Johanna Went Movies

In 1979, The Runaways were scheduled to star in a low-budget comedy about an all-female rock band called "We're All Crazy Now." The group broke up before shooting began, but guitarist and singer Joan Jett agreed to star in the film, with three actresses standing in for her departed bandmates. The plug was pulled on the project halfway through shooting, but in 1984, after Jett had become a major star as a solo act, producers were looking for a way to make use of the footage from the uncompleted film. Alan Sacks, who was a producer and writer for the television shows Welcome Back, Kotter and Chico and the Man, took on the project, and the result was this one-of-a-kind cinematic crazy-quilt. Dubeat-E-O (Ray Sharkey) is a perpetually wired film director who is working on a movie about Joan Jett. However, he's borrowed money from a notorious gangster to finance the project, and now his "investor" has announced Dubeat-E-O must have the final cut of the movie finished in thirty-one hours - or else. Dubeat-E-O holes up in his shabby studio with his editor, Benny (Derf Scratch), and Sharon (Nora Gaye), a woman who happened along by mistake, and we're treated to a mind-bending collage of Dubeat-E-O's rants, still photos, footage of Jett and the fake Runaways (among them Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith), performances by The Mentors and Joanna Went, random images of sex and violence, and much, much more. Meanwhile, Sachs and a group of friends (including El Duce of The Mentors) offer a running commentary on the film in progress. Tex and the Horseheads and Social Distortion are also featured prominently on the soundtrack; Jett would make her proper acting debut in 1987, in the drama Light Of Day. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Richard Glatzer's bittersweet comedy concerns the production of a sleazy tabloid television program called "The Love Judge" and the problems that arise when the Divine-esque producer Jo (Kent Fuher) announces that he/she is leaving to become a Hungarian housewife. Mark (Craig Chester), the head writer who is mourning the loss of his lover to AIDS, spends the time he has not mourning worrying about whether he'll get a promotion to producer of the show after his boss leaves. In his way is the smarmy Paula (Lucy Gutteridge), who also is hoping for the promotion. In the meantime, Mark is flirting with male office worker Bill (Alexis Arquette), even though his old college friend Jeremy (Carlton Wilborn) is warning against Mark's flirtation -- for reasons of his own. In the midst of all this, it's no wonder that the office secretary Leslie (Illeana Douglas) has sworn off men altogether. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

A gentle film critic hooks up with a violent drifter in this HIV-positive road movie, which marked the emergence of writer/director Gregg Araki into the art house mainstream. Jon (Craig Gilmore) has just learned he has the virus that causes AIDS. Still in a state of shock, he stumbles through his usual routine -- until he meets Luke (Mike Dytri), a hunky, gun-toting hitchhiker who has just stolen a car from a pair of homicidal lesbians and shot a trio of would-be gay bashers. Against his better judgment, Jon lets Luke stay at his place and soon finds himself drawn into the nihilistic stranger's world; it doesn't hurt that Luke is also HIV-positive and hot to get inside Jon's pants. Things take a Bonnie and Clyde turn when Luke kills a policeman. The pair go on the lam, first to San Francisco, then all over the western United States. Jon keeps his best friend, Darcy (Darcy Marta), apprised of his situation via a series of ever more infrequent collect calls. But as the road trip continues, Jon becomes increasingly disillusioned with Luke's belief that since they're doomed to die, they should lead consequence-free lives. Like Araki's later movies, The Living End is peppered with pop culture detritus and features a soundtrack heavy on industrial and alternative music -- in this case Psychic TV, Coil, and Fred Gianelli. Marta is a veteran of Araki's earlier Three Bewildered People in the Night, while several other cast members, including Gilmore, would go on to appear in the director's Totally F***ed Up. The Living End's many cameos include performance artist Johanna Went, Eating Raoul director Paul Bartel, Warhol associate Mary Woronov, and Peter Grame, star of the obscure European film Das Gluck Beim Haendewaschen. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi