dracula), a Southern belle
who is evidently very rich, estranged from her family, and
eccentric. She loves all of them—chastely, of course—because
they believe in nothing.
In his first American film, director William Dieterle brings
the poetic sensibility of 1920s German cinema to this sad
tale. This Paris is a series of bars and hotel rooms filled
with people working very hard at having fun—and drinking oceans
of alcohol. The film’s most repeated line? “Drink this. It’ll
make you laugh and play!”
This is my favorite sound-era Barthelmess performance. Cary
is a wreck, skittish and droll and bemused, quick to fight
and even quicker to laugh.
The other recent release, Central Airport (1933), finds
Barthelmess in the cockpit again. This time he’s a disgraced
ex-passenger pilot, flying stunt planes on the 1930s barnstorming
circuit. Briskly directed by ex-pilot William A. Wellman,
it’s not in the class of The Last Flight—but it’s a
first-class melodrama with an exciting sea rescue as its climax.
Here, Barthelmess’ character takes a physical beating; by
the end of the story he’s limping and sporting an eye patch.
It would almost be absurd, but there’s a saving, poignant
moment when he dances with Sally Eilers (as his ex-partner)
that shows a kind of broken grace.
As in most of his other late films, Barthelmess loses everything:
his family, his girl, and the life he wanted. In the depths
of Depression-era America, this made the former all-American
hero a contemporary (doomed) everyman.
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