The Ashcan

Stereotyping movies based on trailers: The Runaways

Posted on 12. Mar, 2010 by jessekg in Film, Stereotyping movies based on trailers

Everybody knows the best parts of every movie are put in the trailer, so as a service, this is where we save you the time and money by telling you if a movie is worth it, based solely on that trailer.

The Plot:

While escaping from stone-faced super model vampires, a grumpy, dark haired girl with an edgy haircut and a guitar meets a band manager who looks like Zartan from GI Joe (the cartoon). They meet flat chested grumpy sex kitten singer. Form band. More girls join. Lots of yelling and practice. Two founding grumps make out. Band gets huge. It’s not easy being so damn successful, agh! Dakota Fanning does drugs. The End.

The cast:

Joan Jett played by Kristen Stewart, who has been type cast beyond repair as the pale, vampire loving brood that it’s hard to even remember she was okay in movies like Into the Wild.

Cherie Currie played by Dakota Fanning, who used to be cute in movies like I am Sam, then went through her awkward pre-pubescent acting stage just being pretentious and annoying, (remember how much you hated the Beaver, Jonathan Bower from Who’s the Boss, Wesley from Mr. Belvedere and that annoying dirty kid from Rosanne during this same stage?) and is now entering her adult stage as a pedophile’s dream come true. Exhibit A

Band Manager Kim Fowley played by Michael Shannon, who was awesome as a crazy guy in Revolutionary Road, but probably isn’t here.

The rest of the cast: Because let’s be honest, at this point I don’t think it even matters who they are. This movie is solely riding off the success of Stewart and Fanning in their Twilight roles that anything they do here that doesn’t involve biting is going to have the twi-hards screaming about how great and diverse they both are.

The reception:

The movie will be way worse than the Doors and Control, but slightly better than Rock Star. It will make me about as depressed as when I watched Gus Van Sant’s Kurt Cobain movie, Last Days, but unlike Last Days, this will not be on purpose. It will be because of Stewart’s terrible acting.

Reviews will come in saying Kristen Stewart is wooden, lethargic and unconvincing as Joan Jett, and she will then go home, cry, and dry her tears on million dollar bills because Twilight part III: Twi harder is coming out soon afterwards.

Dakota Fanning’s career may actually flourish, because in all honesty, she has proven herself to be a decent child actor. Ya, she’s unbelievably annoying, and it’s way more fun insulting her than it is praising her, but playing a drug abusing bisexual rocker might just be what it takes to make her tolerable.

Joan Jett’s solo album will go adamantium because it’s being closely peddled with all the marketing for this movie. A new generation of little girls with their parents money will buy anything she does and claim that she is their new role model, only after Belle from Twilight, of course, and Hanna Montana, both fictional creations. So I guess that would make her the number one real person role model, but third overall, which still counts for something.

Oh ya, Mountain dew sales will soar because of this, and their marketing will totally change. Who needs extreme athletes when you’ve brainwashed the most powerful consumer demographic in the world into thinking it makes you look cool?

Who will be in the theatre watching this:

If for some reason you just can’t wait for this movie to go straight to DVD, then this is who you will run into at the theatre.

Pedophiles, obviously. Watching Dakota Fanning act sexy and become a druggy is the equivalent to watching the Little Rascals in a gang bang, or seeing little orphan Annie resort to giving hand jobs in back alleys for crack while Hayley Joel Osmond circa “I see dead people” and Bambi look on all big eyed and glossy in disbelief. Who else wouldn’t be creeped out by Fanning dancing around in her panties? I mean, there is a reason that the Olsen twins dress like Bedouins. Because no one wants to see little Ashley from Full House with cleavage and a lower back tattoo.

Twilight fans. They probably think this is some sort of hidden prequel to the anthology they so desperately love. In fact, I can bet that 80 per cent of them already own Cherie Currie’s 1989 autobiography Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story, which this is apparently based on, and don’t understand a word of it, yet alone know what heroin even is.

As a general rule I stay as far away from these people as possible. I went t to the mall once accidentally on the night before one of the Twilight books came out, and swore I would check every time thereafter if another one was coming out just to avoid that again. The crowd outside of Chapters waiting to get their midnight copies was like some S&M loving Girl Guides troop, except way more giddy and likely to start swinging at anybody who even got close to their spot in line. I can guarantee they will give a standing ovation at the end of this movie, even though, you know, nobody is there to actually receive it.

Hard core music snobs. These people will go just so they can make the arguments that, for one, the book is way better; second, that the movie took way to many liberties and neither Joan Jett or Cherrie Currie would do/say/eat that; and thirdly, just to come down on the fact that this can’t even remotely be called a biography because the bassist is named Robin, not Jackie Fox, and if they couldn’t do this seminal band justice then they should have just left it alone all together. These people will get themselves in such a fit because a milestone in girl music groups has been soiled and will likely lose sleep for days, staying up all hours of the night blogging and tweeting every  little error they can find on You Tube clips (Ahem, Hurt Locker haters, get a life).

Me. I don’t know. I am kind of curious though. Although I’m starting to think I can wait until next month to just buy it in the bargain bin at Blockbuster.

Tags: cherrie currie, cherry bomb, dakota fanning, joan jett, Kristen Stewart, movie review, runaway trailer, the runaways