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Andrew McCarthy’s Hulu Docu ‘Brats’ Has Carl Kurlander Thinking Again About The Lingering Smoke From ‘St. Elmo’s Fire:’ Guest Column
Editor’s Note: Journalist David Blum might have forever coined The Brat Pack era, but it was Carl Kurlander who provided the reason the infamous New York article got written. St. Elmo’s Fire was a script Kurlander wrote with director Joel Schumacher, inspired by events in his life. Now an academic, Kurlander has written several guest columns for Deadline including a 35th anniversary remembrance of St. Elmo’s Fire. Why is he tapping again into those memories? He just watched Brats, the Hulu documentary that premiered at Tribeca, directed by and starring Andrew McCarthy. He was part of the St. Elmo’s Fire ensemble that felt maligned by a mag article published the week before the film was released and became a surprise hit. Here, Kurlander supplies some great dish — did you know Demi Moore‘s drug demons almost forced Joel Schumacher to replace her with the young singer Madonna? Or that Georgetown shunned the movie for immoral activity but OK’d The Exorcist because despite the vile goings on involving a possessed child, evil didn’t win? A little of that stuff would have helped McCarthy’s docu, which gets tedious as he attempts to expunge demons, even as cohorts like Moore, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez and Ally Sheedy seem to be humoring him on camera. After all, that film launched fine futures for them, even if the moniker stung. McCarthy paints journo Blum as a villain, but in fairness, The Brat Pack was a far more clever coinage than putting “gate” on the end of every scandal since Watergate. Blum also unwittingly etched into permanent Hollywood history the memory of those actors when they were young and gorgeous. Who wants to be forgotten?
