Joan Jett doc 'Bad Reputation' screening at Nitehawk ahead of theatrical release

Joan Jett documentary Bad Reputation premiered at Sundance earlier this year, and it’s set to hit theaters, on-demand, iTunes, and Amazon on September 28. Two days before that, it’s playing at Brooklyn’s Nitehawk (9/26) for one night only, as part of the theater’s BrooklynVegan-presented Music Driven series. The screening starts at 7:15 PM and includes exclusive, post-credits footage that can only be seen in theaters. Tickets are on sale now.

Here’s more on the film, from an interview with Variety that Joan did earlier this year:

It’s oddly hard for Jett to be the center of attention offstage. “I find it very difficult to say, ‘Oh yeah, people are taking notice of me now!’” she says, having been coaxed to say just such a thing. “It just sounds weird and not humble. I find it hard to toot my own horn too loud, unless it’s in conjunction with something else, like the Runaways, or saying ‘the Blackhearts.’ But I can’t talk about me like that.”

So, leave it to her documenters. Kevin Kerslake has been one of the biggest video-directing names ever since he helmed three Nirvana clips in the early ’90s. He signed on at the end of 2016. “That’s not a lot of time to make a doc, especially one that has that kind of historical scope,” Kerslake says. “But we just put the foot to the floor.” He’s an unabashedly admiring chronicler: “I’m a huge punk-rock nut, and her roots tug on that sensibility. I also wanted to get at her stepping outside of the music world and having an impact on social justice and animal rights.” But at the core of it, he, like everyone, was taken by “the arc of a young girl, and then a young woman, cutting a path in a man’s world throughout her entire career, as a sort of feminist manifesto in the flesh.”

[…] Interviewees in the doc include onetime co-star Fox, Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop and Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong. Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! speaks to Jett being one of the first to call and offer support when she came out as transgender. Miley Cyrus talks about finding inspiration in musical lust: “I think there’s this thing that women are supposed to act like we don’t like to f**k too.” Kathleen Hanna touches on Jett’s personal mentorship of members of the riot grrrl generation. Stewart recalls the instruction she got from Jett about how to look more convincing as a rock guitarist: “Pussy to the wood, Kristen!” (“You had to be there” is all Jett will say of this particular inclusion.) And on the other end of the spectrum, there’s a worshipful cameo from unlikely mega-fan U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley.

You can watch the recently-released trailer, which features clips of the Iggy Pop, Billie Joe Armstrong and Kathleen Hanna interviews, below.

Meanwhile, Joan Jett is touring, including two NJ shows this October. You can find all of her dates here.