BAD REPUTATION: Joan Jett's Journey

BAD REPUTATION (Blu-ray)

2018 / 93 min

From Magnolia Pictures

Available at www.MovieZyng.com

Review by Mr. Bonnie, the Headbanger😺

There was the Joan Jett before “I Love Rock & Roll” and the Joan Jett after. 

Some of us remember back in 1982 when she and that song were suddenly everywhere, blasting from car speakers and popping up on MTV about 500 times a day. At the time, she seemed not-only new, but far different than your typical female pop star. Jett was punky, wore leather, half-sang-half-shouted and totally rocked a guitar. As a teenage headbanger, yours truly found that kinda hot.

What we didn’t know was this wasn’t exactly Jett’s first rodeo. She’d previously been a founding member of The Runaways, an all-girl rock band who never amounted to much but are now regarded as influential and groundbreaking. The Joan Jett biography, Bad Reputation, begins by documenting those pre-stardom years, particularly the struggles and obstacles she faced in an effort to be taken seriously. If all you know of Jett are the glory years, these segments are somewhat revelatory.

The film segues into Jett’s most successful era, the 1980s, beginning with “I Love Rock & Roll” and her career-long working relationship with manager-producer Kenny Laguna. Ironically, these years are chronicled, but not in a lot of depth (maybe because its assumed to be common knowledge). These segments also tend to reveal Bad Reputation’s one major drawback…we learn a lot of Jett’s career highs and achievements, but comparatively little about her personally.

In a moment of epiphany, Joan Jett suddenly realizes she doesn't particularly love rock & roll.

The remainder focuses of Jett, the mentor, legend and activist…essentially a victory lap of a long, influential career, which more-or-less culminates in her induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. As presented, Jett is a woman who has more-than-earned the respect and admiration of fans and peers. Speaking of which, in addition to Jett herself, the film features dozens of interviews with people who’ve known, worked with or have been influenced by her, including Iggy Pop, Pete Townsend, Debbie Harry, Billy Joe Armstrong, Adam Horovitz, Kathleen Hanna, co-Runaway Cherie Currie, Michael J. Fox and Miley Cyrus. 

Bad Reputation also features plenty of performance footage spanning over 40 years, from the club days to arena shows to philanthropic events raising awareness of issues important to her. Overall, it’s an entertaining chronicle of a remarkable career, though viewers still might be left wondering what truly makes Joan Jett tick.

EXTRA KIBBLES

THEATER PERFORMANCE - “Bad Reputation” and “Fresh Start.”

SOUND CHECK - “Bad Reputation” and “Fresh Start.”

BACKSTAGE - At the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Ceremony.

SEVERAL MUSIC VIDEOS

OMNI LOOP Defies Expectations

OMNI LOOP (Blu-ray)

2024 / 110 min

From Magnolia Pictures

Available at www.MovieZyng.com

Review by Stinky the Destroyer😽

Omni Loop turns out not to be the movie its premise suggests. Depending on your expectations, that’ll be either a pleasant surprise or a depressing disappointment.

On one hand, it’s an oddball science-fiction film in which its main character, quantum physics author Zoya Lowe (Mary-Louise Parker), is diagnosed with a black hole growing in her chest. No explanation is offered, though it’s suggested that this phenomenon occurs from time to time like a rare form of cancer. She’s given a week to live before the black hole completely consumes her, during which time her loving family plans to make her as comfortable and happy as possible.

However, Zoya is stuck in a time loop - triggered by mysterious prescription pills she found as a 12 year old - so she keeps reliving that same final week over and over. Feeling personally and professionally incomplete, Zoya is determined to figure out how these pills work to order to alter her past, eventually enlisting the help of a young researcher, Paula (Ayo Edebiri), with access to a college campus lab…as well as a “nanoscopic man,” who’s kept in a box and continually shrinking.

On the other hand, Omni Loop is a somber character study of Zoya herself. With every time jump, it’s revealed that her life has not turned out how she (and others) once expected. Through flashbacks and encounters with people who impacted her life, such as Professor Duselberg (Harris Yulin), her invalid mother and ex-colleague/old flame Mark, she views her past as a series of missed opportunities and failing to achieve her potential. Consumed by revisiting (and maybe fixing) her past, Zoya neglects the present, namely husband Donald (Carlos Jacott) and daughter Jayne (Hannah Pearl Utt).

Paula adds Zoya to her shit list.

Both aspects of the film are pretty well conceived. The effects of “time looping” are intriguing, each jump providing an essential piece of the narrative (including a sobering revelation about Paula’s motives for helping Zoya). The logistics behind the science are intentionally murky, and one of the film’s strengths is that we simply accept the concepts of personal black holes and microscopic men without further scrutiny. But it also reflects what the film is really about…Zoya’s personal journey and her epiphanies along the way.

These themes eventually dominate the film, and while affecting, they cause a big shift in the overall tone. Not that Omni Loop was ever a barrel of laughs to begin with, but it grows more dispiriting (if not meandering) as the story progresses, the sci-fi elements taking a backseat to a gloomy sense of inevitability, to the point where the audience is likely to know the outcome before it actually plays out.

Still, Omni Loop is a thought provoking experience, even if some viewers may not necessarily appreciate the thoughts it provokes. A small film with weighty themes, what it lacks in mind-bending thrills is compensated by a relatable protagonist and a haunting denouement. But viewers expecting another low budget brain scrambler like Primer or Coherence should take a pass.