The Breakfast Club

Brat Pack America and the greatest high school film ever made

I’m having a really hard time even typing this without hearing Simple Minds’ Don’t You (forget about me). I suppose that’s the danger of writing and recording on a film so heavily drenched in nostalgia, especially when said film so magnificently captured the teen angst of an era.

Maybe it’s because I arrived at the very tail end of Generation X but I’ve gone on record more times than I can count that The Breakfast Club is the greatest high school film ever made. And frankly, I don’t think it’s even close.

Of course, you cannot talk about The Breakfast Club without talking about the Brat Pack. This is a bit odd, says our guest Kevin Smokler, because both the film and the moniker appeared at the tail end of the Brat Pack’s zenith. There were a few other Brat Pack films to follow (notably St. Elmo’s Fire) but by the time of the famous New York Magazine hit piece, some of the pack had already started to fade a bit from public discourse. I wonder now how the careers and lives of the Brat Pack might have been different in the moder age of social media, something Kevin and I discuss on the pod.

The article that gave us the name.

You also cannot talk about the film without talking about John Hughes, a man whose memory is perhaps a bit overstated when considering he made only eight films. And while I stand by my claim that TBC is the best high school film ever made, it had some pretty gaping holes even for the mid 80s. Kevin explains:

Kevin has thought about this film and the rest of the 80s a lot. So much so that he published a book entitled Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to 80s Teen Movies in 2016. I’ve been looking for someone to come on and talk about this movie for the longest time and when I came across Kevin’s book and read it, I knew I’d found the perfect guest.

So today on the pod, we talk not only about The Breakfast Club with all its strengths and weaknesses, but the careers of the Brat Pack, who they were (and who they were not), along with a number of 80s films including Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, About Last Night, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Top Gun, Real Genius, and more. We also talk about the movie as a cultural artifact, while also looking forward to the future of teen cinema and the contributions of female directors.

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About our guest

Kevin Smokler is a writer, documentary filmmaker and event host focused on our relationship as human beings with pop culture. His most recent book BREAK THE FRAME: CONVERSATIONS WITH WOMEN FILMMAKERS contains 24 career-retrospective conversations with directors behind box office phenomenon like Captain Marvel, Oscar winners like Free Solo and the filmmakers who launched actors such as America Ferrera, Paul Rudd, Ryan Gosling and Jennifer Lawrence. His previous books, BRAT PACK AMERICA is a love letter to teen movies of the 1980s. His 2013 essay collection PRACTICAL CLASSICS is a 50 book attempt to reread one’s high school reading list as an adult.

His feature length documentary film VINYL NATION on the American renaissance of the vinyl record, won ten awards and screened at 50 film festivals worldwide. His new documentary MIDDLE GROUNDS, about coffee shops and civic dialogue will be released this year.

Onstage he has interviewed comedians, filmmakers, musicians architects, actors and authors, He sits on the board of Zyzzyva Magazine and lives with his wife in San Francisco.

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Find his books

Brat Pack America: A Love Letter to 80s Teen Movies

Break the Frame: Conversations with Women Filmmakers (available for pre-order now)

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Find the podcast

This was such a fun conversation with Kevin, who has already agreed to come back in May to talk about his upcoming book. Instantly one of my favorites we’ve ever done. I hope you like it. And if you do, don’t forget to subscribe. Because Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is on deck.

Hey everyone, I hope you liked the pod and enjoyed the reading. If you want to help support the mission, the writing, and create more content, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. We have some much more coming. Thanks for being part of all this.