‘BRATS’ | Official Trailer | June 13 on Hulu

Well, what did you think?

I just realized it existed and am just staring it.

It’s fairly weird that McCarthy is still so anguished over the “Brat Pack” thing.

I could understand wanting to reminisce with some old colleagues, but he’s still ANGUISHED.

Emilio was so hot.

It's odd with the "making of" angle. Like we need to see McCarthy call people to set up the interviews. Of course they were probably already arranged and the phone calls are just performative - which makes them even more stupid. Emlio looks good older and beefier.

McCarthy's speech pattern is SO distinct.

"It’s fairly weird that McCarthy is still so anguished over the “Brat Pack” thing."

I'm only 30 minutes in, and I really thought it was just going to be a look back on the actors and movies that came out of the Brat Pack era and how it was so big in youth culture and then engage in some fun "where are they now" segments with the actors.

But, McCarthy is basically doing a verbal thesis on the implications of the label "Brat Pack" and how it affected their careers and apparently mental health. More "academic" and philosophical than I would have thought. It's more stressful than fun, as McCarthy seems to be aiming for some sort of reckoning.

It's weird that they try to act like they weren't friends in real life. Maybe not all of them were, but Emilio and Demi were engaged and there are lots of photos of them hanging out with Rob Lowe and then girlfriend Melissa Gilbert. Ally Sheedy has previously talked about going to Demi's birthday when Bruce Willis rented out an entire theme park for her. Even in the documentary, Rob and Andrew reminisce about a night hanging out with Sammy Davis Jr. and Liza Minelli.

Weirder is that Anthony Michael Hall never gets mentioned even once in the movie.

McCarthy interviews Malcolm Gladwell to get his perspective on the "Brat Pack" moniker and Gladwell juxtaposes it with "Rat Pack" and suggests that "Brat Pack" is meant to be funny. McCarty: "We didn't think it was funny."

I don’t think any of these people were as cool as they thought they were. Aside from the John Hughes films, none of the movies were very good. It was more like these people were shoved down our throats.

Ally Sheedy, lovely as ever.

Was the article really that bad? I hope he tracks down the writer.

Would be great if Elisabeth Shue made an appearance.

Barest of mentions of Anthony Michael Hall, James Spader, and RDJ.

Primary focus on the movies “St. Elmo’s Fire” and “Pretty in Pink.”

Almost no mention of “Less Than Zero,” which McCarthy is also in, is a pretty well-done movie, and is very meta-Brat.

[quote]Weirder is that Anthony Michael Hall never gets mentioned even once in the movie.

R8, he's younger than the rest - he was the only real high schooler in the Breakfast Club, the rest of the cast were in their 20s. I didn't know he was part of the Brat Pack.

[quote]It was more like these people were shoved down our throats.

I didn't watch any of their 80s movies until I was a teenager in the 90s, but I remember they were still hyped up at Brat Packers anytime they did something new.

I haven't watched this yet, like R2, I didn't know this existed - I just turned on the TV, launched Hulu, and there it was on the home screen.

Molly Ringwald did not participate so...why bother?

R15 Ugh she's the one I care less about. I wanted Judd Nelson though.

Ally Sheedy looks great. Emilio is such an identical copy of his dad now it's almost creepy.

Spader was always too cool to even be in the Brat Pack.

It’s pretty boring

Demi's attitude about how Andrew let this moniker overtake his life was surprisingly wise. And Rob's contention that it is now a great thing as they are clearly part of the zeitgeist 35 years later was spot on. Maybe that's why they've both stayed relevant longer?

Idk why Demi Moore was part of the Brat Pack. The only Brat Packy film she did was SEF if I'm not correct

I grew up on those movies and cast a wider net of who was Brat Pack than most. I completely disagree with McCarthy that the original tongue-in-cheek take on the Rat Pack was harmful, at least in the ways he claims. They *were* kinda spoiled young people at the time, but they really overreacted regarding the moniker. If anything, the fact that it lives on to this day and he is monetizing it with this movie he had made and sold to Netflix proves this. Can't have your cake and eat it, too, Andrew.

Totally agree about Ally Sheedy. She is a treasure.

Unfortunately, it’s not good. Andrew spent the entire movie asking the same question: did being in the Brat Pack ruin your life? He never gets deeper than that.

Too bad. I was looking forward to it.

McCarthy has a very succesfull career as a tv director, he needs to let it go. Others were less lucky.

Amen, R23

The documentary really came alive when he met with Ally. There was a spark and she is a joy, still.

Molly and Judd are the two glaring absences.

We all WANT to see RDJ and Spader, but they weren’t really Brat Pack Central.

McCarthy went on to make a lot of movies / money in the mid-to-late 80s. Not sure what he’s bitching about.

Mannequin, Weekend at Bernie’s, etc

Honestly the Brat Pack to me is a tiny group

Emilio Estevez Judd Nelson Andrew Mcarthy Molly Ringwald Ally Sheedy Rob Lowe Anthony Michael Hall (though he always played nerds and was consideredcuncool like the others)

The others I cant think of being in more than one Brat Packy film. Demi Moore was only in SEF. She's more brat pack adjacent imo. Like RDJ. Neither did John Hughes films either (allthough RDJ almost played Ducky in PiP)

Plus there was a shit ton of famous and popular teen/young adult actors that were never part of the group either. John Cusack, the Coreys, Patrick Dempsey, Sean Penn, why weren't they considered part of the Brat Pack?

R27 to add to that, Michael J Fox, Kiefer Sutherland etc.

I got the feeling that all of them as young actors in a pre- internet pre reality tv pre iPhone world were on a “divide and conquer” situation - I think that they were all paranoid and the Brat Pack thing was a total “mind fuck” for most of them. I don’t think Rob Lowe could care less - I think getting filmed with at underage girl was his low point. Demi Moore married Bruce Willis and didn’t look in the rear view mirror. …. my take is that they were all good young actors who had great chemistry with each other and because of the article they avoided working with each other. That made them over analyze their future projects and it kind of screwed up “the magic.” That is what I got from that exchange between Andrew and Emilio.

Gens Y, Z, Millennials etc only wish they had anything hear the equivalent of the Brat Pack.

Molly Ringwald can move on and distance herself all she wants but she peaked with John Hughes films and will always be remembered for those movies and nothing else.

^ Her Joanna Carson on Fued: Swans was jaw-dropping!

Who was asking for this? Who continues to push these has beens?

The Timothy Hutton segment was weird. He looks terrible.

Glug, glug?

I couldn’t stand these people even when they were popular. ESPECIALLY when they were popular.

Except for McCarthy. So maybe I should watch this.

I’m not really sure why, but I’ve always found Emilio Estevez deeply annoying. He has such a blunt, rude, smarmy demeanor.

[quote]Was the article really that bad? I hope he tracks down the writer.

McCarthy interviews the writer in the documentary. In connection with the release there are some interviews with McCarthy out and in one he admits that now, with distance, the article wasn't as awful as he thought it was all those years ago.

"Almost no mention of “Less Than Zero,” which McCarthy is also in, is a pretty well-done movie, and is very meta-Brat."

I'd argue Less Than Zero holds up the best, even if it is SO 80s and dated.

Important to any discussion of the "Brat Pack" is that there's "core" Brat Pack and also "extended" Brat Pack.

"I grew up on those movies and cast a wider net of who was Brat Pack than most. I completely disagree with McCarthy that the original tongue-in-cheek take on the Rat Pack was harmful, at least in the ways he claims. They *were* kinda spoiled young people at the time, but they really overreacted regarding the moniker. If anything, the fact that it lives on to this day and he is monetizing it with this movie he had made and sold to Netflix proves this. Can't have your cake and eat it, too, Andrew."

I honestly don't think anyone except McCarthy gives a rats ass about "Brat Pack." Moreover, I think McCarthy's issue with the moniker are partially performative. Yes, he might have minor issues with it, but this presentation as if it's hurt a deep part of his soul is total BS.

"^ Her [Molly Ringwald's] Joanna Carson on Fued: Swans was jaw-dropping!"

Seriously? It wasn't bad by any means, but it was a nothing performance. FX hyped it as if she was a central character. It was limited, and while she was fine, it was unremarkable.

The Brat Pack to us, living in that time, included Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall. You can't even exclude them. RDJ was adjacent, as was Sutherland.

Article in New York Times.

Andrew McCarthy was always a lousy actor. Mare Winningham outclassed them all.

I loved Mare Winningham, too.

I thought she did a pretty good job in "The Affair."

"Molly Ringwald can move on and distance herself all she wants but she peaked with John Hughes films and will always be remembered for those movies and nothing else."

If you've ever heard her interviewed, she really doesn't deny that. I don't think it's crazy that she doesn't want to define herself by that (her "Brat Pack" films and status) even if she understands that most people define her by that.

Seems like the doc is built around psycho babble and other shoddy gambits. Some of the guys were very pretty. Any size meat verificatia on them?

Winningham was good in “Georgia,” acting & singing.

Andrew McCarthy always reminds me of Andrew Shue: way out of my league or pack.

I had a dream where I asked McCarthy about his directing style of this film eg why he has a shot of the camera and boom and he said it was to make the shot interesting. I said it was pretentiously post-modern.

It’s a shame Brat adjacents like James Spader, Tom Cruise, Sean Penn and Robert Downey Jr aren’t featured. As a comparison to how their identities weren’t submerged.

[quote] Idk why Demi Moore was part of the Brat Pack. The only Brat Packy film she did was SEF if I'm not correct.

The official Brat Pack is cast members of St. Elmo's Fire and The Breakfast Club who did other movies with cast members from either of those films. Demi also did "About Last Night" with Rob Lowe, and "Wisdom" with Emilio Estevez. Mare Winingham never did another movie with any cast member of either St. Elmo's Fire ore The Breakfast Club, which is why she's the only principal cast member of either movie to not be considered part of the Brat Pack.

The Wikipedia page for the Brat Pack has a breakdown of all the films with overlapping cast members of SEF and BC.

[quote] It’s a shame Brat adjacents like James Spader, Tom Cruise, Sean Penn and Robert Downey Jr aren’t featured. As a comparison to how their identities weren’t submerged.

Considering Judd and Molly didn't even agree to do the film, it would have been a miracle to get any of those guys. I think McCarthy did a good job of addressing the adjacents with Jon Cryer, Lea Thompson, and Timothy Hutton. And I think they all basically said the same thing--they'd *wished* they'd been a part of that group.because they were perceived as the cool kids.

[quote] Gens Y, Z, Millennials etc only wish they had anything hear the equivalent of the Brat Pack.

Millennials had The WB. I'd argue the casts of Dawson's Creek, Buffy, Felicity, etc. were just as big to them as the Brat Pack were to Get X. And they're viewed just as nostalgically now.

We have the Kardashian - Jenners!

R53 Eh I wouldn't count the WB stuff as the same. It was nowhere near as glamorous as the Brat Pack. There were a million teen/early adult dramas then, tv and movies Also the WB feels more late Gen X/ early millenial to me. Or Xennial as some call it. Felicity ended in 2002, Dawson's Creek 2003. The oldest Millenial was 21/22 then. Me and my other Gen X/Xennial siblings, all all in our 20s, watched the hell out of those shows. Most Millenials never got alot of teen/young adult stuff.

Judd Nelson was so unattractive — those huge, flaring nostrils.

Millenials had Skins, The OC, One tree Hill, Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls, that nasty piece of shit called Glee, Gossip Girl. Obviously there is overlap with late Gen X stuff, but these are the more strictly speaking Millenial stuff

Wtf happened to Judd Nelson?

R11 my God, she really is. Just in that quick snippit, I was taken with her.

R52 Timothy Hutton is a strange example. He had/has an Oscar, and his breakout in 1980 was several years before their time. And I don't even see him as adjacent, I don't seem to remember him doing many teen/young adult/comedies/dramas in the mid 80's.

I didn’t get past Ally Sheedy. It seemed like it was basically, “Didn’t it suck to be called part of the Brat Pack?” “Yeah.”

His meeting with Emilio barely lasted 5 minutes. Wasn’t it a profile on Emilio that set the whole Brat Pack thing in motion? It just seemed scattered. At least Ally wanted to talk about her character in The Breakfast Club. But I bailed on it even though I like her.

R60, McCarthy called Tim Hutton the "godfather of the Brat Pack" because, according to the documentary, it was Hutton's sensitive performance in "Ordinary People" that ushered in a wave of youth-oriented movies that dealt sensitively with alienated youths and their trials and tribulations, which supposedly was unprecedented in movie history. After that, Hutton did more precursor films "Taps" and "Falcon and the Snowman," which co-starred more Brat Pack adjacent stars like Sean Penn and Tom Cruise. McCarthy also credits Hutton for taking him under his wings during the filming of an "Amazing Stories" episode.

It definitely has appeal for people who have nostalgia for the 80's, especially if you were in your teens or twenties during that time. He seems neurotic to be upset about the label, which was just a catch phrase from a journalist to sell a magazine that the other media picked up on. Maybe it's because they were young and insecure, and felt judged by the industry and public. But Rob Lowe is right, maybe no one would be talking about those movies now if they had not been celebrated as the "Brat Pack." It's also true what that "expert" said about media being all fractured now. The only recent phenomenon I can think of for young people was "Euphoria," but that is so dark with murder and drug addiction.

I always thought Andrew McCarthy was the cutest Brat Packer. Yes, more bonerific, even, than Rob Lowe.

R62 Still, I just don't see him as a Brat Packer or even adjacent. He was more highbrow than that. Same goes for Sean Penn.

I never understood the appeal of Andrew McCarthy.

Buying two joints from a Rastafarian in Washington Square park and going home to watch The Rockford Files sounds like a nice afternoon.

Sheedy really does look great. There's a lot of sweetness between her and McCarthy. Kevin and Leslie 4evr.

I'm not finished with it yet, but it doesn't really go anywhere. R61 is correct; it's basically "Was it hard being in the Brat Pack?" "YES!" "Really dude?" Still, the nostalgia in the little reunions was fun to see.

R61, they cut to Emilio several times throughout the documentary.

For me, "Brats" started out being interesting because I was curious who Andrew was going to get to agree to appear, but it quickly got old with his whining on and on about how harmful the Brat Pack label was for his career. I thought, "Good God, Andrew! Many people would have killed for your life and career!" I didn't know how fragile and unhappy the poor boy was. Thankfully, Rob Lowe came along to help put things in perspective.

Oh, please R62.

In France they were called Le Bratte Pacque

R67 I still feel Kevin was totally gay in SEF...sorry lol

I have to laugh at how easily he gets people's phone numbers. I need Dyan Cannon's number. Andrew can you hook me up please?

Can we please get to the important topic of Andrew McCarthy's HORRIBLE hair system? It's not even an "system" it's more of a bad toupe. You can really see it in the shot where he is driving in the convertible.

Where are the people of color? And yes they need to change history retroactively. Make Halle Robinson Pete, Rae Dawn Chung or Blair Underwood apart of the beat. Make the narrative work cunts.

They do acknowledge the lack of diversity in those movies. But they also acknowledge that the midwestern suburbs in the 1980s where most of these movies were set were very, very white.

Buck never would have been associated, however tangentially, with a so-called "brat pack."

Hasn't Ally Sheedy had multiple mental health challenges? Or something or other. I seem to remember there was drama. Or maybe it was some recent D list movie roles she has had.

r41, I was mocking the massive masculine jawline she's sporting these days. Do catch up.

Ally Sheedy was sexually assaulted by James Franco when he directed her in a play. He forced her to give him blow jobs.

This is the most indulgent boring bullshit I've seen in a long time. Andrew needs to let it fucking go.

Forced her? Didn't she have a couple decades of show biz experience over him?

He forced her to give him blow jobs.

It was an acting exercise to free her of the Valley Girl lockjaw.

R75 No they weren’t. They were a quarter people of color. A trans woman of color even ran a town in Ohio.

I’m sorry but it sounds like McCarthy is severely mentally ill or this suppose to play like some type of campy parody.

I just read the original article. The "Brat Pack" label may seem cute on its own, but Blum makes Estevez, Nelson, and Lowe sound like vapid idiots who know nothing about acting and only care about partying and getting laid. He also takes a particularly nasty jab at Judd Nelson whom he dubs "the overrated one" and says he isn't believable except as a hoodlum. No wonder they were pissed. He also makes the "brat pack" sound like some kind of formal club you have to be invited into and not just a group of actors of the same age, only a few of whom actually hang out socially. The fact that even almost 40 years later the author is still defending his story makes it clear he's the asshole here.

That article is brutal but not a takedown. The author's reporting what he saw (and they simply let him see -and hear - too much) and that was his job. Plus you can tell he thought St. Elmo's Fire was shit - and it was... How Demi ever got another role after her rocking back and forth amongst the drapes is astounding.

It is the betrayal of Estevez not wanting McCarthy in Young Men With Unlimited Capital that is the root of the angst in this documentary. That moment seemingly did stall McCarthy's confidence which he instead blames on the article, when in fact the article simply pointed out what a douche Emilio was that and confirmed the lack of character and desperation that would lead to this betrayal.

R62 is right about Timothy Hutton.

From author of the original article, David Blum:

[quote]I applied the term to several actors I hadn’t even met or interviewed; I was aware, for example, that the notion of a “pack” first formed on the set of Taps in early 1981, involving that hunks-in-uniform movie’s three leading men: Sean Penn, Tim Hutton, and Tom Cruise. For Hutton, the added pressure of already winning an Academy Award at the age of 19 (as the troubled kid in Ordinary People) made it an especially stressful shoot, and mandated regular goof-off sessions.

[quote]This much had already been documented in “The Angry-Young-Manhood of Timothy Hutton,” a cover story published in May of 1984 in Moviegoer magazine, in which veteran Hollywood journalist Gregg Kilday writes: “Hutton spends much of his free time with other actors and actresses his own age. His friends include Tom Cruise [and] Sean Penn …. the group, says Hutton, offers its members an escape from the constant pressure of their burgeoning careers; by mutual agreement, they avoid talking about their work.” It seemed to me fair game to include Cruise, Penn, and Hutton in my story, along with actors Matt Dillon and Nicolas Cage. Looking back now, I realize I must have deemed the Brat Pack an all-male club — but history has correctly reconfigured the group to include Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, and Molly Ringwald. And some actors have simply decided they were in the Brat Pack, even though they never appeared in my story, hung out at the Hard Rock, behaved brattily or even lived in Los Angeles.

[quote]I figured my cover story — with “Hollywood’s Brat Pack” splashed above a publicity still from St. Elmo’s Fire that fortuitously caught Estevez, Nelson, and Lowe in a bar, grinning and hoisting brewskis — would likely annoy these young stars for a few days… Nothing prepared me for the firestorm of attention that resulted.

[quote]But I didn’t hear from anyone directly and still assumed that whatever problems I might have created would blow over. I learned much later that the Brat Pack’s agents and publicists had immediately ordered their clients to avoid one another at all costs — no more Hard Rock burgers, no more na zdorovye! and especially no more ensemble movies. After a couple of weeks of silence, an exhausted, defeated Emilio finally called me at home. I heard his voice in my answering machine, and quickly picked up, naively hoping he was calling to forgive me. It didn’t go quite that way.

[quote]“What the hell were you thinking?” Emilio asked, plaintively.

[quote]“I don’t know,” I replied, honestly enough. After a long beat of silence, I added, “I’m really sorry.”

[quote]I wasn’t, though. And even after he hung up, I felt certain he’d realize that the phrase would be forgotten. He would have his still-ascending career, and I would have mine. But as all too often happens, the actors’ public responses to my story only served to add fuel to the fire. Lowe and Nelson lashed out at me repeatedly in interviews, “David Blum burned a lot of bridges,” Lowe seethed to the Chicago Sun-Times. “He burned people early in their careers. He took on the wrong people, though. He’s not Hunter Thompson or Tom Wolfe; he’s David Blum living in a cheap flat.” (I did indeed rent a two-bedroom Upper West Side apartment near an express stop for only $1,500.)

[quote]Penn piled on. “All it is, is a condescending load of shit written by some person with a big vibrator up his ass,” the Fast Times at Ridgemont High star said dismissively in an American Film interview. “Sometimes writers, like actors, like anybody, do their work to impress three or four of their cool friends in Soho.” (For the record, I only had two cool friends in Soho, and they weren’t the least bit impressed.)

[quote]Despite this tongue-lashing, I still maintain my story didn’t change anyone’s career trajectory. Sure, in the ensuing decades some members of the Brat Pack would subsequently fail to reach the starry heights they’d dreamed of when they first got famous. Was that my fault?

I’ll watch it. I’ve seen st Elmo’s fire so many damn times. I was a small child when it came out but my dad loved it and had the soundtrack too. I thought it was funny as hell but he took it very seriously.

R17 is correct

I forced myself to watch the whole thing. This was a therapy session for McCarthy, not a documentary.

[quote]It's weird that they try to act like they weren't friends in real life. Maybe not all of them were, but Emilio and Demi were engaged and there are lots of photos of them hanging out with Rob Lowe and then girlfriend Melissa Gilbert. Ally Sheedy has previously talked about going to Demi's birthday when Bruce Willis rented out an entire theme park for her. Even in the documentary, Rob and Andrew reminisce about a night hanging out with Sammy Davis Jr. and Liza Minelli.

R8, the night with Liza and Sammy was while they were filming St. Elmo's Fire.

It sounds like Emilio, Demi, Rob, and Ally were friends with each other, but not with Andrew. Based on their interaction, Emilio Estevez still doesn't like McCarthy, and the NYT article linked above refers to Lowe and McCarthy as past rivals (but without further context).

[quote]I was like, “Oh my God, Rob canceled, again, and I’ve got the whole crew here. So let’s go talk to somebody because I paid for this crew.” The whole movie was like that! It took a year. And it was maybe 10 days of filming, but it took over a year to get everybody to sit down. Some days people would cancel and I’m like, “Who can I call? [St. Elmo’s Fire producer] Lauren Shuler would love to talk!” It was all just me calling people that I knew and going, “Will you talk to me about this?”

[quote]Judd was Judd. In the beginning, he agreed to do it and was wonderfully insightful. On camera, I’m saying [on the phone to Judd], “Don’t tell me now. Don’t tell me. No, I want to get on film!” He just launched in. And then he eventually became a unicorn and disappeared and decided he didn’t want to do it. But I think even that is insightful and has insight into the Brat Pack.

EXCUSE ME, muthafuckin r74?!

R74 (Teacake) I believe you mean HOLLY Robinson PEETE and Rae Dawn CHONG.

Kudos that you got ONE person's name right, though.

Who was their Lauren Bacall? Mare??

Why didn’t they like Andrew? He was very hot

Reading that original article and the discussion of Tim Hutton, Sean Penn and Tom Cruise palling around on Taps made me laugh.

At the time (1980-1981) I was friends with Cruise's first cousin (their mothers were sisters and they were close friends) and he was as amazed at everyone back in Kentucky at how fast Tom's career was taking off. On one phone call from set, Tom told his cousin that he was indeed hanging around with Penn and Hutton. He said that Penn was cool, but Hutton was weird as fuck, but they had to be nice to him because he was a big star and had won an Oscar.

^ as amazed AS everyone

R96, I dissociated Hutton from Conrad Jarret after a DLer posted excerpts from a book about Hollywood prostitutes. Now, when I read or hear his name, I can't help but think of toilet paper hanging from his butt.

What is Judd Nelson doing these days?

R99 I just watched him at a Breakfast Club con panel on YouTube recently. Everyone showed up, except Emilio of course. His IMDb his full of projects, so he works a lot. Granted it’s b level shit.

Emilio is such a little bitch. He’s always been a little bitch. I wonder how Martin Sheen raised two such shitty kids.

It cracks me up how many Hallmark Christmas movies Judd has in his imdb.

Bender!

What confuses me is the article it seems is about how Lowe, Nelson and Estevez were total douchbags. Does the article mention McCarthy at all? Even when McCarthy interviews the author, the guy says that he was different, being a New York actor and having been to college.

David Blum is also a total douchebag. He’s apparently STILL a total douchebag.

This is out of nowhere - for years I have thought that Rob Lowe’s wife Sheryl looks a lot like Gloria Grahame.

We (DL) used to have an annual springtime viewing of “St Elmo’s Fire.”

I’ve linked one of the old threads.

R103, Andrew is mentioned towards the end of the article:

[quote]And of Andrew McCarthy, one of the New York–based actors in St. Elmo’s Fire, a co-star says, “He plays all his roles with too much of the same intensity. I don’t think he’ll make it.” The Brat Packers save their praise for themselves.

R95, Andrew says in the documentary that he and Lowe weren't close, that they were fiecely competitive and he (Andrew) was a "serious New York actor," while Rob was "a gorgeous LA movie star" -- a different "niche." That NY snobbery is probably why he wasn't well liked and may explain why he was deeply affected by the Brat Pack label.

As a contemporary of theirs, I never had any desire to be "part of the Brat Pack" and thought most of these actors were quite forgettable. Time mostly proved me right.

Yeah, I’m not so sure why McCarthy thinks he was even included in the “Brat Pack” group. I’m surprised Blum didn’t call him on it (“the article wasn’t about you in the first place.”)

I would bet a million dollars the “I don’t think he’ll make it” comment was from Emilio. He’s always taken himself so seriously as if he’s the (self-appointed) leader of the pack. He’s not even a good actor. What a shithead.

^Martin Sheen^

Aaaaaand this is exactly why I can't stand when people make documentaries about themselves. They NEVER turn out well. Also, are we seriously supposed to feel sorry for these people being interviewed in their Hollywood Hills/Montecito compounds? It appears as though things turned out okay for them! Fuck off.

Rob Lowe is a cheese ball, but he seems to KNOW he’s a cheese ball and seems to be ok with it.

That makes him slightly more tolerable than some of these shitheads.

McCarthy has always radiated insecurity and desperation to me.

If you read his book “Brat,” he had a pretty shitty family life both as a child and into adulthood. That seems to have set him on an extremely melancholy and neurotic path.

I would LOVE to lock RDJ and Emilio in a room together just to watch Emilio squirm.

RDJ is everything Emilio wishes he were. Handsome, talented, successful, intelligent, well-liked in the industry.

And not a little roly-poly butterball.

Fun fact: A guy died in that pool behind Demi Moore.

R50 I agree about James Spader. He springs to mind for me when this topic comes up. Plus, he was the prettiest one of all, including the girls.

James Spader used to be very pretty and then he let himself go. At least you can say Cruise still tries to look attractive.

Just another case of a geek trying to imitate the popular people and failing miserably.

If you pick apart Spader’s features, he’s not exactly classically handsome.

But he IS dead sexy. So much charisma.

Spader and William Shatner share that...the charisma, I mean.

This does look great and I can't wait to watch it Wish Molly and AMH had taken part in it, though. And poor Mare, not only did Andrew NOT try to contact her (I'm assuming), but she's totally left out of the promo poster save the top of her head.

Can anyone identify this movie for me?

Thank you!

There were so many Brat Pack-adjacent actors from back then that it can make your head spin trying to think of them all. And so many of the core Packers worked together in various other films as well as with adjacent Packers that it's a veritable six degrees of separation with all of them. I've always loved Lea Thompson and I'm glad they included her, but may others were adjacent too, including Jami Gertz, Craig Sheffer, Mary Stuart Masterson, Jennifer Grey, Matthew Broderick, Keifer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen, Patrick Swayze (RIP)...

Mare Winningham, my favorite part of St. Elmo’s Fire, rarely gets her due.

[quote]Can anyone identify this movie for me?

That's Tex, based on the SE Hinton novel. Matt Dillon is in the middle and Meg Tilly is on the right.

Emilio was such a hot twink pre-Outsiders.

Mare was and continues to be a very well respected actress. She's been a stage performer in NY, both on and off Broadway for years.

Rob was too busy trying to save his career after his sex tape. Remember it was before Kardasioan fucked her way to the top.

The whole thing was how bad being called "The Brat Pack"was, too negative. If someone did a doc on John Hughes she'd probably be there with bells on, she still talks about how she adored him.

I gather from press clips in the doc it was the other members of the media who drafted McCarthy into the best pack by constantly asking him how he felt about it.

If he had said “well, I was never a part of that, the article wasn’t about me” that could have made him look like a jerk too.

I imagine there’s a more artful way of saying it. “From what I can tell, the writer was referring to the events of one night, and i wasn’t invited along that night…(puppy dog eyes)… so I guess I’m not a member (hearty chuckle).”

He needed better media coaching. Oh, and he looks totally wasted in most of his interviews. That couldn’t have helped.

Agree with the poster upthread who said Emilio being a cunt to Andrew (and cutting him out of their proposed movie) is what’s really at the root of Andrew’s angst.

I wonder if Andrew is self-aware enough to realize that.

I also think Emilio made the “he’s not going to make it” comment. Notice they didn’t address that AT ALL in “Brats.”

Every time I read that article, that quote jumps out at me at the worst part of the entire article.

Andrew is a pathologically standoffish person. He talks about it in the book “Brat.” He also appeared to be saddled with a “serious NY actor” schtick— who knows if that was even his own thought or just something people attributed to him.

So of course the California meathead contingent was going to have a problem with him.

It’s fascinating how RDJ manages to be his weird self while getting along with everyone. But RDJ and Andrew apparently didn’t really get along on “Less than Zero.”

Thanks for posting the original article. Aside from the actors, it shows how much the PR profession has changed. Blum would never have that access today without a press rep glued to his side. Unfortunately, it also reminds me why most celebrity profiles are so dull today. Nothing truly interesting gets out. I’d love to see Taylor Swift get the Blum profile of the olden days.

Mare Winningham - Can never see her name without thinking of the scene in St. Elmo’s Fire when she is finally making out with Rob Lowe and his hand reaches her … control top pantyhose! My young self just died with her in that moment.

I just recently learned that Mare Winningham was married to A Martinez for less than a year in 1981

A Martinez would go on to star as Cruz Castillo on the soap Santa Barbara.

Mare is now married to Anthony Edwards, best know for playing Mark Greene on ER. They eloped at the end of 2021.

Why did they cast Mare Winningham? As if a hot guy like Rob Lowe would be interested in that Velma nerd.

I never read the article until yesterday. I heard of the Brat Pack in the '80s, but I asssociated it with the people in St. Elmo's Fire and The Breakfast Club, the latter of which I only barely remember. So when I ponder the Brat Pack, which happens maybe once every 35 years, I definitely include Andrew McCarthy in my thinking. He was the most attractive guy in St. Elmo's Fire, which I loved, probably because I lived in DC then, and had gone to college there not long before. I was disappointed his character Kevin didn't turn out to be gay.

It has never occurred to me before that Tim Hutton, Matt Dillon, or Tom Cruise were Brats.

R133 why not cast her? Mare already had an established career and was a talented, lovely young actress, with an Emmy win already under her belt five years before SEF. Plus she went on to pick up another Emmy and Oscar and Tony nominations. Rob can only dream of the acclaim Mare has received.

I honestly thought Judd Nelson was dead.

Funny how the more successful, famous working actors, Emilio, Demi, Jon Cryer did the doc but the lesser successful ones like Molly and Judd can't extend a fellow actor a courtesy interview to help him stay afloat.

^ They probably knew his documentary was going to suck, which it did (even moreso than his toupee).

Was he on something?

It's a shame Andrew was so spun out by the Brat Pack thing. He could have kept doing Weekend at Bernie's screwball type comedies.

If he thought he was so different from the rest of them because of his NY lifestyle/education, why didn't he make something of that beyond Weekend at Bernie's?

He was part of the Brat Pack, made it beyond that in a big way, but didn't go further. He needs to get a grip and move on.

R18 Yeah, they have good attitudes about. It would have been interesting to hear from each of them a little more.

But there was no real story other than Andrew thought it was mean and self fulfilled prophesized it for his declining career. Andrew has issues.

Blum included Sean Penn, Tom Cruise, and Matt Dillon in the Brat Pat, but they've since done quality work and had successful careers outside of the Brat Pack label to the point that we've long since forgotten their association with the Brat Pack.

I haven't heard Andrew McCarthy's name since forever, until this documentary came around, so whatever hampered his career is on him. But thanks for reminding us that you were a Brat Packer, Andrew!

[quote] Mare Winningham, my favorite part of St. Elmo’s Fire, rarely gets her due.

Hadn’t she just had a baby at the time of St Elmo’s Fire? I have this vague memory of her sort of her joking that she felt very apart from the cast in terms of where they were in their lives.

I’m watching St Elmo’s Fire right now. I haven’t seen it in years. Demi is as annoying as I remember her in this. Rob may have been pretty, but what a dork. The 80s was the last decade where dorky white people got to think they were cool.

The whole interview with Emilio was at his lounge kitchen bar. He was so stiff standing there with the air off "it wasn't that big of a deal, Andrew."

My understanding is Andrew went to rehab and got sober in 1992. He largely put his acting career behind him after that, choosing to move behind the camera. He’s done occasional acting parts since then, but has since made a name for himself as a director, primarily TV.

According to Mindy Cohn...early in the casting process for St. Elmo, she was invited to audition for the Mare Winningham role, but couldn't because filming would have conflicted with FOL's production schedule (and the TPTB weren't going to work around her).

Unfortunate timing for the doc. Charlie XCX currently owns the word ‘Brat.’

I'm guessing the Charlie XCX/Brat Pack Venn diagram is mostly two independent circles, r147.

Rob Lowe was in it at least.

I'm 55, and (amazingly) never saw this.

it's horrible,so far.

R144 And that's what everyone he interviewed eventually said. And what he seemingly never grasped until the very end of the filming.

It wasn't a big deal. It was just an article, and just a silly little media name. Does he think someday Ben Affleck is going to make a documentary about the trauma behind "Bennifer?"

Most of the actors seemed glad to see him, but baffled by his fixation on something from 40 goddamn years ago. All of them went on to have great careers, families, beautiful homes, etc. A few of them have had sex scandals and flashy divorces. They've all had lives. What's Andrew McCarthy been doing all this time, besides stewing?

Anthony Michael Hall and RDJ are friends from way back. I knew some young music "writer/producers" who hung out with them back in the day and had an opportunity to go to Hall's parties but I never went because they sounded like douchebags.

R151 yes. I was a teen at the time, and thought of it was an amusing moniker. There was eventually going to come a time when they all stopped working with one another anyway, despite the Brat Pack name. Plus not all of them were going to hit the stratosphere career wise like Cruise, Penn and RDJ, who were tangentially connected to core group. I always thought McCarthy was kind of plain and didn’t have that much star appeal, so it no surprise he slid into doing WAB and Mannequin type films. He was wise to move behind the camera.

The Coreys were too young to be part of the Brat Pack. Sean Penn was sometimes lumped together with the Brat Pack but he was considered a serious actor from early on, despite Jeff Spucoli.

Yeah serious actors can break free of the pigeon holing. Keanu Reeves is no genius and did it from Bill and Ted. Marky Mark did it. Lady Gaga did it.

When he said he didn't get along with his dad I knew that was part of the reason.

[quote]Molly and Judd are the two glaring absences.

Molly always seems to have a giant stick up her ass about her career. I don't know whether its bitterness because she thought she'd be bigger, or that she simply resents the work she did get, but get over yourself.

She hated her time on the Facts of Life, and has been trashing most of her eighties work as well in recent years.

You'd think she was Debra Winger with the way she acts.

How many of these fucking movies did they make together? I never heard of Fresh Horses.

Fresh Horses was kind of fun because Molly plays this trashy girl that had a bad childhood and she’s pretty bad. Kind of campy.

[quote] What's Andrew McCarthy been doing all this time, besides stewing?

He wrote his autobiography. Directs TV shows such as Orange Is the New Black. Got married, has children. Wrote travel articles for National Geographic. Besides stewing.

R109 and R129, all signs point Emilio saying, "I don’t think he’ll make it."

[quote]I had a notebook bulging with examples of bratty behavior: Estevez worming his way into an empty movie theater for free, [bold]trash-talking actors like Andrew McCarthy[/bold], asking me to follow him in his car and then gunning his engine to 90 miles an hour through the hills of Malibu.

McCarthy's son is also an actor. He was on the series "Condor" which Andrew served as an executive producer. He was most recently in "Dead to Me" with Christian Applegate.

2014 blind item about Molly Ringwald, McCarthy, and the movie, "Fresh Horses," linked at R157.

[quote]It was supposed to be the movie that cemented them as a couple and move them forward from the roles they had been playing. Instead, it was the end for all practical purposes of their careers. When the movie wrapped they both went their separate ways. When it first started, everything was great. The A list couple were excited to be filming together in the kind of movie they thought would bring them awards and acclaim and vault them into a level of acting they hadn't been able to reach with previous roles. Both members of our couple were A list at the time. Our actress was forever talking about her craft and how she thought she was better than the roles in which she was being cast. This was before the internet and the tabloids didn't really focus on the couple. If they had, they would have seen both of them using drugs on a daily basis. Our actress met a co-star on the set and there were sparks. Here was a man. Someone who was worldly. He was not the star he or force he is today in movies but his intensity was there and she ended up in his bed within days after they first had a scene together on set. Our actor in the couple didn't handle this well and the drug use increased to the point where his performance started to suffer. It took hours to film scenes that should have taken thirty minutes. To get back at our actress he started sleeping with an actress on the set. She was older than our actor but it didn't matter to him. He was trying to make his partner jealous. It didn't work. Meanwhile, the co-star he was having a fling with was falling in love with him and thought they had a future together. She was a mess for a year after filming ended and she found herself dumped. It is amazing to see how one film and what happened on the set derailed the careers of actors who thought they were moving forward and instead never achieved anything close to what they had before filming started.

[quote]A list couple: Molly Ringwald/Andrew McCarthy

[quote]Movie: "Fresh Horses"

[quote]Co-star actor: Viggo Mortensen

[quote]Co-star actress: Patti D'Arbanville

If true, this could explain Ringwald's lack of participation in Brats.

McCarthy doesn't even MENTION Sean Penn, Tom Cruise, or Charlie Sheen - all of whom are surely too rich/talented/prickish to appear here.

And what about Eric Stoltz? Mary Stuart Masterson? Anthony Michael Hall?

McCarthy said in his memoir he was doing drugs all the time. If he and Ringwald were a couple in real life that's news to me.

R162 Maybe Molly had the affair on Fresh Horses with Ben Stiller.

R163 McCarthy mentioned Cruise fleetingly regarding his Top Gun success. Plus the focus was really on the actors who were in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire, the core of the Brat Pack.

This whole thing is fucking weird.

McCarthy wasn’t one of the guys skewered in the article. If other press tried to suggest he was a Brat Packer, he could have shut that down.

He seems weirdly eager to be a pack member, even as he bitches and moans about it.

This would explain why Estevez is mostly contemptuous throughout their interview.

Ugh. I have such second hand mortification for McCarthy.

Demi Moore is allegedly worth $200M, and Rob Lowe $100M. I wonder if Andrew felt embarrassed talking to them about his “trauma.”

[quote] Blum would never have that access today without a press rep glued to his side. Unfortunately, it also reminds me why most celebrity profiles are so dull today. Nothing truly interesting gets out.

Reading the original article reminded me of a NY Times Magazine piece from 1999 that followed Jessica Alba, Shane West, and Taryn Manning right before they became famous. I assume the author only had the kind of access she did because they weren’t successful enough to have PR teams yet. Naturally, no one came off well and the one actress who came off the worst never made it at all. I have a feeling the article contributed to that.

For anyone who saw the doc, what was Emilio so annoyed about?

R168, all these net worth sites are BS. You get that, right?

His lack of a career perhaps R170?

Nobody will give me a straight answer...

[quote]For anyone who saw the doc, what was Emilio so annoyed about?

I haven't seen the documentary, but this article from a few years ago discusses his annoyances.

Emilio tried making his mark as a serious, top director back in 2007 with the much-publicized Bobby. It got mixed reviews and was nominated for some awards, but ultimately didn't give him the boost that he needed. Plus I'm sure dealing with his brothers batshit crazy antics has taken its toll.

Thanks, R174

By the way if I recall correctly Emilio (and Charlie), Rob Lowe, Chad Lowe, and Sean Penn were friends, skateboarded together and and lived near each other in Point Dume before they were actors.

*and I think Nicholas Cage, also.

I don't think Emilio has ever really emerged from the shadow of his father. Charlie has or did for a while.

Yes, I also have second-had embarassment for Andrew. It was as if everyone he interviewed told him to move the fuck on but he can't let it go because it is all he has.

For a decade or so, Emilio was a bigger box office star than his father ever was.

R179 It's all he has? I think he has moved on. He's had other, successful careers.

So self-indulgent.

Andrew seems to have a good relationship with his kids so there’s that.

[quote]I definitely include Andrew McCarthy in my thinking. He was the most attractive guy in St. Elmo's Fire

Not with Lowe there. Even Emilio was hotter with his chunky thighs. Hell, Jules' gay neighbor Ron Dallesandro was hotter than Andrew.

Andrew McCarthy is polarizing.

With the exception of 1980, 81 and 82, Andrew McCarthy was literally in a film or several films every year in the '80s, and even into the '90s. He was constantly working.

R163 Or even that Charlie Sheen is Emilio Estevez' brother and was John Cryer's costar.

What about Heathers and Winona Ryder? Christian Slater? Johnny Depp?

I'm guessing you had to be under the sentimental John Hughes umbrella.

Ione Skye, John Cusack?

Back then we basically called any actor who was in his/her late teens or early 20s a "Brat Packer." Matthew Modine, Mitch Gaylord, Matt Dillon, Patrick Dempsey, Kevin Bacon, Phoebe Cates, Tom Cruise, Matthew Broderick, Elizabeth Shue, etc.

I remember one time a friend saw, I think, Jonathan Silverman and some other young actors (our age, at the time) eating someplace and said she had seen "those Brat Packers."

As a millennial, I'm finding this thread and all the ancient stars mentioned a bit baffling!

Emilio seemed terribly tense. Rob Lowe was cheerful. Tim Hutton is a beekeeper now.

And BEE is in it.

BEE is in what?

BEE is interviewed in the doc being discussed in this thread, Brats.

I love Emilio's house in Malibu. Who knew he had that kind of money?

R195 Which one of them is that?

Brett Easton Ellis.

Emilio looks just like his father now.

Weren't they all on coke during St. Elmo's Fire?

Just Jules.

Andrew does give me second hand embarrassment in this.

I agree R202. This was a shit documentary.

[quote]Emilio looks just like his father now.

He’s always been the spitting image of his father.

There wasn't a lot that hadn't already been covered.

Now if they really wanted to get into it and tell a story, they should have brought up the drug use and told the truth. It should have been a bunch of old stars telling how wild they were and Andrew should have talked about why he went to rehab.

And all the wild sex too!

They probably had sex with each other drunkenly and that's what they want to move on from.

I'm reading the original article from 1985. Pages and pages in there's this one blurb about Andrew. There's more about Tom Cruise and Sean Penn. He wasn't even mentioned as being a Brat Pack member. Nicolas Cage has more mention.

"And yet that is precisely what they do. For actors so imbued with the ensemble spirit, the Brat Pack members are out for themselves. “Sean is crazy with all of his role preparations, becoming the character in every way,” one says. And of Andrew McCarthy, one of the New York–based actors in St. Elmo’s Fire, a co-star says, “He plays all his roles with too much of the same intensity. I don’t think he’ll make it.” The Brat Packers save their praise for themselves."

So Andrew probably felt backstabbed by his own acting coworkers he thought were his friends.

Molly supposedly gunned for her character to end up with Andrew instead of Jon Cryer at the end of Pretty in Pink because she had a big crush on him. I never heard that they were a couple, though. Explains a few things

Molly explains here that it made more sense for her to end up with Andrew because she’d been pining away for him the entire film and that Duckie was more like a brother.

Demi and Emilio were engaged for a while before she called it off.

Who was the New York-based actor in St. Elmo's Fire?

R196 Emilio has worked non stop for four decades. No surprise he has a great home.

R213 I thought he semi-retired and owned/ran a vineyard for 15 years or so.

It's funny this article mentions Emilio's screenplay Clear Intent about garbage men witnessing a murder. This movie becomes Men at Work.

He also wrote another movie where it ends as being all a dream.

My mother's favorite Brat Pack (-adjacent) movie.

Andrew became part of the brat pack even though he was barely mentioned in the article because the media always asked him about it. Besides he was in all the brat pack movies. He was a bigger star at that time than Emilio or Judd I would argue because he always played a lead.

I was underwhelmed by Some Kind of Wonderful (saw it when it was released).

R218 Emilio played leads (or had a starring ensemble role) in Repo Man, Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's, That Was Then - This Is Now (+screenplay), Maximum Overdrive, Wisdom (+screenplay, direction), Stakeout (co-starring Richard Drefuss), Young Guns, Young Guns II, Another Stakeout, and the Mighty Ducks movies.

Andrew blames the whole "Brat Pack" cliche for why he didn't hit big and it is obvious from this documentary that he had his head up his own ass. Emilio could barely stand to talk to him, and didn't attach the level of importance to the misnomer that Andrew did. I was waiting for Emilio to say, "Get the fuck over it man!" Now Andrew has worked steadily as a director, but there was a tiem when Andrew could have had a uch more successful career. After watching this, I came away liking Ally Sheedy, Demi, and Rob Lowe more.

What was the point in cutting to the credits the second McCarthy answers a call from Nelson? Is there gonna be a "Brats (Judd's Version)" coming out or something?

Anthony Michael Hall and Molly Ringwald were 6-7 years younger than the actors named in the article, they worked with a lot of the brat packers though. But arent necessarily considered part of the Brat pack. Melissa Gilbert was at Liza and Sammy's that night coked out of her skull,, she detailed this night in her memoir. Ally Sheedy was dating Judd Nelson through the late 80s until her eventual crash and burn affair with Richie Sambora. Demi was engaged to Emilio for a couple of years. So, yes, they knew each other well and definitely partied together.

[quote]Anthony Michael Hall and Molly Ringwald were 6-7 years younger than the actors named in the article, they worked with a lot of the brat packers though. But arent necessarily considered part of the Brat pack

AMH and Molly are indeed part of the official Brat Pack. The tag was given to the actors who are in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire, and three of those actors are in both films.

R222, That part in the documentary where Andrew is on the phone pleading "Don’t tell me now. Don't tell me. I want to get this on film!", the person on the other line was Judd Nelson, who initially agreed to do the doc only to back out. He had a lot to say over the phone, but bailed on Andrew.

Do you think Judd backed out due to his faded looks? I haven’t seen him since….? Just a guess. Why not have a chat with Andrew on camera?

Despite not appearing in new interviews, Ringwald and Nelson are still present in the film due to the extensive use of archival footage and previous interviews. "I mean, they both are in the film in a sense that there's a lot of clips and interviews and things," McCarthy said.

In the documentary, Jon Cryer, McCarthy's Pretty in Pink co-star, asks if he spoke with Ringwald. McCarthy recalls her response: "She said she'd think about it, but that she probably would just like to keep moving forward." This suggests that Ringwald prefers to look forward to the future rather than reflect on her Brat Pack days. Her decision reflects the ongoing nature of the Brat Pack's legacy and how each member chooses to engage with it in unique ways.

McCarthy also made an effort to connect with Judd Nelson while in Los Angeles. McCarthy said that he had plans to connect with Nelson while he was out in L.A. trying to talk with some of the gang, but the latter was at some undisclosed location and not available that weekend. Interestingly, Nelson makes a brief appearance at the end of the film. McCarthy answers the phone and asks, "Judd?" Even without a formal interview, this playful moment conveys Nelson's presence.

The Brat Pack and her 80s movies are the only thing Molly Ringwald is famous for. She should've taken the stick out of her ass and appeared in the film.

Sounds like a lot of pretentious, whiney navel-gazing..

Maybe Andrew McCarthy didn't have a big career because he was not that great of an actor to begin with. Of the group, the one's who made the transition to more long-lasting and stable careers were Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy.

Does McCarthy discuss the film Heaven Help Us in his autobiography? HBO used to show that a lot in the 80s and I always liked it. No other Brat Packers in it, though a lot of familiar faces

[R230] Heaven Help Us also featured future Porn Star "SAM RITTER"

R226: Judd appeared at convention a couple months ago with Molly, Ally & AMH. He looks fine.

R232 I was just about to post that. Nelson and Ringwald clearly have no problem talking about TBC and the Brat Pack in an indirect way at the con, so the problem most likely lies with McCarthy.

Ally Sheedy seems like a lovely person.

Judd has Peepaw voice in that con clip.

I was a 14-year-old kid in the rural south when all the “Brat Pack” stories hit. So, I didn’t know anything about anything.

But, I always thought “Brat Pack” was a tip of the hat to the new Hollywood power dynamic at the time. These young actors were suddenly very powerful— as the older Rat Pack had been at one point.

So, it was a way of calling them POWERFUL and YOUNG. Not exactly an insult.

[quote]No other Brat Packers in it, though a lot of familiar faces

Heaven Help Us did have BP-adjacent Mary Stuart Masterson.

I really liked Heaven Help Us! I vividly remember the night I saw it, on a double-bill with Volunteers, at the Pickwick Drive-In Theater in Burbank. It was the first & only time I'd been to a drive-in movie (there were still a few around L.A. in the summer of 1985).

This was a mildly interesting tidbit from the original New Yorker article that I never knew:

[quote]“I think ensembles should continue forever,” says Judd Nelson. His name is being tossed around for one of the leads in Bright Lights, Big City—Tad Allagash, a suave young gadabout. The other role has been cast; the character based on the book’s author will be played by Tom Cruise. Aside from Judd Nelson, the other actors under consideration for the role of Tad are Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe.

R223 I never knew Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson dated. They made such an awful couple in St Elmo's Fire

[quote] Heaven Help Us did have BP-adjacent Mary Stuart Masterson.

I wasn’t sure if she was Brat Pack adjacent. I guess from Some Kind of Wonderful? Heaven Help Us also features Kevin Dillon, brother of BP-adjacent Matt Dillon.

Mary Stuart is adjacent by Some Kind Of Wonderful, Heaven Help Us and At Close Range for starters.

The problem is money. They got paid to appear at the panel discussion. I doubt if Andrew McCarthy was going to pay them to appear in his documentary, and then he sold the doc to Netflix so he made some money off it. But there was no profit in it for them.

Oh god. “Bright lights Big City” was so terribly miscast.

It's so funny how the basis of this documentary, the Brat Pack article of 1985, has so much to do with Emilio, Judd, Rob, even more about Matthew Broderick.

It's like a shrine to Emilio and Andrew gets this one tiny passage, this one tiny blip and he's haunted for live by it. Perhaps culminating in his spiraling drug use, or whatever, but he's barely in the fucking thing, and Emilio should have far more to say but jokingly takes it in stride like "yeah it'll be on tombstone."

You know what would have been better? Analysis of why Andrew tanked his own career with self doubt or walked away, or didn't like the illusion of Hollywood.

Instead of asking this writer if he could have been nicer 40 fucking years later!! He wasn't that mean at all, it was funny about the self importance of it all and he did a fairly good job reporting.

That second hand cringe. That's why Emilio is so stiff! Demi trying to help him and play therapist.

^^^ if only there was a time machine to delete that one little blurb about Andrew, his life could have been different.

Every single article that's come out since 1985 has referred to Andrew McCarthy as a Brat Packer.

Of course Andrew is angsty and sensitive about it! That's his wheelhouse.

His son is cute. He was good in “Dead to Me”.

This would have landed better as a celebration of the Brat Pack

I remember this film being popular when it came out. He was a likeable actor. It was sad he was so internally tortured.

Maybe he wasn't and is cashing in because he needs money.

John Hughes gives perv vibes.

Ally Sheedy seems to have lost her mind at some point:

In January 2018, Sheedy tweeted the #MeToo hashtag along with the names of James Franco and Christian Slater, implying that they have been sexually abusive to her, but later deleted the tweets. Franco later stated that he did not know why Sheedy tweeted the accusations.

On April 12, 1992, Sheedy married actor David Lansbury, the nephew of actress Angela Lansbury and son of Edgar Lansbury, the original producer of Godspell. They have a son, Beckett, born in 1994. Beckett is a trans man from whose transition Sheedy says she "learned a lot".[24] In 2008, Sheedy announced that she and Lansbury had filed for divorce.[1]

Of course we have the black guy complaining that the films were too white.

I had no idea Andrew wrote so many books.

Confession: by the time the writer shows up in the documentary, I sided more with him than McCarthy et al. 😬

Waste of time

[quote]Of course we have the black guy complaining that the films were too white.

This is the big criticism now about Hughes' films. You have to take the context into account, though. His films took place in affluent suburbs in the Chicago area and back in the 80s the demographics of those communites were very, very white.

I enjoyed this doc because I liked seeing the interviewees. But it was so lightweight and trivial. At the end I felt like, I wish I had your stupid problems, McCarthy.

Did Timothy Hutton seem depressed? I wanted to see inside his house.

Emilio had my favorite house.

R259 I agree it was lightweight and trivial. But I was shocked at how bad Timothy Hutton looked. His face seemed swollen or bloated. I had to wonder if he has been ill. Steroids and some cancer drugs will do that. I feel like I just saw him on TV in some series and while yes, he has aged, he didn't look bad.

R260, did you forget about him raping a 14 year old? It ended his career.

Timothy Huttons best friend in the 80s was Sean Penn. They married around the same time and Timothy and Debra Winger used to socialize with Sean and Madonna frequently.

All the more interesting later on when Debra bailed on doing League of their own because Madonna was cast.

R261 well YOU forgot that it was an allegation, and no charges were filed.

I can’t imagine Debra and Madonna socializing.

McCarthy was a charter member of the Fucking Lucky Club. Zero fuckability and zero charm. And a mediocre actor. Never anything special. And now he’s whining to us that he never had the career he thinks he should have had? Fuck off.

Most actors never even land a gig, and if they do then it’s few and far between, but Andrew was literally in a movie or multiple movies every year from 1983 through most of the 90s.

See, R265 I thought McCarthy was kind of hot, and I thought he was a good actor. I think he just got into his own way.

I crushed on him when he was young and in St Elmos Fire, but he hasn't aged well and seems like he is a little too fragile for my taste.

What! He's had all this success and had me feeling sorry for him? What about a brat.

I wanted to hear more from them, like Rob Lowe, what their life was like. A mini reality series doc.

Rob Lowe was beautiful

Is she the same woman he cheated with the babysitter on

What films did McCarthy expect to get?

"Sex, Lies and Videotape"? "Moonstruck"? "Rain Man"? "Chaplin"?

He's delusional if he thought he could have had a RDJ or even a James Spader-style career.

I think the reason that Spader, RDJ, Tom Cruise, Sean Penn and other adjacent BP-ers (hello...Jennifer Connelly? Matthew Broderick?) got barely a mention is because they have more talent that the core group ever had.

Not mentioning Anthony Michael Hall is just bad manners. Or maybe good taste on AMH's part, who knows.

I always did find Andrew cute. He had a little-boy-lost look I found endearing. But compared to Spader, Downey, Rob Lowe, he is milquetoast with a side order of whatever jam.

He reminds me of that kid in that Shelly Duvall movie where the go to the Astrodome and he flies around with wings like Icarus and he falls to his death.

I thought he was 9/10

Andrew McCarthy peaked in CLASS.

He doesn't have the kind of looks that age well but he was hot and sexy when he was young.

There was a thread here about RDJ and Kiefer Sutherland sharing an apartment that had more insight and genuine tragedy than McCarthy's entire whine-fest.

[quote]He doesn't have the kind of looks that age well but he was hot and sexy when he was young.

I think just the opposite. He was beyond bland when he was young but has gotten more handsome with age.

I always thought McCarthy was very cute but he’s pretty limited as an actor. He’s lucky he had the career he did.

Complete waste of time. He seemed truly exhausting with this ridiculous chip on his shoulder about some bullshit phrase from 30+ years ago. And it seemed like all the interview subjects kept looking at him like he was deranged and should lighten up. Which he mistook for “a bond” that would always tie them together.

Ally Sheedy seemed sweet.

Loved that the nasty journalist at the end refused to apologize.

McCarthy also seemed totally bored by the one black culture critic the producers probably insisted that he include. He was barely listening to a word that guy said.

Brat indeed.

R282 there is a legitimate documentary to be made on the cultural and social impact of the John Hughes movies and the total absence of any African Americans or other POC in the cast. But the 80's the suburbs were somewhat integrated, and if I'm not mistaken weren't a lot of his movies set in the Chicago suburbs? But I get it, if you're creating an ensemble of a clique of friends, then the possibility of them all being the same type of white, middle class kids would be authentic. As for the sociology, in a way it occurs to me that Robert Redford was mining the dark side of the affluent suburban life when he made Ordinary People. In a way Ordinary People is "brat Pack" adjacent.

[quote] Loved that the nasty journalist at the end refused to apologize.

While McCarthy deserved a dose of reality, Blum didn't do himself any favors.

Blum seemed to think he was the star of the film and projected a similar air of entitlement. He does not come across how he would hope or imagine.

Blum would have been better off showing a sense of humor. “Hey, I was young too and just trying to sell some magazines!”

It sounds like Emilio at least richly deserved the takedown.

And here comes Andrew trying to front like he was in the in-crowd, all while complaining about how terrible it is.

He reminds me of (the reverse version of) my friend who was a cheerleader, class president, etc in high school but 40 years later only talks about how she was an awkward, lonely nerd.

Yeah r284 - agree that Blum was cringey as fuck but I appreciated that he refused to apologize. McCarthy seemed so sure that he would get some sort of apology and the guy continued to be a total dick.

Also, Blum needed to button his shirt - at one point his gut was hanging out 😳

R283 - agree with everything you said.

In addition to (or because of) the betrayal by Emilio, I imagine Andrew especially resented being lumped in with the Brat Pack because they had already rather cruelly excluded him from their little clique.

[quote] This is the big criticism now about Hughes' films. You have to take the context into account, though. His films took place in affluent suburbs in the Chicago area and back in the 80s the demographics of those communities were very, very white.

That's like criticizing John Cheever because his stories and books were about white people. Even in the 80s a lot of films were still about white culture. It was, after all, the dominant culture. I do remember a scene in Ferris Bueller I hated, though, where a couple of mechanics take Cameron's dad's car for a joy ride, and they aren't like the suburban white people (though they may be white - they're "ethnic" in an unspecified way). They were really stereotyped.

Why the bitchy hate for Andrew McCarthy?

[quote] resented being lumped in with the Brat Pack because they had already rather cruelly excluded him from their little clique.

Demi Moore's rather good and much more insightful book (ghostwritten by Ariel Levy) conveys just how shallow and fleeting this supposed friendship group really was.

Moore slept with Lowe and got engaged to Estevez but she seemed to be more in love with the Sheen family than Emilio himself.

Meanwhile, Lowe seems to be someone who can develop instant rapport with others, but is uninterested in deeper connections beyond industry friendships. Lowe probably spent as much time with McCarthy as any of the others before trying to meet with other superstars.

So this whole idea that McCarthy developed in his head of the in-group is inherently flawed.

This why the absence of Ringwald and Nelson is important. I don't know why anyone would sign off on the greenlight for a Brat Pack documentary without her in particular, but Nelson would have confirmed that this was a brief friendship that likely lasted a few months about 40 years ago and maybe McCarthy should get over it.

Well, it generated 290 comments on this thread so far so the subject itself must be interesting. Maybe A. McC. didn't make a very good film about it but the topic has a certain nostalgia if you're the right age. Also the phrase lasted longer than the article so I don't understand people who say the subject should only cover people who were in The Breakfast Club or St. Elmo's Fire. After all, the article came out around the time of St. Elmo's Fire, indicating there was an interest in the subject already, and that these actors were hot at the time - not from St. Elmo's Fire, exclusively, or even The Breakfast Club exclusively. And that interest continued for several years after the mid-80s when those movies came out.

I was waiting for Demi to wheel out Bruce to show Andrew what real pain was.

I think the genuine actors were the ones not in the Brat Pack. RDJ (probably the best and also both the most original and likable), Sean Penn (insufferable, but talented), Tom Cruise (crazy but a genuine film star), Spader (underrated), Sutherland (ditto). Ione Skye and Jennifer Connelly were far more versatile, attractive and in better movies than Demi Moore and Molly Ringwald (although I think the latter has genuine teen icon status). And they get a lot of shit, but both Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick have been willing to take on challenging roles. Hell, I'd rather watch either of the Cusacks in anything over Emilio fucking Estevez.

Out of the ones McCarthy talks to only Ally Sheedy seems to have continued to do interesting things.

If he'd expanded his thesis and made a film about young actors in the 80s, he'd have a lot more material (and talent) to work with.

R292, I never even thought of that.

She should have kicked Andrew in the balls.

Out of the ones McCarthy talks to only Ally Sheedy seems to have continued to do interesting things.

The only example I can think of is her turn as the druggie lesbian photographer in High Art.

R27, RDJ was in Weird Science with Robert Russler where they both play the, um, bullies.

I would have given my eyeteeth to be "bullied" by them in high school.

Hughes conceived of a passionate jealousy-driven hatred for RDJ after Molly Ringwald confessed that she felt she could date him as Ducky in Pretty in Pink and gave him the role in Weird Science to humiliate him.

NARRATOR: it didn't work.

The physical appeal of RDJ has never been evident to me. I thought he was almost cute in one film - Less Than Zero.

R297, believe it or not, I though the same thing for many years.

Then I took a few Renaissance art classes.

Had he lived back then, every major painter would have been lining up for a chance to depict him.

[quote]Hughes conceived of a passionate jealousy-driven hatred for RDJ after Molly Ringwald confessed that she felt she could date him as Ducky in Pretty in Pink and gave him the role in Weird Science to humiliate him.

And really got under Hughes’s craw when Molly refused to play the Lea Thompson role in Some Kind of Wonderful to do The Pick-Up Artist with RDJ. He supposedly vowed never to work with her again and their relationship was reportedly strained for years.

That Downey!

The quicker picker-upper!

R289 because he talks and shakes like he's on a coke withdrawal.

John Hughes was a creep.

R298 And why is that?

Q&A with the brats.

R303, look at some paintings, look at RDJ in 1985 and get back to us.

R305 I don't really know what you're talking about, but even if you think he looks like a Renaissance painting, why would that make him more attractive to you when previously you didn't find him attractive?

[quote]The physical appeal of RDJ has never been evident to me. I thought he was almost cute in one film - Less Than Zero.

He was cute in "Chances Are".

That movie was so fucking creepy.

R306, fair enough question. I think my studying that time period and learning to see the beauty in those paintings made me see why people would find him beautiful, if that makes sense.

Caravaggio would have loved him, ditto Botticelli.

R309 Okay, you seem pretty convinced of that.

Didn’t “Weird Science” shoot well before “Pretty in Pink”?

If so, how could John Hughes have been “punishing” RDJ in “Weird Science” for something that hadn’t happened yet?

[quote]Didn’t “Weird Science” shoot well before “Pretty in Pink”?

WEIRD SCIENCE filmed from Oct 2 - Dec 21 1984

PRETTY IN PINK filmed from May - June 1985

I don't know why every actor has to be some sort of genius. I always went to see Emilio in movies back in the day. He seemed to understand his characters. Like Otto in Repo Man - so glad he was in that instead of some outlandish ac-tor like Sean Penn. Penn was best in Fast Times where he was playing a stoner. He should have done more comedy.

Almost every actor who has had some association with Hughes said that he's your best buddy and that he ingratiates himself into your life when he thinks there are more collaborations around the corner, but treats you like a leper if a film bombs or you turn him down.

Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald and even Ed O'Neill have spoken of how Hughes ghosted them when Hall and Ringwald turned down his films and "Dutch" flopped.

I am sure there are others.

How weird.

I haven't heard the St. Elmo's Fire these song, St. Elmo's Fire (Man in Motion) by John Parr, in many years.

Yet, in the past few days, I've heard it playing twice on the in-house music station at the grocery store.

JH does seem like a creep in his photos with how he posts with some of the girls. The story of looking at Molly Ringwald's photo alone like she was his muse and writing a movie for her seems creepy. The hours and hours of footage he has of Breakfast club footage that will never be made public seems creepy. His mullet is creepy, like he was trying to fit in with the teens.

Then you hear him speak and he seems alright. If that's true he iced the actors out after they declined his movie offer, I wonder if he thought he was a member of the teen club himself. Like he thought they were his friends and he felt burned by them.

Any time I see a straight guy hanging out with kids for any reason, I assume the worst. Straight men only do things that serve some selfish need.

Hughes was born in 1950. Judd Nelson was born in 1959. Ally Sheedy was born in 1962, so were Emilio Estevez and Andrew McCarthy.

Hughes was born in 1950, Joel Schumacher - director of St. Elmo's Fire and The Lost Boys - and gay - was born in 1939. I don't think because someone is not a teen and directs a teen movie that that makes them a pervert.

The irony is that the most Brat Pack film - "The Avengers" of Brat Pack Cinema - was written and directed by Joel Schumacher.

And it was the worst one and broke the group up, which proves that Schumacher ruined everything he touched.

What genre is "The Avengers" the signature film of? (Never saw it.)

^Never mind, I realized you meant the superhero film (I never watch them). All I could think of was the 90s film based on the TV series.

[quote] . All I could think of was the 90s film based on the TV series.

Only on Datalounge.

R323 Okay, then maybe you explain your use of "irony". What is ironic about Schumacher doing St. Elmo's Fire?

I watched this last night and it’s everything you all described and more. McCarthy was unhinged. I loved Emilio’s can you get out of my house now energy and Demi’s kind but had nothing else happened to you since vibe. Lea and Ally were very much trying to relate and I imagine Judd flaring his nostrils safely off camera.

R304, thanks for that. Jon Cryer is hotter now than he was in the 1980s.

Andrew McCarthy is annoying.

I have a feeling Jacqueline Bisset asked the director of Class why McCarthy and Lowe couldn’t switch roles and her character slept with Lowe’s character, instead. McCarthy was such a drip.

Anthony Michael Hall will be on The View tomorrow. Considering McCarthy was just on the show last week promoting this documentary, I'm hoping they'll ask him his thoughts about it.

[quote] I have a feeling Jacqueline Bisset asked the director of Class why McCarthy and Lowe couldn’t switch roles

[327] Bisset invited McCarthy to live with her and Alexander Godunov, which he did for a while.

She probably saw Lowe as someone who could take care of himself ... which further vindicates your idea that the two young actors should have swapped roles.

HA! This is certainly no coincidence. Anthony Michael Hall has appeared on Dana Carvey & David Spade's podcast, the Adam Corolla show, the Rich Eisen show, and some Men's Journal podcast within the past 10 days -- talking about his career, TBC, and inevitably, the Brat-Pack/BRATS. Well done, sir. 😏😎

The Carvey/Spade & Rich Eisen interviews are worth listening to.

R329 that seems nice of her.

I am under the impression that a lot of these actors essentially raised themselves, particularly the male ones.

Self indulgent, navel gazey whiny bullshit. Comes across as a super low budget, possibly self financed free station documentary.

For all of his angst over the Brat Pack name it really comes across as the best period of his life and he places far more importance on it than anyone else.

Agreed rescue chick.

It is mind-boggling this even got made. He’s insufferable. Good for Molly Ringwald for having none of him.

She had him though

Am not going to lie.

I found Anthony Michael Hall toe-curlingly cute and Weird Science was twink cast heaven for 14-year-old gayling me. RDJ! Russler! That other twit in girl's panties!

I didn't give a shit about Emilo, Charlie, Nelson and the rest of those meatheads.

Andrew McCarthy, whatever. He was cute, I guess. But I remember thinking he was flagrantly miscast in Less Than Zero.

Enjoy watching “Less than Zero” and noting how wasted McCarthy is.

That unfocused, watery-eyed expression works for the character, I guess.

On Thursday, June 20, Deadline reported that Sony is looking into producing a new version of the classic 1985 coming-of-age movie, with the idea built around a potential return for original cast members Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Mare Winningham and Andie MacDowell.

The report comes just one week after the release of McCarthy's new documentary Brats, which explores the '80s-era "Brat Pack" of actors who rose to fame starring in coming-of-age films like St. Elmo's Fire, The Breakfast Club and16 Candles and how the notoriety associated with that grouping affected their lives and careers.

Rewatching “Less than Zero.”

Spader spends the whole movie looking at RDJ as if he’s in love with him.

What’s that about?

Isn’t Anthony Michael Hall a Trumper?

R338, it is not hard to imagine exactly what that's all about.

Although in context, Spader's character having a letch for RDJ makes his pimping the younger boy out that much uglier.

Of all the 1980s movies to remake/update/sequelize/whatever, why the fell would anyone choose St. Elmo's Fire? It's famously horrible and the characters are all groan-inducing bell-ends.

St Elmo's Fire is not a movie I'm clamoring to see a sequel to. Especially not 40 years later.

Not especially interested in seeing a remake of it either. Although if they didn't remake it, they'd definitely have to have a diverse cast including Hispanics, Blacks, gays, trans man or woman and an undocumented alien.

The report says they want to make the new SEF film with the original cast. So, sequel and not remake, I’m guessing?

R343, The Breakfast Club or Less Than Zero I could see a sequel to (BEE wrote a novel sequel to the latter).

But St. Elmo's Fire?

What would they call it, Tickle Me Elmo's Burning Sensation?

I'd prefer Ferris Buehler Gets Fired Again, starring a broken-down Matthew Broderick as the on-again off-again employee of Tony Stark (RDJ).

[quote] Spader spends the whole movie looking at RDJ as if he’s in love with him.

He’s supposed to be a ruthless, likely bisexual drug dealer who Downey owes a shitload of money to and who pimps Downey out as payback for the money owed. Reading between the lines, he probably is in love with him, which is the reason he pimps him out instead of just having him killed.

I can see a St Elmo’s Fire sequel not only working, but being a hit and re-igniting a lot of the cast’s fame, if only for a brief period of time. I’d like to know what those people are up to today. Demi’s character was wild and flighty, so you know she’d have had a shit ton of plastic surgery done today, just like the actress who plays her. I think they’d all be game to return, even stand-offish Emilio.

I'd rather see a The Big Chill sequel, Bigger and Chillier.

[quote]St Elmo's Fire is not a movie I'm clamoring to see a sequel to. Especially not 40 years later.

In the sequel they'll all have multiracial trans kids who lecture them about how their college years in the 80s were built on a foundation of white privilege, toxic masculinity, and colonialism.

So they're planning on doing a remake of St. Elmo's Fire with people (some of them, anyway) who want nothing to do with reminiscing about The Brat Pack?

I guess we won't be seeing a remake of Ordinary People now that MTM and Sutherland are both dead.

*sequel, I meant.

When a fire goes out, all you have left is ashes.

So it will be a movie about grandparents. All of them are old now.

Jewels would be a hedge fund manager.

Alec would be a cheesy congressman from Florida. (Give him one of the really trashy districts.)

Kevin would be an editor at the Washington Post.

Billy is dead from a drug overdose, but can be seen in flashbacks.

Wendy is the highly paid director of some posh non- profit. She is married to a hot Jewish guy.

Kirby is a high school football coach.

Leslie is a business consultant

The others will only agree to appear if the plot is about the friends reuniting upon the death of Kevin (Andrew McCarthy).

They'd better hurry up so 90 year old Joyce Van Patten can reprise her role as Wendy's mom.

(By the way I don't think when I saw the film I knew Van Patten and Martin Balsam - Wendy's dad - were ex's in real life).

* I know, it's "exes".

Just when "Brats" couldn't get more ridiculous then Malcolm Gladwell turns up with his hair-dye bouffant mad-scientist hair.

A sequel to SEF would be fun.Make one or two of them MAGA now. Definitely unite at a funeral.

RDJ has two times the talent and visual appeal in Less Than Zero than the other actors. His voice is exceptional and coming from that used-up bleary pretty twink face - it's really something.

Hi, Rip!

R360 it should have been done in the early 2000s

Howie Deutsch, the Pretty in Pink & Some Kind of Wonderful director, & Lea Thompson, both featured in the documentary, have been married 35 years & have two children.

As a kid, I was disappointed in “Pretty in Pink.” I was expecting it to be another John Hughes extravaganza, and it’s very different in tone.

It’s better, of course. I just didn’t appreciate it at the time.

I never liked Pretty In Pink much either, r365. I preferred Some Kind of Wonderful which was pretty much the exact same movie just with the genders reversed. Haven’t seen either one in years so maybe I’d feel differently now.

The soundtracks to both are equally great though

I agree with the LexG podcast take on Brats.

It’s very much an Andrew McCarthy problem at this point in time, everyone else has moved on, and no one seems to like him much.

I’ve tried to finish this three times. All the overanalyzing over a dumb term from 40 years ago makes me sleepy. I liked these actors but I hate all the therapy talk.

Ally’s apartment and BEE’s apartment look like very underwhelming places I lived in my 20s. I was expecting something more stylish.

Andrew was cute but couldn't bring the heat of star. Rob Lowe was pretty but could still bring a bit of heat.

Even a little nub dick doesn't matter. He was hot.

Why did Judd Nelson not want to participate in the documentary? He seems to have fallen off the face of the earth

I like looking at the interiors these people are filmed in. eg why does Ally Sheedy have that cupboard with open drawers?

Swear I thought Judd Nelson died decades ago

[quote] I agree with the LexG podcast take on Brats.

Yeah, LexG is right.

Especially the moment where Emilio is trying to be cordial and then realised that McCarthy won't let this go (and is a bit of an idiot).

Oh, and Lex picks up on the bait-and-switch of McCarthy going to shake the reporter's hand and letting bygones-be-bygones ... and then he starts asking questions again.

WTF.

Blum is, like, "ummm, I thought we just talked about this."

The more I think of this documentary, the more fascinating it is. A slicker, more professionally-made Netflix-style nostalgia piece wouldn't have been this unwittingly revealing.

The part where Judd Nelson supposedly calls right at the end was clearly faked. Stupid documentary.

There’s a Breakfast Club convention?

Rob has a decent sized dick.

Mare Winningham always seemed like the Gabrielle Carteris of the group.

I watched this last week, it's pretty meh...I was born in '74 so those movies were more aspirational than anything I could identify with. I left the doc feeling sorry for McCarthy either because he has let this label have such an impact on him or because he's pretending that it did in order to give the doc a narrative thread. Either way it's sad.

Bret Easter Elvis seems way too attached to these films and talks like they are great films which they are not.

I always thought Andrew McCarthy was very hot. It’s sad he was never able to find fulfillment.

R382, I think that's an aspect of being a gay teen during that time.

I've realized that the John Hughes films were special to me because the kids in them - even the geeks and wallflowers - seemed assured of a level of acceptance that I didn't feel I had.

McCarthy was always a mope.

He'd make a good bestie for some straight girl, but that’s about it.

[quote] I don’t think any of these people were as cool as they thought they were. Aside from the John Hughes films, none of the movies were very good. It was more like these people were shoved down our throats.

I always thought the John Hughes movies were overrated. The movies are still shoved down our throats. They have never disappeared from cable airings.

[quote] I guess we won't be seeing a remake of Ordinary People now that MTM and Sutherland are both dead.

Plus, Timothy Hutton would never make the swim team looking like he does now. Don’t want to see that in a Speedo.

WTF happened to Hutton? He was looking ok even 10 years ago.

His body is still fit, it's his head that is bigger.

R387 Couldn't resist the witticism even though I corrected myself in the next post...

Did we really need to see Andrew ordering lunch and telling the service man about his documentary?

Well, he WAS eating at The Spot.

I adore The Spot, but not sure why McCarthy was in Carpinteria.

R392 He could have been coming or going to Rob Lowe's home in Montecito.

Is Emilio's marriage to Paula Abdul mentioned? (His only one, to date.)

Someone explain to me again why Mare Winningham wasn't in the movie? (Forget about the age. She and Judd Nelson were both born in 1959.) Why is such a big deal made about Judd not doing it, but not Mare (who was once married to A. Martinez - and divorced before St. Elmo's was even made).

My guess is that Mare didn’t have the glitzy, hip and cool aura that the other ones had. She never hung out and partied with the rest, and was considered the more serious actress.

R396 Sure, I understand that. But since she was one of the stars of the film (and she did successfully remove herself from the label) wouldn't she be interviewed? Or at least, why should Judd be shamed for not wanting to be interviewed and not her? Enquiring minds want to know.

I loved Mare in “The Affair.” She’s had an interesting career.

Maybe she asked McCarthy nicely to not mention her?

Someone on another site commented that the whole doc seemed geared towards “confronting” the person who made the “he’s not going to make it” comment in the article. (DL sleuths concluded Emilio said it.)

But it would look too desperate to come out and say this, So McCarthy dressed it up as a “how did the brat pack label affect our lives” question.

The irony being that McCarthy was never really a pack member.

The other irony is that he really didn't make it.

He had a much better career than he deserved.

I too work in a field for which I don’t have much talent. I’ve managed to find a niche that works for me. I am VERY grateful for the career I do have, considering my lack of talent.

McCarthy should feel the same.

^Donald Trump

lol r402. I’m more talented than that cunt, for sure.

[quote] The irony being that McCarthy was never really a pack member.

I don't know how official any of these labels are, but the absence of Ringwald and Hall hurts the most.

They were the two actors that had the closest relationship with John Hughes - the voice of that generation.

And "The Breakfast Club" was THE seminal text, regardless of what McCarthy may have hoped.

Just look at the critical reception of "The Breakfast Club" vs "St Elmo's Fire" - one was a critically respected hit that remains a touchstone for the teen film and the other was a reviled Joel Schumacher movie.

Even those that didn't like "The Breakfast Club" did see elements to admire, from the performances to the humor. Blum himself praised Nelson's performance in "The Breakfast Club" to really stick it to "St Elmos' Fire".

Hearing what Hall and Ringwald had to say - about Hughes' warmth but also his coldness - would have offered more insights into the movies people ACTUALLY loved.

That wasn’t McCarthy’s goal. He was setting an old score.

If I were him, I would have talked more about “Less than Zero.” That’s a good film, and his glassy eyed, wan quality actually works in it.

But that would draw unfavorable comparisons to RDJ and Spader.

McCarthy had a better career than most actors of his set, as he literally appeared in one or more films a year throughout most of the '80s and even into the '90s. And yes, he is a Brat Packer.

WTF was Demi talking about? Everything after elf ears went over my head.

Mare Winningham didn’t do any other teen-oriented movies and didn’t get the media hype that surrounded the other brat packers. She was married with three young kids when she made St. Elmo’s Fire so there was nothing salacious for the tabloids to write about her.

Mare was pregnant while making SEF. If you look closely, you can see that they bound her bump.

This thing must have been a nightmare to edit. Andrew must have 4 cameras going at once at any interview.

I'd lost control of the narrative of my career!

Why Anthony Michael Hall Turned Down Andrew McCarthy's 'Brats' Documentary

R412, damn. I know Hall has had his jerk-ass moments, but that was a very gracious response.

He (Hall) actually has had a pretty steady career...he had that series, The Dead Zone, and has been sort of consistent.

I think he realizes he has a lot to be grateful for.

Hall and Ringwald could have managed that transition to mature films had they been more judicious in their choices.

Hall turned down "Full Metal Jacket" because of the time commitment in England and Ringwald turned down both "Ghost" and "Pretty Woman".

That very much doesn't fall into McCarthy's argument that they were all tarnished with this "brat" reputation.

Hall and Ringwald just made some bad career choices and they had to work their way back to bigger projects with supporting roles or TV.

Molly Ringwald isn’t a very good actress. I don’t think it was just bad choices that stalled her career.

[quote]Molly Ringwald isn’t a very good actress.

Totally disagree.

Demi Moore isn't Meryl Streep and her career was going the way of Ringwald's without "Ghost" ("One Crazy Summer", "The Seventh Sign", "We're No Angels").

"Ghost" would have been a similar success with Ringwald.

Eventually, Ringwald's career would have stalled as she wouldn't have found another gear, but she could have been credible as the likeable, weepy artiste.

Molly Ringwald lost her cuteness as an adult. . Demi was far sexier.

Looks like Clea Duvall now.

Do you believe these figures of the worth of the stars?

Demi $200 million Rob Lowe - $100 million Emilio - $18 million Andrew - $12 million Molly - $11 million Judd - $4 million Ally - $4 million Anthony Michael - $4 million

Demi's movies were huge moneymakers in her heyday, I believe at one point - for a short time - she was the highest paid actor/actress in Hollywood. Plus, she got a huge settlement in her divorce from Bruce, she was married to him during his peak moneymaking years.

Rob Lowe supposedly invested well, especially in pricy CA real estate over the years. He had a huge spread in Santa Barbara where he raised his kids, bought early in his career. I think they sold it recently for many millions.

I think Ringwald brought a completely unforced quality to her early films - you never thought of watching an actress. You were watching a high school student living her life.

I don't know if that was her acting, Hughes' direction or what.

Rob Lowe is worth an insane amount of money. Yes, he invested very well.

^Speaking of people without a lot of talent for what they do, who did very well.