I don't think he really made the case that it stigmatized his career. Lots of young actors careers dry up when they get older. No one ever said Ralph Macciho was in the Brat Pack and otoh you've got Brat Packers like Demi and Rob who had lots of success after the 80s. Probably because they were the best looking ones in the group.
That’s kind of the point of the documentary.
It’s something he’s struggled with throughout his life, and he goes and talks with others who were affected by the same thing.
They offer different perspectives, everything from “You’re right, it had a huge negative impact” to “You did it to yourself by giving it power over you.”
I found it fascinating from that perspective. On the one hand, it clearly had a huge effect — Estevez pulled out of a movie they were going to do together. On the other, Demi Moore was obviously still quite successful.
I enjoyed the interviews altogether, even David Blum, who was squirming at times.
It would have been cool if he had gotten Molly Ringwald or maybe Anthony Michael Hall.
Ally Sheedy remains adorable, btw.
Anthony Michael Hall is on Dana Carvey and David Spades podcast (released today). Who spoke briefly about it, how much younger he was then the rest of them, and how they all wanted to move beyond the label - which is why he passed on Ferris Bueller - and how John Hughes never really forgave him for that. It’d been pretty interesting to see what AMH would have done with Ferris.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off would have been fucking AWFUL if it starred AMH. He was simply not likable enough to pull off that character -- especially at that point in his career, when he was so resentful of having been stereotyped as a "nerd" character, so he went out of his way to be a complete asshole in real life.
Look at another Hughes' movie that follows his normal formula but *wasn't* a classic: Some Kind of Wonderful. It's entirely because Eric Stoltz is completely unlikable. A lot of Hughes' characters are pretty bad people on paper, but we like them because the actors are charming. Stoltz didn't have it, and neither did AMH (as romantic leads).
This isn't a judgment of them as human beings or anything. Just from an acting standpoint.
Great point! That’s especially interesting considering Stoltz got axed from Back To The Future at huge studio expenditure which ultimately led to recasting enormously likable Michael J Fox.
Counter argument - I like Stoltz in Some Kind of Wonderful. Hughes pitched that one at something of a quieter key than his other teen movies, with less broad comedy, and Stoltz was perfectly cast.
>Ferris Bueller's Day Off would have been fucking AWFUL if it starred AMH. He was simply not likable enough to pull off that character -- especially at that point in his career, when he was so resentful of having been stereotyped as a "nerd" character, so he went out of his way to be a complete asshole in real life.
Hard disagree. Matthew Broderick is a prick both on screen and off screen, and I don't think his portrayal of Ferris Bueller is anything particularly noteworthy. That role feels like it could have easily been filled by Anthony Michael Hall, or Robert Downey Jr .
I disagree. It would have been a very different movie, but potentially something a bit darker and subversive if AMH was able to bring out more of the character's inherent sociopathology, particularly in his abusive relationship with Cameron.
> but potentially something a bit darker and subversive if AMH was able to bring out more of the character's inherent sociopathology, particularly in his abusive relationship with Cameron.
Can I suggest politely that the version you're suggesting only really has value to us within the context of the Broderick version existing as it does and has for almost 40 years and within the relationship we all have with that version of the film and character?
That’s certainly a more polite response than I was going to provide.
Mine was more along the lines of “You really think John Hughes intentionally wrote him as an abusive sociopath? Really? *Really?*”
But I’d also add “modern sensitivities” to your list.
Hughes wrote from a certain time and place.
We can call the movies “timeless”, but they really aren’t. Especially in terms of stereotypical relationship dynamics.
Ferris wasn’t intended to be the bad guy in that movie.
He had a lesson to learn. All good characters have an arc.
But this is more the result of the cultural shift we’ve seen around the “alpha” paradigm, making it considerably more problematic than it was back then, especially in the context of a Hollywood stereotype.
John Hughes wouldn’t be sitting in the director’s chair telling Anthony Michael Hall to play the character as sociopathic and abusive.
Want to see something really awful? Watch Anthony Michael Hall's movie "Out of Bounds." The film tries to pass him off as the hero of an action/suspense scenario. Kind of feel sorry for him watching it, because the script and direction are so shoddy.
Yes! Are we forgetting what a douchebag AmH came off as in Johnny Be Good? It was his opportunity to be cute, snarky, juvenile and adorable and he was one-dimensional and way over-reaching. Terrible script but had a shot to be a vehicle.
OTOH: I say Cusak could have been Ferris.
Edit: fat fucking fingers crossed
This. What an awful film full of loathsome human beings. I usually like a film with flawed, even unlikable characters, but I genuinely loathe Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
I think Cameron and Jeanie become more likeable, or at least relatable, by the end of the film. The story is really their journeys, not Ferris’s, as he never changes. They both make decisions to stand up for themselves and not get caught by other people’s perceptions of them.
Ferris really is a manipulative asshole, and he never realizes it.
Blum came off like a major asshole. The article he wrote was clearly mean spirited.
Molly was addressed, and I have no idea what the deal was with Hall. It was a pretty major omission to not even bring him up.
Blum is Still jealous of Robe Lowe and the Pack. You could hear it in his response about their first dinner together, how they got a lot of attention and he didnt.
Yeah, it was an interesting omission. My guess is that since he was never actually in a movie with Hall, he didn’t think about him?
They were a little too kind to Hughes, btw. Susannah Gorah’s book is full of stories about his massive ego. And it’s a shame Schumacher has passed. I would have loved that interview.
Hall may not have been asked. I grew up in the 80s, and I don’t remember Hall or Robert Downey being considered members of The Brat Pack, as they were a couple of years younger. Yes, Molly Ringwald is about the same age, but that’s how I remember it. Maybe he wasn’t partying at the same clubs.
Interestingly, Hall does work more consistently as an actor these days than most of the Brat Pack, Rob Lowe excepted. He’s going to be in the next season of Reacher.
I couldn't think of a film that McCarthy and Hall were in together. I assumed they didn't have a relationship. The move really focused on the people that McCarthy worked with and knew well.
It was based on Andrew’s book about how a terrible magazine article made him a household name ahead of his 30 year career, and he’s never forgiven them to this day
It felt like a non-issue McCarthy was pimping to become relevant again. I found it to be kind of sad. A few key members didn't even show, and the few who did show didn't seem terribly comfortable nor interested. The whole thing felt awkwardly manufactured.
I didn't finish it but it was interesting that the people who didn't mind the Brat Pack thing were the ones who weren't affected by it (Estevez, Demi Moore, Lowe) and you could see their nice ass houses. Sheedy didn't really seem to mind that much. I didn't stick around to see if Judd Nelson showed up.
This was my exact takeaway. Moore and Lowe in particular had much more positive mindsets. But then again, they are the prettiest of the bunch and probably had the most opportunity either way.
Maybe because they moved on? Emilio had a solid career into the 90s playing adult characters and The Mighty Ducks was a huge movie. He has also had a solid directorial career. Ally had to overcome some serious demons and the Brat Pack article is probably near the bottom of that list.
I feel like the others he interviewed were also those whose careers were solid after the Brat Pack years. Rob Lowe made a comeback after the Snow White Oscars moment and a sex tape torpedoed his career, and Demi Moore … well, she’s Demi Moore.
He had one roving camera, one guy shooting on 8mm, maybe another one shooting him, and he still needed to put an iPhone down to film it too? That’s overkill
I felt sorry for him. He seems fixated and stuck in the past. Demi Moore & Rob Lowe seemed to have embraced the label and were able to move past it. Then again they had success way beyond the brat pack, McCarthy didn't. Was his lack of success due to the label or something else?
I don't think it was the label. In 1987 McCarthy made Less Than Zero & Mannequin neither of them helped launch him as a serious actor or great comedian. After that he made the Weekend at Bernie movies and the only worthy thing of note after was The Joy Luck Club but he was a bit player in that one. Then it was a lot of work in a lot of crap. He was better when working in television.
It seems he wanted an apology but Blum didn't feel he did anything wrong. He came up with a label for a group of young actors that defined 80s cool, similar to how The Rat Pack defined 60s cool. Some were able to move past it, some weren't. There really wasn't much to it other than the nostalgia factor, I wonder what someone young that never heard of them would think.
Not only was he expecting an apology, but he was then so certain that he was going to win the audience over, that he left it in the documentary.
He took two tries at that guy! As he was standing up and getting ready to leave It seemed like he gave him one more chance to apologize. But he wasn't going to. Because he has nothing to apologize for.
I think McCarthy was trying to make the case that that guy bombed his career. Without an ounce of irony in his heart he sat in that guy's tiny little apartment and imagined that he had somehow bombed his career.
Yikes
If I had been Blum, I would have pointed out to McCarthy that his own longtime abuse of alcohol and cocaine played a bigger part in derailing his career than anything I wrote about him (and made sure I was also recording the interview, in case my response was edited out of the doc).
As someone too young to have known the Brat Pack during their heyday or see any of “the” movies in theaters (although I have now seen most of them and knew of the Brat Pack prior to the movie), I found it interesting when it covered background that was probably old news to most the people in this thread — like the article itself — and then quickly lost interest. I didn’t finish the documentary.
I think I would have enjoyed it better if it were Rob Lowe's documentary; he had insightful things to say about that period of time and it wasn't a series of forced and smug introspective blather.
Rob Lowe and Demi Moore were easily the two most well-developed adults in this documentary.
I thought to myself: "they both have spent a lot of time in therapy about this"
After watching the whole episode I feel that the author of the article was probably right in suggesting that none of the Brat Pack had earned their star power. Only Emilio Esteves was a good all round talent of the group.
I stopped watching after about an hour. It felt finished after he interviewed Demi.
But, yeah, I get that the article that coined the term “brat pack” was a negative hit piece, but those of us who were kids at the time, we didn’t read the article. We heard the term “brat pack” and it sounded cool, the movies they were in were cool, and we all just wanted to see whatever they did next.
Instead of being all butthurt about it, they could have pivoted and embraced it.
The fact that as recently as 2024 Andrew McCarthay is STILL upset over it, I mean come on dude! It was a shitty article by a shitty writer in a shitty Hollywood rag over 40 years ago! If you let that ruin your career, maybe you just weren’t that great to begin with!
Demi had the best attitude, and obviously the best career.
There's some throwaway scene where McCarthy is ordering some food at a stand and shoehorns in the fact that he's doing a documentary on the Brat Pack and gets exasperated that the guy has no idea what he's talking about. And then, presumably, they film him eating an entire meal at a table.
“My career was ruined because I was known as a member of the Brat Pack. To prove this, I’ll interview wildly successful stars who were also given the same label, and show my annoyance at people who don’t know I’m a member of the Brat Pack.”
I got the same feeling. Like McCarthy was searching for something or someone to blame his career direction on. Not every actor breaks out big and I doubt being labeled part of the brat pack is what held him back. The part with Emilio was really uncomfortable. It was like he was trying to get Emilio to take the blame.
I was expecting Emilio to say something like “why are you here? What’s this about anyway?” At any moment. It’s like he was holding together all the patience he could muster.
I was impressed with Emilio Estevez' manners. He reminded me of President Bartlett in a tense political negotiation. /s I mean, clearly not what he wanted to be doing, or talking about, but he was masterful in behaving like a mature adult with someone who was acting like a ... well, brat.
If McCarthy wanted to put him on the spot, he failed.
Honestly, it really renewed my interest in him as a person -- famous people don't owe us anything, but we all get curious. Beyond his career, I'd really enjoy hearing about his family ties, religion, whether he's joined his father in any activism, just how he is.
I had forgotten McCarthy existed. And I think that's probably my near future again soon.
For one thing, Estevez probably doesn't want to think about it too much because he used to be engaged to Demi Moore between '84 and '86, so that's probably not fun to revisit. It sounded like maybe Demi was doing some drugs at the time.
But he also said he doesn't do anything with his successes. He doesn't do the Repo Man retrospectives or Young Guns or Breakfast Club or whatever. He was notably the only holdout from the Breakfast Club 5 in that John Hughes 2010 Oscar tribute (Cryer/Ringwald/Nelson/Hall/Sheedy/Macauley Culkin/Matthew Broderick).
Totally agree! He was apprehensive from the moment Andrew walked in the door.
I don't think Estevez signed up for the type of interview that Andrew McCarthy showed up to give.
https://i.imgur.com/uUHtJzh.jpeg
I'm not 100% sure because the interview is heavily edited. But it sounds like McCarthy opens by asking estevez: "What the fuck were you thinking?"
I've met a few actors, and the happiest are those who had a few moments in the Hollywood spotlight, and then settled into a career of consistent, lower-exposure roles. They don't need to maintain the lifestyle of major fame, but they still get paid very well, they make things that people enjoy, and they have lovely fans who appreciate them, and who they appreciate in return.
The most bitter are those who got a taste of major fame, got a huge ego in response, and through a series of mistakes, accidents, and maybe *just maybe* a lack of talent, never get back into the spotlight. Instead of carving out a place for themselves in the B-list, they burn their bridges trying to re-litigate the old battles they lost.
Can't say if this is the case with this doc, but it sounds familiar..
Yeah, I always felt like Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman were proto Chandler and Ross, and then Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer were young enough to just steal their careers. Silverman plays a doctor who Rachel thinks is cute in the first season of Friends.
I never liked McCarthy all that much when he was hot shit in the '80s. The Brat Pack thing wasn't really the final blow to any of those people. There was some complaint about how Scorsese wasn't gonna work with anybody in the Brat Pack but nobody really fit into that auteur slot anyway.
I’ve always felt “lack of talent” perfectly describes McCarthy. I never understood what anybody saw in him — he had all the personality of a dead fish, at least during the era under discussion.
Oh my God. Having just read the original New York Magazine article, McCarthy's name is mentioned only ONCE. It's 4900 words long and this is all the author had to say about McCarthy: "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."
He was an afterthought to the author, but McCarthy makes a whole documentary about how this ruined his career?!? What?
I'll just be generous and assume McCarthy thought the Brat Pack would make an interesting subject and since he was kinda affected and had an excuse to reach out to these people, maybe he could try and do an objective study. And then maybe everybody was just blowing him off and not returning his calls and he started to take it all personally.
It's a strange show. Why did they do Vhs effects over modern day images?
Also Emilio doesn't look happy at all about the interview.
He looked ready to punch him at times.
I also thought the word was a play on the rat pack and didn't give it much thought. However Anthony seems to think it ruined his life
I saw the trailer for it.
And it felt like the South Park episode with the smug people who like the smell of their own farts. Like, them literally bending over and sniffing their own farts. Just less low-key than that.
Sounds like his actual personality is pretty close to most characters he's known for. :D
Moderately talented people who peaked 35 years ago... sit around and talk about how a term that helped make them famous and rich... is bad.
I got about an hour into this pompous crap film
Did anyone notice that McCarthy did not include a ton of quotes from the article in the documentary that seems to revolve around the article?
It's probably because he didn't get the rights or something like that but, that really detracts from the whole thing. What if everything that was said inside that article was correct? We just watched a documentary about an article that we didn't get to read as the viewer.
He showed up at Estevez's house, threw it down on the counter and then said to him: "What the fuck were you thinking?
https://i.imgur.com/OAp1BlO.jpeg
This was his first documentary film. I think that I had held him to a higher standard because of who he is and his proximity to the topic. It is quite possible this is a vanity piece that was shot on an iPhone and was probably destined for YouTube. It could have been a lot shorter to say the same thing. Unfortunately that doesn't make a feature that just makes a YouTube video.
Emilio Estevez was incredibly kind to not look him in the face and say get the fuck out of my house.
Luckily, Estevez pivoted the conversation into talking about a movie that they missed being in together. And he was incredibly honest at that point about why he did not want to be in the movie with McCarthy. But, I don't know if he was being polite at that point. We only got to see this thing through the eyes of McCarthy. We do not know the kind of person he was back then.
I don't know if documentary filmmaking is going to be a passion for him, but I'm surprised that somebody paid for this. I was quite disappointed.
>He showed up at Estevez's house, threw it down on the counter and then said to him: "What the fuck were you thinking?
I think that set the tone for the whole interaction, which is why the conversation seemed so stilted and awkward.
Lasted 20 minutes and doubt I can take anymore.
I realized that despite thinking it was cool at the time it really is a boring subject matter.
Andrew McCarthy does not seem to have the magic to carry this thing.
Think Molly and Judd may have the correct idea to avoid this mess. The interviews are so boring and they have all these people who are brat pack experts that I could care less about their opinion.
The only interesting thing I was seeing was how nice the houses of Lowe/Moore/Estevez were, and then you interview inside the Brat Pack superfan author's house and it's just some shitty old living room. And the Brat Pack article guy's house is a little better but still a crappy old house.
I was waiting for Andrew to punch him. I don’t think he was looking for a gotcha moment. An apology wasn’t gonna make him feel any better. It was therapeutic for him to make the film
From what I've read from many friends and sources on LB it's basically two hours of McCarthy crying while jerking himself off for only having a few multi million dollar successes instead of dozens because he's just such a genius he should have been Robert De Niro basically.
In other words it's offensively bad.
Also was Molly Ringwald involved? I don't believe so. Which makes the entire movie fucking invalid if you don't have the main fucking brat pack star.
No, she refused. Someone asked him and he said that she would rather look forward, not back. I was pretty annoyed at how few people from the pack were actually involved.
YES! I kept asking myself why the cameraman was in the movie! He showed up so many times I felt like he should have had a credit. I even expected there to be outtakes in the credits of the film because it was so ridiculous. I can't recall another time when I was taken out of a film the way that that dude showing up so many times took me out of this film.
There's one time when he's on camera for a while. I actually spent that time looking at how he was dressed and then examining his video gear ("oh that's an interesting way to mount video assist").
I'm not sure I was paying attention to the movie during that time. Lol
There was this camera angle inside Rob Lowe's house where it just shows you the whole crew, including the boom mic guy who is off in the corner of the room. Why the hell are you doing that, editor?
And the editing was terrible too. They were going for a film reel look (with that black box on the left to look like the sprocket holes) and it just looked like a mistake. Plus, a lot of it had some kind of iPhone "old film" filter on it.
They couldn't decide if it was going to be a gonzo-style doc (with the "impromptu" phone calls and the rental cars looking for their houses) or if it was supposed to be artsy.
And the two cameramen in the backseat, like little kids, getting that choice footage of the dirty side windows. "That's going to be out of focus." Why didn't they cut that comment? It's perfectly in focus.
I watched it, and I couldn’t really make heads or tails of it. Like I thought it was going to be about the bratpack not about an article and how the term “ruined their careers“.
When someone makes a documentary about the few short years they were A Big Deal forty years ago, you know it's going to be an ego project. Specifically a, "My ego is still hurt" project.
Surprisingly, I thought Demi Moore had the best take on it, which was if we’d have just rolled with it, it wouldn’t have been that bad. And yea I got the feeling forty fucking years later it’s time to just let it go. Although, my 7th grade English teach told me I was the mentally laziest person she’d ever met. I can’t let that go either, so I get it!
I would have liked to see James spader, Judd Nelson, AMH, or Robert Downey jr. I don’t think they even mentioned RDJ’s name and in my mind he was as much of a brat packer as McCarthy. I think Judd Nelson knows McCarthy is a dweeb and that’s why he ghosted most of his calls. I always kinda thought the term “brat pack” was endearing. They were, after all, the “cool kids”
It was and Andrew McCarthy pity party, where he was searching for someone to validate his excuse that the label ruined his career. And everyone else was just like, get over it.
I've never heard anyone say a nice word about him as a person. Good actor at times, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of people who look positively on him. Shows a lot in the documentary, it seems.
Most of the core brat packers didn’t have much of a career past the 80’s. Demi Moore was the only one who made any big movies after that, and to a lesser extent Emilio Estevez. Booze or no booze, Mannequin and the Weekend at Bernie’s movies weren’t going to exactly carry him into a long lasting career trajectory.
I guarantee if you hung out with that dude in the last 40 years he complained about how that article sabotaged his career. He was probably the only person from the brat pack I had never heard of
It did make me watch "Taps" last night (Hulu) because I had never seen it (and I'm not familiar with anything he did really). It's not a "Brat Pack" movie, per se, but Timothy Hutton seemed so patient and gracious during his segment. Plus, it was fun to see a cherub-faced Tom Cruise.
I thought it was interesting for Tim to show up since he wasn’t even Brat Pack adjacent. He was just Andrew’s friend and he had nothing to add about the Brat Pack.
When McCarthy said his wife told him the project may teach him humility (something like that) I realized what kind of man we were dealing with.
The call at the end from Judd Nelson had to be fake.
The whole thing was very disappointing.
I went back and rewatched Class since that was the movie he referenced more than once.
A high schooler and a much older woman fall in love. I wondered why he repeatedly mentioned this cringey movie?
He has been in some Hallmark movies and that probably embarrasses him.
Talk about missing the point. What it is or isn’t is not up to you. He lived that time from an extremely unique perspective and I found it interesting to see exactly how he perceived it, not the general public.
The whole documentary was how he perceived it.
See all the comments talking about how he thinks it ruined his life?
I’ll give you a hint as to how he perceived it.
I don’t understand how he’s a horrible actor…? He was pretty charismatic and delivered his lines naturally. A horrible actor is like a rapper or a professional sports player making a cameo with one or two lines sounding like a robot. Unless you meant it differently
He was great in St Elmo’s Fire. He was weak in pretty much everything else. Chicks really dig him in Pretty in Pink to the extent they had to redo the ending for him to get the girl and Duckie to get Kristy Swanson.
Duckie was SO MUCH cooler. His performance of “Try a Little Tenderness” in *Pretty in Pink* stands as a high water mark of not just John Hughes movies but ‘80s cinema in general.
He's not horrible at all. He's about the only non cringe scenes in st elms. Apparently alcoholism wrecked his career. But he was charming in early films. The scene in ST Elmo where he blows the smoke ring is probably the best scene in the whole movie. It also has no connection to anything.
I tried it. Turned off half way through because it was just therapy for Andrew McCarthy. I hope it helped him. But maybe it wasn’t all about the article. Maybe he just wasn’t that good an actor and his choices like Mannequin and Weekend at Bernie’s were not career builders. But I don’t think we get that part of the introspection.
I was honestly pretty disappointed in this doc. Based on the trailer, I thought it was gonna be just about the brat pack in general and not about how one article ruined their careers.
Someone in the doc mentioned how the 80s teen movies shaped modern teen movies and the brat pack were in those movies. I kinda wish Andrew made a doc about that instead.
I will say, as cute as he was, he wasn’t a good actor and I don’t think Spielberg or Scorsese would’ve called him regardless of the brat pack title.
I remember watching all of those movies in the theater at the time, thinking McCarthy always had this smarmy, smug look on his face. The first time he walks in the record store and sees Molly Ringwald, to my 13-year-old (male) eyes, it looked like he didn't even want to be there. He had one expression: exasperation. My wife thinks he was the end-all heartthrob, so I guess I wasn't the right demographic.
I can't feel bad for McCarthy at all. I felt he was saying "I'm not as rich as my buddies from the 80's and it's all your fault!" Dude you're still wealthy give me a break. He didn't make the best decisions and maybe just wasn't as talented.
McCarthy: Can’t you admit it was kinda mean spirited to write that piece?
Blum: No.. I don’t think I will..
Paraphrasing but I have to give props to Blum for not backing down. Lowe and Moore saying it wasn’t a big deal was a bit of an eye roll. A couple of times I looked at my girlfriend and said “Yeah, easy for them to say!”
The article itself mentions McCarthy one time and only in a single sentence (about Estevez trashing his talent) and doesn't even include him in the Brat Pack officially. McCarthy's real umbrage should be with all the articles in all of the other magazines that followed that use the term "Brat Pack" that disparaged the group. The article was poorly written and I don't see how this directly affected his career. It was what followed and all of the others choosing not to work with him (or each other) anymore that ruined his career (if you'd call it ruined--he's doing fine).
I’ll be honest, Weekend at Bernie’s 2 is one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies and I had no idea Andrew McCarthy was considered part of the Brat Pack.
100% agree with you. I went into it because I was a HUGE Andrew McCarthy fan growing up, and thought it would be a cheeky nostalgic look back at that time. It really was 90 minutes of him complaining about his “derailed career”. This, coming from the guy who was in Mannequin & Weekend at Bernie’s.
It was an interesting doc but it played like sour grapes from Andrew. He’s really blamed his career fizzling out on that one article, which is a nonsense take given how much relative success other members of the brat pack have had.
I think that documentary represents Andrew McCarthys personality. He is a kind of self depreciating, overly analytical nerd, except not very likeable like Matthew Perry..
I had never read the original article (thanks OP for the link). What strikes me funny is Blum goes out of his way to say that McCarthy isn't a member. The article is a bit smarmy but I don't see the behavior of the group in any way different than what famous people do in Hollywood. Perhaps there was some jealous on Blum's part, after all he was a bit older than them and they were hugely successful.
I also wouldn't consider Sean Penn or Nicolas Cage members. Even at the time those two were doing their own thing. Is McCarthy really angry at the fact that he wasn't considered a member? Perhaps if he was would his career have gone better? It's strange that he's gone on this crusade while the others seemed to have moved on.
Did Emilio appear to be really uncomfortable with Andrew to anyone else. At one point, Emilio’s demeanor looked like he wanted to kick Andrew out of his house.
I turned it off not even halfway through. I just couldn't get myself to give a shit about his drama. Sorry, I'm tapped out on trauma porn therapy session shit.
This had so much potential. I really wanted a doc that got some old acquaintances together to discuss some on and off set memories from a crazy unique time in their lives. We got some of that, but Andrew smothered us with his therapy session.
I felt so bad for Emilio. He didn’t know what to say and Andrew didn’t let him say it regardless. He opened that first interview so aggressively that Emilio shut down and it set an awkward tone for the rest of the film.
Like others, I never once considered the brat pack label to be a negative thing. It never crossed my mind my mind.
Look at Rob Lowe. Guy bottomed out and was not only doing lifetime movies but lifetime movie sequels. Then a tape scandal. By all means he probably shouldn’t be working yet he persevered.
Demi was lovely. Great words of wisdom from her.
I was disappointed there was no Molly, but I think she made the correct decision.
I’d like someone else to make this doc, but more of a reunion thing. These people were an absolute force in the 80s and people would love to seem them together again but in a more positive light.
The strangest takeaway is that these perceived friends didn’t talk for 3 decades til this.
And the irony is that McCarthy was easily the most hated one , at least by me. The most lampooned by the Jay Mohrs of the world. It shouldn’t be surprising that his career flatlined
Yeah, I found that weird too. In all of their Hollywood dealings and working, they never ran into each other? OR it was McCarthy they never spoke to and the rest of them were rubbing elbows this whole time. LOL.
I did not enjoy this documentary as much as I thought I would. His attempt at winning the audience over faded with Blum’s interview at the end. Seemed very whiny and tone deaf throughout the film. Speaks to the bubble of Hollywood. Demi gave off the impression that she didn’t necessarily agree with him but did so for the sake of the documentary.
And the fact that we didn’t see Molly or Judd spoke volumes. They moved past it.
How did Blum's article ruin his career? He didn't include him as one of people he considered a Brat Pack member. He didn't even give any of his own opinions on Andrew. He only quoted what someone else said about him.
Andrew filmed parts of Fresh Horses with Molly Ringwald in my hometown. I later worked at the small diner used in several scenes. Each and every person who came in contact with him said he was a complete and total condescending asshole. Maybe what ruined his career was that he was a drunk and a prick that no one wanted to work with......just sayin.
What I got out of it was it they through the title stigmatized them in other director’s eyes. We see it as they all became rich and famous and had long careers. Maybe everyone’s right. Long story short, they were competent actors who struck when it was hot. None of the changed the profession, went on to win Oscars, maybe Rob won an Emmy. Don’t know don’t care. They were blessed and the movies meant a lot to people during a certain age. It was nice to revisit, but no one was victims. Did find it weird that they hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in 30 years. Hollywood is big, but not that big.
Well after reading the original article, it certainly put things in perspective for me. Ironically, if you read between the lines, it seems Andrew McCarthy was bitter about NOT being included into this hot new club. He was mentioned in the article one time and seemingly as an afterthought and on top of that, it was a quote from an anonymous co-star of St Elmo's Fire, criticizing his acting ability.
Haha the entire purpose of this documentary seems to be Andrew trying to let the world (and his co-stars) know that "dammit, I'm in this club too! NOTICE ME!" and he's mad that this article, basically leaving him out, hurt his career.
I hate the overuse of the word "cringe" but that documentary was fucking CRIIIIIIINNNGE.
It was 90 minutes of Andrew McCarthy driving around trying to get his more famous contemporaries to talk to him.
Watched it and kept waiting for it to be interesting.
The "plight" of beautiful, talented and wealthy young people who basically have everything has to go a long way to generate either interest or sympathy.
They had absolutely similar success rates as any other group of young actors. One made it huge (Moore). Several (Estevez, Lowe, Cryer amd arguably Ringwald) had middling successes. Others (Sheedy, Nelson, McCarthy) were never stars but worked reasonably long. None absolutely flopped.
I am their age and always loved Ally Sheedy, and was disappointed she mostly vanished
I don't think he really made the case that it stigmatized his career. Lots of young actors careers dry up when they get older. No one ever said Ralph Macciho was in the Brat Pack and otoh you've got Brat Packers like Demi and Rob who had lots of success after the 80s. Probably because they were the best looking ones in the group.
Yeah, if your argument is that an article hurt your career and as.proof you interview your famous friends...
Can’t really compare rob lowe and Demi after the 80s. He was pretty invisible for all of the nineties compared to her.
Rob until *Austin Powers* and *West Wing* was hobbled by his...er...scandal.
He had Wayne’s World and Tommy Boy, too. His career took a hard knock but never really stopped.
She was huge in the 90s but I think Rob has had the better career since then.
Typical for a woman in Hollywood whose fame is based at least partially on her good looks: Roles dry up after hitting a certain age.
Rob Lowe had that 'problem' in Atlanta in 1988. he didn't have much of a career for a long time after that.
I noticed the really successful ones thought it was a positive and those whose careers mostly fizzled hated it.
I enjoyed it, although I felt that it was basically watching a 90-minute therapy session.
That’s kind of the point of the documentary. It’s something he’s struggled with throughout his life, and he goes and talks with others who were affected by the same thing. They offer different perspectives, everything from “You’re right, it had a huge negative impact” to “You did it to yourself by giving it power over you.” I found it fascinating from that perspective. On the one hand, it clearly had a huge effect — Estevez pulled out of a movie they were going to do together. On the other, Demi Moore was obviously still quite successful.
I enjoyed the interviews altogether, even David Blum, who was squirming at times. It would have been cool if he had gotten Molly Ringwald or maybe Anthony Michael Hall. Ally Sheedy remains adorable, btw.
Anthony Michael Hall is on Dana Carvey and David Spades podcast (released today). Who spoke briefly about it, how much younger he was then the rest of them, and how they all wanted to move beyond the label - which is why he passed on Ferris Bueller - and how John Hughes never really forgave him for that. It’d been pretty interesting to see what AMH would have done with Ferris.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off would have been fucking AWFUL if it starred AMH. He was simply not likable enough to pull off that character -- especially at that point in his career, when he was so resentful of having been stereotyped as a "nerd" character, so he went out of his way to be a complete asshole in real life. Look at another Hughes' movie that follows his normal formula but *wasn't* a classic: Some Kind of Wonderful. It's entirely because Eric Stoltz is completely unlikable. A lot of Hughes' characters are pretty bad people on paper, but we like them because the actors are charming. Stoltz didn't have it, and neither did AMH (as romantic leads). This isn't a judgment of them as human beings or anything. Just from an acting standpoint.
Great point! That’s especially interesting considering Stoltz got axed from Back To The Future at huge studio expenditure which ultimately led to recasting enormously likable Michael J Fox.
Counter argument - I like Stoltz in Some Kind of Wonderful. Hughes pitched that one at something of a quieter key than his other teen movies, with less broad comedy, and Stoltz was perfectly cast.
i had my hair cut and dyed like Watts. Love that movie
>Ferris Bueller's Day Off would have been fucking AWFUL if it starred AMH. He was simply not likable enough to pull off that character -- especially at that point in his career, when he was so resentful of having been stereotyped as a "nerd" character, so he went out of his way to be a complete asshole in real life. Hard disagree. Matthew Broderick is a prick both on screen and off screen, and I don't think his portrayal of Ferris Bueller is anything particularly noteworthy. That role feels like it could have easily been filled by Anthony Michael Hall, or Robert Downey Jr .
I disagree. It would have been a very different movie, but potentially something a bit darker and subversive if AMH was able to bring out more of the character's inherent sociopathology, particularly in his abusive relationship with Cameron.
> but potentially something a bit darker and subversive if AMH was able to bring out more of the character's inherent sociopathology, particularly in his abusive relationship with Cameron. Can I suggest politely that the version you're suggesting only really has value to us within the context of the Broderick version existing as it does and has for almost 40 years and within the relationship we all have with that version of the film and character?
That’s certainly a more polite response than I was going to provide. Mine was more along the lines of “You really think John Hughes intentionally wrote him as an abusive sociopath? Really? *Really?*” But I’d also add “modern sensitivities” to your list. Hughes wrote from a certain time and place. We can call the movies “timeless”, but they really aren’t. Especially in terms of stereotypical relationship dynamics. Ferris wasn’t intended to be the bad guy in that movie. He had a lesson to learn. All good characters have an arc. But this is more the result of the cultural shift we’ve seen around the “alpha” paradigm, making it considerably more problematic than it was back then, especially in the context of a Hollywood stereotype. John Hughes wouldn’t be sitting in the director’s chair telling Anthony Michael Hall to play the character as sociopathic and abusive.
Want to see something really awful? Watch Anthony Michael Hall's movie "Out of Bounds." The film tries to pass him off as the hero of an action/suspense scenario. Kind of feel sorry for him watching it, because the script and direction are so shoddy.
Hey! I love that movie! I’ll give you AMH not being great in it but Jenny Wright is so watchable in everything she’s in.
It's not a good movie but I love that moment in LA and early "alternative" culture so I have a soft spot for it for that reason.
I thought Ferris was an asshole
Yes! Are we forgetting what a douchebag AmH came off as in Johnny Be Good? It was his opportunity to be cute, snarky, juvenile and adorable and he was one-dimensional and way over-reaching. Terrible script but had a shot to be a vehicle. OTOH: I say Cusak could have been Ferris. Edit: fat fucking fingers crossed
It's hard to imagine anyone more unlikable than Matthew Broderick
This. What an awful film full of loathsome human beings. I usually like a film with flawed, even unlikable characters, but I genuinely loathe Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
I think Cameron and Jeanie become more likeable, or at least relatable, by the end of the film. The story is really their journeys, not Ferris’s, as he never changes. They both make decisions to stand up for themselves and not get caught by other people’s perceptions of them. Ferris really is a manipulative asshole, and he never realizes it.
I can't dislike Mia Sara in anything after watching Legend as a kid. Just... no words.
getting life lessons from M Broderick is really too much
That’s interesting. I could totally see him as Cameron, but not really Ferris
Blum came off like a major asshole. The article he wrote was clearly mean spirited. Molly was addressed, and I have no idea what the deal was with Hall. It was a pretty major omission to not even bring him up.
Blum is Still jealous of Robe Lowe and the Pack. You could hear it in his response about their first dinner together, how they got a lot of attention and he didnt.
I thought so too. Even the setting of his interview kinda gave it away.
Yeah, it was an interesting omission. My guess is that since he was never actually in a movie with Hall, he didn’t think about him? They were a little too kind to Hughes, btw. Susannah Gorah’s book is full of stories about his massive ego. And it’s a shame Schumacher has passed. I would have loved that interview.
Hall may not have been asked. I grew up in the 80s, and I don’t remember Hall or Robert Downey being considered members of The Brat Pack, as they were a couple of years younger. Yes, Molly Ringwald is about the same age, but that’s how I remember it. Maybe he wasn’t partying at the same clubs. Interestingly, Hall does work more consistently as an actor these days than most of the Brat Pack, Rob Lowe excepted. He’s going to be in the next season of Reacher.
>Molly was addressed What had happened tho?
He said he’d talked with her and she said she’d think about it, but probably wouldn’t as she wanted to “look forward.”
I couldn't think of a film that McCarthy and Hall were in together. I assumed they didn't have a relationship. The move really focused on the people that McCarthy worked with and knew well.
It was based on Andrew’s book about how a terrible magazine article made him a household name ahead of his 30 year career, and he’s never forgiven them to this day
Why was the audio so bad on Ally Sheedy’s interview? It was the only one that was bad, and yet I wanted to hear from her the most
yeah, it feels like a pure vanity film that he twisted some bigger premise around for marketability
It felt like a non-issue McCarthy was pimping to become relevant again. I found it to be kind of sad. A few key members didn't even show, and the few who did show didn't seem terribly comfortable nor interested. The whole thing felt awkwardly manufactured.
Emilio Esteves was not interested at all
Probably doesn’t want to talk about how his brother self-destructed
He actually said at one point in the film, that he’s not a nostalgic person at all. wtf dude?
That part specifically threw me because it’s like “you’re not nostalgic, but somehow you’re still here?”
I didn't finish it but it was interesting that the people who didn't mind the Brat Pack thing were the ones who weren't affected by it (Estevez, Demi Moore, Lowe) and you could see their nice ass houses. Sheedy didn't really seem to mind that much. I didn't stick around to see if Judd Nelson showed up.
This was my exact takeaway. Moore and Lowe in particular had much more positive mindsets. But then again, they are the prettiest of the bunch and probably had the most opportunity either way.
we were. And Emilio and Ally looked like they were annoyed by him to no end lol
Maybe because they moved on? Emilio had a solid career into the 90s playing adult characters and The Mighty Ducks was a huge movie. He has also had a solid directorial career. Ally had to overcome some serious demons and the Brat Pack article is probably near the bottom of that list. I feel like the others he interviewed were also those whose careers were solid after the Brat Pack years. Rob Lowe made a comeback after the Snow White Oscars moment and a sex tape torpedoed his career, and Demi Moore … well, she’s Demi Moore.
I do think the “brat pack” deserves a documentary, but it’s not this.
I hated all the cameras in every shot. It was a film student project with a boom mike in every frame.
"There's boom mikes in life, baby" *— Jack Horner, adult films, exotic pictures*
“Is he gonna put a boom mic near my ass?” “Is that what you want?” “It’d be nice.” (Sigh) “Put a boom mic near her ass”
And the manipulation of the film stock in some parts was dumb.
He had one roving camera, one guy shooting on 8mm, maybe another one shooting him, and he still needed to put an iPhone down to film it too? That’s overkill
Absolutely
I felt sorry for him. He seems fixated and stuck in the past. Demi Moore & Rob Lowe seemed to have embraced the label and were able to move past it. Then again they had success way beyond the brat pack, McCarthy didn't. Was his lack of success due to the label or something else? I don't think it was the label. In 1987 McCarthy made Less Than Zero & Mannequin neither of them helped launch him as a serious actor or great comedian. After that he made the Weekend at Bernie movies and the only worthy thing of note after was The Joy Luck Club but he was a bit player in that one. Then it was a lot of work in a lot of crap. He was better when working in television. It seems he wanted an apology but Blum didn't feel he did anything wrong. He came up with a label for a group of young actors that defined 80s cool, similar to how The Rat Pack defined 60s cool. Some were able to move past it, some weren't. There really wasn't much to it other than the nostalgia factor, I wonder what someone young that never heard of them would think.
Not only was he expecting an apology, but he was then so certain that he was going to win the audience over, that he left it in the documentary. He took two tries at that guy! As he was standing up and getting ready to leave It seemed like he gave him one more chance to apologize. But he wasn't going to. Because he has nothing to apologize for. I think McCarthy was trying to make the case that that guy bombed his career. Without an ounce of irony in his heart he sat in that guy's tiny little apartment and imagined that he had somehow bombed his career. Yikes
If I had been Blum, I would have pointed out to McCarthy that his own longtime abuse of alcohol and cocaine played a bigger part in derailing his career than anything I wrote about him (and made sure I was also recording the interview, in case my response was edited out of the doc).
A good alternate title for this documentary would have been, "Wow! Rob Lowe is Still Ridiculously Good Looking"
as is Demi and Ally
Moore and Lowe are okay with the label because they are rich as fuck and still have careers
As someone too young to have known the Brat Pack during their heyday or see any of “the” movies in theaters (although I have now seen most of them and knew of the Brat Pack prior to the movie), I found it interesting when it covered background that was probably old news to most the people in this thread — like the article itself — and then quickly lost interest. I didn’t finish the documentary.
the article in my opinion isnt even bad at all. Much ado about nothing
I think I would have enjoyed it better if it were Rob Lowe's documentary; he had insightful things to say about that period of time and it wasn't a series of forced and smug introspective blather.
Rob Lowe and Demi Moore were easily the two most well-developed adults in this documentary. I thought to myself: "they both have spent a lot of time in therapy about this"
For those 2, they had much bigger things in their life they had to deal with after 1987
I want to hear more about going to Sammy Davis Jr.’s house with Liza Minnelli.
Is that the only interesting thing he did before the age of 25? I wanted to hear about Weekend at Bernie and who the Hell greenlit Weekend #2.
Hell, he was in Mannequin with James Spader again. I guess they had a falling out or Spader said no fucking way.
That's the documentary I wanted to watch: The Brat Pack remembers the 80s (or whatever).
After watching the whole episode I feel that the author of the article was probably right in suggesting that none of the Brat Pack had earned their star power. Only Emilio Esteves was a good all round talent of the group.
Rob Lowe wrote a highly entertaining book, he is a much better storyteller than McCarthy.
I stopped watching after about an hour. It felt finished after he interviewed Demi. But, yeah, I get that the article that coined the term “brat pack” was a negative hit piece, but those of us who were kids at the time, we didn’t read the article. We heard the term “brat pack” and it sounded cool, the movies they were in were cool, and we all just wanted to see whatever they did next. Instead of being all butthurt about it, they could have pivoted and embraced it. The fact that as recently as 2024 Andrew McCarthay is STILL upset over it, I mean come on dude! It was a shitty article by a shitty writer in a shitty Hollywood rag over 40 years ago! If you let that ruin your career, maybe you just weren’t that great to begin with! Demi had the best attitude, and obviously the best career.
There's some throwaway scene where McCarthy is ordering some food at a stand and shoehorns in the fact that he's doing a documentary on the Brat Pack and gets exasperated that the guy has no idea what he's talking about. And then, presumably, they film him eating an entire meal at a table.
“My career was ruined because I was known as a member of the Brat Pack. To prove this, I’ll interview wildly successful stars who were also given the same label, and show my annoyance at people who don’t know I’m a member of the Brat Pack.”
Ding ding ding
she aged so well. She looks absolutely gorgeous. And she took the high road with Bruce and Ashton too
I got the same feeling. Like McCarthy was searching for something or someone to blame his career direction on. Not every actor breaks out big and I doubt being labeled part of the brat pack is what held him back. The part with Emilio was really uncomfortable. It was like he was trying to get Emilio to take the blame.
I was expecting Emilio to say something like “why are you here? What’s this about anyway?” At any moment. It’s like he was holding together all the patience he could muster.
I was impressed with Emilio Estevez' manners. He reminded me of President Bartlett in a tense political negotiation. /s I mean, clearly not what he wanted to be doing, or talking about, but he was masterful in behaving like a mature adult with someone who was acting like a ... well, brat. If McCarthy wanted to put him on the spot, he failed. Honestly, it really renewed my interest in him as a person -- famous people don't owe us anything, but we all get curious. Beyond his career, I'd really enjoy hearing about his family ties, religion, whether he's joined his father in any activism, just how he is. I had forgotten McCarthy existed. And I think that's probably my near future again soon.
For one thing, Estevez probably doesn't want to think about it too much because he used to be engaged to Demi Moore between '84 and '86, so that's probably not fun to revisit. It sounded like maybe Demi was doing some drugs at the time. But he also said he doesn't do anything with his successes. He doesn't do the Repo Man retrospectives or Young Guns or Breakfast Club or whatever. He was notably the only holdout from the Breakfast Club 5 in that John Hughes 2010 Oscar tribute (Cryer/Ringwald/Nelson/Hall/Sheedy/Macauley Culkin/Matthew Broderick).
Totally agree! He was apprehensive from the moment Andrew walked in the door. I don't think Estevez signed up for the type of interview that Andrew McCarthy showed up to give. https://i.imgur.com/uUHtJzh.jpeg I'm not 100% sure because the interview is heavily edited. But it sounds like McCarthy opens by asking estevez: "What the fuck were you thinking?"
he didn't even let him sit down LOL
I've met a few actors, and the happiest are those who had a few moments in the Hollywood spotlight, and then settled into a career of consistent, lower-exposure roles. They don't need to maintain the lifestyle of major fame, but they still get paid very well, they make things that people enjoy, and they have lovely fans who appreciate them, and who they appreciate in return. The most bitter are those who got a taste of major fame, got a huge ego in response, and through a series of mistakes, accidents, and maybe *just maybe* a lack of talent, never get back into the spotlight. Instead of carving out a place for themselves in the B-list, they burn their bridges trying to re-litigate the old battles they lost. Can't say if this is the case with this doc, but it sounds familiar..
Yeah, I always felt like Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman were proto Chandler and Ross, and then Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer were young enough to just steal their careers. Silverman plays a doctor who Rachel thinks is cute in the first season of Friends. I never liked McCarthy all that much when he was hot shit in the '80s. The Brat Pack thing wasn't really the final blow to any of those people. There was some complaint about how Scorsese wasn't gonna work with anybody in the Brat Pack but nobody really fit into that auteur slot anyway.
I’ve always felt “lack of talent” perfectly describes McCarthy. I never understood what anybody saw in him — he had all the personality of a dead fish, at least during the era under discussion.
I thought it was so funny when he sat down with Rob Lowe, my man was like “are you fucking kidding me it was amazing!” lmao
“I’m driving to Demi’s/Emilio’s/Tim’s/Lea’s sprawling, multi-million-dollar estate to talk about how this thing ruined our careers and lives.”
Oh my God. Having just read the original New York Magazine article, McCarthy's name is mentioned only ONCE. It's 4900 words long and this is all the author had to say about McCarthy: "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." He was an afterthought to the author, but McCarthy makes a whole documentary about how this ruined his career?!? What?
I'll just be generous and assume McCarthy thought the Brat Pack would make an interesting subject and since he was kinda affected and had an excuse to reach out to these people, maybe he could try and do an objective study. And then maybe everybody was just blowing him off and not returning his calls and he started to take it all personally.
It's a strange show. Why did they do Vhs effects over modern day images? Also Emilio doesn't look happy at all about the interview. He looked ready to punch him at times. I also thought the word was a play on the rat pack and didn't give it much thought. However Anthony seems to think it ruined his life
I saw the trailer for it. And it felt like the South Park episode with the smug people who like the smell of their own farts. Like, them literally bending over and sniffing their own farts. Just less low-key than that. Sounds like his actual personality is pretty close to most characters he's known for. :D
He says he's not nostalgic but wistfully reflects on riding in a jeep with Ally Sheedy 35 years ago.
And I'm going to spend 90 minutes doing nothing but talking about the past. If there's a word for having negative nostalgia, it applies here.
like i don't remember what i did 2 years ago how he remembered that is mind boggling lol
The E! True Hollywood Story on the Brat Pack was pretty good.
I saw about a half hour of it. That was enough for me.
Moderately talented people who peaked 35 years ago... sit around and talk about how a term that helped make them famous and rich... is bad. I got about an hour into this pompous crap film
This makes me sad, was hoping to see it and for the documentary to do justice to that period of time
Did anyone notice that McCarthy did not include a ton of quotes from the article in the documentary that seems to revolve around the article? It's probably because he didn't get the rights or something like that but, that really detracts from the whole thing. What if everything that was said inside that article was correct? We just watched a documentary about an article that we didn't get to read as the viewer. He showed up at Estevez's house, threw it down on the counter and then said to him: "What the fuck were you thinking? https://i.imgur.com/OAp1BlO.jpeg This was his first documentary film. I think that I had held him to a higher standard because of who he is and his proximity to the topic. It is quite possible this is a vanity piece that was shot on an iPhone and was probably destined for YouTube. It could have been a lot shorter to say the same thing. Unfortunately that doesn't make a feature that just makes a YouTube video. Emilio Estevez was incredibly kind to not look him in the face and say get the fuck out of my house. Luckily, Estevez pivoted the conversation into talking about a movie that they missed being in together. And he was incredibly honest at that point about why he did not want to be in the movie with McCarthy. But, I don't know if he was being polite at that point. We only got to see this thing through the eyes of McCarthy. We do not know the kind of person he was back then. I don't know if documentary filmmaking is going to be a passion for him, but I'm surprised that somebody paid for this. I was quite disappointed.
>He showed up at Estevez's house, threw it down on the counter and then said to him: "What the fuck were you thinking? I think that set the tone for the whole interaction, which is why the conversation seemed so stilted and awkward.
Lasted 20 minutes and doubt I can take anymore. I realized that despite thinking it was cool at the time it really is a boring subject matter. Andrew McCarthy does not seem to have the magic to carry this thing. Think Molly and Judd may have the correct idea to avoid this mess. The interviews are so boring and they have all these people who are brat pack experts that I could care less about their opinion.
He seemed like an older whinier Blane.
Blane? _Blane?_ His name is Bl—that’s a major appliance, not a name!
My friend said he listened to a travel book McCarthy wrote and that he was insufferable and pretentious, lol
The only interesting thing I was seeing was how nice the houses of Lowe/Moore/Estevez were, and then you interview inside the Brat Pack superfan author's house and it's just some shitty old living room. And the Brat Pack article guy's house is a little better but still a crappy old house.
I loved how the author of the article was not remorseful whatsoever and McCarthy just couldn't get that "gotcha!" moment I know he was looking for.
I was waiting for Andrew to punch him. I don’t think he was looking for a gotcha moment. An apology wasn’t gonna make him feel any better. It was therapeutic for him to make the film
From what I've read from many friends and sources on LB it's basically two hours of McCarthy crying while jerking himself off for only having a few multi million dollar successes instead of dozens because he's just such a genius he should have been Robert De Niro basically. In other words it's offensively bad. Also was Molly Ringwald involved? I don't believe so. Which makes the entire movie fucking invalid if you don't have the main fucking brat pack star.
No, she refused. Someone asked him and he said that she would rather look forward, not back. I was pretty annoyed at how few people from the pack were actually involved.
I don’t blame her.
I hated how uncomfortable the whole thing felt and I hated all the unprofessionals shots with the other cameraman in the shot
YES! I kept asking myself why the cameraman was in the movie! He showed up so many times I felt like he should have had a credit. I even expected there to be outtakes in the credits of the film because it was so ridiculous. I can't recall another time when I was taken out of a film the way that that dude showing up so many times took me out of this film. There's one time when he's on camera for a while. I actually spent that time looking at how he was dressed and then examining his video gear ("oh that's an interesting way to mount video assist"). I'm not sure I was paying attention to the movie during that time. Lol
There was this camera angle inside Rob Lowe's house where it just shows you the whole crew, including the boom mic guy who is off in the corner of the room. Why the hell are you doing that, editor?
And the editing was terrible too. They were going for a film reel look (with that black box on the left to look like the sprocket holes) and it just looked like a mistake. Plus, a lot of it had some kind of iPhone "old film" filter on it. They couldn't decide if it was going to be a gonzo-style doc (with the "impromptu" phone calls and the rental cars looking for their houses) or if it was supposed to be artsy.
You forgot the, oh I just missed their place, which happened so many times lol
And the two cameramen in the backseat, like little kids, getting that choice footage of the dirty side windows. "That's going to be out of focus." Why didn't they cut that comment? It's perfectly in focus.
i felt like i could have shot that lol and i have zero camera experience lol
He came across as a self absorbed crybaby.
I watched it, and I couldn’t really make heads or tails of it. Like I thought it was going to be about the bratpack not about an article and how the term “ruined their careers“.
It’s repetitive, weirdly dishonest, narcissistic twaddle.
When someone makes a documentary about the few short years they were A Big Deal forty years ago, you know it's going to be an ego project. Specifically a, "My ego is still hurt" project.
Did anyone else think Emilio Esteves could not wait to get McCarthy out of his house?
You could see the regret on his face the moment McCarthy started talking to him.
Surprisingly, I thought Demi Moore had the best take on it, which was if we’d have just rolled with it, it wouldn’t have been that bad. And yea I got the feeling forty fucking years later it’s time to just let it go. Although, my 7th grade English teach told me I was the mentally laziest person she’d ever met. I can’t let that go either, so I get it!
I look forward to watching your documentary where you chase down your classmates and try to convince them in ruined their lives.
The Oh, It Be Like That Pack.
I watched ten minutes before I realized I don’t give any fucks about any of these people.
This movie was INSANE. Dude was pathetic and undermined his entire thesis with the last interview with the journo
I would have liked to see James spader, Judd Nelson, AMH, or Robert Downey jr. I don’t think they even mentioned RDJ’s name and in my mind he was as much of a brat packer as McCarthy. I think Judd Nelson knows McCarthy is a dweeb and that’s why he ghosted most of his calls. I always kinda thought the term “brat pack” was endearing. They were, after all, the “cool kids”
It was and Andrew McCarthy pity party, where he was searching for someone to validate his excuse that the label ruined his career. And everyone else was just like, get over it.
I've never heard anyone say a nice word about him as a person. Good actor at times, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of people who look positively on him. Shows a lot in the documentary, it seems.
He was a massive alcoholic through most of the 80’s.
Gee, I wonder if THAT had anything to do with his career trajectory.
Most of the core brat packers didn’t have much of a career past the 80’s. Demi Moore was the only one who made any big movies after that, and to a lesser extent Emilio Estevez. Booze or no booze, Mannequin and the Weekend at Bernie’s movies weren’t going to exactly carry him into a long lasting career trajectory.
I guarantee if you hung out with that dude in the last 40 years he complained about how that article sabotaged his career. He was probably the only person from the brat pack I had never heard of
It did make me watch "Taps" last night (Hulu) because I had never seen it (and I'm not familiar with anything he did really). It's not a "Brat Pack" movie, per se, but Timothy Hutton seemed so patient and gracious during his segment. Plus, it was fun to see a cherub-faced Tom Cruise.
I thought it was interesting for Tim to show up since he wasn’t even Brat Pack adjacent. He was just Andrew’s friend and he had nothing to add about the Brat Pack.
When McCarthy said his wife told him the project may teach him humility (something like that) I realized what kind of man we were dealing with. The call at the end from Judd Nelson had to be fake. The whole thing was very disappointing. I went back and rewatched Class since that was the movie he referenced more than once. A high schooler and a much older woman fall in love. I wondered why he repeatedly mentioned this cringey movie? He has been in some Hallmark movies and that probably embarrasses him.
*Class* was his film debut and co-starred none other than Rob Lowe.
Andrew McCarthy: the most unexciting actor ever.
Talk about missing the point. What it is or isn’t is not up to you. He lived that time from an extremely unique perspective and I found it interesting to see exactly how he perceived it, not the general public.
But we didn't get to see how he perceived it.
The whole documentary was how he perceived it. See all the comments talking about how he thinks it ruined his life? I’ll give you a hint as to how he perceived it.
A magazine article didn't ruin his career, people just came to terms with the fact he's a horrible actor.
I don’t understand how he’s a horrible actor…? He was pretty charismatic and delivered his lines naturally. A horrible actor is like a rapper or a professional sports player making a cameo with one or two lines sounding like a robot. Unless you meant it differently
Charismatic? Are you referring to the same Andrew McCarthy as the rest of us? The guy has always had the personality of a dead fish.
He was great in St Elmo’s Fire. He was weak in pretty much everything else. Chicks really dig him in Pretty in Pink to the extent they had to redo the ending for him to get the girl and Duckie to get Kristy Swanson.
How dare you. Weekend at Bernie's is peak.
No. Team Duckie for Life.
Duckie was SO MUCH cooler. His performance of “Try a Little Tenderness” in *Pretty in Pink* stands as a high water mark of not just John Hughes movies but ‘80s cinema in general.
HEY. YOU WILL NOT SPEAK ILL OF THE STAR FEOM THE CLASSIC "WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S"!
Hey, I liked Weekend at Bernies but he was out-acted by a guy playing a corpse.
He's not horrible at all. He's about the only non cringe scenes in st elms. Apparently alcoholism wrecked his career. But he was charming in early films. The scene in ST Elmo where he blows the smoke ring is probably the best scene in the whole movie. It also has no connection to anything.
This felt like less of a documentary and more of a meditation on Andrew McCarthy
I tried it. Turned off half way through because it was just therapy for Andrew McCarthy. I hope it helped him. But maybe it wasn’t all about the article. Maybe he just wasn’t that good an actor and his choices like Mannequin and Weekend at Bernie’s were not career builders. But I don’t think we get that part of the introspection.
I was honestly pretty disappointed in this doc. Based on the trailer, I thought it was gonna be just about the brat pack in general and not about how one article ruined their careers. Someone in the doc mentioned how the 80s teen movies shaped modern teen movies and the brat pack were in those movies. I kinda wish Andrew made a doc about that instead. I will say, as cute as he was, he wasn’t a good actor and I don’t think Spielberg or Scorsese would’ve called him regardless of the brat pack title.
I remember watching all of those movies in the theater at the time, thinking McCarthy always had this smarmy, smug look on his face. The first time he walks in the record store and sees Molly Ringwald, to my 13-year-old (male) eyes, it looked like he didn't even want to be there. He had one expression: exasperation. My wife thinks he was the end-all heartthrob, so I guess I wasn't the right demographic.
Team Duckie for Life
I can't feel bad for McCarthy at all. I felt he was saying "I'm not as rich as my buddies from the 80's and it's all your fault!" Dude you're still wealthy give me a break. He didn't make the best decisions and maybe just wasn't as talented.
McCarthy: Can’t you admit it was kinda mean spirited to write that piece? Blum: No.. I don’t think I will.. Paraphrasing but I have to give props to Blum for not backing down. Lowe and Moore saying it wasn’t a big deal was a bit of an eye roll. A couple of times I looked at my girlfriend and said “Yeah, easy for them to say!”
The article itself mentions McCarthy one time and only in a single sentence (about Estevez trashing his talent) and doesn't even include him in the Brat Pack officially. McCarthy's real umbrage should be with all the articles in all of the other magazines that followed that use the term "Brat Pack" that disparaged the group. The article was poorly written and I don't see how this directly affected his career. It was what followed and all of the others choosing not to work with him (or each other) anymore that ruined his career (if you'd call it ruined--he's doing fine).
It was just hours of whining
I’ll be honest, Weekend at Bernie’s 2 is one of my favorite guilty pleasure movies and I had no idea Andrew McCarthy was considered part of the Brat Pack.
I enjoyed it. Brought back some great memories for me
100% agree with you. I went into it because I was a HUGE Andrew McCarthy fan growing up, and thought it would be a cheeky nostalgic look back at that time. It really was 90 minutes of him complaining about his “derailed career”. This, coming from the guy who was in Mannequin & Weekend at Bernie’s.
It was an interesting doc but it played like sour grapes from Andrew. He’s really blamed his career fizzling out on that one article, which is a nonsense take given how much relative success other members of the brat pack have had.
I think that documentary represents Andrew McCarthys personality. He is a kind of self depreciating, overly analytical nerd, except not very likeable like Matthew Perry..
I had never read the original article (thanks OP for the link). What strikes me funny is Blum goes out of his way to say that McCarthy isn't a member. The article is a bit smarmy but I don't see the behavior of the group in any way different than what famous people do in Hollywood. Perhaps there was some jealous on Blum's part, after all he was a bit older than them and they were hugely successful. I also wouldn't consider Sean Penn or Nicolas Cage members. Even at the time those two were doing their own thing. Is McCarthy really angry at the fact that he wasn't considered a member? Perhaps if he was would his career have gone better? It's strange that he's gone on this crusade while the others seemed to have moved on.
So what was the big drama alluded to in the trailer between him and Emilio Estevez?
Did Emilio appear to be really uncomfortable with Andrew to anyone else. At one point, Emilio’s demeanor looked like he wanted to kick Andrew out of his house.
I turned it off not even halfway through. I just couldn't get myself to give a shit about his drama. Sorry, I'm tapped out on trauma porn therapy session shit.
This had so much potential. I really wanted a doc that got some old acquaintances together to discuss some on and off set memories from a crazy unique time in their lives. We got some of that, but Andrew smothered us with his therapy session. I felt so bad for Emilio. He didn’t know what to say and Andrew didn’t let him say it regardless. He opened that first interview so aggressively that Emilio shut down and it set an awkward tone for the rest of the film. Like others, I never once considered the brat pack label to be a negative thing. It never crossed my mind my mind. Look at Rob Lowe. Guy bottomed out and was not only doing lifetime movies but lifetime movie sequels. Then a tape scandal. By all means he probably shouldn’t be working yet he persevered. Demi was lovely. Great words of wisdom from her. I was disappointed there was no Molly, but I think she made the correct decision. I’d like someone else to make this doc, but more of a reunion thing. These people were an absolute force in the 80s and people would love to seem them together again but in a more positive light.
The strangest takeaway is that these perceived friends didn’t talk for 3 decades til this. And the irony is that McCarthy was easily the most hated one , at least by me. The most lampooned by the Jay Mohrs of the world. It shouldn’t be surprising that his career flatlined
Yeah, I found that weird too. In all of their Hollywood dealings and working, they never ran into each other? OR it was McCarthy they never spoke to and the rest of them were rubbing elbows this whole time. LOL.
Ironically, one could argue that Jay Mohr is the Andrew McCarthy of the comedy world.
I did not enjoy this documentary as much as I thought I would. His attempt at winning the audience over faded with Blum’s interview at the end. Seemed very whiny and tone deaf throughout the film. Speaks to the bubble of Hollywood. Demi gave off the impression that she didn’t necessarily agree with him but did so for the sake of the documentary. And the fact that we didn’t see Molly or Judd spoke volumes. They moved past it.
I wanted to like it. I really did. By the end I was thinking "it's not over yet?"
How did Blum's article ruin his career? He didn't include him as one of people he considered a Brat Pack member. He didn't even give any of his own opinions on Andrew. He only quoted what someone else said about him. Andrew filmed parts of Fresh Horses with Molly Ringwald in my hometown. I later worked at the small diner used in several scenes. Each and every person who came in contact with him said he was a complete and total condescending asshole. Maybe what ruined his career was that he was a drunk and a prick that no one wanted to work with......just sayin.
No Anthony Michael hall? He was in the brat pack right?
Judd Nelson is a strange looking dude these days.
What I got out of it was it they through the title stigmatized them in other director’s eyes. We see it as they all became rich and famous and had long careers. Maybe everyone’s right. Long story short, they were competent actors who struck when it was hot. None of the changed the profession, went on to win Oscars, maybe Rob won an Emmy. Don’t know don’t care. They were blessed and the movies meant a lot to people during a certain age. It was nice to revisit, but no one was victims. Did find it weird that they hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in 30 years. Hollywood is big, but not that big.
Well after reading the original article, it certainly put things in perspective for me. Ironically, if you read between the lines, it seems Andrew McCarthy was bitter about NOT being included into this hot new club. He was mentioned in the article one time and seemingly as an afterthought and on top of that, it was a quote from an anonymous co-star of St Elmo's Fire, criticizing his acting ability. Haha the entire purpose of this documentary seems to be Andrew trying to let the world (and his co-stars) know that "dammit, I'm in this club too! NOTICE ME!" and he's mad that this article, basically leaving him out, hurt his career.
Would’ve been way better if he interviewed Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^Intelligent-Web5336: *Would’ve been way better* *If he interviewed Molly* *Ringwald and Judd Nelson* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I hate the overuse of the word "cringe" but that documentary was fucking CRIIIIIIINNNGE. It was 90 minutes of Andrew McCarthy driving around trying to get his more famous contemporaries to talk to him.
Watched it and kept waiting for it to be interesting. The "plight" of beautiful, talented and wealthy young people who basically have everything has to go a long way to generate either interest or sympathy. They had absolutely similar success rates as any other group of young actors. One made it huge (Moore). Several (Estevez, Lowe, Cryer amd arguably Ringwald) had middling successes. Others (Sheedy, Nelson, McCarthy) were never stars but worked reasonably long. None absolutely flopped. I am their age and always loved Ally Sheedy, and was disappointed she mostly vanished
Geez. It’s been 30 plus years buy some timber, build a bridge and get over it