I am pleased to reveal Rebecca Cuthbert’s amazing cover of my forthcoming horror western novella Silent Mine, the first adventure featuring a new character called Dylan Decker. I think it’s fair to say she captures the mood perfectly.
Men risk everything to journey across the West, seeking their fortune at Silent Mine. They don’t come back.
Silent Mine is released on Undertaker Books on 30 August 2024, and is available for pre-order now.
I grew up (mostly) in the eighties, so I was looking forward to this new release which promised to explore the Brat Pack, a ‘group of young actors who frequently appeared together in coming-of-age films, and the impact on their lives and careers.’ Sadly, I was disappointed. This is less an evaluation of the contribution the Brat Pack made to eighties pop culture and more a self-indulgent 90-minute poor-me rant by Andrew McCarthy about how being called a ‘brat’ forty-plus years ago hurt his feelings. It’s clear the guy has been stewing over it for decades, and he sets out here, in his role of writer/director, to prove once and for all, how hard he has it and how unfair everything is. I can’t think of anything more bratty.
For those who don’t know, the ‘Brat Pack’ was a nickname given to a group of young actors and actresses who frequently appeared together in a succession of coming-of-age films, the most enduring of which are probably The Breakfast Club (1985), St Elmo’s Fire (1985), Pretty in Pink (1986) and About Last Night (1986). The films themselves have been described as representative of the “socially apathetic, cynical, money-possessed and ideologically barren eighties generation,” and focused primarily on middle-class teenage angst. They made use of adolescent archetypes like alienation, isolation, and sexual frustration, and, for some reason, were often set in the suburbs of Chicago. An appearance in one or both of The Breakfast Club or St Elmo’s Fire is often considered the prerequisite for being a core Brat Pack member which puts Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, and McCarthy himself firmly in the frame, though there are numerous peripherals including James Spader, Robert Downey Jr, Jon Cryer, Mathew Broderick, John Cusack, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Lea Thompson. Even the likes of Tom Cruise, Nicolas Cage, Sean Penn, Charlie Sheen, and Kiefer Sutherland couldn’t escape being guilty by association. The unofficial president of the Brat Pack was usually thought to be Emilio Estevez (son of Martin Sheen and brother of Charlie) who was also once engaged to Demi Moore, and the name itself was a homage to the so-called Rat Pack of sixties entertainers centred around Las Vegas casinos comprising the likes of Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis. This small detail seems to have been completely lost on McCarthy, who rails against the word ‘brat’ being taken to mean spoiled and entitled, and claims it attempts to nullify his talent and had an abject effect on his career.
When I started watching Brats I did so with a certain sense of empathy. These were all young people who, you could argue, were sometimes harshly treated by the media (though you could argue no more than any other entertainer). Actors can be a sensitive bunch at the best of times. But that pretence wore thin very quickly. I mean, being called a brat isn’t the worst thing in the world, is it? Has McCarthy watched the news since 1985? Anyway, enraged by the injustice of it all, one by one McCarthy tracks down (most of) his old mates and asks leading questions like, “Where were you when you first heard the term Brat Pack,” and “How did it make you feel?”
Cue morose music and crocodile tears. It’s nice to see that while many admit to feeling a bit pissed off about it at the time, the majority of Brat Packers chose not to carry that burden with them and shrugged it off, refusing to be sucked into the well of self pity McCarthy seems to have been living in ever since. You get the impression most of the people he talks to are just humouring him. He hasn’t been in touch with them in decades. For most of us it would probably be the equivalent of spontaneously popping round to see someone you worked with for three weeks forty-plus years ago and haven’t seen since. Emilio Estevez seems a bit bemused by it all. By far the most insightful contribution comes from Demi Moore, who manages to contextualise the whole saga in a mature, upbeat way, and even puts a positive spin on it. There’s no denying that for a while there, everyone wanted to be in the Brat Pack. They were the epitome of cool, both on and off camera, and all got very rich very quickly. Surely there’s a lot to be thankful for. If only McCarthy’s could put his well-worn victim card away long enough to realise how truly fortunate he has been. For Heaven’s sake, the label itself is nowhere near as caustic as it once was, and is now imbued more with reverence than anything else. And another thing. This doc tries way too hard to hit the right notes. For example, a random black guy pops up just to tell us that there were very few black people in the Brat Pack films. I still don’t know who he was. There’s no in-depth discussion about it, no attempt at justification, no explanation, not even a proper introduction for the interviewee. It’s just another awkward moment.
Talking about awkward… The doc culminates in McCarthy tracking down New York journalist David Blum, the person credited with starting the whole thing when he wrote an article called “Hollywood’s Brat Pack” for New York magazine back in 1985. When McCarthy asks him if he’s sorry, or if he thinks he could or should have been ‘kinder,’ Blum is having none of it and says instead that he always thought he deserved more recognition for coining the phrase. And he’s right. Let’s be fair, he was probably paid about $200 for that article, he was just doing his job and doesn’t want to waste his time talking about it now. McCarthy needs to acknowledge that being in the public eye cuts both ways. You have to take the rough with the smooth. There’s certainly a case to be made that the whole Brat Pack thing only strengthened McCarthy’s clout and led to producers writing him bigger cheques. For a while, at least. You could argue that at the root of the ‘problem’ lies a group young actors and actresses being packaged together in big budget, zeitgeist-capturing films by savvy producers and directors looking to tap into certain audiences. What’s wrong with that? Hollywood has always done it. Worse things happen at sea, as they say.
By this point, the constant whining is getting tiresome and repetitive, and you can’t help but feel McCarthy is predisposed to this kind of behaviour. This is a man who, by his own account, had an alcohol problem at the age of 12, long before he started acting, and once wrote a book called ‘The Longest Way Home: One Man’s Quest for the Courage to Settle Down’. Groan. The signs were there. He seems like the type who would gladly point fingers at everybody else rather than accept responsibility for his own failings. Personally, I think Weekend at Bernies (1989) was more harmful to his career than some jobbing journalist calling him and his mates brats. I want to see a documentary about that.
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