Bad Reputation (2018) Reviews

• A Testement To A Rock n Roll Pioneer

  mdroel202018-09-27

  Joan Jett was a trailblazer for women and outsiders in rock n roll and Bad Reputation does a decent job condensing this into a 90 minute raw and intense dive into the highest highs and lowest lows of Joan Jett's illustrious career. While the storytelling is a bit disjointed, it is absolutely a worthwhile watch. I would recommend to any music aficionado.

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• This One's Perfect.

  therese_callahan20022018-10-01

  I was able to see this one last night, and I was just as impressed as I was with "The Runaways" eight years ago. I've actually been a fan of Ms. Jett since her tenure with The Runaways, and still think she's the greatest. This documentary is worth seeing, and just may get Golden Globe and Oscar nominations.

• Great subject, horrible filmmaking. You made Joan Jett boring.

  GormanBechard2019-01-03

  This is a perfect example of a great subject ruined by someone who just has no clue how to tell a compelling story. Watch this film and you will know no more about Joan Jett than you did before you watched it. There are times you will be screaming at your monitor: "what does this have to do with Joan Jett?" Tangents, tangents, and more useless tangents. And really, what the hell was Billie Joe Armstrong doing in this film? It was another example of a filmmaker thinking big name interviewees would add to the story. You would have thought filmmakers would have learned by now. The person we want to hear from is the subject. The person we want to hear from is Joan Jett. No one gives a damn what the singer from Green Day thinks of her. The film made me angry. And the filmmaker really should have watched the brilliant documentary, The Punk Singer, about one of his interviewees Kathleen Hanna, to see how a rock doc should be made. So bad, so bad, so freakin' bad. Please don't ever make another film, Kevin Kerslake. You made Joan Jett boring.

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• Fantastic Doc!!

  dcoydcoy2019-02-26

  I've loved women in rock since I can remember. My friend Kelly's band opened for Joan in their first club tour of the west coast in early '82 when her first solo album hit the stores. Only 200 ppl in the club and she literally tore the roof off the place. Since then I've watched all those she's paved the road for. Rockers like Hynde and Kathleen Hanna. What I don't get about this doc, is the input of Miley! A talking-singing horse of no real substance or value. Yes she praised Joan, but Joan should've let her be. Amongst her own horse element.

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• We still don't know much about her

  oldchummer2019-03-15

  I was expecting this to be rather in-depth look at Joan Jett as opposed to more of a reaction to her from other people. It tends to be a quite redundant documentary, with Joan's peers and fans (often other big name musicians such as Billie Joe Armstrong, Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry, etc.) talking about how she was groundbreaking just for being a female rocker basically. So here's the thing, I'm sure there were actual sexist people who really didn't like what she was doing, my issue with this tends to be I think this tends to be a bit exagerrated at times. For example, they go on about how she talked about sex in her music and how this was taboo or socially unacceptable just because of her gender, by comparing it to Mick Jagger being sexually suggestive. I'm sorry, but yes there was blowback to male musicians being overtly sexual, especially in the south, hell parent groups (often headed by mothers) largely tried banning Male centric hard rock and metal music for being graphic, violent and (you guessed it) sexually suggestive. Seriously look up the PMRC. I get the feeling that a lot of the disgust and criticism directed towards Joan comes with the territory as opposed to it be a gender bias. Guys with long hair were often picked on or subjected to homophobic slurs sometimes. Its more often a diatribe about this kind of stuff for large portions of the documentary as opposed to her musical process or anything much to do with her personal relationship with any of her bandmates. It even glosses this over with the Runaways. It doesn't particularly give much more insight into who she is than what we already know about her.

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