BRATS

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Andrew McCarthy crafts an exquisitely satisfying base-touching expedition with his Generation Jones comrades, whose careers suffered as a result of a New York Magazine article, written by David Blum. The article was published on June 10, 1985.

Generation Jones got fucked, once again.

Jealousy plays a hand in the situation. Roughly seven years senior to the actors he wrote disparagingly about in his article, David Blum clearly had a personal agenda to take down a peg the six actors whose success he resented.

For the record, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, and Andrew McCarthy are the actors considered to populate Blum's fictional club of actors assembled by auteur filmmaker John Hughes and Joel Schumacher.

For his part, John Hughes was deeply invested in telling truthful coming-of-age stories for the time. For Schumacher, it was a lark.

Related movies to watch are: Joel Schumacher's "St. Elmo's Fire," John Hughes's "Pretty In Pink," "16 Candles," and "The Breakfast Club."

If you haven't yet seen "The Breakfast Club," you're in for a rare treat.

It ain't pretty when Andrew McCarthy interviews David Blum in Blum's NYC apartment. Unwilling to take one iota of blame for his mean-spirited attack on a group of young actors trying to succeed in the business, David Blum comes across as something less appealing than, well, pond scum.

Nevermind that Blum's editor at New York Magazine also shares blame for not doing his or her job on the "Brat Pack" hit piece. Just because something sounds like a clever play on words, does not make it suitable.

Editorial oversight, people.

David Blum's insincerity eviscerated the sincerity of young actors who deserved to be treated much better.  

I'm personally familiar with New York Magazine's proclivity for hatchet jobs.

NY Mag's "Vulture" site (how apropos) writer Hunter Harris took her best shot at me over my review of "Lady Bird." Sadly, Ms. Harris did not have the sand to address my revisited review of "Lady Bird," where I did a deep dive on Greta Gerwig's attempt to normalize unethical behavior.

Evidently, such truth was beyond he scope of Ms. Harris's "investigation."

The media is not your friend — never was, never will be.

That the OG Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, and Joey Bishop), were a bunch of wealthy show biz veterans, as opposed to a generation of young actors trying to make it, got lost in the social consciousness of the day.

One of this film's rich theme lines comes from Time Magazine's film critic Richard Schickel, speaking on stage for The Phil Donahue television show with Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe, and Judd Nelson seated beside him.

"Can I apologize for my profession for that? I really thought that was a scurrilous article."

Andrew McCarthy is eight months older than me.

I had the good fortune of having this group of actors as generational touchstones to keep track of shifts in American society.

I'll never forget walking out of the cinema at the end of "The Breakfast Club" during its opening run. Here was a modern-day "400 Blows," except now we had an oddball mix of young individuals dealing directly with self-identity in the Regan era.

Dig the new breed.

So it is that I come to "Brats" with more than an ounce of "Blank Generation" ideology at hand, "I can take it or leave it each time."

Richard Hell wrote that line.

Richard Hell (of NYC's Voidoids punk band) could easily have played opposite Emilio Estevez in "Repo Man," Alex Cox's ode to L.A.'s '80s era youth culture.

There are many life lessons to be learned from this very polished documentary about a generation of actors who didn't have the proper tools at the time to deal with a cloaked attack from the media. If only the right publicist had stepped in to make lemonade from lemons.

Gen J lives!

Not Rated. 92 mins.

HOUR OF THE WOLF — SHOCKTOBER!

SHOCKTOBER!Welcome!

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Ingmar Bergman's haunting 1968 psychological thriller is, at heart, a bold reflection on the lasting effects of childhood abuse.

Filmed on the island of Fårö, Bergman announces the minimalist movie with a flourish of self-referential artistic expression to set up the bizarre narrative that follows.

Sounds of its stage set being built, under the conversation of a film crew, give way to, "Camera."

"Action."

Liv Ullmann speaks directly to the camera as Alma. She speaks of revelations she has discovered from reading her husband's diary.

Alma has given birth to a child on this lonely, desolate island. Her beloved artist husband Johan (Max von Sydow) has vanished.

Suicide perhaps. A victim of murder? We may never know.

The couple have come to the island for Johan to paint. Their love is strong, but ghosts from Johan's past haunt him. Johan's place in the world as an artist reveal subtexts of Ingmar Bergman's own self identity.

Johan is unable to find peaceful sleep in the couple's cold water cottage.

Dreams and nightmares blur with harsh reality.

Suspicion and regret hang in the air.

A dinner invitation by a coven of insulting aristocrats inhabiting a 14th century castle, leads to an explosion of social anxiety for Johan. Are the blue-bloods real, or merely composite figures from Johan's troubled imagination?

A quote from "Rosemary's Baby" springs to mind.

"Witches, all of them witches."

The subconscious and conscious minds of our lonely couple reveal cracks that all married couples experience.

Only we, the audience, can decide where the truth lies — that will take time.

Impeccably conceived and executed, "Hour of the Wolf" is an eloquent thing of cinematic perfection. Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann provide stunning performances.

What is this nightmare called love?

Not Rated. 87 mins.

CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI — THE CRITERION COLLECTION

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Francesco Rosi’s 1979 filmic adaptation of Turinese political activist Carlo Levi’s popular 1945 memoir, about his year spent in political exile suffering Draconian punishments under Mussolini’s fascist regime, is a fluid masterpiece of social realism.

The film’s evocative title is taken from that of Carlo Levi’s chronicle of exposure to Fascism's harsh effect on a specific group of people.

Although you might suppose from the title that Christ visited the small southern Italian town of Eboli, however the context is something more; Christ never went beyond Eboli, which is to say he never witnessed the tragic condition of the remote village of Aliano — renamed as “Gagliano: in the book and film.

Levi wrote, “Christ stopped at Eboli where the road and the train abandon the coast and the sea, and venture into the wastelands of Lucania. Christ never came here. Nor did time, the individual soul, or hope, nor did cause and effect, reason or history.”

In 1929, Carlo Levi — not to be confused with his fellow Turinese anti-fascist peer Primo Levi — co-founded the anti-fascist movement Giustizia e Libertà with Carlo and Nello Rosselli. Although Levi graduated with a degree in medicine in 1924, he was inspired to become an artist. Painting allowed Levi private time to carry on private political discussions with activist friends who would sit as portrait models in his studio. The ruse only worked so well for so long. In 1935, Carlo Levi was arrested and exiled to Aliano, in Italy’s Lucania region. The deprived village relates to a similarly poor remote Spanish settlement in Luis Buñuel’s 1933 bold documentary “Las Hurdes: Tierra Sin Pan” (“Land Without Bread”).

Aliano presents a “land of disease, poverty, and distrust — from a people abandoned and forgotten by the state.” Clearly, Mussolini’s intent was that Carlo Levi might not survive a year spent in a remote place plagued by malaria and fellow political exiles whose attitudes didn’t necessarily coincide with those of Levi. Rather, Levi was compelled to assist the community up to a point in spite of his less than charitable countenance.

Francesco Rosi buries significant subtext in situational reality. For example, Levi adopts a stray dog at the beginning of the story only to silently abandon the canine soon thereafter. No mention of the dog ever comes up again. Rose elucidates through silence and absence. Less is more. Rosi’s eye for detail shines as when Levi meets his sister when she comes to visit; the siblings walk in perfectly matching steps together. Their DNA is the same. Rosi's deceptively simple detail speaks volumes about the honest and direct nature of the siblings's relationship, something that is revealed during their private discussions.  

Rosi’s uncanny ability to incorporate a specific Italian region’s locals (playing themselves) provides a foundation of authenticity that underpins the complex narrative with understatement and grace. Even the film's one flash of anger occurs as a substitute for seduction during a scene where Levi's maid bathes him. To watch "Christ Stopped At Eboli" is to go back in time. Politics be damned, life is where you are. Physical exile is real. Intellectualism suffers; culture suffers.

Francisco Rosi remains criminally neglected it the pantheon of great filmmakers. Rosi is right there with Roberto Rossellini and Luchino Visconti even if Rosi isn't as well known. The dynamic naturalism that Rosi captures and observes under his trained vision is astonishing if you take the time to savor it.  

Criterion treats this film with the respect it deserves. Lovely. If you dig collecting Criterion films, this one is a beauty.

Not Rated. 220 mins.