Count Dooku

Well, there's going to be overlap on the lines and these things are impossible to define. I've always heard "The Graduate" described as the defining movie of the baby boomer generation. However, if you were born in 1962, you are a boomer, and I doubt a movie that came out in 1967 feels defining to you.

cultshock

Anecdotal, but when I worked at my parents' video store in the late 90s, Clueless was constantly being rented and re-rented out by tween and teen girls, so basically millennials, much more than it was rented by people in their twenties. Millennials seemed to love that film.

GoldenJCJ

It’s interesting, I graduated high school in 1998 so, while Superbad doesn’t feel nearly as generationally different, and is more relatable to me than The Breakfast Club, there’s just as big of a time gap between The Breakfast Club and my high school years as Superbad is from my high school years. I was 5 years old when The Breakfast Club came out and almost 30 when Superbad came out.

Paff

Back when the film instructor asked that question (and really, this is a topic that could easily spin off into its own thread), someone jokingly suggested Fight Club, to which the instructor said "I hope not!". But joking aside, I'd have to imagine the bland, planned life that The Narrator leads in that movie really hits home for a lot of Millenials. Rest of the movie, yeah, I'd hope not.

One last anecdote about that viewing of The Graduate in film class. I slightly embarrassed myself and showed my age as well, when I was the only one in the class who laughed (loudly) when one of his older relatives asks Ben if that was his "wop job" out in the driveway. I apparently was the only one in class who knew 1., Ben was driving an Italian car, and 2., "wop" is an ethnic slur against Italians.

Cellar Door

I'll definitely be checking this out. I loved all the John Hughs movies and others with the brat pack actors. I had a big crush on Ally Sheedy.

I don't know if Molly Ringwald participated in the doc, but this interview she did on Fresh Air earlier this year is good:
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/12/11979...molly-ringwald

OldBoy

When does stuff usually go live on Hulu? 12am est?

DJariya

Yes 12am ET tomorrow for this to drop. Hulu says it’s 92 minutes

OldBoy

I’m watching St. Elmo’s Fire right now to get prepped for tomorrow morning when I’ll be able to watch.

OldBoy

it was funny when, i think, Ally Sheedy, said The Breakfast Club was on Criterion media. Nice little documentary. Very fun and showed all the negativity around that Brats stigma. Some really good interviews.

GoldenJCJ

This was surprisingly good. I was a bit too young to be caught up in the Brat Pack stuff in the 80s but I certainly remember it. I really had no idea how much that stigma affected these people.

Much of this documentary felt like an hour and a half, studio funded, therapy session for McCarthy but he seems to have been more negatively affected than many of the actors who were labeled the Brat Pack.

I’ve always thought Andrew McCarthy seemed like kind of a prick but this documentary has me seeing him in a bit of a different light. It was great seeing all the different actors’ perspectives on how that time really affected their careers.

mwbmis

Personally, I always considered the Brat Pack to be the cast of the Breakfast Club and the cast of St. Elmo's Fire (sans Mare Winningham). Everyone else including the Spaders and Cryers of the world were more adjacent. Having watched it, I'm surprised Estevez said yes to the interview. It seemed like he had no interest in talking about it; his body language conveys that. Rob Lowe's positivity was infection.

I'm also surprised Anthony Michael Hall's name was never mentioned.

Ash Ketchum

Fascinating discussion. I, on the other hand, was too old for the Brat Pack movies. They never registered with me, but I can see why others have been so enthusiastic.

If I had to come up with the "defining film of my generation," I'd be very hard put to come up with one since the audience was so divided in those years. I went to see WEST SIDE STORY over and over again and often with friends and family members. I had close friends who loved John Wayne and friends who hated him. My neighborhood friends loved action movies like A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, THE DIRTY DOZEN, the James Bond movies and THE WILD BUNCH, my high school friends loved EASY RIDER and M*A*S*H and my college friends loved Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman and Francois Truffaut. THE GRADUATE was revived and widely seen but I don't remember anyone being "defined" by it. Plus, I was seeing so many older movies like CASABLANCA, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and CITIZEN KANE in revival theaters. Then there were the "blockbusters": THE GODFATHER, THE EXORCIST, JAWS, STAR WARS.

If I had to pick one, it would be a toss-up between the two I saw most frequently in theaters in the 60s and '70s: WEST SIDE STORY and THE WILD BUNCH.

DJariya

I watched this today. It was pretty good overall and nice to hear from a lot of the key actors from that period. It was a very loose interview format, so I really don’t know how much “writing” there actually was. All the conversations were very casual. The only glaring people not participating were Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall. There were a few chats with people who weren’t really part of that “group”. Jon Cryer was Duckie in Pretty in Pink and did nothing else with that group. I think McCarthy interviewed Tim Hutton because he was a young actor in that era as well and they are friends. Lea Thompson is married to Howard Deutch, who directed Pretty in Pink. I guess they were more of the observers of the era.

at Judd supposedly calling at the end.

rocket1312

Only?! That's like half the crew!

DJariya

I thought it was interesting when McCarthy revealed that the ending of Pretty in Pink had to be completely re-shot because of terrible test screenings. McCarthy had shaved his head for a play and had to come back to shoot the ending with a bad wing.

A criticism about the shooting and editing. I wasn’t really a fan of McCarthy having camera shots and cameramen visible during the actual interviews. That could have been tightened up. I found that a little distracting. And what the heck was that little black box on the left of the screen?

mwbmis

Cryer was also in No Small Affair with Demi, and he ended up working multiple times with Charlie. Tim Hutton makes sense because he really starts the era off by winning that Oscar for Ordinary People. He becomes a leading man at a really young age, which opens the door to Taps, which gives you Penn and Cruise, then the Outsiders, John Hughes, and the Brat Pack. I see the linear path. Lea made several movies that would put her Brat Pack adjacent.

As for Hall, I wondered if it was because he and McCarthy never worked together. Maybe he wasn't comfortable reaching out to him.

dex14

People seem to continue to confuse the Brat Pack as named in the article with people in John Hughes movies. Regardless of if there was some overlap or if the collective consciousness of pop culture has merged the two... the basis of the McCarthy's grievance is the David Blum article and those were:

The article came out three weeks before the release of St. Elmo's fire and The Breakfast Club was earlier in the year... so they all just kind of merged with overlap of casts.

McCarthy is barely even mentioned. Honestly, holding this grudge for 40 years is kind of embarrassing. The doc became repetitive.

Count Dooku

Well, ever since he killed Harry Potter's parents, that's how it has been.

VHS?

I heard it was because he said BRAT PACK DIES TONIGHT!

I thought this was good. It would have been nice to see a few more faces but I think many feel this group was limited in names.

GoldenJCJ

Yeah. You don’t have to be a body language expert to know Estevez didnt want to be there. They stood in Emilio’s kitchen with a counter between them through the whole interview. I kept waiting for them to conduct the meat of interview in a more relaxed space but they never did.

I wonder if Estevez agreed to be involved because he has guilt about being the one who brought Blum into the group while he was writing Emilio’s profile. He said the whole reason he agreed to be interviewed was because it was McCarthy, himself, who called and asked.

dex14

It was super awkward.

Kurt D

Awkward from the get-go. I am only 20 minutes into it and don't know if I can handle any more.

Kurt D

it's meant to be a sprocket hole on film stock

Nesbit

This was one of the saddest movies I’ve ever seen.

Throwing Copper

Enjoyed this a lot, but it was definitely a bit sad. Kinda pissed we never got Judd Nelson, he was the one I wanted to hear from the most.

Rob Lowe sure as hell was happy in his interview 😅- his career has been very good.