You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, And Their Impact On A Generation (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
I liked getting inside info on some of my favorite movies -- The Breakfast Club, St. Elmo's Fire, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Home Alone -- and finding out what some of the stars of the films were thinking while they were making them. How the term "Brat Pack" came about was interesting, and its affect on the people grouped into it -- either correctly or incorrectly -- was just as interesting. She also goes into non-Brat Pack movies the group did to rid themselves of the moniker.The only thing I really didn't like about the book is that the author repeated a lot of information. I mean, how many times do you have to tell us Rob Lowe was in St. Elmos's Fire?I probably could have read the book more quickly if I didn't feel compelled to watch The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Say Anything and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But how can you read about Andrew McCarthy's awful hair at the end of Pretty in Pink and then not watch the whole movie? Not that I'm complaining about that :) An enjoyable behind-the-scenes look at some of the best-loved teen movies of the 1980s, focusing mainly on writer-director John Hughes. I liked the format of the book for the most part-- the opening chapters focus on Hughes's early life, such as his work for National Lampoon, with a particular focus on his adolescence and how it impacted his later films. Each of his major works (Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off) gets a chapter devoted to the making of the movie, with another chapter focusing solely on the importance of the musical soundtracks to the films and to the 80s as a whole. There are also behind-the-scenes chapters on two non-Hughes films (St. Elmo's Fire and Say Anything), the origin of the "Brat Pack" phrase and its impact on Hughes's stable of actors later in their careers, and Hughes's life after his self-exile from Hollywood. I love stories like Cameron Crowe's about the next-door neighbor who inspired his indomitable Lloyd Dobler, the casting dramas of Some Kind of Wonderful, and John Hughes's producing partner awe-struck and slightly pissed-off recounting of how Hughes wrote the script for Ferris Bueller in a mere 36 hours to avoid a writer's strike (I can barely get my laundry done in one weekend, much less writing one of the funniest movies of the 80s). Gora managed to interview most of the big-name actors, including Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, John Cusack, Jon Cryer, Matthew Broderick, as well as many behind-the-scenes players who contributed to these films and, of course, the teens of the 80s who loved them. One place I found the book lacking, which was especially notable in the later sections, was the loss of John Hughes, who had passed away at the time the book was published. Though Gora tries to fill in the gaps with Howard Deutch, who directed Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful from Hughes's script, as well as his studio boss, Ned Tanen, and other Hughes' collaborators, the lack of the man himself is keenly felt. Perhaps more so because, as Gora recounts, Hughes left Hollywood for rural Illinois in the 1990s, where he stopped directing and wrote only middling, disappointing family fare. Prior to his retreat, Hughes had alienated himself from his one-time muses, Hall and Ringwald, as well as his former film-making partners, and had developed a reputation for being rude, angry, and difficult to work with. Why Hughes changed so drastically from a collaborative director, well-loved enough by his actors that they made film after film with him, to a tyrant is never satisfactorily explained, and we never really understand WHY he left Hollywood. Maybe nobody, save Hughes, knew, but I would have loved an interview with his wife or sons, someone who knew Hughes intimately in his later years. The book drags in its last chapters, which describe in great detail where the Brat Packers are today-- really, no one except Andrew McCarty and his mom care what TV shows he's guest-starred on-- and the rise of 80s nostalgia. I would also argue that Gora left out one of the best and most influential teen movies of the 80s, Heathers, though she was clearly focusing on more uplifting and aspirational films, and the dark, cynical feel of Heathers doesn't really apply there. Recommended if you love Hollywood gossip and/or the 1980s.
What do You think about You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, And Their Impact On A Generation (2010)?
Some interesting tidbits of information, but long winded. A struggle to finish.
—mona
A great subject and fun observations, but could have easily been condensed.
—Jackson98
This book occasionally took itself too seriously, but I loved it.
—ladystone67
Ugh. I didn't expect literary brilliance, but yeesh.
—sonu
Loved hearing the background on my fave movies!
—gingersnap101
