Christi Dodge 0:00
Welcome, everybody to this bonus episode of the Dodge movie podcast as well as a bonus episode of the long rewind. Yes, yes, I see that. Yeah, we’re here with our good friends Dustin Morrow and Liza Minnelli hi to talk about Brad’s the movie that Andrew McCarthy wrote directed made. brats. brats.

Dustin 0:21
I thought it was brought. I watched the whole 90 minutes looking for sausages. This makes total you’ve changed my entire Yeah, we

Lisa 0:32
got it.

Dustin 0:33
I thought it was brought. That’s

Mike Dodge 0:34
why the sausage King wasn’t there.

Christi Dodge 0:41
So I think I was about what, half hour 45 minutes into this. And I emailed you Dustin immediately and I was like, you have to watch this movie because that’s an Elisa. For those of us. For those of you who are listening from our podcast, they have a wonderful podcast where they go over the Aedes. And you guys had already talked about some of these films. And I was just like, this is the perfect marriage of of our two podcasts, we need to do a bonus app. I want to talk about this movie and you guys know so much about the 80s I knew that we would have a great conversation. Oh,

Lisa 1:14
yeah. Well, it’s always fun to talk with you guys. This is especially fun because it’s the 80s so hooray. Yes, this is in my wheelhouse. Yeah, especially Dustin’s wheelhouse, you know, pretty much everything about yes, these people in these movies. Yeah.

Dustin 1:27
Although I have wildly conflicting feelings about this documentary subject. I’m sure we’ll get Yes.

Christi Dodge 1:34
So should we maybe go over like our first impressions of it? Maybe is that a good way to kick it off? Or our impressions of the Brat Pack? In general like,

Dustin 1:47
well, maybe we should start just for people that haven’t seen this movie, say what it is, which is it’s it’s a documentary funded by I want to see ABC News that was produced cracked ABC, based on a book The Andrew McCarthy wrote a year or two ago called brats, a love story or brat a love story. And it’s all about his experience of the Brat Pack. fallout from the 80s, which was an article written by what publication was it

Lisa 2:16
you get with York Magazine? Correct.

Dustin 2:18
So yeah, New York Magazine, there was a reporter that embedded with mill USA bez to write a profile on Emilio esta vez. went out with Emily west of us into the nightlife of Hollywood with he and his friends who happen to be all these famous people like Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy and Jed Nelson, and then wrote a depending on who you talk to scathing account of their lives, painting them, essentially as kind of unserious actors and, and people who were in it for the celebrity and the party and the fun.

Andrew McCarthy, and all of these actors claimed that this had a negative impact on their careers, and that Andrew McCarthy believes he’s carried this around with him for 40 years. So he’s written a book about it, and now made a documentary about it. When she goes back, and he speaks to all of the, or most of the members of the Brat Pack to get their feelings on, on it, you know, decades on on what it meant for them in their careers.

Mike Dodge 3:21
I would say the documentary proves that he hasn’t gotten rid of it. Just

Dustin 3:28
stayed away from reviews of this before I watched it, as I do with most movies, but I did hear one. One critic say Andrew McCarthy needs a hug.

Mike Dodge 3:40
Yeah, I agree. It’s

Dustin 3:42
commander McCarthy a hug. Yeah. And it did at times feel like 90 minutes of therapy for Andrew McCarthy? Yeah, it did at times feel like he was the only one who was really everybody talk to seem to be moved on. Yeah, to the point where, if you watch the familiar rest of us, which I found was the most interesting to me, because Amelia Western has never does interviews about his old, like, he’s the one member of like, The Breakfast Club that never ever shows up to any of the region’s even after he’s died, and they all went on the Oscars to pay tribute, he was not there. So it was really jarring to see him in in this and that interview in his kitchen, where McCarthy is just verbally spewing all of this drama that he’s carried around with him.

You can see there are multiple points where, you know, the rest of us has this sort of side eye where he looks directly at the camera, almost like Jim in the office. And he’s just like, and you can read his mind you like it’s right on his face. Yeah. It’s just like why oh, this is why I don’t do these. And I’m never going to do another one. Again. Any hope that we found Ever had of Emily west of his showing up to like a Breakfast Club q&a or something were with Dash because of this. I what looked to me like an awful experience in the kitchen with Andrew McCarthy making this documentary.

Lisa 5:12
I mean, it reminded heavy. If you guys felt this way. I was watching that conversation thinking I’ve been in these conversations. I’ve been Emilio I think we all probably Yeah, mulia where you’re just like, yeah, man, I totally get it. And you’re like, When can I? Yeah.

Mike Dodge 5:29
He was giving lots of off camera, but these cues like, Oh, yeah. Okay. Andrew, good seeing you. Oh, great. Yeah, the one on ones pretty bad. So yeah, you should probably hit the road.

Unknown Speaker 5:41
Yeah. And I can’t leave.

Christi Dodge 5:44
He was a he’s a director. So he’s probably trying to try

Mike Dodge 5:51
and cut. That was great. Andrew, I

Christi Dodge 5:52
find it interesting that you liked Amelia. I loved the Demi Moore section. Because I felt like she I think through all of her years of 12 Step work and just deep probably mental work that she’s been doing. I felt she was therapy rising him which he needed desperately. She was reframing for him a lot of what they went through and kind of it seemed like she was helping him come to terms with this. Yeah,

Lisa 6:21
I also wasn’t 100% convinced that they all thought it was a bad thing for their careers. I was absolutely convinced that Andrew McCarthy thought it was pretty much it. Yeah. But I wasn’t convinced they all felt the same way. Like I felt like they were all like, affirming him and his feelings about it. Like yeah, no, I get it. I totally get it. But like, maybe they didn’t all feel as bad about it. But I don’t know. I just

Mike Dodge 6:46
recently read both blooms original article, and then his his retort? Oh, yes. And its current retort that he did and yeah, this year. Yeah. And he very much portrays them negatively, just as bad people. And I definitely could see how

Dustin 7:02
in the retort to or Yes.

Mike Dodge 7:06
Blum is not apologetic in, in the record, he actually, I believe you and claims to have kind of given them more of a career by putting this out there. And it got such currency. And he talks about how Carson named checked his Brat Pack invention on air. But I can see how as a young person in my early 20s, if somebody’s imprint, said that I was a jerk that I that would really bother me. I could kind of see and McCarthy’s point, then, but then we’re talking about Demi Moore and some of the others. They’ve moved past it, Rob Lowe seems to actually enjoy it.

Like he has a chuckle like, Oh, I remember when we were young. And we did the same things. And people call this this thing. So watching it, that was kind of interesting. I do think I have maybe a softer spot for Emilio because in the bloom article, they even talk about one of my favorite Emilio SFS films minute work. And so I like him as a director as well as an actor. So to me, I kind of feel like he did just fine. And he seemed okay with it. He seemed pretty, pretty settled. So that’s the thing for me is how do you get beyond that? Or do you get stuck when you’re 20? Yeah,

Dustin 8:20
well, we can have several debates about this movie. And so since you’re bringing this up, maybe this is the first one to have, which is this question of did this really actually hurt their career or did it help their career? And I would side with Blum on this, that I think it actually this actually helped their career, I would agree it helped their longevity. It’s the fact that I said this to Lisa, like, we were watching this, and I were like half an hour in and I said, after listening to Andrew McCarthy wine for 30 minutes. I said, you know, the existence of this movie negates its thesis.

Yeah, the fact that this movie that we write, there’s an audience for this movie shows that this was not a negative thing for their career, and that in a way, it has bestowed upon all these actors, this sort of legendary status and neutrality to that culture, to the point where there are several actors in the movie. And I’ve heard these actors say this outside the movie before too, that they wish they were in the Brat Pack, right? Like Jon Cryer, yes, there is a little bitterness about not being in the Brat Pack. Lea Thompson wishes she was in.

Christi Dodge 9:28
She said she was brought package Jason Yeah,

Lisa 9:30
that was that came up. So

Dustin 9:32
it can’t be in the long run in the moment I can understand if you if you think you’re a serious actor, and and you especially as a young person, I can see how it might bother you. The fact that they all went on to have really good long careers right, it was that this didn’t really hurt any of them in the long run.

Mike Dodge 9:54
I think the only person whose work I had a hard time. Coming to mind is Chad Nelson. And I just assumed that was because he didn’t he choose to work as much as the others. But he didn’t appear in the documentary. So perhaps he was a little bit more bitter about about the moniker. That’s a

Christi Dodge 10:11
good point. I actually created a spreadsheet, because I wanted to check my own knowledge because I agree with you. I felt like they’ve all had really long careers. So I was like, Okay, let me do this. And so I went through all of their IMDb and made a list and they worked consistently. And you’re right, Mike Judd kind of stopped at suddenly Susan in 99. Right. But he’s done other movies in episodic since then. So

Lisa 10:39
I mean, that was long after yours. Brat Pack, right. So he was still working. She

Dustin 10:43
is the one I thought like she kind of disappeared. Jed Nelson seems like he’s always been around. He shows up in guest spots on TV and he remembered him from suddenly sees he makes a lot of straight to video type of movies, straight to cable. He’s word seems like he’s worked consistently. She’s the one that seemed like she’ll pop up once every five years, right? Seems like in something but she’s

Christi Dodge 11:07
actually worked pretty consistently since 1990. I mean, I didn’t go Pat just did the 80s. And she worked a lot in the 80s. And she’s having a baby short circuit to Betsy his wedding. But then she worked because she had a consistent IMDb you know, track since the 99. Kind

Lisa 11:26
of an indie darling for a while there, and I think so. movies

Christi Dodge 11:31
lately, too. She’s been in some indie films. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Dodge 11:34
It’s interesting. You said that Lea Thompson thought she was adjacent. I would say she was in some kind of wonderful, I would consider her part of the pack. Maybe a little bit more on the fringe. Jon Cryer, again, I just rewatched Pretty in Pink. And I think it’s interesting that he considers himself Rat Pack Jason but Blum bought the Tom Cruise as part of the Brat Pack and yeah, right not to deviate into that discussion. But I would argue that Tom Cruise was definitely not in any way shape or form in the Brat Pack. It may be Timothy Hutton, I don’t know I would sign off on but certainly not Tom Cruise. Well, it’s interesting

Christi Dodge 12:10
too, because I think of the Brat Pack movies being Breakfast Club and saying almost fire is primarily who I would say. But it was interesting to hear other people and like there was somebody in the trivia said that taps was the first black Brat Pack film. And

Mike Dodge 12:26
I would disagree. And I was thinking about this as well. By the way, I really liked the taps when I watched it. But I think its theme and it is an ensemble film. But its theme does not match with what I consider the traditional kind of Brett Peck oeuvre. Was

Christi Dodge 12:42
it a high school military school? Or was this older?

Mike Dodge 12:46
No, they were they were teenagers, however, is supposed to be, I think a little bit like the Citadel.

Christi Dodge 12:51
So ratpack films kind of tended to be high school films, even though I guess Yeah, animals fire. They were college graduates 16 to 25 demo, right. So they were a little bit older. So

Mike Dodge 13:03
I think for me, one of the things because I was thinking about this is taps does not have I think many if any female characters and it doesn’t have that, that that that part of the coupling up that is key, I think into defining these films, right. So for for me, I think, you know, kind of getting back to what qualifies as a brat packer and I consider it like a sign of, of love, not of hate. Maybe Blum didn’t intend it that way. But for me, that was an accomplishment. These were the big name stars of their era, just like I think in the late 80s and early 90s. If you said Arnold and Sylvester and Bruce people would know them as action stars, it was kind of a badge of honor. Right?

Lisa 13:49
I mean, isn’t that that’s sort of key in Hollywood to me. That’s what I kept thinking. Isn’t it sort of key in Hollywood to have a brand to have someone like know you as something that’s how you have a career for better or worse, right? A lot of people don’t want to be pigeonholed, but also that’s kind of how you keep getting hired to some degree. Yeah, I mean, I kept thinking, you know, to me, because I didn’t even know there was an article I think until I heard about this movie, right?

I didn’t even know the Brat Pack came from somebody’s article. So for me, I grew up thinking of them almost as like a repertory company like a cool Repertory Company of cool young people. Right and to me, it was a cool thing. I mean it to me what Lauren Shuler, Donner said in the movie made the most sense that it was like it was a fabulous lucky thing I think was something that she said to everybody wanted to be a part of it. It was like this aspirational thing. And that’s how I always thought of it growing up. Maybe I didn’t think they’re

Dustin 14:41
so well. They’re the face. Yeah, the face is of Generation X. Yeah. So yeah. Which is like, amazing thing that they have. Yeah, that they should be so no one would be if he wasn’t in the backpack. No one would be thinking about Andrew McCarthy today. I mean, he’s made he’s made a career and then Last Five Years of talking about the bath house. So, as a travel writer, that’s what he does how he directs episodic television. He directed a lot of the blacklist with James Spader, who’s a friend of his because he knows him.

Lisa 15:13
Anyway, yeah, we’re pretty big fan. He didn’t he didn’t talk to James Spader. But all that, but the,

Dustin 15:18
I mean, the ad is the movie gets it this and this was the most interesting part of the movie to me. And so I was bummed that it only comprised about eight to 10 minutes of it, which was the that this was a return to after the 1970s, which were, which was a more an era of more adult filmmaking. That is a film’s not adult film, it was very big, Cinemax, but movies about and for adults. And in the 80s it was a return through the emergence of shopping malls and, and disposable income and a roaring economy.

That that it became a youth centered film scene, and a lot of the biggest movies of the 80s are about young people and about teenagers. And these are the young people that happen to be the face of that and and they should be really thrilled that they hold that position and in our pop culture because nobody, I mean, I like mannequin, but nobody’s gonna nobody’s gonna be like mannequin is the greatest comedy Hollywood’s ever produced. And that’s why it’s hung around. It’s it’s it he’s, we still know about Andrew McCarthy because he was part of this group. All right. Well,

Mike Dodge 16:35
and look at Demi Moore, that before say animals fire she was in the pilot for a ninja TV show. Yeah, right, that that alone should show that the staying power of this Brat Pack is that transported her from that from a bit part in a really not very good TV show into into headlining major motion pictures.

Lisa 17:02
Yeah. That’s how it works. I ultimately

Christi Dodge 17:05
think why Andrew is so I’ll just say it but her about this article is not the moniker of brat. But in reading it. It says Anna, I’m gonna quote I’m gonna read the article it says and of Andrew McCarthy, one of the New York based actors in cinemas fire, a co star says he plays all his roles, too, with too much of the same intensity. I don’t think he’ll make it. I know. And so to hear your peers, one of your co stars say that about you. I think that’s what hurt the most. And he, it wasn’t comfortable to be mad at that co star. And so I think he pointed all of his anger and hurt at David bloom and got fixated on it.

Unknown Speaker 17:49
Yeah. Over the years. He

Dustin 17:51
was also like, 22 Yeah, right. Yeah. You know, he was still maturing, and I mean, I, I carry bad stuff from my 20s to this day that I’m still dealing with and you know, it’s, it’s hard it can be it can hang around for the rest of your life. But

Christi Dodge 18:07
do you write books and make movies?

Dustin 18:10
I don’t like to ruminate on

Christi Dodge 18:12
what Amelio said he was like, it’s in the past. Yeah. Like, I’m not gonna focus on that that’s and Demi Demi said that as well. She said, let’s not, you know, just like move forward, stay in the present, like I think, and even Rob was kind of like, echoing what you were saying about? No, it was a pretty cool thing. Like we should be proud of ourselves.

And when, when he even said, I think we could have filled Shea Stadium because I’m like, Yeah, I would have bought a ticket in my local to go see those guys because I had crushes on all of them. Right. In fact, I bet if you looked in some of my notebooks from high school, it says Christie esta vez? Because I just was trying to, you know, yeah, the other thing,

Mike Dodge 18:55
this is an interesting point. Because if that phenomena happened now, they would have a podcast, just like smartlace. And they would cash in on and they would sell out Madison Square Garden for a live recording of their podcast.

Christi Dodge 19:09
I can’t believe Andrew doesn’t have a buck.

Dustin 19:14
This brings up another question is, could we could you have a brat pack today? And I would argue you couldn’t because this was an era where a magazine article could be have be this big a deal. If this was 2024 First of all, a magazine article is not going to make any kind of splash. But even if it did, it would it would have a 24 hour news cycle tops before people forgot about it. It just you couldn’t.

Lisa 19:41
I mean, I think it would be in a different way would I rob blow is seem to be making the point that there are young people who fill this role cyclically. I don’t know who they are now, because I’m not that looked into it. And maybe it’s in a different way. But maybe you’re right maybe. I mean, you’re right that maybe they wouldn’t have a moniker like this. It wouldn’t be the same level of like icon status it just like old Hollywood, we can never have old Hollywood again. Maybe you can never have a brat pack Brat Pack.

Dustin 20:08
But who in 2024 is the face? Well, that’s the

Lisa 20:13
thing. I mean, I’m not I’m not a young person. So they’re youth based cinema right now. I don’t know, maybe not sure there’s movies

Dustin 20:19
about teens that but they go to but they’re mostly comedies and they go to netflix where they again, stay in the news cycle less than a day maybe. And so who is it? I mean, it’s it’s a what’s his name? Tom Holland, I guess because he plays Spider Man. Maybe it’s Timothy shallow me. But if you tell me like, if you tell me people are gonna be obsessing over Timothy shallow may in 40 years. Like, I still see it happening.

Lisa 20:49
The branding of the Brat Pack gives it a lot of staying power. Branding is huge. Well, I

Mike Dodge 20:55
think that’s a good point. Because it’s the economics of it that we had this magical time period, because during that time, you still sold posters in the mall. And so there was a very limited set of things you could talk about and think about, we were just talking about in a movie, a particular kind of alarm clock and how kids, our age would watch this thing.

And we were fascinated with it. It’s because we had no iPhones. It was an attainment test. And that doesn’t exist now. And we were also talking about, you know, the, the toplessness that was very common that was titillating in a way that isn’t now because people can see who knows what on their phone. So maybe there would be a brat pack because it doesn’t have that that pressure cooker that is necessary to put all of them in there and really distill it down into a thing. Yeah.

Dustin 21:51
Yeah, maybe it’s, I think the least is idea like this is a repertory company is the thing, because it’s I don’t know that you see the same actors working with the same actors today. The frequency that you did in movies that are considered really important to the culture.

Lisa 22:10
Not just I mean, there’s Marvel and stuff, but that’s not the same at all. It’s very different.

Dustin 22:15
Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Dodge 22:16
Yeah. I don’t think the Marvel movies capture the imagination. I agree there, or

Christi Dodge 22:22
there’s their fantasy. I think the reason the Brat Pack movies, we all associated with them is because we could find ourselves in one of those care

Lisa 22:30
those people or yeah, you related to it in some way.

Mike Dodge 22:34
Let’s ask music teachers, how many people signed up for saxophone lessons after saying almost? Exactly.

Dustin 22:42
I do want to say that. And I touched on this earlier. I there’s like 10 minutes in this movie. Sort of like, what is it like the half hour mark, where he talks to the author of a book about the Brat Pack, he talks to a pop culture? Oh, yeah, expert, whatever that is. And, and they sort of expound on the the meaning of these movies, too, and how important they were to Gen X to young people at the time, and how much we loved them, and how much we love these actors because of it. And I really wished the documentary had been about that. Yeah. been more about that than it was about Andrew McCarthy airing his beef.

Lisa 23:29
is brand new,

Christi Dodge 23:30
you’re you’re spot on it. Was it a half hour that he started talking to all these people, and that’s where, like you said, a lot of the meat of this and everybody praising I mean, even Malcolm Gladwell is like, Yeah, I’m ducky. Like, right.

Dustin 23:44
Yeah. Right. Yeah. So why do we care? Right? Because is it purely nostalgic? Is it rose tinted glasses? Maybe because we saw these? These are the movies we saw when we were young. And when you’re young, you’re innocent? And we all look back? Hopefully most of us look back fondly on our childhoods. Not everybody does. I know.

Is it because of that is because the movies were better than than they are now. I mean, it’s is it because they were more representative of culture than the teen movies that are being made now are representative of their culture. I mean, what was it about these set of films, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink? You know, saying almost fire 16 candles? Yeah, huge step, especially like, why does it matter? I mean, assume it matters to you guys, because you do a movie podcast and Gen Xers right? So

Mike Dodge 24:37
Well, I think to me, The Breakfast Club was different than any film. I can remember that era in that we talked about it outside of the film. Yeah. Like that. And you mentioned I’m a ducky. This was a conversation that was had many a time was which character are you? I think I’m a little nervous and a little of that, that it was it was kind of them Myers Briggs Type Indicator of our generation, right?

And so that was important. Was it better? I would argue that film is a very good film. So yes, at a certain level, it’s better. But I also think there’s a certain amount of at that time, we were a little more positive. Right? It was a little more aspirational in those films. And now I think movies for young people now,

Dustin 25:22
but the movies weren’t if you really watch those movies like Ally Sheedy says, you when you grow up, your heart dies in the Breakfast Club, right? And those movies were very,

Christi Dodge 25:34
to me, they were real, like, they weren’t happy because it was finally saying like, Bender gets beat up at home and Ally Sheedy. Like, was she homeless or almost homeless? Or she was definitely of a lower socio economic

Mike Dodge 25:47
earnings though. Yeah, that’s I was gonna say they go through some some challenges, but ultimately, it’s an uplifting, positive for finishing, and, again, this may be more deviates into John Hughes work than than others. But to me, that is part and parcel of it. Because you could say, even if I was the Ally Sheedy, the weird one, that there is hope for me,

Christi Dodge 26:09
well, just look, at the end, she’s looking more like Claire, right. And she’s getting with the guy the, you know, the wrestling star, didn’t she yet with Emilio esta vez at the end? So she actually turned into was her name Claire and or did I make movies? No, I

Lisa 26:27
think you’re right. Yeah.

Christi Dodge 26:29
And so is it interesting that instead of just Ubu? Girl, you’d be the golf girl? No, she turned into the pretty girl and got the wrestling star. As you

Mike Dodge 26:38
look at Anthony Michael Hall, who played a nerd in several films and this, and that was not, I think it didn’t work against him. It worked for him. He was a sympathetic character. The other little nerds are like, Yeah, you’re one of us. So to me, this it. It resonated with something. But I think there was getting back to that since point, a certain era where we had just enough media for this to blow up, but not so much that it got lost. Listening

Christi Dodge 27:07
to what you guys talked about on your podcasts a lot, is also just kind of what you’re saying the access to the media. These were movies that we were going back to the to the video store and looking in the return is anybody returned Breakfast Club? I want to watch it again. Yeah, like those, we wanted to see him again and again.

And then when they came on the, you know, the few streaming services and when the we didn’t call them that the cable channels. We were so excited. And we would I would tape it, I would tape the Breakfast Club, that would have been a movie I would have grabbed off of HBO or whatever. So the consumption of these definitely I feel was more heightened because we just have so much you can barely even watch what’s out there, let alone watch it multiple times. Well,

Lisa 27:50
and I’ll tell you, too, this was Breakfast Club was a rite of passage kind of in my high school. And I don’t know how many people had this experience. But this was shown in our health class.

Christi Dodge 27:59
Yeah. Molly Ringwald in an article and she spoke that that teachers are showing pretty in pink and I

Lisa 28:06
think it was for a long time. Maybe they still even do it some places I don’t know. But in I was a senior in 1996. And we watched The Breakfast Club in our senior year health class and like talked about it, you know, so and that’s long after it came out. So yeah, and that probably went on.

Dustin 28:26
Let’s talk about so the Yeah, so what is a Brett Packer? Yeah, have a list. List is esta vez lo McCarthy, more Nelson Ringwald, who’s not in the documentary? Yeah. Sheedy and Anthony Michael Hall.

Christi Dodge 28:44
Is Mayor winning him.

Mike Dodge 28:45
No,

Dustin 28:46
not according to most lists says, gosh,

Mike Dodge 28:50
I would totally you know,

Dustin 28:52
I mean, I just I read a few articles and about debating, like, who’s in and who’s out. And that seems to be the group that’s like the people who left out that you might think would show up we’re like Matt Dillon mare Winningham John Q. Zack Robert Downey, Jr, Mary Stuart Masterson, Jon Cryer, Sean Penn Tom Cruise, Kiefer Sutherland, James Spader, surprisingly, that’s the one that surprised me because he wasn’t a lot of those. He was Yeah. Charlie Sheen is not in Jami Gertz is not in Patrick Swayze. Slightly too old probably. I

Mike Dodge 29:26
think Spader is probably also a little old. I think that’s why some kind of wonderful and he looks 30

Dustin 29:32
Yeah. And so then there’s another list I saw of the others of all the movies that have that that had at least two brat packers in them. So the question was like, what does it take to make a brat how many likes and there’s a lot fewer than you would think there’s only like 10 or 12 movies that had and I would say that a lot of these movies are really not backpack movies, even though they have multiple brat packers. And then

Mike Dodge 30:01
I think five or six maybe right

Dustin 30:04
and there’s a lot of movies that you would think would be Brat Pack movies that like why isn’t

Christi Dodge 30:08
why isn’t the outsiders considered a brat pack movie? Yeah, because I had so many

Lisa 30:13
people Yeah. Yeah Mike made an interesting point about not female brat packers being you know that yeah it doesn’t have that list

Dustin 30:22
I saw that’s interesting considers outsiders Oh, because it has low and estimates it has a lot and then it has a lot of Brat Pack adjacent or BPA.

Mike Dodge 30:35
Yeah. I’m gonna have to fall back on this free record here. I know what when I see it. I don’t think.

Lisa 30:43
Yeah, yeah, I

Dustin 30:44
don’t I wouldn’t include it either,

Christi Dodge 30:46
because like Ralph maggio and Michael J. Fox would not be considered. So why not? Yeah.

Dustin 30:52
So here’s what I think isn’t in my expert opinion as experienced 80s movie podcast. Yes. So it’s Breakfast Club.

Mike Dodge 31:01
Absolutely brilliant

Dustin 31:03
pink obvious okay. 16 Yeah, about last night which is a David Mamet romantic comedy with

Mike Dodge 31:10
Rob Lowe and Eric inner.

Dustin 31:14
I would include Oxford blue, really, which is Rob Lowe and and Ally Sheedy. I forgot she’s seen almost fire which is ground zero for Brat Pack movies, because they’re all in it. And yeah, young. Yeah, totally. Class, which is Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy. Fresh horses, which is McCarthy and Molly Ringwald. And I would say it kind of stops there. But the other movies you see are like Betsy, is wedding Blue City wisdom. The Outsiders?

Lisa 31:45
Did you mentioned 16 candles? You missed him?

Mike Dodge 31:47
I did? Yeah. Yeah. I

Dustin 31:49
feel like the movie has to be like the fact that they’re young people has to be at the heart of the array. And it has to somehow be about like, young angst.

Mike Dodge 31:59
I can’t. I’m gonna go What about thinking the three? Okay, at least three backpackers one of these gender. Oh, well,

Dustin 32:07
then there’s hardly any then. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I

Christi Dodge 32:09
think there are games because I had Ally Sheedy and Matthew Broderick, who isn’t considered a backpacker, though. He’s

Lisa 32:18
funny that Ferris Bueller isn’t in the Brat Pack. I got a little weird.

Mike Dodge 32:21
Is that weird? Okay. JENNIFER GRAY. Right. And Broderick and. Oh, it’s because I had a French girl.

Dustin 32:28
But Mike’s Mike’s criteria here though. We’re down to one movie.

Mike Dodge 32:32
No, Shana was fire and breakfast candles.

Dustin 32:36
So we’ve got two pretty entertaining candles. There’s only two no there’s Spader. speeders candles and some ringworm. Okay, then my and then my three or more alcohol. I would also say is not really in the backpack. No,

Mike Dodge 32:54
it’s fine. I actually don’t think he’s BPA. I think he’s some sort of an ciliary though he was in Breakfast Club. Yeah, but there’s something about him that I think like Michael J. Fox, he’s in his own category. Well, I wonder if it was part of the repertoire.

Lisa 33:09
And David Blum was part of the movie when they talked he’s talking to him. He was like, you guys were all adults. You weren’t minors. I wouldn’t write about minors. And I think Anthony Michael Hall was a minor for most for at least for those movies.

Christi Dodge 33:19
Well, Molly, Molly, Molly, well, why should practice club? Oh, well, she was part of that article, where Bender drops the pencil and looks at her panties. That was not that her because her mother was like, You’re not filming?

Mike Dodge 33:33
That was John Hughes. Was that his? If you said yeah, like I’ll do.

Dustin 33:39
Tell by the hair.

Lisa 33:42
If you look real close. Yeah, well, that’s interesting, because I think of her as like, the iconic Brat Pack gal. But really,

Mike Dodge 33:48
I think, to me instead of Molly, but Molly’s up there, right? Yeah,

Lisa 33:54
I think I was so used to I actually came to the Brat Pack movies later because I was too young to see them when they came out. So I saw them more when I was a teenager and I knew Demi Moore at that point as like ghost and fame right. So I wasn’t really thinking of her as a brat Packer. And I mean, I get it now but even

Christi Dodge 34:14
in cinemas fire I feel like she’s older than the others. Either that or she didn’t go to college. She was kind of like the career woman Oh, Jimmy. Jimmy Moore’s character in cinemas fire. She all the rest of them went to the ivy League’s and she kind of went into the fashion industry. Yeah, I think so. And she had this air of being older, at least in my memory. Before James

Mike Dodge 34:37
Spader he was definitely he came across as older than the others. So that’s very interesting was Anthony Michael Hall. Did he come across too young, and so definitely seemed really appealing. Prior

Dustin 34:48
I read criers book, and the thing he said was the reason he felt like he was not in the Brat Pack is because he wasn’t socially in the Brat Pack. Yeah, didn’t drink. He didn’t do drugs and he was never involved. I needed to go out he said he never socially went out with any of these actors including McCarthy and Ringwald and and we’ve made movie with obviously. And he always resented that he’s like, if they had asked me, I would have gone. But like I was just left out.

Lisa 35:15
Did they look at him as ducky was he like,

Dustin 35:18
I don’t know if I think it’s, I think he was I think he did say like, you know, he was seen as kind of square like he didn’t do drugs and he didn’t really drink and so they he just wasn’t part of that part of it. He

Mike Dodge 35:29
was boring to them. Yeah,

Dustin 35:31
I mean, the 80s were coke fueled. I’m sure all of these people like Demi Moore’s problems have been well publicized. But I’m sure all of these people, you know, Rob Lowe freely admits he was a mess.

Christi Dodge 35:44
They were all like, well, she had a sober companion. Animals fire, which was sort of like you just said her first, the first major role. She had to have a sober companion to keep her like straight

Mike Dodge 35:57
arrow and they didn’t just recast that was like, Oh, okay. Well, I guess we’re gonna have to do that

Lisa 36:02
this time. Yeah. Like committed to her.

Christi Dodge 36:04
Yeah. I think it’s been better for criers career that he wasn’t maybe. I mean, he seems

Mike Dodge 36:10
well, you have to say, Wait, well, 11 years on two and a half man, if he’s not financially said his manager is a horrible manager. Right. But yeah, he has continued to work and he comes across very sympathetically. Right. Yeah. And it’s interesting. You mentioned that Molly Ringwald because as we were talking before the podcast, she always even from 16 Candles era came across to me is not sympathetic. She seemed very stuck up

Christi Dodge 36:36
you bought into her character from Breakfast Club.

Mike Dodge 36:40
Perhaps so she never got past it. Heard

Christi Dodge 36:43
Bradley Cooper he never got past it or

Lisa 36:47
Mike’s got his own brat movie.

Dustin 36:48
No he’s right because even in like even in Pretty in Pink where she’s supposedly the kid working in poverty Yeah, right the wrong side of the tracks. She was still cooler than all the other girls so yeah, and ducky and she was unattainable for ducky who as a as a ducky Yeah, I obviously sympathize with you. And so she she wasn’t playing snobby in that movie, but there was a she.

Lisa 37:15
There’s something that makes her rise above. The thing. I wonder about Jon Cryer is like, it’s okay that he wasn’t part of the Brat Pack because he had his own brand he had ducky he was ducky. Right. And that gave him a lot of cachet. I think. I think that’s his bread path.

Dustin 37:28
Where do you guys land on duck? Blaine? Yeah.

Mike Dodge 37:32
Oh, I hate Blaine Ducky, all the way. Really? disagreeing.

Christi Dodge 37:37
I mean, I’m sure when I was back when I was 16. I wanted I was like her I wanted to date the Blaine. But I probably hung out with the ducky.

Lisa 37:46
I mean, it’s pretty great. I’m

Dustin 37:48
so glad that she didn’t end up with ducky because that, to me would have felt like a giant lie because I was a ducky and I can and I it John Hughes’s a filmmaker that I you know, really loved back then I still love him. And I one of the reasons I love him because he doesn’t lie to his audience about teenagers and their troubles and it would have felt like, I mean, I get the having a fairytale happy ending, but that’s what it would have been like they she would pick Blaine. There’s no girl in the real world

Lisa 38:20
that would have picked at least at that age, as Christie is saying that age. That’s, I mean,

Dustin 38:25
that’s why that’s why she picks Blaine is because right is because Molly Ringwald said, This is ridiculous. Like she wouldn’t. My character would not go with Bucky. Then he’s like, no, no, people are gonna love it. And then they did the test screening and people hated it. He was like, oh, Molly was right all along. So they went back and reshot it with that the worst wig and Hollywood history.

Everyone admits to now but yeah, like so I feel like I feel like it had to be Blaine. In order for the movie to ring true. Absolutely. Yeah, I agree. I’m not surprised you like ducky because you’re a fan as a fan of romantic comedies. Oh, yeah, he’s gonna go for the Hollywood Ending the happy ending. Oh,

Lisa 39:05
like ducky.

Mike Dodge 39:08
Ducky steals that Phil? Yeah, right. And it’s sad to me that Jon Cryer is a little sounds like sad that he’s still identified as ducky. I think that again, it’s a badge of honor. When I’m saying you have to be that character to have that lasting position because it’s he’s not a bad character. Everyone loves that character is fondly I think you’re probably right with teenage love that Blaine was probably a more probable choice for her. I would argue there’s a third road which is she doesn’t pick either one, which also, it definitely

Dustin 39:44
would have been the best possible ending. Yeah,

Mike Dodge 39:47
I think that either of them. Right. But that would be

Dustin 39:52
Yeah, that’s what it would be today.

Lisa 39:54
Right? Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen in an 80s movie. Yeah,

Mike Dodge 39:57
no. In the 80s. We had to pick He could not pick what

Dustin 40:02
about this. There’s the other huge controversy. Speaking of us endings, Ali, she’s character at the end of breakfast club gets this makeover. And then inexplicably goes with the guy that she’s expressing zero interest in for the previous 90 minutes. The esta vez character? Where do you stand on that? It

Christi Dodge 40:20
doesn’t ring true, because I don’t think Emilio Estiva as he understands his standing, that’s the whole point. He’s in detention, because he was trying to prove who He was in the hierarchy of the high school cliques. So I don’t think he would risk his own credentials at school on Monday, being seen with her character.

Lisa 40:42
Here’s something I’m not remembering about the Breakfast Club. Interesting

Dustin 40:44
that you immediately think about it from his point of view, though, and not from hers.

Christi Dodge 40:49
Because you asked when she would she would she? Would she

Dustin 40:53
submit to that makeover and then be attracted to the high school? Yeah,

Christi Dodge 40:58
because I think as the girl who associates with Ali, she’s character I was her minus, I wasn’t in the golf, but that’s who I felt more aligned with. You are always aspiring and you want those credentials. You want to be one of the popular kids, even though you absolutely hate them. Yeah. And I think but you want to be in that. So

Lisa 41:19
say, I mean, the thing that rings true to me about the makeover is, as you say, the aspirational thing, you hate it but you want it but also like your bonding your your girl bonding, you makeovers are part of girl bonding, at least at that age, in that context. And you’re playing around with identity all the time, right? Like so maybe okay, maybe I’ll try and see what it’s like to be the girl with the makeup and the pink and whatever. So that actually it whether it’s good or not, or a good method or not. That’s a different question. I do think it sort of rings true that she would submit to it.

Mike Dodge 41:54
I would argue that the girls that I knew in high school that were the goth and in that category, had a history of they would go with the popular jock if given the option. Right? Right. And maybe it’s what Christie saying it’s about the popularity. As the Anthony Michael Hall, I very much felt that it was all based on popularity and physical appearance and all of that. So to me, it was like there is no world in which anyone would go with a geek, like ducky was destined to be alone. Which one? That was just the math. Yeah,

Christi Dodge 42:30
my my memory is failing me which one of them was there? Just because it sounded cool.

Mike Dodge 42:35
I think that was Anthony Michael Hall, right?

Christi Dodge 42:37
No, he brought the gun to school. Oh, then

Mike Dodge 42:39
that it was Ally Sheedy wasn’t it?

Christi Dodge 42:42
I think it was. It was.

Dustin 42:43
She said that she was there. She had nothing better.

Lisa 42:45
Right. I

Dustin 42:46
think she was lying. I think that was performative. I think she did.

Lisa 42:49
Yeah, my Well, my question. I don’t remember. It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen the Breakfast Club. So I’m not remembering this. But

Dustin 42:55
which part of it would you like me to?

Lisa 42:59
We’ll get there because I could do I’m sure that you could I believe it. I guess what I’m not remembering about the Breakfast Club as if they address this idea of what happens Monday, right? Because all we’re seeing is them leaving and being like now we’re all know each other. It’s all cool. In

Mike Dodge 43:12
voiceover right.

Dustin 43:14
When they’re not even sure what they do. asks, one of them asks Claire on the balcony, right on on Monday, are you going to pretend like you know me, or I think it’s I think it’s Nelson. Yes. And asks, Are you going to pretend you know, Brian, if you pass him in the hall, right. Now he goes, honestly. And he’s like, yeah, and she’s like, No,

Lisa 43:32
well, exactly. So here’s my Bloods. Here’s my point is like, Are these people I mean, they’ve made this bond. It’s all great. But like, all we’re seeing, is them leaving detention. We’re not seeing Monday morning. We’re not even seeing them going home. So like, we’re a little bit you see them getting the cars or whatever.

But I think you know, like, maybe she probably doesn’t keep up with that makeover. She probably doesn’t date the jock. But that’s where we’re at when we see them leave. Right. So I don’t know this hopeful ending, though. It is. It’s a great it’s a great ending. It’s a whole I’m not saying it’s bad. Believe what you want to believe what I’m saying is we can’t say if it’s, I mean, it may not be unrealistic in the sense that, you know, maybe they will be together Monday, maybe they won’t, but this is where they’re at now.

Christi Dodge 44:12
I wonder if his teenagers like you and you because we saw this when we were at that same age. I think we wanted to wish this could happen. Of course, we all operational those people are not

Lisa 44:24
going to even address that in brats too. Don’t they talk about like you’re seeing these people become friends. And that’s such a wonderful aspirational thing. You want friends like this? You want you know, it’s like McCarthy

Dustin 44:35
says at the beginning he’s like, I haven’t spoken to any of these people in 30 years. People assume that we all still like ride around on a bus together. None of us Yeah, hang out with each other. None of us like yeah, like they’ll see each other at Comic Cons and stuff like that. But they’re not. Well, I’m just

Lisa 44:52
talking about you’re seeing these people up on the screen be friends and you want that right like and maybe you think they are that in person too. But yeah, Yeah. All right,

Dustin 45:01
here’s a question. Okay, next question. favorite favorite brat Packer?

Christi Dodge 45:05
Easy Emilio Emilio? Why? Because he’s cute. He’s cute. I had a crush on him. That just doesn’t go away your first cry like,

Dustin 45:15
arguably, maybe the best career have any of these people post Brat Pack because he became a pretty good director made some really good stuff and I remember thinking Young Guns and he had some hit post and I found it very admirable 16 I

Christi Dodge 45:32
got on my high horse because he did not take the Nepo baby roll and keep the sheen name. He went to his father’s original last name and blazing a trail by himself on his own. Not like his brother who rode the coattails of daddy. I was always

Dustin 45:50
on high ground. Yeah, even even the list they were packing.

Mike Dodge 45:55
So I would say of your list, probably Anthony Michael Hall, but I’m not sure he qualifies as a backpacker. I do think he’s in his own orbit of the remaining I have. It’s hard to argue with Emilio and and kind of the things you’ve talked about just I really think he has a lot of talent at that time. He was my favorite STBs when everyone else was in the scene I was.

Unknown Speaker 46:19
Everybody’s got a favorite estimate.

Lisa 46:20
Yeah, I was always so confused by their last name mix up like I just could never Lisa who’s your favorite prep Packer? I’m so terrible at your favorite. I don’t know. It’s my favorite. I like Molly Ringwald, even though I think a lot of people don’t like her.

Dustin 46:38
That’s fair. You could do like her face of the John Hughes. She was yeah, she was

Lisa 46:42
I think it’s that I you know how like the clothes.

Christi Dodge 46:47
Remember for keeps. Oh, I love that movie.

Lisa 46:51
I also I remember her most at least I think I saw her in Pretty in Pink first and I just think so much. Didn’t see the Breakfast Club first. So maybe that would change my mind. But because I saw Pretty in Pink first. It was like Wow, she’s so cool. So I don’t know. I guess I think she’s cool. All

Christi Dodge 47:08
right, definitely. Who’s yours?

Dustin 47:09
Who’s my favorite rap hugger? Yeah, I mean, probably as a as a as an icon. It’s probably Molly Ringwald. I find Rob Lowe to be a tremendously amusing Yeah. I think his podcast is very funny. He’s very charismatic.

Christi Dodge 47:27
What’s the show? We love that I

Lisa 47:28
can’t remember right now Parks and Rec was

Mike Dodge 47:31
the grinder grinder did one season canceled by Fox prematurely go find that you will enjoy have to

Christi Dodge 47:36
find the DVD for destiny that it is yeah.

Lisa 47:38
And I guess maybe that’s the thing. I don’t even like I like him now but not as a brat pack. Is that weird? Like, right? Yeah.

Christi Dodge 47:47
I’m on fire.

Mike Dodge 47:48
I think I’m a bigger fan of Rob Lowe since Parks and Rec

Lisa 47:51
for like a year and I liked him in Wayne’s World.

Christi Dodge 47:54
I thought he was such a jerk and say that was fire. He is a jerk. And he was such a bad boy. But actually really

Dustin 47:59
like Anthony Michael Hall now to Yeah, he’s got to reinvent it really kind of glad that he’s like showing up in more stuff. I’ve liked him. I think he came close to having like the greatest career ever. And he just didn’t make the right choices. Like he was. Kubrick wanted him for Full Metal Jacket and spent a year trying to negotiate it with his agent and postpone the shoot for a year, which Cooper never does for anybody.

Mike Dodge 48:26
Was that the Modine character? Yeah.

Dustin 48:28
And ultimately, like they couldn’t come to a financial and I think it had Anthony Michael have done that that might have made. Yeah. I mean, he did fine. He did the deadzone. He’s, you know, he’s worked consistently.

Mike Dodge 48:41
Yeah. Okay, but I think that would have been great to see him it. Yeah,

Dustin 48:44
it would have been done. I mean, it’s funny when you look at this list, like none of them. They all did. Well, they’ve that you still know who all these people are, and they all still work, but none of them did. None of them is Will Smith, Tom Cruise, Tom. Debbie. None of them got to like the next level of superstardom. demean

Mike Dodge 49:07
the GA Jane era she was maybe

Dustin 49:10
she was probably the biggest creeping

Mike Dodge 49:11
Yeah, hosts

Lisa 49:13
but you’re right. I mean,

Mike Dodge 49:15
however, to be fair, though, most actors if they get one film like The Breakfast Club are perfectly happy. That’s a great career. They expect that they’re gonna have a lot they’re gonna work a lot and not everything is going to be huge. So

Christi Dodge 49:27
that’s interesting. Does that affect our our distinction of the other BPA is like a Tom Cruise like a Robert Downey Jr. Now he didn’t hit it until more recently, but as I’m looking at the list of the BPA Zack Nicolas

Dustin 49:42
Cage, like a lot of these Sean Penn, these are all actors that did way better than Vegas. So is that way, way better than any of these people? Maybe there’s some truth to this idea of like being in the Brat Pack was

Lisa 49:54
held back a little bit.

Mike Dodge 49:56
I don’t think it’s much limiting. It’s just the statistics that vary. Very few actors are quite big, right? Yeah. I think they all had surprisingly good careers for actors.

Christi Dodge 50:07
Did we get tired of them? Were they in too many films in that ad? Ad? Molly? Yeah.

Dustin 50:17
I mean, she made bad choices too. They all made some bad choices. That’s part of it. But when you’re young, she needed short circuit, Molly.

Mike Dodge 50:24
Okay. Yeah. Oh, come on.

Dustin 50:29
I mean, that was her big post post Brat Pack, sort of

Mike Dodge 50:33
you can you can criticize Fisher Stevens for short circuit, but I don’t think Ally Sheedy deserves that plus it was filmed in Oregon. No,

Dustin 50:39
I’m saying. I mean, I liked these movies. Look, the Andrew McCarthy did. I mean, this is a guy that in in, if you believe, and I think you have to his whining and he thought of himself as a really serious, yeah, young actor. And I think he had aspirations to be like, he was like a New York. Like he wanted to be Brando like they all did or didn’t hero or Pacino or whatever. Yeah. And then he did Weekend at Bernie’s and mannequin. I mean, those are the types of, like, made for cable movies.

Lisa 51:10
And there’s plenty of love for those movies. But as you’re saying,

Dustin 51:14
those were hits, and that’s fine. And he picked them he did them. I mean, who knows what he was being offered. But But yeah, I mean, he was always sort of

Mike Dodge 51:23
a lightweight.

Christi Dodge 51:24
It’s interesting, because I think you’re right, I think he saw himself as a very serious and somewhere in here. I know I wrote down or that he, he said, I was very shoot. It was like determined or motivated, or, you know, like that kind of 10. But yet he talks about going to the park and getting a joint and skate Oh, and at NYU stone instead of going to class. So oh, how motivated and like, you know, career, are you if everyday instead of going to class? You are in Washington Park.

Lisa 52:00
That’s different from how Tom Cruise probably comported himself. It was like lace. I mean, scary. Yeah, frightening. Like, you don’t want to be near this guy kind of late.

Christi Dodge 52:10
While we’re Andrew bashing

Dustin 52:14
passion, like, I just think he’s, he’s, I actually like him. I like him as an actor. I liked a lot of the movies he made in that era. But I think that he I think he doesn’t quite understand who he was as an actor like he was. His part of his appeal is that he was kind of a sound negative, but don’t mean it that way. It’s like a like a like a faceless, like kind of a vapid, like all surface kind of blank. I mean, that’s what you need. ln Yeah, thanks. Nice. Like, like, if you look at less than zero, like he’s kind of perfectly cast in that movie, because he’s this sort of like, blank personality that

Lisa 52:56
you know what he’s like, you’re you guys know, The Great Gatsby the book? Yes. You know, Nick is the friend of Gatsby, right? He’s, he’s that guy. He’s like on the outside watching everything happen. But he’s also part of you know, it’s

Dustin 53:09
a really good movie that uses him really well is that is the year the gun to John Frankenheimer thriller set in Italy in the 70s. Right, the Red Brigades were going on. He plays a writer, who, he’s a journalist. And he goes to Italy at that time, and he’s working on a book, a fictional book about the kidnapping and execution of the Italian President. The red brigade finds out about this. It turns out, they are actually planning this actual kidnapping.

They think that he has insider information about it. So they come after him. It’s actually a really good thriller, but he’s perfectly in it because he seems so out of his depth. Like he looks completely like you should not be in that movie at all. Like if, if it was an actor that seemed more aware, or somebody who had it all together. Yeah, like it would be it wouldn’t work at all. So those are the kinds of movies Brian our mutual friend Brian treasured. Smith made an Andrew McCarthy movie where he was used pretty well to it was a made for cable movie called The escape clause about a guy who’s waiting over his head and gets mixed. Okay, it’s entry.

Mike Dodge 54:19
Brian worked with cusecs Well, right. Yep. So all right,

Lisa 54:23
DTS and the

Unknown Speaker 54:27
BPA

Dustin 54:30
you’ll have to ask him

Christi Dodge 54:33
well, I was just going to ask you what did you think of the way that he chose to make the film Mike was annoyed by all of the car scenes showing and or getting lost out and going to the different

Dustin 54:42
wasn’t knowingly shot the fake film footage was like all jerky that would like I did like that. He acknowledged that he just set up his iPhone 1.2 Like, as a cannon and family to

Christi Dodge 54:56
like, frame it for him. Yeah. Yeah, that

Mike Dodge 54:59
was that was a bit of a hoot when Yeah, he was talking Ally Sheedy through being his his camera up. There’s also some of the phone calls I felt like we could have had some editing on yeah him. Hi. Yeah, yeah. Listening to this we haven’t

Dustin 55:19
talked about the central appeal this entire movie which is seeing all of these how I got there How was the whole Emilio as diverse as kitchen is the room I want to die we’re just like there was one gorgeous and that’s again talk about a movie negating its own premise. If this was so injurious to all their careers. They’ve done okay, yeah, these these houses are unbelievable. Yes, I want to go to Demi Moore’s house.

Mike Dodge 55:46
I had to pause so we could talk about how upset Lea Thompson must be that no one clear.

Lisa 55:55
I was like, why there’s an Amazon. I mean, like whose idea

Mike Dodge 55:58
with time I’m distracted by what snacks? Like cheese’s? I was

Lisa 56:05
like, I was like, they must have other rooms in their house. I was really surprised. I

Christi Dodge 56:08
said, I’m gonna take my interview out. And

Mike Dodge 56:12
I’m just thinking take an arm and sweep that onto the floor if you have to. But

Christi Dodge 56:17
he knows I’m married to How we doin now? Oh, my

Mike Dodge 56:19
goodness. Yes. Yeah. And Jimmy’s house is I couldn’t tell if that would be a wonderful place to live a horrible place. It didn’t look like a museum a little bit or like, yeah, or maybe like the set of some Netflix science fiction thriller or something. They’re taking genetic material while you’re sleeping. It look weird. But yeah, they I agree with you that the entire existence of this film kind of disproves its premise. And Blum talks about it in his retort that if you have this red carpet star studded premiere of this movie, How bad has this really been? Right? And a very cynical person, which of course, I am not. would say that maybe Andrew McCarthy is using this to resurrect his career. If you were cynical, he would say I don’t

Christi Dodge 57:08
think he ever felt comfortable in himself when they show the images of the party after was it already after pretty? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he looks so uncomfortable and even admitted, I left the party right away and went over to the hamburger Hamlet and got, you know, wasted. Yeah, I don’t think he ever felt comfortable. So I think there was a lot of projection here on his part. And like you said, you’re right. He was 20. I can’t even imagine being a young person I know. Everybody knows you. You’re already dealing with all of the angst that all of us went through as young people. Then now you’re on this huge stage, and people are giving their opinions about you. I can’t even imagine what

Lisa 57:50
that’d be hard. I would hate her. I mean, yeah, absolutely. It’s,

Dustin 57:53
I mean, whatever else I would say about the movie, I would, I don’t think it was insincere. I think he really feels these things. Yeah. By the way, he’s venting at most of the interviews are not really interviews. They’re, they’re him venting at all these breath. Which is interesting that a more interesting movie, a more daring movie would have leaned into that idea, like a more reflective movie.

But, you know, it did have the funniest one of the funniest credits I’ve seen in a while at the end, which said, it said, this film was inspired by the book, brat by Andrew McCarthy. And I just thought, I’m gonna do that my next movie is gonna be the end, it’s going to be inspired by one of my own ideas. This, this idea was inspired by one of my other, yes. Available

Mike Dodge 58:41
at major retailers.

Christi Dodge 58:45
Yeah, no, I definitely I think circling back to I think at the beginning of the podcast, you said somebody said he needed a hug. I very much felt like, oh, Andrew needs to get into therapy. Because he still hasn’t reconciled with all of this. And it was obvious. In this film, I did add up how much time he was on screen

Oh into just by himself kind of talking or walking through the park or, you know, the in like the grainy affected and out of the 92 minutes, he was on screen all by himself talking for about 14 minutes. And then that’s far, he was on screen in the car, strictly talking or getting lost for seven, almost eight minutes, seven minutes, 45 seconds. Because I did that because Mike mentioned like we could do without the car seat. So

Mike Dodge 59:33
kind of getting back to what you’re saying would have been a more interesting documentary. If instead he would go to these people and say, Why do you think this bothered me so much more than you? Right? That’s fundamentally the question here, right? Just own it like, Man, I have not gotten past this and you have what’s your secret? Yeah.

Lisa 59:54
I gave him credit for going to speak to David Blum, though, yeah. Okay, Considering how it makes sense, and

Dustin 1:00:01
I will say that David bloom didn’t come off well in that scene. And I don’t know, I was skeptical of how bad this article could have been until I saw that scene. And I was like, Oh, he is kind of it.

Lisa 1:00:14
Well, but yeah, yeah, I know. I agree. I guess I just think, and I’m sure he’s done well for himself as a journalist, but he certainly didn’t do as well as these people did. Right. Like,

Christi Dodge 1:00:25
I think there was some jealousy there when you sit there and you see all these women coming around Rob Lowe, and Amelia west of us, and they’re getting drinks handed to him. And I’m sure there’s a certain level of white Why are you there? And I’m not right.

Lisa 1:00:36
I mean, you know, it’s hard to make a living as a writer and clearly he’s done that. So that’s doing well for yourself in and of itself, but

Dustin 1:00:45
post Paris Hilton post Lindsay Lohan world like no one would care. Can you imagine article came out today about Timothy Shellman? Like he’s just partying too much?

Lisa 1:00:55
Like, we’d be like? Yeah, no, that’s not what I’m what I’m saying is like, I get why he would feel why he comes off the way he does, because you know, like, yeah, he didn’t do as well as they did, because he couldn’t possibly, he’s a magazine writer, you know, well,

Christi Dodge 1:01:11
and he kind of didn’t even come up with Brat Pack. He was eating dinner. Oh, yeah. He walked up and said, Hey, did he say that in the movie? Or do you tell? He

Lisa 1:01:20
told him I feel like

Christi Dodge 1:01:23
they called us the fat pack? And I was like, oh, Brat Pack? That

Lisa 1:01:27
would be? Yeah, he I did

Christi Dodge 1:01:29
think it was really ironic, too, that Rob Lowe made the connection that or maybe it was Lea Thompson, that hear that name is from the Rat Pack. Yeah. Which was the epitome of you know who you wanted to be? Which we all agree that that so is the Brat Pack. But it was like the coolest and

Lisa 1:01:46
they owned it. Right? Like they were like, Yeah, we’re the Rat Pack. And we’re gonna go around and make a show of it. Yeah. You know, like they

Christi Dodge 1:01:52
were excited about that title at all.

Mike Dodge 1:01:55
And is it because the Rat Pack were older, and they’re a little more mature and a little more secure in their position? And so it landed? Well, and

Lisa 1:02:03
maybe they didn’t? I mean, I’m sure they took themselves. Some of them took themselves seriously, probably, but maybe they were more entertainers or saw themselves more as entertainers than as serious New York dramatic actors. Maybe that it’s a self perception?

Mike Dodge 1:02:16
Yes. Yeah. I think Sinatra probably took his crew pretty for sure. Oh, yeah. When

Lisa 1:02:20
I started saying that, I was like, well, there’s

Mike Dodge 1:02:21
but did like, Sammy Davis Jr. seems to have had a pretty good, you know, approach to life pretty light hearted. So maybe yeah, maybe there’s some of that too. And it’s

Lisa 1:02:31
I mean, Frank Sinatra is, I mean, he’s done some really good acting right. But I would suspect he would probably see himself more as an entertainer than as a serious dramatic actor would be my guess, as much as I know about Frank Sinatra’s brain, which is zero.

Christi Dodge 1:02:47
So when I did, I didn’t read the review. But as I was looking at IMDb on this brass, the film, there was one review. And it said, it turns out that the actual Brett is David blue.

Lisa 1:02:58
Not a lot of love for David bloom. Yeah.

Mike Dodge 1:02:59
That

Christi Dodge 1:03:01
was. Well thank you guys for joining us and doing this collaborative podcast with us. And we’re both going to release it on our own platform. So hopefully we get some audiences that don’t know each other. Now, you know, there’s two wonderful movie podcasts out there.

Dustin 1:03:21
Before we go one thing just so that because I’ve been ripping on poor Andrew and why these people but I just want to say like, I love these movies. This is why I wanted that 10 minutes. I was like this is the movie I want to see a celebration of these movies because these movies are they mean a lot to me I like these movies more than I like most people I’ve said this before to people probably thinking I’m gonna sociopath but they just mean that they’re formative.

Like they helped make me who I am. They’re one of the reasons that I love film that I did that I dedicated my life to film and, and they mean a lot to me. And these people mean a lot to the people in this movie. And it was even though I didn’t love the documentary, it was fun just to spend time with them. Yes, yeah, it was fun to see totally people that I haven’t seen forever like Ally Sheedy. Yeah, the rest of us, frankly, who works mostly behind the camera now?

Yeah. And he doesn’t do interviews as we know. So it’s just cool to see him seeming like he has it all together and like things are going well. He’s got this beautiful house. So like, Man, I love this guy. Like, I want wisdom, minute work. Even the movies that are pretty objectively not that great. I’m just so happy like that these people were around when I was young, and that we still have these movies to go back to 100%.

Christi Dodge 1:04:44
I can’t agree with you more. We generally don’t like to hate watch anything. And no, I’ve watched this Bratz the documentary three times. I loved it. And I think it’s largely because getting to revisit all of those characters and those films and to be reminded, oh yeah, that was such an important point. But that was such an important moment or Oh, that was so inspirational or I saw myself in that person. So absolutely nothing but love for all of these actors and all these movies. I mean, Morgan Stewart coming home is one of my favorites.

Dustin 1:05:14
Well, and even I won’t go that far.

Lisa 1:05:19
Well, and Mike said this before we started, you know, it’s it’s good to remember these are human beings and like, we can empathize with that. Yeah. And how hard it might be to carry some of this stuff around. Even if you didn’t do well. It still might be hard to carry it around. Yeah,

Christi Dodge 1:05:31
absolutely. Yeah. All right, everybody, have a good rest of your day. And thank you for joining us.