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"  &amp;quot;Girls got balls,&amp;quot; Joan Jett cheerfully admits to saying back in the day. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re just a little higher up.&amp;quot; Jett should know. In 1975, she was 16 when she and a 15-year-old baby-faced blond named Cherie Currie fronted the first all-girl hard-rock band, the Runaways. That&amp;#039;s also the title of a new hot-buzz movie written and directed by music-video artist Floria Sigismondi, who&amp;#039;s worked with David Bowie, Bj\u00F6rk, the White Stripes, and others. Based on Currie&amp;#039;s memoir, Neon Angel, and executive produced by Jett, The Runaways isn&amp;#039;t perfect, fragmenting toward the end when the band does. But until then it&amp;#039;s rock &amp;#039;n&amp;#039; roll riveting, with a tough, tightly focused Kristen Stewart and a taunting jailbait Dakota Fanning nailing their vocals as Jett and Currie, and an electrifying Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) as the manic, foul-mouthed Kim Fowley, who put the band together and ruled it with a barely metaphorical whip.  Sigismondi, who could pass for Jett&amp;#039;s sister, knew such Runaways hits as Currie&amp;#039;s fierce anthem &amp;quot;Cherry Bomb&amp;quot; and the aptly named &amp;quot;Queens of Noise&amp;quot; from working at a Toronto club while she attended art school. &amp;quot;What drew me to the project is how young they were,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I was confident with the story because I know the music world and what it feels like to go through it as a woman.&amp;quot; The Runaways were pioneers. Way before Madonna, Currie decided to perform in a sexy corset and fishnets while howling unprintable lyrics like a banshee on speed. But as Edgeplay, the gritty 2004 documentary made by a former band member, reveals, the Runaways were relentlessly humiliated by their male managers, on the road and off. The wonder isn&amp;#039;t that they lasted only four years but that they survived at all. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t know how good we were until I saw some videos 10 years ago,&amp;quot; Currie says. &amp;quot;Before that it was too painful for me.&amp;quot; Currie took a shot at acting (starring opposite Jodie Foster in Adrian Lyne&amp;#039;s 1980 Foxes), then hit rehab, became a counselor of drug-addicted kids, and is now a wood sculptor. Jett found lasting stardom with the Blackhearts and still tours and produces new talent on her label. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m happy for Joan,&amp;quot; Currie says. &amp;quot;That she made it meant that it wasn&amp;#039;t a pipe dream.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/reviews/a11004/rock-of-ages-the-runaways-438241/>