Brat Pack Top Tens

In honour of the new Brat pack doco here is my top ten films that wrecked the Brat Pack

1) Blue City (1986) who better to star in a Walter Hill written adaptation of a Ross MacDonald noir novel than... Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson??? Michelle Manning copped the blame for this but the script is terrible and I love Walter Hill

2) Wisdom (1986) - Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore in a film written and directed by Emilio who was the same age as when Orson Welles made Citizen Kane but Emilio didn't have Herman Mankiewicz, Gregg Toland, the Mercury players, ten years experience in theatre, the life of Randolph Hearst...

3) Kansas (1988) - Matt Dillon, Andrew McCarthy under the direction of Australia's own David Stevens

4) Fresh Horses (1988) - props to Molly Ringwald giving this a go, based on a play which made a name of Suzy Amis, it showed that audiences only really wanted to see Molly as the girl next door and then only at high school

5) The Pick Up Artist (1987) - Molly R has had a lot to say about the dodginess of John Hughes films... I haven't been able to find much she's said about James Toback (google him)... I would genuinely be interested to know her thoughts

6) For Keeps (1987) - another Molly film that under performed... although she was a high school kid... possibly the issue was the lack of star power via Randall Batinkoff

7) Illegally Yours (1988) - Peter Bogdanovich tries to get Rob Lowe to do Ryan O'Neal in a film which is perhaps the strongest argument that Peter B should have stayed away from the type writer

8 ) Square Dance (1988) - Rob Lowe goes the Simple Jack route and got a Golden Globe nom in a film no one went to see - he's still around though so who's laughing (my take on Lowe... as in most of the bratpackers... only Demi Moore was a proper star the rest were better in ensemble films)

9) Maid to Order (1987) - it is harder for female stars than male stars as shown by the fact Ally Sheedy had a huge hit with Short Circuit then made this then wasn't a star anymore - ditto it killed Amy Holden Jones' directorial career. (Compare this to Robert Downey Jnr who had the lead in something like twenty flops)

10) Out of Bounds (1986) - Anthony Michael Hall leaps to fame as a nerd then plays a tough guy in this, followed by a tough jock in Johnny Be Good,

And for fun here are ten Brat Pack movies not known for being Brat Pack movies that are actually really good

1) From the Hip - Judd Nelson lawyer comedy from David E Kelly script

2) Catholic Boys/Heaven Help Us - genuinely good coming of age teen film from Andrew McCarthy with people like Kevin Dillon and Patrick Dempsey in it

3) Bad Influence - Lowe and Spader and Curtis Harrington - underserved flop

4) Youngblood - decent hockey film with Lowe, Swayze and young Keanu and Cynthia Gibb should've been a bigger star

5) Maximum Overdrive - to lunaticly insane to not be fun

6) Masquerade (1988) unofficial remake of Hithcock's suspicion from script by Dick Wolfe... decent film

7) About Last Night (1986) - maybe cheating to have this but it's a good movie, the leads handle Mamet dialogue v well and showed how the Brat Packers could have evolved - keep co starring in films, have better writers..

8 )That Was Then This is Now - (1986) not bad SE Hinton film from Emilio

9) Rumble Fish (1983) - think The Outsiders counts as a Brat Pack film but Rumble Fish doesn't seem to but Rumble Fish is also awsome

10) Red Dawn (1984) - John Milius makes a proper Brat Pack action film