MY MOVIE SHELF: Rudy

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 210  Days to go: 147

Movie #228:  Rudy

As I’ve said many times, the point of a biopic (or any movie based on a true story / inspired by real events) is not accuracy. It’s to tell a compelling story. Over the years, I’ve heard various claims against Rudy (and all kinds of these types of dramatized historical events, to be honest) that this or that or the other thing wasn’t really one hundred percent true, if it happened at all. I’m not surprised. Rudy, perhaps more than most, stretches the limits of believable human behavior (he gets a slow clap and a chant and a symbolic gesture of solidarity and a wisdom-spouting black mentor?) in the pursuit of hitting all the emotional sweet spots the story is striving for. But, not for nothing, it’s also gotten me to tear up on more than one occasion, so those emotional sweet spots know what they’re doing.

I’m not saying Rudy is a great movie, because it’s clearly not and it knows it’s not. But it can be an effective movie. In the realm of perseverance toward an impossible dream, in living for yourself and no one else, or even just in the realm of passionately loving a sports team, Rudy is an extremely effective movie. Rudy Ruettiger (Sean Astin) was just one of, like, a dozen kids from a blue-collar Catholic family whose patriarch (Ned Beatty) loved Notre Dame football. He was the runt of the litter by a mile, and yet he got it in his head that one day he would play for Notre Dame. It’s like the very definition of an impossible dream, though I do think everyone in the film is meaner to Rudy about it than they really have to be. Still, Rudy seems to know, deep down, what a pipe dream it is, until his friend dies in a steel mill accident and Rudy has that all-important epiphany about how short life really is.

He hops a bus to South Bend, enrolls in Holy Cross with the help of Father Cavanaugh (Robert Prosky), meets up with D-Bob (Jon Favreau) who becomes his tutor — and eventual friend — in exchange for Rudy being his wingman, and gets a job on the Notre Dame greens team with the aforementioned wise old(er) black man, literally named Fortune (Charles S. Dutton). These mentors and friends coach and guide and cajole and tough-love Rudy into buckling down and getting accepted at Notre Dame, where he turns his obsessive passion for the football team into a religious experience and spends a couple years on the prep team getting beat up as a matter of principle. He fights and works and tackles and preaches his belief of his value to the National Championship pursuits of his boys in blue and gold, but aside from having a lot of heart and guts and will, he’s still not any good. And that’s when apparently everyone at the university rallies behind him and convinces coach Dan Devine (Chelcie Ross) to let him dress and, ultimately, let him play a down. And technically, that last part, at least, really happened.

I’m not a Notre Dame fan, but I do love college football the most. I’ve had huge debates with my husband about whether college ball is better than the NFL. (It is.) I love the passion of not only the fans, but of the players, because it takes a lot of heart to play at that level — a deep desire and abiding love of the game. There is tradition and pageantry and community in those stadiums that can’t be matched anywhere else. I can relate to Rudy on that level, because we both love our teams. Really, truly love them. And whether it’s an entirely true tale or not, I can look up to Rudy, too, and know that maybe it’s not too late to make my dreams come true as well.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Outrageous Fortune

 

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 171  Days to go: 171

Movie #206:  Outrageous Fortune

Sisters are doing it for themselves!

I remember watching Outrageous Fortune many, many times on HBO as a kid, and while it was a little bit over my head in places (I didn’t understand the line “he screwed me too” could mean not sexually and I didn’t know what “left me in drag” meant, among maybe a handful of other idiomatic expressions), but I really loved it. The buddy cop movie was a big thing in the ’80s, and here was essentially a buddy cop movie only with chicks, and even though they weren’t cops but actresses, they still worked an investigation together.

Lauren (Shelley Long) and Sandy (Bette Midler) are polar opposites. Lauren is a classically trained actress, having grown up with every advantage. Sandy is a the foul-mouthed star of Ninja Vixens. Yet both find themselves studying acting with the legendary Stanislav Korzenowski (Robert Prosky) and, unbeknownst to each other, both are in their own hot and heavy relationship with local school teacher Michael Santers (Peter Coyote). When Michael is seemingly killed in an explosion, both ladies come independently of one another to the morgue where they first discover each other’s relationship with Michael and then discover the corpse is not him. (“Michael was not a guy other guys would’ve made fun of in the locker room.”)

In a move that can either be considered feminist and independent or submissive and dependent, based on your particular way of looking at it, the two decide to team up to find Michael and find out which one of them he actually has feelings for. My husband thinks this is nuts, considering at the very least they know he was cheating on both of them with the other, but back in the day I thought it was pretty inventive and a way of them taking charge of the situation. They’re going to confront him with his deception, help him if he needs it, and one of them will perhaps reconcile with him in the end. As a story’s premise, I’ve certainly heard worse.

The movie then gets increasingly awesome as Lauren and Sandy use their wits and talents to track down Michael, outsmart the many people who are tracking him down, and ultimately save themselves and the world. (As always happens in these kinds of love triangles.) They are never helpless or lacking in ingenuity. They always find a way to get themselves out of a jam, be it through their own will and determination and creativity or even by enlisting the help of honorary Indian guide Frank (George Carlin), who just so happens to be friends with a Native American dirt bike archery gang. However, all the dirt bike gang does is help Sandy track Lauren down when she’s been kidnapped and provide momentary distraction. Despite all the men on the sidelines, Lauren and Sandy take care of themselves, and I really love that.

One of the most interesting things about Outrageous Fortune, though, are how old Shelley Long and Bette Midler are in the film. Long was 37 and Midler was 41 when it was filmed, and it wasn’t considered a niche flick or a mature ladies’ flick or even a chick flick. It was a mainstream comedy, and it would never get made like that today. Today, if such a film were to be made at all, the women would either be much younger, or the fact of their ages would be a notable plot point. Sandy’s sexuality wouldn’t be so easily accepted as promiscuous and okay (“We are WAY into double digits here”) and Lauren’s probably wouldn’t be so overtly playfully lustful. That’s unfortunate to me, because these are fascinating and fabulous, well-rounded, real women. They are diverse and interesting and could exist in the world. They are smart and funny and idiosyncratic and they treat each other — especially by the end — like true friends. Save an occasional Bridesmaids, that doesn’t happen too much in movies anymore. And the world is the worse for it.

I mean, really, would it be so bad to have a chick play Hamlet sometime?