Brian Tallerico: I have seen so many hagiographic clip reels masquerading as documentaries that I kind of just presumed that Hulu’s “Brats” would be a similar love letter to the young stars of the ‘80s, the actors and actresses who shaped pop culture in the middle of the decade in a way that’s still being felt today. I’m happy to report it’s not that. It’s an ambitious, introspective look at how pop culture and acting careers can be shaped by reputation and even just a nickname: "The Brat Pack". The well-spoken interviewees make an intriguing case that the Brat Pack were the main driving force in an entire cultural shift to stories of young people, which gives “Brats” unexpected poignancy in that these actors and actresses who made such an impact were reduced to an undeniably insulting label. Even if it derailed the dreams he once held, McCarthy appears to find some peace with his membership in this exclusive club—which never really existed, since they never hung out or even knew each other—by grasping that it made him and his “branded” brethren the very thing all movie actors aspire to be: immortal. “Brats” is a reclamation and a reshaping of that label. And it’s overdue. Source: rogerebert.com
Molly Ringwald: "The character of Claire in
The Breakfast Club was the most different from me, because I never considered myself a popular kid, and I didn’t come from a wealthy family or anything, so at the time that was a real stretch for me. Also, I have never actually given my panties to a geek." Source: people.com
Pauline Kael review on
Pretty in Pink (1986): Molly Ringwald, who possesses a charismatic normality, is enshrined as the teenage ideal in this romantic movie of teenagers, although its script slides at moments with the consistency of watery Jell-O. The spoiled-rotten richies are mean to Ringwald's Andie, a poor-girl high-school senior who lives in a dinky, rattletrap house on the wrong side of the tracks. But she's the opposite of trashy: blessed with quiet good taste, she's proudly conventional. And so she ends up wining both a college scholarship and the rich boy of her dreams. John Hughes, who wrote the script and supervised the work of the first-time director, Howard Deutch, seems to project the Boomers' approach to a teenage romance. In its sociological details, it might have been made by little guys from Mars. With the winsome comedienne Annie Potts as Andie's closest friend, Andrew McCarthy as her rather passive young prince, Jon Cryer as the smartmouth nerd who follows her around, Harry Dean Stanton as her stricken daddy, and James Spader as a snobby hunk.
In
Sixteen Candles (1984), Kael reviews: Samantha (Molly Ringwald), a high-school sophomore, is having the worst day of her life. It's her 16th birthday, and, in the midst of preparations for her older sister's wedding, the whole family has forgotten about it. And in the evening, when she goes to a school dance and longs to be noticed by the handsome senior (Michael Schoeffling) who's the man of her dreams, she's subjected to the unrequited attentions of a scrawny freshman (Anthony Michael Hall), who's known as Geek--a pesty, leering smartmouth with braces on his teeth. Less raucous than the usual 80s pictures about teenagers, this new comedy by writer-director John Hughes is closer in tone to the gentle English comedies of the 40s and 50s. Hughes devised too much of a farcical superstructure, and a lot of the characters function at a sit-com level, but he brings off some fresh scenes, and he has a feeling for teenagers' wacko slang. The geek confesses that he has never "bagged a babe." And Molly Ringwald has a lovely, offbeat candor, a truly weird creation.
Anthony Michael Hall as nerdy Brian Johnson in
The Breakfast Club: "Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain... and an athlete... and a basket case... a princess... and a criminal... Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club." Pauline Kael's review of
The Breakfast Club (1985): "Set mostly in the library of a suburban Chicago high school, this encounter-session movie by the writer-director John Hughes is about five students, a cross-section of the student body, who in the course of serving a 7-4 Saturday detention peel off their layers of self-protection, confess their problems with their parents, and are stripped down to their "true selves." The five are: a champion wrestler (Emilio Estevez), a popular redhead "princess" (Molly Ringwald), a nerd (Anthony Michael Hall), a glowering rebel-delinquent (Judd Nelson), and a shy skittish weirdo (Ally Sheedy).
With the exception of Ringwald and Sheedy, who have a marvellous comic sprite and transcend their roles until they are jerked back into the script mechanics, the movie is about a bunch of stereotypes who complain that other people see them as stereotypes. Hughes has talent, and when the kids are just killing time the dialogue has an easy, buggy rhythm, but this is a wet enterprise that appeals to young audiences by blaming adults for the kids' misery. Judd Nelson, who is supposed to represent what authorities want to crush, has the worst-conceived role, though Paul Gleason's part as the callous dean is a close runner-up. Each kid in turn tells the group of the horrors of home: the wrestler's father pushes him to compete, the princess is given things but not affection, the brainy grind is pressured to be a straight-A student, the (secretly sensitive) rebel is beaten and burned by his brute of a father, the shy girl—the basket case—has parents who ignore her. It's she who puts her finger on the source of all their troubles. "It's unavoidable," she says. "When you grow up, your heart dies." The dean's heart is dead, all right—he hates the students. He's a bureaucrat who's in the school system strictly for the money. He tells the rebel that he's not going to let anyone endanger his thirty-one thousand a year.
There are stray bits of oddball parody when you can't tell exactly what is being parodied. But the scenes involving the snotty, callous dean ring false right from the start, and though Paul Gleason seems miscast, maybe anybody playing this villain would seem miscast. Judd Nelson's role as the catalyst-rebel—the working-class kid who's good with his hands (he loves shopwork), and is also a hipster, and fearless—is a dud, too. And Nelson doesn't seem to have a speck of spontaneity. After his early scenes, he becomes too self-pitying, and he's given to tilting up his head and pointing his nostrils at the camera. The four other leading performers fare a lot better than Nelson.
As the straight-arrow jock, Estevez is a little heavy on sincerity—but he does a creditably good job, especially in his long monologue about his father's always telling him to ''win, win." Molly Ringwald's role isn't as festive as her birthday-girl part in
Sixteen Candles, but she slips into the well-heeled Miss Popularity languor without any unnecessary fuss. And Anthony Michael Hall delivers a thoughtful, nuanced performance. He excels in math and is active in the Physics Club, but is a frightened, virtuous dork away from his books. And then John Hughes makes his soggiest mistake: the princess takes Allison in hand, scrubs all the black eye makeup off her, gets her out of her witches' wrappings, and brushes her hair back and puts a ribbon in it, and she comes forth looking broad-faced and dull. But she's supposed to be beautiful, and she captures the jock's heart.
The Breakfast Club is
The Exterminating Angel as a sitcom." For a more extended discussion, read Pauline Kael's book
State of the Art (1989) —The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael: A Library of America Special Publication (2016) by Sanford Schwartz
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