BRATS

Director: Andrew McCarthy
Starring: Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe, Malcolm Gladwell, Ira Madison III, Lea Thompson, Jon Cryer, Howard Deutch

For many of us, movies like The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo’s Fire or Sixteen Candles hit a sweet nostalgic spot of reflecting our own coming of age in high school or life in our early 20s. For actor Andrew McCarthy, he’s reflecting on what it meant to be a part of that era in his new documentary, Brats. The mid 1980s saw a surge of movies geared toward teen audiences with actors like Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, and more. They spoke to, not only that generation, but every one since then. This era was highlighted in a New York magazine article called “Hollywood’s Brat Pack,” by David Blum, which first appeared in the June 10, 1985. The name “Brat Pack” was a play on the Frank Sinatra/Dean Martin era of the Rat Pack but came with a more negative connotation for its subjects. Andrew McCarthy starred in St. Elmo’s Fire, Pretty in Pink, Class, and more but found that the article ruined his chances of being taken as a serious actor. Now forty years later, he’s hoping to track down his old co-stars to commiserate over what it meant to be a member of the Brat Pack. Now streaming on Hulu

Here’s my review