Disclaimer: I wrote this review last summer when the book review club was on hiatus. I didn't have anything for this month so I'm recycling it now.
I borrowed brat: an 80s story by Andrew McCarthy from my library (ebook) and read it in two days time - this includes watching a couple of the movies he talks about in the book as well! It's worth noting that I had just finished reading Julianna Margulies' book, which took me the entire two weeks the library allows for ebook checkouts because I just couldn't get into it but forced myself to finish so that I didn't have to wait months to borrow it again (since there were others waiting for it).
With Julianna's book I felt like it started very slow. The writing wasn't great and the stories she was telling weren't all that interesting - at least for the first 1/3 of the book. And I like Julianna - a lot - but her book wasn't the best memoir I've ever read. I didn't feel like I learned anything new about her or her work. And that's okay.
But to follow it up with Andrew's book - an actor I wouldn't call myself a fan of and who I constantly confuse with George Newbern - that I didn't want to put down, says something.
I loved this book. He gives insight into who he is, how he became who he is and where that took him. And the behind the scenes stories about movies he has been in were great.
Andrew's father was against him going into acting, that is until he booked Class with Jacqueline Bisset and his father wanted Andrew to invite her to dinner. Ha! (Andrew declined.) He spoke about his relationship with his father throughout the book and his father's response to things related to Andrew's acting and income really strained their relationship. Andrew found some peace with his father before his death but I don't think anything was truly resolved.
I'll be honest, I'm sure I've watched Class before decades ago but I couldn't have told you Andrew was in it. I had a vague idea of the plot but (spoiler alert!) I would've bet everything that Rob Lowe was the one who slept with his friend's mother. Before I read the background behind the movie, I watched the movie on some platform (HBO Max maybe?). I believed his acting and thought he did a good job. It was his first film and he had to develop some mechanisms to deal with the process itself. I wouldn't have guessed that by the performance.
I actually had recorded Pretty in Pink a few months back. Several things - I had no idea Andrew was in it. As with Class, I'm sure I watched it decades ago but couldn't have told you the plot to save my life. I knew Jon Cryer and Molly Ringwald were in it but that's about all I could've said for certain. I also had expected that I would delete the movie without watching it because it's not really on the list of movies I thought I would want to watch (I have a few others of those on my DVR still, but that's a whole other story / issue). I read the chapter on Pretty in Pink (actually the book's longest chapter) before I watched the movie.
Again, I liked the movie and his performance - I definitely believed him. Now, without intending to give away any spoilers, the ending the movie has was not the original movie ending. They screened the movie before release and the ending was a problem so they re-did the ending. The problem was that Andrew was already working on his next job (on an off-Broadway production) and had shaved his head for that role. As a result, the final scenes of the movie were shot with him wearing a wig.
I'm so glad I knew that going in because it made me pay attention to that, whereas I wouldn't have noticed. But that's part of the point of this - if I hadn't known it was a wig I don't think I would've thought it was a wig. Since I did know though, it stood out like a sore thumb! hahaha
Those are the only movies I've watched so far but HBO Max has some others of his movies that I plan to check out, now that I know the backstories (and some I haven't seen). (Some of Weekend at Bernie's were ad libbed moments. He thinks the sequel was a mistake. Also another movie I know I've seen but I wouldn't have said he was in.)
He's also open about his drug and alcohol abuse. He talks about missing the signs that it would be a problem for him - in hindsight he sees it very clearly.
Bottom line, I enjoyed this book and like Andrew better for having read it and will be less likely to confuse him with George in the future.
I don't feel differently about Julianna - even though I didn't find her book all that engaging (I have read books before that completely changed my mind about someone negatively - this wasn't that . . . I just don't think she's the best storyteller, at least not in word form. just my opinion.)
So there you go. Kind of a twofer in book reviews, one I highly recommend (Andrew's) and one I don't recommend so much (Julianna's).
😁
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