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You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation |  | Author: Susannah Gora
Publisher: Crown Archetype
List Price: $26.00
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Rating:  12 reviews
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4
ISBN: 0307408434
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.4302
EAN: 9780307408433
ASIN: 0307408434
Publication Date: February 9, 2010
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Product Description
You can quote lines from Sixteen Candles (“Last night at the dancemy little brother paid a buck to see your underwear”), your iPod playlist includes more than one song by the Psychedelic Furs and Simple Minds, you watch The Breakfast Club every time it comes on cable, and you still wish that Andie had ended up with Duckie in Pretty in Pink. You’re a bonafide Brat Pack devotee—and you’re not alone.
The films of the Brat Pack—from Sixteen Candles to Say Anything—are some of the most watched, bestselling DVDs of all time. The landscape that the Brat Packmemorialized—where outcasts and prom queens fall in love, preppies and burn-outs become buds, and frosted lip gloss, skinny ties, and exuberant optimism made us feel invincible—is rich with cultural themes and significance, and has influenced an entire generation who still believe that life always turns out the way it is supposed to.
You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried takes us back to that era, interviewing key players, such as Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, and John Cusack, and mines all the material from the movies to the music to the way the films were made to show how they helped shape our visions for romance, friendship, society, and success.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
 Wanted to like it, but... June 16, 2010
Bookswain (Chicago, IL)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I heard about this book on NPR, and was really excited to get it. I grew up watching John Hughes' films, and was eager to learn more about him. Sadly, I don't feel like I learned all that much from this book. It's written like a freshman level research paper, and at some points you can almost feel the author trying to stretch the thin source material into whole chapters. I'll give some points for nostalgia's sake, but if you nix the parts on St. Elmo's Fire and Say Anything, this could've been a magazine article.
 Ignore it. May 18, 2010
Wyley Kayote (San Diego)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
As much as I wanted to like this book, it's just not nearly as compelling as watching a John Hughes movie was.
It's light and breezy, a little like a magazine, but doesn't offer any insight or depth or anything really other than some amusing anecdotes and facts, none of which were particularly surprising or interesting.
John Hughes was obviously a complex and interesting and troubled man, and someday someone will write a book about him that shows all his many sides, and hopefully that author will either interview his family and friends, or find a lost interview with the man himself.
Simply talking to the people he employed doesn't offer very much of interest, I'm afraid.
Not a very good book May 14, 2010
missus jones (new york)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
I first heard of this book on NPR, not long after the Hughes tribute at the Oscars. I went to the website to further investigate, and found a discussion about the authors sources, which include people magazine, people.com, seventeen magazine, [...] and various other silly websites.
Dubious, I went ahead and got the book, hoping for some insight. But what I got was, indeed, quotes from 17 magazine and [...], presented as legitimate 'sources'.
Had this backed up some serious insight into Mr. Hughes films, I would've let it slide, but really it's shallow and kind of gossipy and ultimately I was disappointed. It's a big fat love letter to John Hughes, and I'm a big fan, but all you have to do is google him on the internet for a half an hour and you'll get as much depth and insight as this book purports to offer.
Don't waste your money!
 Truly Not Ignored May 9, 2010
gail powers (Harbor Country, Mi,N. Naples, FL, Chicago area)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was a truly addictive read. Author Gora has broken down the fascination that we had and continue to have for movies directed at the teen audiences of the '80's. While providing running synopsises of the movies that captured audiences when they were made, Gora has interviewed the actors, writers, and directors and assorted key players that made the movies inordinately popular box office blockbusters.
Reading this book helped me to revisit the movies themselves. I think that a certain amount of distance enhanced the experience of reading this book. Gora informs her reader that John Hughes extracted a lot of what went into his scripts from real life experiences that happened to himself and his friends. One occured when a friend of his took Hughes and their girl friends to the Union League Club in Chicago because the friend's father had a membership there. I roared because anyone who has ever been there would know that the Union League Club is one of the stodgiest exclusive clubs west of Boston. And so it goes that Ferris Buehler became the sausage king of Chicago.
The term 'brat pack' was bandied about a lot when these films were made, but there seemed to be solid evidence from the actors that there was an extended family of sorts forged and many of these relationships exist in one form or another today.
While it wasn't all love and kisses while these films were being made, for the most part these productions became classic examples of really good ensemble acting and it all worked amazingly well.
The major suprise that the book had for me was that this book was not all about John Hughes who died in 2009. This book looked at other popular teen movies made in that era. One film analyzed was a critical failure SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL. I really liked that one quite a bit and thought it has held up well.
Another element included in this book were short bios of many of the key actors who have managed to have solid adult careers. It gave me a sense of who they were and the process they used to make these parts work from their perspective.
This book was thoroughly researched and well-written. If you are interested in film criticism, teen movies, or the cinema of John Hughes and his contemporaries, I think you would find this book a good choice.
Lightening Fast Read! April 26, 2010
David E. Ortega (Babba Booey Land)
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
The only flaw of this book is the unnecessary chapter on the abysmal "St. Elmos Fire." Gora collects some great information about Hughes, and throws in enough of her own personal insights into 80's and 90's to make this book a significant document of the 80's teen genre. This is not something I would expect from Premiere magazine.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 12
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