F-Word Friday: Fabled

So here's the thing about biopics...

They're usually fluff pieces, or on the other end of the spectrum, total hatchet jobs. There's a reason they say "based on a true story".

Granted, sometimes they get close to the truth (The Basketball Diaries comes to mind), but most of the time everything has been prettied up and glossed over and in some cases, like A Beautiful Mind and The Great Debators, the endings themselves are altered in order to make a point or give a good, round ending to the show.

There's no real harm in that, of course, it's just a movie, but it does tend to create these myths about the famous people involved, justified or otherwise. Granted, in this modern age, we can look up the facts, but most people don't do so - they just take what they're shown and told and accept it as fact.

(I am resisting the urge to go off on a political rant on that subject. You're welcome!)

You'll understand, given these facts of movie-making magic, that I'm a little cautious about wanting to see The Runaways.

See, I love Joan Jett. She is such a badass, and doesn't care what anyone thinks of her, and can scream louder and with more passion than 10 big-haired glam-rockers guitarists vying for a backup spot on a Poison reunion tour put together and covered in fire ants. Plus, she's political and paying attention - if there is a better antithesis to the bad example of Miley Cyrus, Lindsay Lohan et al as role models for my kid, I can't think of one.

I was also always fascinated by Cherie Currie, who was 15 when she joined The Runaways. (Cherry Bomb was written for her at the audition.) Can you imagine the life she's led? Incidentally that is *not* an example I'd like to make for my kid, except that it kind of is... she's lived exactly as she pleased.

She's a chainsaw artist these days. No I'm not kidding.

This movie aims to help you imagine what it must have been like to be Joan and Cherie and Lita and Sandy and Vicky/Jackie/Mickey/Peggy/Laurie (they went through a lot of bassists), but can they do it?

Who knows? Even if they get close, it won't be quite enough...

How do you Silver Screen the girls who actually came up with the term Riot Girl? Who modeled themselves after people like David Bowie and Leather Tuscadero?

You can't.

But I have a little faith... despite Kristen Stewart's lip-biting, there's the promise of the fabulous Dakota Fanning as Cherie, and I think she can pull it off.

And anyway, if I want realism, I can find it on YouTube. The movies are for fantasy.

Happy Friday, my little cherry bombs!