Press Release: You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried by Susannah Gora
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dyana Messina
(212) 572-2098
Because You Can Quote Lines from Sixteen Candles,
Your iPod Playlist Includes More Than One Song by The Psychedelic Furs and Simple Minds,
and You Still Wish Andie Had Ended Up with Duckie in Pretty in Pink
YOU COULDN’T IGNORE ME
IF YOU TRIED
The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation
By Susannah Gora
“As readable as it is informative, Susannah Gora’s book sets these influential films into a cultural and cinematic context—and provides compelling behind-the-scenes stories about the people who made them.” —Leonard Maltin
In the classic 1985 film The Breakfast Club, “Bender,” the unforgettable rebel played by Judd Nelson, tells Molly Ringwald’s icy prom queen, “Sweets, you couldn’t ignore me if you tried.” February 2010 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of The Breakfast Club and the film remains timeless—along with other seminal 80s youth movies such as Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, St. Elmo’s Fire and Say Anything. In YOU COULDN’T IGNORE ME IF YOU TRIED: The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation (Crown; February 9, 2010), film journalist Susannah Gora presents the definitive book on these movies, exploring their cultural significance and offering for the first time a complete behind-the-scenes look at the compelling history of how the films were made, through revealing interviews with the directors and stars who made them famous.
In the 1980s, John Hughes and the Brat Pack were Hollywood royalty. Beginning with his directorial debut, Sixteen Candles, Hughes ushered in a new age in film, with intelligent movies specifically made and marketed for teens. He offered the American teenager an ideal world, where outcasts and prom queens fall in love, preppies and burnouts become buds, and frosted lip gloss and exuberant optimism made audiences feel invincible. In YOU COULDN’T IGNORE ME IF YOU TRIED, Gora takes readers back to that era, examining the gripping history behind the movies through her original interviews with scores of key players such as:
• Molly Ringwald
• Anthony Michael Hall
• Cameron Crowe
• Ally Sheedy
• Andrew McCarthy
• Matthew Broderick
• Rob Lowe
• Judd Nelson
• Jon Cryer
• John Cusack
The product of many years of research, YOU COULDN’T IGNORE ME IF YOU TRIED mines all the material—from the movies, to the music, to the way the films were made—to show how they helped shape our visions of romance, friendship, society, and success. Full of anecdotes about the off-screen romances, the deep friendships, the breakdowns and the breakups, and the infamous night on the town that led a writer from New York magazine to dub this core group of actors “The Brat Pack,” affecting their careers and personal lives for decades to come, YOU COULDN’T IGNORE ME IF YOU TRIED is also the most comprehensive study of the life of the late John Hughes, the godfather of the genre.
The Brat Pack and the movies they created have seeped into the collective consciousness of those who were teens in the 1980s and the1990s, and even resonate with today’s teens, with new Brat Pack devotees born each time St. Elmo’s Fire airs on cable. Even if we tried, we couldn’t ignore the impact of the Brat Pack and their movies—long after what should have been their day in the spotlight, these films still enjoy enormous success and have gone on to be undeniable staples of our popular culture. Because after all, who doesn’t sometimes wish life could be just like an eighties movie?
About the Author
Film journalist Susannah Gora is a former Premiere magazine editor who has also covered entertainment for publications including Variety and Elle. She has appeared on networks such as VH1, NBC, E!, and CBS to discuss entertainment news and pop culture.
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YOU COULDN’T IGNORE ME IF YOU TRIED
By Susannah Gora
Crown * February 9, 2010 * Pages: 384
Price: $26.00 * 978-0-307-40843-3
