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St. Elmo's Fire

St. Elmo's Fire

List Price: $14.94
Your Price: $11.95
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best of the 'Brat Pack' Movies
Review: "St. Elmo's Fire" is my favorite 'Brat Pack' movie. With an all-star cast, how can you go wrong? First you have Rob Lowe who is simply gorgeous as Billy, a guy who can't decide what he's going to do after graduating college. He plays the sax (quite well I might add) for fun and sometimes for money.

Then you have Julie (Demi Moore in a wonderful performance), who is very high-strung after learning about her father's marriage to another woman. Her life is basically like kettle with hot water that is about to boil. She's happy then she's sad, then she's manic...She's everything! But she does a wonderful job.

I loved seeing Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy together. After seeing "The Breakfast Club," I never thought I'd see them as a couple. They are cute together and the scenes they share are fun to watch.

Emilio Estevez's performance was just as wonderful as the others. He falls in love with a doctor (Andie McDowell) who is already involved with someone else, but he's determined to make things go his way. It doesn't work, but watching him try to make it work is just as much fun.

Andrew McCarthy is a lot of fun to watch. Everyone thinks he's gay because he doesn't have a girlfriend and doesn't date very much. It's a typical stereotype, but I got over that. The end of the movie proves that he is not gay. Mare Winningham gives a stunning performance as a girl who comes from a very wealthy family. She loves Billy but her father wants her to marry a successful businessman. Since she is 'daddy's girl,' she doesn't want to disappoint him.

Overall, this movie is just fun to watch and listening to the director's commentary is great. You get to learn about all these things that went on behind the scenes and what roles the actors were originally up for.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Brat Packers abound!
Review: Three of the five Brat Packers featured in "The Breakfast Club" as people who never talk to each other at school (Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Emilio Estevez) star here as part of a group of 7 recent Georgetown graduates trying to make it in post-college life in Washington, DC.

Sheedy and Judd play Leslie and a young couple who have moved in together --he would like to marry her so that he will finally stop cheating on her. Andrew McCarthy is Judd's best friend who has a hard time finding a date and has to admit to himself he is in love with Sheedy. Estevez is a waiter/law student in love with an older doctor (Andie MacDoweel) whom they knew in college. Demi Moore is a party-girl full of self-made drama, a counterpoint to the doomstruck irresponsible father/husband played by a punked-out Rob Lowe. Mare Winningham is the virginal social services worker who can't figure out what she wants, although sh eknows it's not what her father tells her to want.

Set in DC, the film features a lot of incidents endemic to the city (Jules partying in a hotel with some Arab royalty.) The Georgetown streets where the bar St Elmo is still there, although the actual bar scenes were shot in a restaurant called The Round Table in another neighborhood. Funny how the same problems that affect these young people are what they call a "quarter-life crisis" today, as when Jules says "I never thought I would be so tired at 22."

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: No fire...It left me cold
Review: Just another movie about some young adults facing their usual problems with relationships, college life and future choices. Nothing new here, not too interesting or enjoyable either, so it did nothing for me. It's not very funny and at times turns into weak melodrama, revolving around tired, been-done-to-death cliches with lifeless characters. The director Joel Schumacher can do better than this (the somewhat innovative "Phone Booth" or the gripping "Tigerland") or downright bad stuff ("Batman and Robin"). This is just bland and forgettable, I guess I`ll pass.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Long Live The Brat-Pack
Review: Anyone who's familiar with John Hughes-type 80's movies will be pleased to see a lot of familiar faces in this movie....... Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Emilio Estevez, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, etc. The only difference is that this story involves post college-graduates instead of high school teenagers, and that this story wasn't done by John Hughes. I must say I enjoyed the movie a lot, but I didn't quite relate to a lot of the characters as I did in films like The Breakfast Club. The character Emilio Estevez plays is obsessed with Andie McDowell, and I just didn't buy the idea that someone in real life in his position would do the stupid things he does in this movie. Then of course there's Rob Lowe's character of which I can let speak for itself. The drama is good and I liked the music score a lot, but I would recommend this only as a rental. This decision still doesn't sway me from being a big Brat Pack fan though. Let's hope that many of the other famous 80's teen dramas/comedies can get a decent DVD release like St. Elmo's Fire did.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Everyone knows someone like these guys and gals
Review:

You know, a drama queen who always has to be the center of attention; the screwup who really means well; the niave do-gooder and the seemingly 'it' couple. Everyone can relate to the characters in this movie and that's what makes it fun. I call my boyfriend Billy because he reminds me of Rob Lowe's character - he's a perpetual frat boy and returns to his alma matter to party still (a year after graduation).

The everyday struggles and triumphs portrayed in St. Elmo's Fire are all too common. I feel especially bad for Kirby and his unrequited love for Dale Biberman, he becomes obsessed with her and really embarasses himself a couple of times. This movie seems a bit cartoonish and almost mockery of itself sometimes, but it is almost 20 years old, so...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Brat Packers abound!
Review: Three of the five Brat Packers featured in "The Breakfast Club" as people who never talk to each other at school (Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy and Emilio Estevez) star here as part of a group of 7 recent Georgetown graduates trying to make it in post-college life in Washington, DC.

Sheedy and Judd play Leslie and a young couple who have moved in together --he would like to marry her so that he will finally stop cheating on her. Andrew McCarthy is Judd's best friend who has a hard time finding a date and has to admit to himself he is in love with Sheedy. Estevez is a waiter/law student in love with an older doctor (Andie MacDoweel) whom they knew in college. Demi Moore is a party-girl full of self-made drama, a counterpoint to the doomstruck irresponsible father/husband played by a punked-out Rob Lowe. Mare Winningham is the virginal social services worker who can't figure out what she wants, although sh eknows it's not what her father tells her to want.

Set in DC, the film features a lot of incidents endemic to the city (Jules partying in a hotel with some Arab royalty.) The Georgetown streets where the bar St Elmo is still there, although the actual bar scenes were shot in a restaurant called The Round Table in another neighborhood. Funny how the same problems that affect these young people are what they call a "quarter-life crisis" today, as when Jules says "I never thought I would be so tired at 22."

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The best of the Brat Packs.
Review: This is definately the best of the brat pack films. It has more sophistication and dramatic acting. You dig deeper into the characters, and you feel for them more. This has some good acting in it. Rob Lowe, Demi Moore, Mare Winningham, Andrew Macarthy, Ally Sheedy, and Judd Nelson all do wonderful. The movie is great, see it. I highly reccomend it.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Excellent cast and well done music score...
Review: But that is really all that can be said for this movie. One look at the name Joel Schumacher on the box should tell you that there is a 60/40 chance that this movie is going to suck and suck it does. Don't get me wrong, it was a fun little movie with good performances and should not be missed by any brat-pack 80's fan, however that does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that this is a "good" movie. The characters are all pretty basic soap opera-type cut outs and the dramatic situations they find themselves in range from ludicrously bad to mildly interesting. All-in-all the film is worth the price of admission, however dont kid yourself into believing that this is anything more than what it really is: A guilty pleasure.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Still on Fire all this time later
Review: I still recall the first time I saw this movie. I sat down in a friend's living room and two hours later, I was blinking in wonder. Spellbound by the cast of characters and their circumstances... all this time later, they are still THAT interesting. Why, oh, why did the BRAT PACK go south? They made some fine movies together and this is one of them.

Personal growth, growing up, letting go, and moving on. All central themes here. Excellent flick!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not As Good As The Breakfast Club...but
Review: This was a more serious brat pack film. That's probably the reason it didn't have the same " feel " as the other brat pack movies. The actors were older and their characters were dealing with " being grown " where as the usual brat pack movies dealt with teenagers struggling to find themselves. St. Elmos Fire is a decent movie but at times you find yourself struggling to keep up with the characters. It wasn't until I saw it again after I was grown that I realized it was more of a soap opera than a movie. There are some cliched plots: Bestfriend in love with bestfriend's girl. Popular chick is really insane. Cool guy is on drugs and sleeps with every woman he meets. If you don't know which characters I'm referring to you haven't seen the film ( enough ). The plots fall flat and soon becomes as mindless as some of its characters. Also the mismatched coupling didn't do it for me either. I can't see someone as straight laced as Wendy getting involved with Billy no matter how hot Rob Lowe looked in those days. And if they were friends how come everyone started sleeping together by the end of the movie? There were too many unanswered questions, but then again that's the 80's-Brat Pack style.

St. Elmo's is an entertaining and decent movie for fans of any of these seven actors, but not the best of the brat pack. The soundtrack ruled back in 85' though it may sound a bit dated these days.


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