Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to snap your fingers! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about Emma Stone in “Kinds of Kindness,” the driving drama of “Daddio” and the documentary “Brats.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Get ready to play the game “Did Richard Crouse Like This?” with me! This week we talk about Emma Stone in “Kinds of Kindness,” the driving drama of “Daddio” and the documentary “Brats.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
I join “CTV News Toronto at Five” with host Zuraidah Alman, to talk about Emma Stone in “Kinds of Kindness,” the driving drama of “Daddio” and the documentary “Brats.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 18:04)
I join CP24 to have a look at Emma Stone in “Kinds of Kindness,” the driving drama of “Daddio” and the documentary “Brats.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I sit in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres and streaming including Emma Stone in “Kinds of Kindness,” the driving drama of “Daddio” and the documentary “Brats.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
LOGLNE: The documentary “Brats” skims across the surface of 1980s popular culture to present a breezy portrait of a group of very famous young actors who came-of-age while appearing in coming-of-age films. Labelled “The Brat Pack” in a 1985 New York Magazine cover story, they appeared, in various combinations, in decade defining films like “Pretty in Pink,” “16 Candles” and “St. Elmo’s Fire.” In firsthand interviews with fellow Brat Pack members, director Andrew McCarthy looks back at the effects of youthful stardom, and being labelled a brat in the press.
CAST: Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Timothy Hutton, Demi Moore, Rob Lowe, Lea Thompson, Jon Cryer, Lauren Shuler Donner, Howard Deutch, David Blum, and in archival footage, Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson.
REVIEW: There’s an old saying that sums up McCarthy’s approach to “Brats”: “Within every challenge lies the hidden treasure of self-discovery.”
As director and host, he spends a great deal of the film, pushing the idea that being labeled, at a young age, the Brat Pack, has been limiting to the careers of all the actors involved. Directors, producers and studios, he asserts, didn’t take them seriously and wouldn’t hire them to appear in anything other than films aimed at teenagers.
For McCarthy, at the film’s onset at least, the premise appears to be an existential crisis. The subsequent interviews, with various pop culture experts like Malcolm Gladwell, and McCarthy’s fellow Brat Packers, feel like therapy for the actor; a way to understand his complicated relationship with a cultural moment that had a profound personal impact on his life.
For the most part, the interviews are interesting. Rob Lowe (who reminds McCarthy that they had a pretty good time at the height of Brat Mania) and Demi Moore (who uses words like “againstness” in her passionate replies of McCarthy’s questions) are the stand-outs, but all the conversations have a warmth born out of old friends reminiscing about a shared experience. There’s also a heaping helping of nostalgia—loads of great 80s hair, fashions and film clips—but the strongest whiff of wistfulness comes from McCarthy himself and his conflicted feelings regarding how his career intersected with the public and professional opinion of the Brat Pack.
“Brats” does become repetitive as McCarthy rehashes the same point over-and-over again but beyond the film’s self-indulgence comes a hidden treasure of self-discovery. I don’t know if McCarthy will ever truly accept how his life was shaped by his Brat Pack association, but by the time the end credits roll, he at least seems to realize that the advantages of being a Brat Packer far outshone the burden.
