Monday at Sundance

Monday I went to two movies.

The first was My Peristroika. It's a documentary about the last generation to grow up in the Soviet Union. They talk about what life was like in the 80s compared to the 90s and today. They say the kids today in Russia can't even imagine what it was like to live behind the iron curtain. It's interesting to hear them talk about what they thought about America in the 80s. They wrote letters to Ronald Reagan, telling him that he should end the cold war, they lived in constant fear of the USA nuking them, and they thought if there was no America, there would be world peace.

It's a very interesting subject but the movie got boring really fast. It would have been nice if the movie taught us a bit more about Russian history objectively. You need to already be familiar with Russian history from the 60s until now to really understand everything in this movie.

The second movie was The Runaways. This is the one everyone is talking about, either because they are big fans of Joan Jett and the Runaways, or because of that rumored lesbian sex scene between Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.

I liked the first part of the movie. It shows how The Runaways came together as a band and quickly became a huge sensation in Japan. It goes through the typical rock star stuff - drug abuse, fighting within the band, band members walking out in the middle of a recording session, that kind of stuff. But I wish the movie focused more on Joan Jett and less on Cherie Currie. We see a lot of Currie's sister, who is jealous of her sister's fame, and her alcoholic father.

For me the second half should have been about how Joan Jett formed her next band, The Blackhearts, recorded I Love Rock and Roll, and achieved fame for herself. But instead this is covered in about two minutes at the end of the movie. It felt to me like the movie had no ending, like they just kind of said "That's enough story. Let's just end the movie here." It really felt anti-climactic.