Andrew McCarthy reunites with the Brat Pack for "Brats" doc

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/25/andrew-mccarthy-reunites-with-the-brat-pack-for-brats-doc.html

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This looks like it’s going to be pretty interesting…

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My husband is delighted that people born in 1962 are considered middle-aged!

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Yeah, that is cool and all. But what about a retrospective on the “The B.R.A.T. Patrol”?

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Might need to get a trial for Hulu to watch this…

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Lea Thompson as “Brat Pack-adjacent” sounds just about right. Was that Mare Winningham near the end? I wouldn’t have pegged her as BP. How did Robert Downey, Jr and James Spader escape?

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Maybe they just didn’t want to participate in the doc?

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Agreed. I will totally watch this if I get the opportunity.
Looks like it must’ve been pretty fun to make, too, connecting with old friends like that.

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It’s a good theory but I vaguely remember the media coverage of the time, establishing who was Brat Pack and who wasn’t, and I don’t think those two were in the pantheon. Probably it was all based off of three or four movies, and Tuff Turf didn’t come out at exactly the right time to get swept up in the concept. (Nor did Less Than Zero, with McCarthy + RDJ + Spader.)

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Mare Winningham was in St. Elmo’s Fire, which was basically the definitive Brat Pack movie (it led to New York Magazine coining the term in 1985. And that’s a still from St. Elmo’s Fire on the thumbnail for the documentary trailer.) However, Winningham was absent from most lists of BP members.

The Brat Pack was specifically the 8 actors who were the hot properties in 1985: Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Molly Ringwald, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, and Ally Sheedy. James Spader and RDJ didn’t have prominent roles or attention during that time (notice RDJ’s small secondary role in Weird Science, for example, where Anthony Michael Hall was the star).

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On the upside, they do a combo package with Disney+ and have a deep back bench of TV series and anime.

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I remember a book about Brat Pack movies from the late 90’s describing Red Dawn as “The Brat Pack vs The Russkis” based on Lea Thompson’s role.

But it would be more appropriate to say she, C Thomas Howell and Charlie Sheen were more “Brat Pack Adjacent”.

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As someone born in '78, I’m glad the window has been extended…
At that measure I’m basically in my late 20’s!

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