Saturday, February 20, 2010

You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes and Their Impact on a Generation by Susannah Gora (2010)

I am totally loving the just-published book about the making of and cultural impact of the teen movies of the 1980s. The book, titled You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation by Susannah Gora, focuses on the films that were the Citizen Kane of children of the 80s (like myself) such as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Pretty in Pink, and St. Elmo's Fire. The book features interviews from the actors and filmmakers responsible for these classic flicks, such as Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Matthew Broderick, John Cryer and Anthony Michael Hall.

Noticeably absent from the list of actors interviewed for the book is Wilkes-Barre native Michael Schoeffling, who played "dreamy" Jake Ryan in the seminal teen 80s film Sixteen Candles. Schoeffling now leads a quiet and private life with his family in northeastern Pennsylvania.

However, pages 30-31 gives a brief biography and description of Schoeffling's career up to the filming of Sixteen Candles:

"Michael Schoeffling was born December 10, 1960 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and grew up in southern New Jersey, the second of three brothers."

You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation is presently not available to borrow from Albright Memorial Library. But who knows? Maybe I'll donate my copy to the collection after I finish reading it. To purchase a copy of the book from author Susannah Gora's website, click here.

For a previous blog entry on Michael Schoeffling, click here.


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