Tuesday, July 31, 2012

The Brat Pack, Jennifer Beals, and The Ultimate 80's

I thought I would take the opportunity today to share a sample of my book, “The Ultimate 80’s” in a blog post. I absolutely had a great time writing this book! What a fun decade and I’m glad I grew up during that time. I think most young guys enjoyed it mostly because of Jennifer Beals. Have you seen her lately? Wow, she is still a mega babe and it was fun mentioning her in the book as being influential during the 80’s.

The Brat Pack was also incredibly popular, as well. Below is a sample from the book, part of a section specific to them.

The Brat Pack

I had to put a specific section in here to highlight this group of young actors that defined our decade on the big screen. The Brat Pack came together in movie after movie, often appearing together, to make our teen years in the 80’s pretty damn fun. If you are a true Child of the 80’s I bet you can name every member. If not, then here you go: Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, and Rob Lowe. There you go…that is probably the same list our favorite actors during that decade.

It’s public knowledge that the group hated the nickname, but who cares. We loved it, and made them all rich by making most of their movies huge hits and the actors themselves A-lister’s. Most of us remember the Brat Pack mostly from the two iconic movies that defined a generation for us, The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo’s Fire. If you are a Child of the 80’s then you absolutely have to own these movies or you are likely a dirty commie. Seriously.

The term “Brat Pack” came about by a 1985 story appearing in New York magazine referring to the cast members of St. Elmo’s Fire. At the time they were all in their mid-twenties and most of them at the peak of their careers.

It is likely that the Brat Pack films influenced the way teenagers in the 80’s viewed the world including on issues such as friendship, fashion, love, sex and music. Aside from a few of the music artists of the decade, they were probably the most influential group of pop icons on the young culture.

Outside of St. Elmo’s Fire and the Breakfast Club, there is no official list of Brat Pack films. So let’s make this a first for all readers. This list of films will include films that have at least two members of the core Brat Pack listed above. There are many other actors that are considered “close contributors” to the core Brat Pack. There are some movies that have only one Brat Pack member and a close contributor. So let’s make sure to separate the two concepts here.

Trivia: Many consider Red Dawn to be a Brat Pack movie despite the fact that it has no members of the core group, but stars a ton of close contributors to the group. No cigar! This is not a Brat Pack movie no matter how bad some critics want to claim it to be.

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I hope you liked the sample and hope you stop by Amazon to get your copy and get a few laughs from the book. The link to view it at Amazon is below. Thanks!

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