Sincerely Yours...

January 27, 2024 3:55 PM

Presented in three parts -- Sincerely Yours: The Making Of "The Breakfast Club" [IMDb] Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, a lightly-edited [to get past YouTube's robots] examination of the ridiculously iconic 1985 film.
posted by hippybear (11 comments total)

Do I want to watch this? I have watched it so many times. And it is always ridiculous. But so spot on with some of the high school vibes I remember.
posted by Windopaene at 5:05 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]

Fabulous.
posted by bluesky43 at 5:21 PM on January 27

OK, watched the first bits. Pretty solid. So weird to see them all now as, ahem, old people.
posted by Windopaene at 5:22 PM on January 27

So weird to see them all now as, ahem, old people.

Yeah. As with more than a few Gen-X types, this movie was kind of a big deal for me in 1985. I have seen it, I dunno, a half-dozen times (and not in twenty years) but I could probably still quote huge chunks of it verbatim.

Every one of the five main performers I would instantly spot in a crowd at TIFF or something, but now realize how long it has been since I have seen any of them onscreen in anything new: I thin the most recent sighting was probably Hall when he appeared in Community, which must be a decade ago now.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:33 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]

I went wondering about Judd Nelson and he's been working pretty steadily across this whole time. Between films and television, he's barely been out of work across decades.
posted by hippybear at 5:56 PM on January 27 [2 favorites]

all now as, ahem, old people.

Ahem, this retrospective is from, like, 2008 or something.
posted by hippybear at 5:58 PM on January 27

Ahem, I am like from 1963 or something...

Glad that Judd Nelson was not his character. And, Number 5 is alive.
posted by Windopaene at 6:27 PM on January 27 [1 favorite]

Yeah, it's just they are a lot older now than they appear in this film.

Like a side mirror warning label or something. People in this movie are much older than they appear.
posted by hippybear at 6:30 PM on January 27 [3 favorites]

Age being a number and all, worth noting that they were already 8-10 years older than portrayed when they made the film - iirc Judd Nelson was 26 - but we just watched a chunk of it again a few days ago and it's crazy how they all come off as 15-16.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 7:35 AM on January 28 [1 favorite]

I dunno: four-fifths of them, yes (Ringwald and Hall were high school aged when it was filmed, so that helps); if any character in that cast had been held back once or twice, it was John Bender. I always thought he was supposed to be maybe nineteen.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 7:46 AM on January 29

So one interesting side effect of The Breakfast Club is that Simple Minds, who didn't write that song that is the single most popular thing they ever recorded, entirely changed their sound due to the success of Don't You (Forget About Me). The result was what is, for me and I don't think I am alone, one of the most iconic Eighties arena rock albums ever recorded, Once Upon A Time. It's eight tracks of bombastic glorious perfection, and is a work I return to quite often.
posted by hippybear at 9:17 PM on January 29 [1 favorite]