Brat Pack Part 3: The John Hughes Effect

I know people love The Lost Boys.  I think they're going to remake it.  Let's not even begin to ask why.  But, could we point to it and say that it was, if anything was, the ultimate Joel Schumacher film, if such a thing exists?  I saw this one back in the day too.  Again, when it lived and lived again over and over every day, five or six times a day on cable after it had it's initial theatrical run.  And might we ask, was it not simply The Goonies all over again, with vampires?  I think we can be sure of one thing.  It's decidedly in that group of 80's movies that everyone remembers.  That and that Mr. Schumacher sure loved back-lighting and wind fans.  

Hhhhhmmmmm....

Based on what I've seen of the work of Mr. Schumacher, I can't say that I was moved emotionally in any kind of way.  Perhaps excited by visual stimuli, which his work was brimming over with.  Lots of slick, pretty eye-candy.  Pumped up editing.  "Hot Button" social issues treated in a sensationalistic way. Trying too hard camp. And so on.  The Lost Boys featured several of the young actors who were considered part of The Brat Pack; but it's getting to be 1987 now, and anyone in and of The Brat Pack is only post Brat Pack or Brat Pack Adjacent.  Besides, really, "The Brat Pack" was a Pop-cultural blip anyways.  I was there, in the mid-80's, paying attention.  No one was using the term in any kind of serious way.  No one was saying, "Hey, let's go see the latest Brat Pack movie!"  Maybe, just maybe, people would say: "Hey, let's go see Molly Ringwald's latest movie!"  Or, infintesimally more possible: "You wanna go see that new Matthew Broderick picture?"
So, let's figure out, just exactly who was in The Brat Pack and who was just lumped in after the fact, simply by dint of being young, having perhaps played a teenager whilst in your 20's in the 80's or having appeared in directly or with someone who had appeared in a movie with Ms. Ringwald.  A John Hughes movie, of which she was in three.

THE OFFICIAL BRAT PACK ACCORDING TO NEW YORK MAGAZINE'S ARTICLE BY MR. DAVID BLUM FROM JUNE 10TH, 1985:

Rob Lowe
Emilio Estevez
Judd Nelson
Tom Cruise
Timothy Hutton
Matt Dillon
Nicolas Cage
Sean Penn
Matthew Broderick
Matthew Modine
Kevin Bacon
Harry Dean Stanton(?)
Andrew McCarthy(?)
Clayton Rohner(?)

Mentioned merely in "girlfriend capacity"
Melissa Gilbert
Demi Moore

Mr. McCarthy is barely mentioned in the article.  And when he is, it's as a New York based actor who is also in St. Elmo's Fire.  He is clearly positioned as outside of and not actually in The Brat Pack.  This is interesting to note, as it now seems that Mr. McCarthy was the one actor most deeply affected and effected by the entire article, when, in fact, the article takes pains to point out he actually isn't in The Brat Pack.

THE BRAT PACK MEMBERS BY ASSOCIATION OR FELLOW TRAVELLERS, IF YOU WILL
Now, I will be interpreting this list via my own recollection and perception as a member of the general public.

Molly Ringwald
Anthony Michael Hall
Matthew Broderick
Andrew McCarthy
Jon Cryer
Emilio Estevez
James Spader
Lea Thompson
Michael J. Fox
Mia Sara
Jennifer Jason Leigh
C. Thomas Howell
Ralph Macchio
Elizabeth Shue
Ally Sheedy
Judge Reinhold
Phoebe Cates
Jami Gertz
(Names subject to change...)
Now let's get our pink yarn and see just how many of these folks, named and otherwise, we can connect to Molly Ringwald.  But first, we have to go back to Brooke Shields.  Why?  Because Susan Sarandon played her mother. Twice.

But before we get to that; I have not included Tom Cruise in my personal assessment of who was actually in The Brat Pack.  Nor have I included Judd Nelson.  Nor, Matt Dillon. Nor, Sean Penn.  Nor, a lot of other people.  But with those four in particular...  Cruise was never in a John Hughes movie or really part of an ensemble after TAPS, which I don't think anyone considers a Brat Pack movie (or really any movie Timothy Hutton was in; winning the Oscar that early automatically excluded him). Risky Business, although about a teenager, was an extremely adult movie.  I mean, Rebecca DeMornay's lady triangle made an appearance.  Rated R.  Not easily teen accessible. Judd Nelson never seemed like he even wanted to be there; on a set or in front of a camera.  He never seemed like a teenager, either.  He never seemed like anything less than the 25 year-old he was in The Breakfast Club.  In St. Elmo's Fire he's not just phoning it in, he's phoning it out.  He seems like an apparition.  Vaporous.  Never fully committed; even corporeally.  I think that's why he never became a Big Star (although he's one of my favorites).  Matt Dillon never seemed to emerge with a definitive persona.  He was too cameleonic.  It made him a better actor; but not a better teen star (not neccessarily a bad thing).  Sean Penn was all over the map too.  In Bad Boys he was too convincing as a thug.  In Fast Times, too convincing as a dunce.  There was nothing for the public to hold on to.  He also suffered from the whole: "I'm too good for this, acting is so corny, I want to be alone, being a movie star is beneath me" business.  Brat Pack card rescinded.  Robert Downey Jr., who really should have been in the brat pack (and indeed did and does seem the brattiest of the bunch); and despite having been in a John Hughes movie (a small part in Weird Science); never was.  He was just too all over the map.  Never came across as a teen; more like a 55 year-old who'd been around the block more than thrice.  No Brat stamp for him.
Back to Sue Sarandon.  The idea here is that we connect Molly Ringwald, who I think is The Nexus Point for all things 20th Century Teenage Movie Phenomenology, to anyone involved in any way with any of this.  So let's go back first, to Jodie Foster (who, as I mentioned, I feel started all this.  She was the OG modern movie teen); and see if we can connect her to Molly with as few dots as possible.

At first I was afraid I couldn't do it.  I was petrified...but then with some not so prolonged meditation; I was able to do it with an absolute minimum of dots.  Molly was in a TV movie called Surviving, which also starred Ellen Burstyn.  Ellen, of course, was in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore which featured Jodie.  Surviving was a rather harrowing affair.  Most decidedly not a teen comedy. I think it was the best thing Molly did from that period, dramatically speaking. It also featured Zach Galligan; another teen from this time period, who, for whatever reason, never made it into any pack.  Kind of disappeared.  Why?  He was as good and as good looking as any of the other boys he orbited.  Big hit movie with Gremlins.  Who knows why these things work the way they do.

MOLLY RINGWALD AS NEXUS POINT RE: 1980'S YOUTH CINEMA:
APPEARED DIRCTLY IN SAME FILM AS MOLLY:
Andrew McCarthy
Judd Nelson
Anthony Michael Hall
Robert Downey Jr. 
Jon Cryer
Ally Sheedy
Emilio Estevez
Zach Galligan
James Spader
Jami Gertz
John Cusack
Joan Cusack
Gedde Watanabe
Alexa Kenin
Ben Stiller
MOLLY ENCOUNTERS OF THE SECOND AND THIRD KIND:
Brooke Shields: Starred with Susan Sarandon in two films; Sarandon appeared in Tempest (1982) with Molly.
Christopher Atkins: Blue Lagoon with Shields, Shields/Sarandon/Ringwald.
Michael J. Fox: Starred with Lea Thompson in Back to the Future; Thompson starred in All the Right Moves with Tom Cruise; Cruise was in Endless Love with Brooke Shields/Sarandon/Ringwald. Or a shorter version: Ringwald/Galligan/Cates/Fox.
BUT CAN WE CONNECT MOLLY TO KEVIN BACON; AND IF SO, WHAT IS THE SHORTEST WAY?
Sure!  Marsha Mason played Molly's mom in Surviving and Kevin was in Only When I Laugh, which also starred Kristy McNichol.
And we could do this all day; because if we can connect Molly to Kevin this easily; then we can connect Molly to literally every movie actor on the Planet Earth!
So, perhaps being included in The Brat Pack was not the curse that Mr. McCarthy seems to have thought it was.  Maybe being named as part of that club was actually beneficial to his career.  I mean, after having been named thusly (sort of) and his reaction being "Oh, fuck..." he did go on to make Pretty In Pink with Molly which, for whatever reason; and I think arguably, is the one "Brat Pack" movie that is the most remembered.  The most beloved.  The most rewatched.  Why?  We've established everyone was kind of too old for their roles.  So, why?  Perhaps because it's based on Cinderella; source material that has proven itself ageless?  I think that might have something to do with it.  But nothing lasts forever, and the 80's teen movie had to come to an end as well.  But it's not like Hollywood didn't stop trying until at least the early 90's.  But wasn't Heathers kind of the stake in the heart of The Brat Pack and everything it implied?
Yes.
And here is where I think we come to a fearful misstep in the careers of Molly Ringwald and Mr. McCarthy.  A movie called Fresh Horses that was pretty much a remake of Pretty In Pink, by way of Tennessee Williams, with all the fun drained away.

It was a setback that probably would've killed most careers; but in this case, it didn't.  In fact, in Mr. McCarthy's case, he had yet another hit film with Weekend at Bernie's.  Say what you will about that; but a hit is a hit.  A moderate hit.  And now it's achieved cult status.  So what's the problemo, Andy?  Oh, and let us not forget Mannequin also from 1987; another case of a moderate hit at the time becoming a well regarded "cult" hit.  Mr. McCarthy, I would say you were in a shit-ton of movies back in the day and several of them have stood the test of time.  I would say, by anyone's estimation, that if only you're still here to talk about and get a "Brat Pack" documentary; that you ended up way more ahead of the game than most.
I never felt that Demi Moore was in The Brat Pack, even though she traversed those spheres and was mentioned in the OG article.  Maybe it was because I'd already been watching her on General Hospital for a good two years before she started showing up in movies.  And she played a reporter, so I automatically thought of her as someone older.  And she always did seem older than the rest of her peers. Perhaps because she had the smokey voice of a 40 year-old 1940's film noir chanteuse. On GH she played ace reporter "Jackie Templeton."  Let's take a look!

And speaking of setbacks...
And I don't want to pile on here, but I think this needs to be examined, since we're looking at all of this...we need to examine the following, a clear attempt to maintain a distance from John Hughes and The Brat Pack:

Full disclosure, I have never seen Wisdom in its entirety.  And I am basing my following comments on recollections from nearly forty years ago, based mostly on what I remember about the film's marketing and publicity.  And I bring it up here because in Brats, a visit is made to the abode of Mr. Estevez by Mr. McCarthy.  That Mr. Estevez agreed to be on camera was something of a surprise, as he has famously refused to have anything to do with anything from his past: e.g.: running commentary on the Blu Ray of Repo Man, let alone the Blu Ray of 17 Going On Nowhere, an afterschool special he made early in his career (you can watch it in its entirety on Youtube; from a show called Insight from 1980.  That show was like super intense!).  And you know, I recall going to see Repo Man in the theater, which everyone was going nuts over at the time.  I was like, huh?  I don't get it...
But obviously, Mr. Estevez had bigger plans than being in The Brat Pack or silly teen movies.  I mean, we all know who his dad is, one of the most Super Intense Actors of his generation.  And then he went on to become the surrogate President of the United States.  I mean, is it any surprise Mr. Estevez had huge aspirations?  It's interesting to read the original New York magazine article that was originally supposed to be a profile of just Emilio; so, in a way, we can kind of lay The Brat Pack at his feet.  Mr. Blum, the author, goes out of his way to not just short shame Emilio; but paint him as cheap and shallow; devoting several paragraphs to Emilio's attempts to get him and his friends into a Westwood movie theater for free and invite author Jay McInerney out to a club and then not speak to him.  And btw, who hangs out in Westwood?  I mean, if you didn't attend UCLA?  Maybe that was a SoCal dude thing.  And you'll really feel old when Emilio goes running around Westwood to find a payphone to make a call!  Good times!
Emilio appearing in Brats, it seems to me, has only one function.  To apologize to Andrew for shutting down a movie they were going to make together after the article came out.  That's how much he wanted no part of it.  And now, he clearly (still) feels guilty about it.  And, really, he probably did kill the movie, had that power; because for whatever reason, at 23 and an untested filmmaker; he was given free reign/rein and a substantial budget to make Wisdom, a movie he wrote, directed and starred in right after St. Elmo's Fire.  Even considering Hollywood's long standing embrace of nepotism, it's rather astounding that Mr. Estevez was afforded that opportunity.  Particularly as the premise of the movie was based on a type-font, which Mr. Estevez has openly admitted.  A type-font you ask?  A type-font, Chris?  Well, maybe not a type-font; but a word.  That one word, WISDOM.  I paraphrase, but he said the word "wisdom" came into his head and he saw it on a movie screen and thought it was "cool" or whatever and then sort of reverse engineered the movie around that.  And you can clearly see that in this trailer, which features the word "wisdom" and other words in the same font.  

You can't say he didn't have grandes cojones en su cajones. I mean, the sheer chutzpah of isolating your last name like that and that of your paramour.  Like: GABLE...LOMBARD...GONE.    And he also managed to channel one of his dad's first movies...

It's always fascinating, I think, to put something like Wisdom in context.  Like what was out at the same time it was.

So, we can only wonder what if.  What if the movie Emilio and Andrew were supposed to make together had happened?  Well, yes; it might've been the biggest, most successful film of both of their careers.  And it also might have made WISDOM look like Citizen Kane.  And speaking of Citizen Kane, particularly looking at Wisdom as the would-be work of an auteur, perhaps only someone like Orson Welles could get away with writing, directing and starring in his first movie.  But even he had proven himself in radio first.  My advice to anyone finding themselves in the position to write, direct and star in their own movie.  DON'T.  Or, pick two and make sure one isn't "star."  Putting yourself in front of the camera of a movie you've written and you're directing can only come across as a "vanity project."  Only a once in a generation kind of talent can do this.  We can't all be Woody Allen.  But, Mr. Estevez continues to make movies; both behind and in front of the camera.  And may I suggest, Emilio, that you take a swing at a teen-age comedy?  Perhaps you're now the Principal of Shermer High School and find yourself one Saturday baby-sitting a bunch of Gen Alphas?  Because, really, when you think about it, the cycle is due for a comeback.  Perhaps Andrew Could be in it.  He's now the grown son of Mr. Vernon and the two of you are at loggerheads as to how to deal with these glued to their screen, well, brats.  Hey, I think we're on to something here.  We could call it, The Uber-Eats Club.

So, I'll be wrapping this up (hopefully) in the next installment.  So please see:
Andrew, The Brat Pack and Me et.al. Part 4
Ciao!

CFR   6/26/24