The mid-80's was about conservatism, Reaganomics, Miami Vice and a time where people were not fully aware about AIDS and were thinking more about working together to bring food to Africa. This was the sign of the times and for director Joel Schumacher ("The Lost Boys", "Flatliners", "Batman Forever", "8MM", etc.), while he was working on his second film "D.C. Cab", during a short stay at Georgetown, he observed graduating college students at Georgetown University and wondered how miserable some of them maybe, of having to graduate but now become adults.
It was right there and then that Schumacher wanted to make a film based on these type of college graduates who face problems of transitioning to adulthood. In order to capture the life of a young adults graduating college, Schumacher tapped into recent college graduate, Karl Kurlander ("Saved by the Bell: The New Class" and "Malibu, CA") and together they began working on "St. Elmo's Fire". Schumacher had renowned musician and producer David Foster (who wrote major hit songs for "Karate Kid, Part II", "Sleepless in Seattle", "The Bodyguard", etc.) working on his first film as a composer and cinematographer Stephn H. Burm ("The Untouchables", "Snake Eyes", "Mystery Men", etc.).
But what the film would be known for is the cast in which David Blum of New Yorker Magazine would dub as "The Brat Pack", a title that would be synonymous with Hollywood's popular young talents: Emilio Estevez ("Breakfast Club", "The Mighty Ducks" films and "Young Guns" films), Rob Lowe ("The West Wing", "Brothers & Sisters", "About Last Night...", etc.), Andrew McCarthy ("Lipstick Jungle", "Weekend at Bernies" and "The Joy Luck Club"), Demi Moore ("Indecent Proposal", "G.I. Jane", "Ghost", etc.), Judd Nelson ("Breakfast Club", "Airheads", "Suddenly Susan", etc.), Ally Sheedy ("Kyle XY", "The Breakfast Club", "Oxford Blues", "WarGames", etc.) and Mare Winningham ("Clubhouse", "Grey's Anatomy", "Wyatt Earp", etc.).
The film revolves around seven college graduates of Georgetown University who are starting off on their own careers or trying to find a job.
Kirby Keger (Emilio Estevez) - Studying to become a lawyer and works as a waiter at St. Elmo's Bar. He is obsessed with Dale Biberman (Andie McDowell) and will do what it takes to go out on a date with her or to at least be acknowledged by her.
Billy Hicks (Rob Lowe) - A father who is trying to find ways to support his girlfriend and child. But at the same time, he's a playboy that likes to have fun, likes to drink and be with many women. He tries to have a fling with the group's virgin Wendy Beamish (Mare Winningham). A musician who plays the saxophone, he is unable to hold onto a job and is looked as a hero at his college (because of his ability to find drugs and sell them to the students). Tends to think with his penis than his head most of the time.
Kevin Dolenz (Andrew McCarthy) - Lives with Kirby, a writer, always smoking and the quiet one of the group. Tend to be seen as a homosexual because he doesn't go after women publicly and even looked by his own friends as possibly a gay man who hasn't come out of the closet. Kevin is in love with someone but isn't telling. His friend Jules thinks Kevin is in love with Alec.
Jules (Demi Moore) - The socialite sporting the latest fashions and always partying. The carefree friend but behind-the-scenes, things are not as rosy with her life as it would it seem.
Alec Newbary (Judd Nelson) - The future politician who ran the Young Democrats in college and now works for a Republican. Dates Leslie and wants her to marry him in order for him to end his desires of sleeping with other women. The friend that others looked up to for leadership.
Leslie Hunter (Ally Sheedy) - The architect who is dating Alec. The friend that is level headed but is not sure she wants to get married just yet and wants to establish her own career.
Wendy Beamish (Mare Winningham) - The wealthy daughter and the virgin. She is attracted to Billy but gets upset when he keeps asking her if she's still a virgin. Her father pressures her on how to live her life and that she should marry a guy from a wealthy family for the purpose of a family/business transaction.
The film focuses on these seven friends and how they thought that after graduating college, their friendship would continue to be strong and they would be together. But all learn that as they grow older and focus on their careers, their life as a group and as friends will start to change.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
"St. Elmo's Fire" gets its HD treatment via 1080p High Definition. For the most part, the positive is that the film looks much better than many 80's films that tend to receive a lot of DNR and overall look too soft and are devoid of colors. With "St. Elmo's Fire", there are lot of colors and scenes such as Jules pink and red apartment that look vibrant but at the same time, there was some banding that can be seen prominently in Jules apartment (towards the end of the film when Billy is talking to her) and some darker scenes with light emitting. Granted, if you are sitting far from your television, this won't be as noticeable. In fact, I didn't catch these until I rewatched certain scenes during my testing and saw the artifacts when I was 3-4 ft. away. But for the most part, the picture quality was satisfactory, considering this film didn't have much of a budget.
As for audio, the film is featured in English, French and Portuguese Dolby TrueHD 5.1 (and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital) and the film is primarily a dialogue driven film. Dialogue is understandable and clear. And of course, David Foster's "Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire" and the other 80's music featured on the soundtrack comes alive during the film. There are some scenes especially at the bar that utilize the ambiance of a crowded room and is heard through the surrounds but for the most part, this film is driven by its characters and its soundtrack.
As for subtitles, English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese are included.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
St. Elmo's Fire comes with the following special features:
* Commentary with Director Joel Schumacher - The commentary by Joel Schumacher at the most part is quite informative and sets up the scenes, working with talent and for the most part, Schumacher really goes in depth about the film and the people he worked with on the making of the film. A lot of the commentary is similar to what he discusses in the "Joel Schumacher Remembers St. Elmo's Fire" featurette.
* Joel Schumacher Remembers St. Elmo's Fire - (14:21) The following is a Blu-ray exclusive and director Joel Schumacher talks about how the talents were cast for their roles, how the term "brat pack" started, how no studios wanted to do the film and despite the negative critic reviews, the audiences were very supportive of the film. Overall, a wonderful retrospective by Joel Schumacher. If anything, the discussion of how the talents were cast for the film, especially Demi Moore was quite interesting. Also, his disdain towards the term "brat pack".
* Original Making of Featurette - (8:43) A featurette from 1985 featuring interviews with the talents and how Rob Lowe had to learn how to play the saxophone in a short amount of time for this film and interview with director Joel Schumacher.
* Music Video: John Parr - "Man in Motion" - (4:21) The original music video in standard definition of "Man in Motion" featuring John Parr (and the talent from "St. Elmo's Fire").
* Deleted Scenes - (15:41) An exclusive for the Blu-ray release (and in standard definition with scratches and dust galore), this section features 12 deleted scenes which include: Too Young, a New Car, How About Lunch, There is No Billy the Kid, The Woman in the Fur Coat, Someone Tell Me What Happened, I'm a Loser, Secret Obsession, Just Pick a Date, A Very Well Dressed Fool, Where is the Defroster and That's My Dad. Although some deleted scenes are quite short, there are a few scenes that get into the relationship of Wendy and her father who is trying to dictate of how she should live her life.
* BD-Live - This blu-ray is BD-Live enabled.
JUDGMENT CALL:
"St. Elmo's Fire" was a film not exactly well respected by critics when it first came out. But the film was part of a string of "Brat Pack" related films that would star these talents along with Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall and would define high school and young adult films in the 1980's.
The film was not well-respected because of the times. These were young adults that were quite liberal during a conservative era and most of them were not being shown in the positive light. These young adults were not perfect and they had their own personal flaws that critics saw as vane and shallow but for audiences, they saw something quite different.
For me, to have all these talents together in one film was just awesome. Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson were just awesome in "Breakfast Club", Rob Lowe in "Oxford Blues", Emilio Estevez in "Repo Man" and "The Outsiders", Mare Winningham appeared on many shows including afterschool specials and Demi Moore was a popular soap star on "General Hospital" years earlier. And of course, for Andrew McCarthy and Andie McDowell, this film would also help put ignite their careers.
And in the 80's, who could not love David Foster's "Love Theme from St. Elmo's Fire" or John Parr's "Man in Motion". These were overplayed on the radio and MTV that "St. Elmo's Fire" was literally ingrained into pop culture. And of course, the term "Brat Pack" (as many of them despised the name), for audiences... being part of that group was just the epitome of "cool".
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