Times Square

Nail your TV to the floor and lock up your daughters: the message here - run away from home, live in a derelict warehouse, and you too can become a cult heroine - is an appealingly romantic one, and there's a fair sprinkling of magic dust to help the fairytale along. Streetwise Nicky (Johnson), elder of two runaways, metamorphoses from scruffy, disturbed urchin to punk-chic Jagger clone, venting her anger as lead singer of the Blondells. Sheltered Pamela (Alvarado), rich and introverted, breaks out and forces an overbearing parent to see her as she is, not as he wants her to be. It's a world where a black plastic bag is a fashion garment, where a TV-smashing campaign is a serious social statement, where teenage runaways in New York do not fall prey to pushers and pimps, where a jaded disc jockey (Curry) promotes their cause. Socially irresponsible and refreshingly optimistic: a Wizard of Oz for the '80s.