Thursday Minute
No. 100 | May 20, 2010

Six Packs

Our theme this week
Rat Packs, and other “Packs” that made movies

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   Holmby Hills Rat Pack
Tuesday         —   Rat Pack
Wednesday    —   New Rat Pack

Brat Pack

All the “Packs” featured in this week’s theme are generational to one degree or another.  So it is for today’s, only more so. 

The actors collectively known as the Brat Pack are roughly the same age, born mostly between the beginning and middle of the 1960s.  They were in their young twenties, often playing teens, in a series of movies during the mid- to late-’80s.  The Brat Pack films were coming-of-age stories, personal tales of a new generation, one that was creating its own identity, something clearly distinct from the boomers’ before them.  The sixties were long over.  It was time for something new.  For anyone of a certain age, too young to identify with the politics and rebellion of earlier times, Brat Pack movies provided an outlet, and a direction.  The culture had come to a fork in the road.  The Brat Pack pointed the way.  For better or worse, that direction has led in large part to where we are today.

The typical Brat Packer was white, middle-class (or better), suburban, and cynical.  Obsessions with sex, drugs, money, teen culture, and social status didn’t start with the Brat Pack, but they had a frankness and an attitude about their obsessions that hadn’t been seen before.  Often it was not a happy group.  Many of their lives, at least onscreen, were empty and troubled.  Yet they could be funny and smart.  You probably didn’t aspire to be part of the Brat Pack.  But if you were coming of age during the ’80s, that didn’t matter.  You could identify with them, and that was enough.

There no doubt have been a few arguments over the years about who’s in the Brat Pack, and who’s not.  No official rules for membership exist, as far as I know.  Nothing I have to say will settle anything, but as I see it, here are a few films in the Brat Pack oeuvre with some of the actors who made them.

Sixteen Candles (1984, d. John Hughes):  Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, John Cusack.

The Breakfast Club (1985, d. John Hughes):  Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez.

Weird Science (1985, d. John Hughes):  Anthony Michael Hall, Kelly LeBrock, Robert Downey Jr.

St. Elmo’s Fire (1985, d. Joel Schumacher):  Emilio Estevez, Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986, d. John Hughes):  Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, Jennifer Grey, Charlie Sheen.

Pretty in Pink (1986, d. Howard Deutch):  Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, Andrew McCarthy, James Spader.

Less Than Zero (1987, d. Marek Kanievska):  Andrew McCarthy, Jamie Gertz, Robert Downey Jr., James Spader.

The name popping up in that list most often is not one of the actors, but director John Hughes, a man who got his start with Brat Pack films and who is most responsble for their existence.  Hughes seemed especially tuned in to the trials of teen life in the ’80s, though he was born in 1950 and older than the Brat Pack actors.  Huges died last August and was given a fine tribute during the Oscar ceremony in March.

---

The Breakfast Club (1985)
Trailer

---

St. Elmo’s Fire (1985)
Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez

---

Less Than Zero (1987)
Trailer

---

Quote of Note
Allison:  I’ll do anything sexual.  I don’t need a million dollars to do it either.
Claire:  You’re lying.
Allison:  I already have.  I’ve done just about everything there is except a few things that are illegal.  I’m a nymphomaniac.
Claire:  Lie.
Brian:  Are your parents aware of this?
Allison:  The only person I told was my shrink.
Andrew:  And what did he do when you told him?
Allison:  He nailed me.
Claire:  Very nice.
—Allison Reynolds (Ally Sheedy), Claire Standish (Molly Ringwald), Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall), Andrew Clark (Emilio Estevez), The Breakfast Club (1985)

…58…59…60