Get Your Geek On

Now that you're ready to come over to the dark side, check out Edgeplay:AFilmabouttheRunaways,a long-overdue documentary feature about the, er, seminal all-girl 1970s rock band. When the group hit the scene in '75, nobody had seen or heard anything quite like them: loud, angry, proudly skanky teenage chicks who could rock as hard as any fella. The press dubbed them "jailbait rock," and they enjoyed an all-too-brief spell as media darlings before they noisily imploded. Of the band's members, Lita Ford spent a few years belting out memorably awful heavy metal before fading into obscurity in the late '80s, Joan Jett would carry on rocking into the new millennium, while bassist Victory Tischler-Blue would go on to direct this uncompromising look back at the band that blazed the trails later trod by the likes of L7, Hole and the Donnas. The Runaways crowned themselves the Queens of Noise; you'll agree if you know what's good for you because these old broads could probably stillkick your butt.

There are still roughly a bajillion other movies screening at the fest, so dig into the following pages and start planning your week. Come on, if you've read this far, it's not like you had any hot dates planned or anything.

SEE THE2005 FESTIVAL SCHEDULE," OR VISIT WWW.NEWPORTBEACHFILMFEST.COM