I deducted a star for one embarrassing sentence in which the author revealed that she has no idea what "id" and "ego" actually mean.

Also for being dismissive of "Weird Science" and "Uncle Buck," especially the former, since it was during the key period. I think the author must be the only person in the world to like "The Great Outdoors" more than the latter, however.

Plus she's so enamored of Andrew McCarthy that she actually had something good to say about "Weekend at Bernie's." I'll give her a pass for liking "Mannequin," even if she does it for the wrong reasons (The right ones are Kim Catrall's hawtness and James Spader/G.W. Bailey's team up).

And it seems as if "Lucas" should've been mentioned at some point in this book. And "Timecop" should've been mentioned when talking about Mia Sara.

And there should've been less endless repetition and long-form transcribing of IMDB entries. ( )

Totally easy read. Most of my ideas about high school and relationships were formed watching these movies, so I enjoyed the nostalgia of reading about movies I grew up with. Most interesting chapter was about the coining of the term "Brat Pack." That alone is worthy of studying to see the impact of tabloid journalism on the personal lives of actors. ( )

This book looks at ‘80s teen movies, including many John Hughes’ movies. The book takes the reader behind the scenes in the movies and we learn about the actors, as well as John Hughes and the other directors. There are chapters on “Sixteen Candles”, “The Breakfast Club”, “St. Elmo’s Fire”, “Pretty in Pink”, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, “Some Kind of Wonderful”, and “Say Anything”.

What a fun book for someone who was a teenager in the 80s (me)! I’ve seen all but two of the movies (and now feel like I should see those two!). Many of the actors were part of what became labelled the “Brat Pack”, based on an article written that was originally meant to be about Emilio Estevez, but became about a group of them who were out together one night. To be honest, I’d not even realized the phrase was meant (at the time) to be derogatory; I never read the article, nor had I realized that’s even where the term originated. So, I did learn plenty about the actors and the movies. I also want to go back and re-watch some of the movies I’ve already seen. My favourites were “Pretty in Pink” (I love Duckie!) and “Some Kind of Wonderful”. ( )

Really fun pop culture history about John Hughes, the Brat Pack, and the influence both had on the Gen Xers. Really no more or less than what it claims to be. Well researched, and a fast read. ( )

You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried
Author: Susannah Gora
Publisher: Crown Publishers
Published In: New York City, NY
Date: 2010
Pgs: 367

REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

Summary:
The cultural touchstones of a generation of American teenagers, the Brat Pack movies and actors changed the fabric of understanding for many who thought they were on their own and that it was only happening to them. John Hughes wrote the soul of the American teenager and put it onscreen for the world to see. Outcasts, prom queens, preppies, burnouts, frosted lip gloss, skinny ties, and a feeling of invincibility. Was it the last time a generation believed in happily ever after?

Genre:
Behind the Scenes
Culture
Film
History
Movies
Non-fiction
Philosophy
Society
Teen
Young Adult

Why this book:
I’m a child of the era. We all wanted to be Jake Ryan. I wanted to be John Bender.
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Favorite Character:
As much as I wanted to say my favorite character here was John Hughes or Molly Ringwald, I can’t. They’re both shown as people here. More real than Hollywood usually likes people to be shown. Same can be said about all of the eponymous pack.

The Feel:
As I read this book, instead of thinking of the actors, movies, and plots, or even the timeframe, culture, and society, my brain is replaying the theme songs from these movies through my mind’s...ear. John Parr’s St. Elmo’s Fire(Man in Motion) has been running on a loop in my head for way too long.

Favorite Scene:
Gedde Watanabe’s audition to play Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles where he showed up in character and stayed in character until the casters thought that he really had problems with the English language, making them believe that he was actually from Korea and that English was barely a second language to him. And at the end, he reveals to them that he is from Utah.

Molly Ringwald on John Hughes - “He was inspired by me, and I was, in turn, inspired by him. And it was great. I felt a bit that it was like Woody Allen and Diane Keaton. I don’t think that I’ve worked with someone before or since, who I felt understood my strengths as well as John. I just don’t know if I am ever going to find the same thing with anyone else.”

This is one of the saddest statements I’ve ever read in light of John’s having passed on in 2009.

Mia Sara admitting that she threw herself at Matthew Broderick during the filming of Ferris shows on the screen. You can see her real life crush there. Real emotion trumps acting. But good acting is awesome too. Reportedly, Broderick rebuffed her...repeatedly. And that you can’t see in the acting.

The pained awareness behind Ferris’s monologues when he talks about the future.

Plot Holes/Out of Character:
Fast Times at Ridgemont High is given short to no shrift in this film. Same with Valley Girl. And a couple others besides. I get that the amount of focus went to the Hughes films plus St. Elmo’s Fire, but the Brat Pack movies felt like more than just these 7 films. Though Fast Times is largely shafted here, mentioned in passing, Say Anything, also penned by Cameron Crowe, does get some love in the final chapters of the book.

Hmm Moments:
John Hughes clacking along on a typewriter with a picture of 14-year-old Molly Ringwald over his writing desk. True, the script turned out to be Sixteen Candles. But...isn’t that a bit creepy? Hughes was very in touch with his female teenager side. He touched the teenage spirit in a way that movies hadn’t previously. But still. Never knew that she inspired the actual character to that degree. Interesting.

Hughes channeled his inner teenage girl better than any director in living memory.

So connected was Hughes to his young cast and his young characters that it seemed at times as if he were going for a do-over of his own teenhood. Of Hughes, mused Time’s Richard Corliss, “ Who wouldn’t grab the chance to remake one’s adolescence?”

Maybe that’s what Hughes was aiming for. And maybe there are some who would think that. I’d say “F that.” The broody son of a bitch that I am today would hate the broody son of a bitch that I was back then.

Never realized that it was during the filming of St. Elmo’s Fire that “that” name got hung on them. Judd Nelson’s feeling that that was a death knell of some kind is telling. The moniker did seem to cheapen the massive talents involved.

Love the casting stories that are included here.

Being in the Brat Pack is like a venereal disease. If someone made a movie with two of the people previously labelled as members, you became a member.

David Blum’s article in the New York Magazine that labelled them the Brat Pack was sarcastic and mean spirited. Joel Schumacher, the director of St. Elmo’s Fire, saw Blum when he came to interview him as coming across like the guy who never got invited to the party and had finally found his lever and fulcrum to move the world. Invited out for a night with the friends, he was shown a bunch of guys who may have been showing out trying to be more impressive and he took it all to heart and inflated it and, then, conflated it with his personal dislikes. So an article that was ostensibly about Emilio Estevez’s budding career as an actor, writer, and director at 23-years old...and being Martin Sheen’s son blew up into something else entirely.

Pretty in Pink has always been my least favorite of the so-called Brat Pack movies. And now I know why. The ending always struck me as out-of-character based on how the plot up to that point. The original ending was supposed to be Cryer’s and Ringwald’s character dancing at prom as friends, but a test audience booed that ending. And thus, the rewritten and filmed ending rehabilitating McCarthy’s caddish character. Always rang false to me. And now, I know why.

The similarities in plot between Pink and Wonderful may be because of the changed ending. Hughes was trying to have the story that he actually wanted get to the screen rather than the focus group screened “hero gets the girl, geek gets left out” ending that Pink ended up with. Some Kind of Wonderful felt derivative in another way too. It re-rung the bell at the museum from Buehler. The author tries to make the argument, unsuccessfully, I believe, that the two movies while sharing thematic elements are sufficiently different. The success of these movies lead to a derivative tidal wave of formulaic, lesser movies. Many borrowing plot elements and, even, stars from other Brat Pack movies.

Ringwald’s manager, her mother, at that time, as the Brat Pack movies reached their nadir, passed on reading for Pretty Woman and Blue Velvet because they didn’t meet Molly’s image. This was the era when Julie Andrews had just appeared topless in SOB. C’mon. Molly’s mismanaged career in this era lead reporters to characterize her as an actress who dithered over scripts, dithered over interviews, and came across as spoiled when she’d tell reporters that the press wouldn't let her grow up naturally.

John Hughes comes across as almost Peter Pan-ish. He was Ferris. He was the characters played by Anthony Michael Hall, Jon Cryer, Andrew McCarthy, and Matthew Broderick, et al. He channeled his friends and their experiences along with his own. He was in touch with his inner 16-year old girl. Hence, his understanding of Molly Ringwald, Mia Sara, and his friendship with Sloane Tannen, his producer’s teenage daughter, who he had extensive conversations with during the production of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. She was the namesake of Bueller’s girlfriend Sloane Peterson, making her one part Sloane Tannen and one part Hughes high school buddy Jackson Peterson...at least in name. In today’s post Neverland Ranch, post Long Island Lolita world, we’d make it into something unclean and tawdry. His calling his producer’s house to talk to Sloane instead of her dad would set off the squick alarm at high volume today. Same with his relationship with Molly Ringwald during the filming of Candles, Club, and Pretty. Looking at his results, he was telling the stories of young souls coming to maturity as the real world impugned itself on the fairy tale of High School and its princes and princesses, its trolls and fairies, its blurs and spiders, all its little monsters, all straining toward a better tomorrow that they don’t understand.

It’s a shame that John didn't live long enough to make the high school reunion movies that would have brought some of these characters back to the screen later in life. He made 4 Vacations and 3 Beethovens, and 4 Home Alones...and we still loved his movies. Okay...okay...the Vacations were good stuff.

Ferris represented the first time that Hughes didn’t really connect with his actors on the same level as on the previous movies. This was the beginning of the end of Hughes pack movies even though he still had a few to go. This was Hughes second graduation from High School.

The behind the scenes stuff on Some Kind of Wonderful sounds like a colossal cluster.

Hughes is portrayed here as having the classic “you’re dead to me” attitude toward directors and actors who refused him. Hughes along with some others tried to pressure Anthony Michael Hall to be Ferris thinking that his mother was pressuring him. A 4 hour pressure meeting that after surviving it and still passing on the movie lead AMH to say of John Hughes in this book, “He was my best friend.”

Despite the label Brat Pack and its connotations, when you line up all the work that these actors have been involved in since the 80s, it’s an impressive filmography. Some got typecast into oblivion almost. But some of them have taken part in a touchstone or three outside of the teen, youth, high school genre. The book came out too far back to give credit to them, but Spader’s turn on The Blacklist as Raymond Reddington and Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark/Iron Man are both awesome. The coda hasn’t been written on these actors’ careers. Some of them will fade away but some will continue to pop up and flash their talent before us. And I look forward to it.

Not Another Teen Movie, SuperBad, and a host of fellow travellers are the generational children of John Hughes, Joel Schumacher, and the Brat Pack movies.
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Last Page Sound:
Sad and good and depressing.

Author Assessment:
Loved that Gora chose to reach back to the some of the cultural touchstones of the movies of my youth. It’s a little bit of knowing how the sausage is made though. I love that the document was written. And I enjoyed reading it. But I do think differently about some of it now. I would definitely read other stuff from Susannah Gora.

Knee Jerk Reaction:
glad I read it

Disposition of Book:
Wichita Falls Public Library
600 11th St
Wichita Falls, TX 76301

Dewey Decimal System:
791.4302
GOR
c.01

Would recommend to:
genre fans
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