Casting !t: Just Kids
It was announced yesterday via MediaBistro that rock goddess and National Book Award winning author Patti Smith with be helping adapt her amazing memoir Just Kids (my Favor!te book of 2010) for the screen alongside screenwriter and Tony Award winning playwright John Logan.
If you haven’t heard (I can’t see how you haven’t), Just Kids is Smith’s memoir of arriving in New York in 1967 and the then 20 year old’s chance encounter with Robert Mapplethorpe, another 20 year old aspiring artist. It’s her story of their love, their friendship, their art and a New York few would recognize today.
So the question goes out… who would you cast as Smith and Mapplethorpe?
Kristen Stewart (age: 21) and Robert Pattison (age: 25)
Surely these two will be at the top of studio exec’s wish list. Stewart, proved that she could rock in her transformation into Joan Jett in the film biopic The Runaways and the resemblance between the two [rumored] real-life couple to the originals is uncanny. But the fit and the two megastars’ ties to the mega-Twilight-franchise may not hit audiences (or Ms. Smith) the right way.
Frances Bean Cobain (age: 19) and Ezra Miller (age: 18)
The Princess of Grunge as the Godmother of Punk? Can Miss Cobain act? Who knows? But if she can – and would want to step up into the Hollywood world, the photos by Hedi Slimane that recently were released prove she has the look – and the balls – to play Smith. I’d cast the currently almost famous Ezra Miller as Mapplethorpe against Cobain’s Smith. He has the East Village circa 1967 thing down already – and if his performance in the upcoming We Need to Talk About Kevin is as amazing as is being predicted, this could be the massive follow-up he will be looking for.
Emma Watson (age: 21) and Nicholas Hout (age: 21)
Former Harry Potter student Emma Watson seems poised for an image-crashing turn in to catapult her out of Hogwarts. I’d pair her with fellow Brit Nicholas Hout, who came to fame years ago in About a Boy and crashed his own child-star image in the amazing British take on Gossip Girl (but dirtier and better) Skins. His follow-up to that, playing the lovelorn college boy pining for a night with professor Colin Firth in Tom Ford’s A Single Man.
Jennifer Damiano (age: 20) and Eddie Redmayne (age: 29)
Perhaps the modern day Smith and Mapplethorpe might be found forty blocks north of The Village and on Broadway. Jennifer Damiano got amazing attention for her originating role in Spring Awakening. Followed by her Tony-nominated role in Next to Normal. Currently she’s starring in Spider Man. So she should be looking for a new job soon. The Mapplethorpe to Damiano’s Smith? Eddie Redmayne, the Tony award-winning star of Red and the upcoming film My Week with Marilyn.
So who do you think should be cast as Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe in Just Kids?
Guitar Hero’s Last Gig
I have always enjoyed killing Nazis, eviscerating zombies, and scoring touchdowns on my PlayStation. It was all about the shooters and sports games… Until Guitar Hero landed. Honestly I wasn’t sure what to make of it. My six-string playing friends scoffed, and were completely frustrated when they tried it because, of course, it’s not like playing a real guitar. But cracking open the box of the first version of the game, and pulling out that plastic Gibson SG over my shoulder felt cool, felt like, man, now I can deliver the rock. And strumming along to the opening chords of “Iron Man” or “Smoke on the Water” gave me chills. For someone who was at the absolute zero of music ability, this was transporting.
Then I started playing and realized how much I sucked. The weakest part of my game was my pinky, the cause of my downfall many a time, particularly on the more intense fretting. The primary colors were tough enough—green, red, yellow, blue—without having to deal with that freaky orange. Still, battling through Joan Jett’s I Love Rock N Roll, Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out, Motorhead’s Ace of Spades and Ozzy’s Bark at the Moon not only allowed me to ride the subway with a bit of swagger, but also gave me a deeper appreciation for the inner workings of a song. Not to mention the power and nuance of the whammy bar.
I know there were a bunch of versions and variations, with Legends of Rock and Aerosmith and Metallica and all that. But there’s nothing like the first time, the very first time. (I think that’s from a Foreigner song. Were they ever in Guitar Hero?) It was something completely different—feeling a sense of accomplishment after achieving a new level not because, say, you wiped out slews of demon spawn, but because you had mastered a song. Even at the crudest level, that’s satisfaction of a different order.
So, goodbye Guitar Hero. Thanks for transforming our living rooms into Madison Square Gardens, and for making those of us who could never be a rock star, feel like one.
Green Day loves rock’n'roll (and Joan Jett)
As our frequent readers have seen before (here and here and here), Your It List is a big fan of Green Day. And as you’ve seen before we also love The Runaways, Joan Jett (and of course Cherie Currie!). Oh, we also love Europe.
So it was just a matter of time before this trifecta of love came together.
It was just recently announced that Joan Jett and the Blackhearts will be joining Green Day on their European tour this summer. The thought of Billy Joe singing “I Love Rock’n'Roll,” of Joan singing “Longview,” I’m just hoping Joan decides to stick around for the US leg of the tour. Or at the very least the August 14th show at PNC in Jersey so I can see if for myself.
Joan Jett and The Black Hearts Join Green Day:
- June 2 in Denmark
- June 4 in Oslo
- June 5 in Gothenburg
- June 8 in Helsinki
- June 11 in Munich
- June 12 in Austria
- June 16 in Manchester
- June 19 in London
- June 21 in Glasgow
- June 23 in Dublin with Paramore
Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway
The Runaways, one of our most highly anticipated movies will finally debut in theaters on March 19th. We’ve been waiting a very long time to see seems to be two great actresses bringing to life two amazing performers: Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie.
Buy the book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book-A-Million, Borders or an Independent Bookseller.
Click here to read a preview of the first two chapters.
About Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway by Cherie Currie
Cherie Currie, with her signature Bowie haircut and fishnet stockings, was the groundbreaking lead singer of ’70s teenage all-girl rock band the Runaways. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined a group of talented girls—Joan Jett and Lita Ford on guitar, Jackie Fox on bass, and Sandy West on drums—who could play rock like no one else.
Arriving on the Los Angeles music scene in 1975, they catapulted from playing small clubs to selling out major stadiums, headlining shows with opening acts like the Ramones, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, and Blondie. Currie lit up the stage with the provocative teen-rebellion songs “Cherry Bomb,” “Queens of Noise,” and “Born to Be Bad,” riding a wave of hit songs and platinum albums, all while touring around the world.
On the face of it, Currie’s is a riveting story of girl empowerment and fame. But it is also an intensely personal account of her struggles with drugs, sexual abuse, and violence. She and her bandmates, runaways all, were thrown into a decadent, high-pressure music scene where on the road, unsupervised for months at a time, they had to grow up fast and experience things that no teenage girls should. Neon Angel exposes the side of the music industry fans never get to see, and chronicles the group’s rise to fame and their ultimate demise.
Shocking and inspiring, funny and touching, Neon Angel stunningly re-creates a bygone era of rock and roll, all the while providing an inside look at growing up hard under the relentless glare of the public eye, and chronicling one tough woman’s fight to reclaim her life.
About The Runaways
The Runaways is based on lead-singer Cherie Currie’s book ‘Neon Angel’ – a reflection of her experiences as a rock star, but also delivering a strong anti-drug warning to teens and others. David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” serves as a metaphor for the narrative– a slow countdown, a surreal but spectacular rise to fame, then alienation and burnout – a long long way from home.
The movie chronicles THE RUNAWAYS from 1975 – 1977; formed by teenage girls living near Hollywood, CA., and heavily manipulated by their manager Kim Fowley as ‘jailbait rock’ (all the girls were 16 or younger when the band recorded their first album). The band ultimately succeeds on their own merits as musicians, becoming the first all-girl rock-band to ever break into the world of arena-filling hard rock acts.
The movie focuses on the band’s formation, and their meteoric rise to fame. Their first single, ‘Cherry Bomb’, gets some attention in the United States, where THE RUNAWAYS’ U.S. tour hits major venues (Cobo Hall, with RUSH) and sleazy rock-clubs, often pairing them up with The Ramones, Cheap Trick, Tom Petty, and other popular 1970′s rock acts. But ‘Cherry Bomb’ and several other songs from THE RUNAWAYS’ first 2 albums become huge hits in Japan — and their arrival for a set of shows there in 1977 is like Beatle-Mania. The band is overwhelmed by the Japanese reception. Almost prophetic, THE RUNAWAYS’ last big hit song in Japan is ‘Neon Angels On The Road To Ruin’.
Cherie is initially thrilled to be in the band, and lives the rock star life. She pushes the edge — and their records sell well, generating lots of media controversy and hype. But during the tour of Japan, her personal life disintegrates, and she burns out — ultimately leaving The Runaways when they return to the U.S. The bass player (Jackie Fox) quits too, leaving only Lita Ford, Joan Jett and Sandy West. Joan Jett has decided that rock & roll is her life, and that The Runaways is her ‘family’; she is upset by Cherie’s decision to leave, but knows that decision is best — for Cherie.
THE RUNAWAYS’ success was earth-shaking in rock music — changing the rules forever. But with the successful 5-girl lineup no longer intact after the Japan tour, their future was dubious, at best. Lita Ford (guitar) and Sandy West (drums) still think the band can make it big again, so they persevere with Joan Jett.
