Rudy

David Anspaugh, 1993
Rotten Tomatoes score: 84%

Rudy is the tale of a young man who undergoes no perceptible physical changes whatsoever, not even so much as a haircut, between his senior year of high school and his 26th birthday. It's also the tale of a young man so single-mindedly obsessed with a bizarrely specific, inconsequential goal, that he manages to inspire us all.

This is one of the trillions of movies that are supposed to be based on a true story, and as usual it's hard to tell exactly how strictly the movie follows the true story. I know that Notre Dame head coach Dan Devine was incensed at the way his character was portrayed, and I know that people have questioned the accuracy of the way the real-life Rudy tells his story. Frankly, I don't care about any of this; my general approach to these movies is to assume that nothing in the movie happened in real life unless proven otherwise. "Based on a true story" is just a lame marketing gimmick, not an indication of accuracy.

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Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger is five feet nothin', a hundred and nothin', and has hardly a speck of athletic ability. But all he wants in life is to play football for the University of Notre Dame. The reason for this is never really explained; I guess there is no reason--his family are all Fighting Irish fans, and he seems to have a desire to impress his dad and brother, but whether this is his motivation is anybody's guess. Everyone admires Rudy for his determination and "heart," which is mentioned in almost every line of dialogue. I believe they are referring to his resolve and tenacity, as opposed to some cardiac anomaly, but that's just a hunch.

Rudy's father (Ned Beatty) and brother Frank (none of Rudy's many siblings was called Frank in real life) think his dream is stupid, which it kind of is, but his best friend Pete believes in him and encourages him. For four years, he and Pete toil away at the foundry where Ned Beatty is foreman. Then, when Pete dies in a work-related accident, Rudy decides the time has come. So he walks out of the funeral, abandons his fiancée, and hurries to catch a bus to South Bend. Ned Beatty attempts to have a heart-to-heart with Rudy about accepting your lot in life and not chasing pointless dreams. I know we're supposed to be rooting for Rudy, but Ned Beatty's speech makes 100% perfect sense, and it is in no way mean-spirited.

(I'm not sure if this is excellent writing, intended to depict the dad as a well-meaning and thoughtful counterpoint to the movie's main theme, or if it's bad writing and we were not supposed to find the dad as sympathetic as I did.)

At Notre Dame, Rudy meets Father Cavanaugh, who arranges for Rudy to matriculate at Holy Cross Junior College and work on getting a transfer if he makes the grade. The movie takes pains to show us how broke Rudy is: He takes a job with Fortune the Notre Dame stadium groundskeeper and sleeps in Fortune's office. But since he tells Pete that he only has $1000 to start with, I have no idea how he affords four years of college. I know it's the 70s, but even then that doesn't seem like enough. (Apparently the real Rudy had served in the Navy, so he was eligible for the GI Bill.)

Somewhere in here is a scene where Rudy visits home, and one of his siblings asks him where he's been. Are we to understand that Rudy has been at Holy Cross for a semester and hasn't written or called home one single time? Did no one know where he was? "Hey, Ned, you know who I haven't seen lately? One of our kids!"

Even though the focus of this act is on Rudy's attempts to qualify for a transfer, we only see him in class once, and it's in a scene that serves primarily to introduce Jon Favreau as his friend D-Bob. ("D-Bob"?? Was this a real person, or is this name made up for the movie? Either answer would mystify me.) A single line of dialogue reveals that D-Bob has discovered Rudy is dyslexic and gotten him the lessons he needs to improve his grades.

Eventually Rudy gets into Notre Dame, and then immediately dedicates his life (and the rest of the movie's runtime) to trying to get into a football game. Rudy uses his Power of Heart to impress the coaches enough to get a spot on the Irish practice squad, but his dad and brother refuse to believe he's on the team.

Now, what this is building up to is a conflict where Rudy will have to persuade the coach to put him into a game so that his family can see him on TV. I get that they needed some kind of in-universe reason for Rudy to endure one more setback before the finale. The problem is that this is such a lame plot device. Rudy asks the coach personally to let him dress for a game, and the coach is so impressed by Rudy's Heart that he obliges--So wouldn't he probably have been willing to write a letter to Rudy's dad?

"Dear Ned Beatty:

Your son Rudy is on my football team. Enclosed is an autographed picture and a Fighting Irish beer koozie. You were great in Deliverance.

Best,
Ara Parseghian."

Anyway, during Rudy's last season, the new coach Dan Devine refuses to honor his predecessor's commitment. This is the reason why the real Devine was so upset with his portrayal, and it's a pretty unnecessary twist. But in the end Devine comes around. Rudy invites his family to the last game of the season; upon reaching the stadium, Ned Beatty calls it "the most beautiful sight these eyes have ever seen." Wow, for a guy with about 80 children, that's kind of pathetic. At the team's insistence, Devine lets Rudy into the game for one play, whereupon he is carried off the field in triumph.

A series of title cards informs us that Rudy graduated with a degree, and that five of his brothers and sisters did so as well. I bet that kid who didn't know where Rudy was for six months wasn't one of them.

The critics liked this movie; so did I.

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And here are our lessons about sportsmanship:

1. Parents should support their children's dreams.
Even if the dreams are stupid. Especially if they're stupid.

2. Workplace safety is of paramount importance in heavy industry.
Well, actually, if Pete hadn't died, Rudy would never have been inspired to go to South Bend, so scratch that one.

3. If you put your mind to it, you can spend 30 seconds of your life doing what you always dreamed of doing.
After that, you'd better get to work trying to persuade somebody to make a movie about it.

Rookie of the Year

Daniel Stern, 1993
Rotten Tomatoes score: 39%

Before I write anything about this movie, I want to point out that the poster reproduced to the right of this paragraph includes the text "The Chicago Cubs needed a miracle." Clearly they're referring to the joke I made at the end of my Angels in the Outfield review. Seriously, I had no idea the poster said that.

This movie is, to the extent of my knowledge, the only one ever directed by Daniel Stern, better known for his appearances in City Slickers and the Home Alone series, as well as for narrating The Wonder Years. Stern also appears in the movie as Bricma, the pitching coach. (Side-note: I was an avid collector of movie novelizations in my childhood, and I was often puzzled by differences between the book and the film, which were attributable to cuts or changes made during production. In the Rookie novelization, Bricma is never mentioned; thus I assume Stern created this bizarre character later on.)

Thomas Ian Nicholas plays the young rookie, Henry Rowengartner, and Gary Busey appears in a decidedly non-crazy role as Chet "Rocket" Steadman, the fading star of the Chicago Cubs. Amy Morton plays Henry's widowed mother; Bruce Altman is her selfish, over-eager suitor; Eddie Bracken (the toy-seller from Home Alone 2) is the Cubs' spacey owner; and Dan Hedaya is Bracken's devious nephew and employee. Finally, John Candy and the guy who played Chuck in the last season of The Wonder Years are the Cubs' announcers.

Before I go on to describe the ludicrous plot of this movie, please take a moment to enjoy the movie's theme music by Bill Conti. This is yet another example of a movie where the composer didn't seem to care that he was working on a flop.

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Henry Rowengartner begins the movie as Chicago's most impossibly incompetent Little League player. He can't throw or catch the ball, and he apparently is too stupid to take off his hat when it gets pushed over his eyes. As for his personal life, his two weird friends seem to think his mom, Mary, is the world's coolest adult, but Henry is disappointed by his mother's taste in men. Her current boyfriend Jack is a yutz who drives a tiny sports car and thinks a third date warrants an expensive gift.

Then, during the next Little League game, fate strikes. Henry slips on a stray baseball, flies eight feet in the air, tumbles downward for a slow-motion eternity, and breaks his arm. He is dismayed that he will be spending the summer in a silly-looking arm cast, but he attempts to enjoy himself anyway, hanging out with his friends and watching the Cubs.

Three months later, the cast finally comes off, and the doctor reports that Henry's tendons have healed improperly. This is no cause for alarm, though, as it has no negative effects. Instead, it makes Henry's arm super-strong, which he discovers when he accidentally clocks the doctor in the face. (I think every child of my generation, even those that didn't see this movie, remembers the doctor's pained cry of "Funky butt-lovin'!" He stammers it as if he is bowdlerizing an F-bomb, but "funky butt-lovin'" is still pretty raunchy for a PG movie.)

At the next Cubs game, Henry's goofy friend catches the visitor's home run and hands it off to Henry to throw back. Henry does so, resulting in an over-the-top animated special effect of the ball screaming through the air. It catches the attention of the Cubs' general manager, Dan Hedaya, who wants to capitalize on the fact that his fans are more talented than his team by signing Henry to be the youngest Major Leaguer in history. No discussion whatsoever occurs as to whether this is permissible under MLB rules and/or state and federal law.

Mary is uneasy with the idea, but Jack--who proclaims himself Henry's manager--is such a money-grubbing opportunist that he hard-sells her on the idea until she caves. Henry meets the Cubs, including pitcher Chet Steadman, who fears his best years are behind him. He also meets Bricma, the dangerously unstable pitching coach who is meant to whip Henry into Major League shape. The press seems to view the whole business as a pathetic publicity stunt, but Henry ultimately impresses everyone with his medically improbable talents.

Steadman develops a close friendship with Henry and Mary, and Henry enjoys his newfound fame, but gradually the requisite setbacks occur: Henry alienates his friends; he has to sacrifice all his personal time to make terrible Diet Pepsi commercials; and Jack continues to manipulate everyone to try to earn money for himself. When Mary learns that Jack has contracted to sell Henry to the Yankees, she pushes him out the front door of her house and, in a totally unnecessary pratfall, he tumbles down the porch steps. Henry and Mary agree that this will be his only season in the Big Leagues.

During the division championship, Henry steps aside and lets Steadman pitch his swan song game. After a sickening sound effect and a distorted guitar chord in the soundtrack inform us that Steadman has permanently damaged his shoulder, Henry jumps in to clean up. Unfortunately, for all his pro experience, he still hasn't learned how to look where he's running, and he steps on a ball and recapitulates his earlier accident. This time around his arm doesn't break; instead the fall causes the tendons to be painlessly and instantaneously returned to their natural state, depriving Henry of his powers. I have checked all the leading surgical textbooks, and this is exactly the way it would happen in real life.

Henry manages to win the game anyway through a combination of guile, obnoxiousness, and a special pitch he learned from dear old Mom. (Are MLB pitchers allowed to throw underhand?) Everything turns out fine; he gets no further medical attention; and he goes back to sucking at Little League, where he nevertheless succeeds under the tutelage of Coach Steadman.

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This whole movie is an exercise in childhood wish fulfillment. Even kids like me, who had no interest in sports, thought this would be pretty awesome if it happened to us. In that spirit, I think you have to evaluate this movie through the eyes of a child, and I conclude it is

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So what does Rookie of the Year teach us about sportsmanship?

1. Children should not play professional sports.
And if they must play, they should not be managed by stereotypical early-90s losers.

2. Traumatic injury to the limbs is a virtual guarantee of improved athletic prowess.
The only downside is that it's easy come, easy go.

3. You'll get in trouble for saying "funky butt-lovin'" at school.
This isn't so much a lesson from the movie, but it's a good lesson from your third grade teacher the day after you see the movie.

Angels in the Outfield

William Dear, 1994
Rotten Tomatoes score: 35%

Angels in the Outfield, a remake of a little-remembered 1951 movie, is the tale of an orphan boy (a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the supernatural beings he summons from heaven to help a struggling major-league ball club. It co-starred Danny Glover as George Knox, a fuming, cantankerous, irascible, grumpy, unpleasant, cynical, nasty baseball manager with a heart of gold. Christopher Lloyd has a supporting role as Al, the "boss angel," and Tony Danza plays an over-the-hill pitcher. Keep your eyes open for Matthew McConaughey and Adrien Brody as hapless team-members.

I loved this movie as a kid, but apparently my reaction was not shared by critics.

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The movie opens with Roger (JoGo) and his friend J.P. bicycling to a convenient tree from which they can watch a California Angels game. They take advantage of their relaxing bike ride to unload some exposition on the audience, which establishes that they're living in a foster home with a woman named Maggie, played by the Home Alone 2 pigeon lady.

The game goes very poorly, since this movie would have us believe that the California Angels are a cartoon parody of a talentless baseball team. The game is announced by Ranch Wilder (Jay O. Sanders), who somehow hangs onto his job despite his undisguised animosity toward the home team. Manager George Knox gets fed up with the team's poor performance, marches onto the field, and gets into a fist-fight with his own pitcher, which clears the Angels dugout.

At the foster home, Roger has a conversation with his father, who explains in terms that the audience, but not Roger, will understand, that he is formally giving up custody of the boy. Asked when they will be a family again, the dad answers, "When the Angels win the pennant." We of course recognize this as the equivalent of "when pigs fly," but Roger takes it literally.

After the game, Ranch Wilder interviews Knox. During the interview, Knox and Wilder exchange some further exposition, informing the audience that they have a history of bad blood from their days as players. Knox concludes the interview by punching Ranch Wilder in the face and walking away. The Angels' team owner is none too happy about this, so he upbraids Knox through yet more expository dialogue, which lets us know that Knox spent ten successful years managing the Cincinnati Reds before being brought in as a fixer to save the struggling Angels.

That night at the foster home, Roger prays that God will cause the Angels to win the pennant, so that he and his dad can be reunited. One might think that God, who surely recognizes sarcasm when he hears it, would have looked for a way to explain to Roger that his father wasn't serious. But of course, then we wouldn't have a movie, so instead the Lord sends a squadron of divine beings to cheat--I mean "help."

For most of the second act, the angels (the real ones) perform miracles to boost the Angels (the team) out of last place and into first. Christopher Lloyd makes a couple of token appearances, explaining to Roger that no one else can see him and that Roger should try to prevent the public from finding out that there are real angels. Fortunately for the angels, the public seems to be only mildly surprised to see Matthew McConaughey jump 20 feet into the air and levitate for several seconds. The angels perform additional extremely subtle feats, such as causing the ball to hang in mid-air waiting for the batter to swing, psychokinetically forcing the opposing team to rack up 19 errors on one play, and possessing the physical form of George Knox to prevent him from cussing out an umpire.

Meanwhile, Roger develops a relationship with George Knox, who is the only person besides Roger and J.P. who knows the angels exist. Knox at first thinks Roger is delusional, but when Roger points out to him that a number of physically impossible miracles have obviously occurred before his eyes, he decides the boy might be onto something. Gradually enough that we can suspend our disbelief, Knox undergoes a complete change of personality and becomes fatherly and gentle.

Then, just in time for act three, not one but two setbacks occur. First, Roger learns that his father has formally surrendered custody, in spite of Roger's hyperliteral efforts to satisfy the technical terms of his dad's sarcastic promise. To make matters worse, J.P. has blabbed the big secret to Ranch Wilder, who delights in using this opportunity to bring shame and possible financial ruin on the team that pays his salary. George Knox holds a press conference to address the accusations of divine intervention, which I guess is like using steroids but more sacrilegious. The Angels' owner wants to fire him, but Maggie offers a plea of tolerance and the entire Angels roster promises to quit if George is fired.

With George Knox's career saved, Roger decides to temporarily forget about his status as a ward of the state of California and go enjoy the Pennant game against the White Sox. Christopher Lloyd appears just long enough to let Roger know that no angels will be helping--apparently the Almighty Creator of the universe is unwilling to meddle in the outcomes of championship baseball games. Also, Roger has by now learned that his father didn't mean what he said, and wasn't that the original reason the angels got involved? Never mind.

Christopher Lloyd also gives Roger some bittersweet news: Mel Clark (Tony Danza) will be donning a halo and silvery robe soon, as he is about to be diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Does this mean every Hall-of-Famer gets to be an angel in the next life, or only the ones whose deaths are sufficiently poignant? Christopher Lloyd flies away to grab his paycheck, and Roger encourages Knox to keep Mel in for the entire game. When all the chips are down and Mel has had enough, Knox convinces him that Roger has spied an angel who is going to give him one last miracle to win the game. I'm sure everyone remembers the scene where the entire stadium full of extras (including Knox's assistant Taylor Negron, who has spent the past 90 minutes kvetching about everything) stand and flap their arms in angel solidarity.

Of course Mel brings home the pennant, and everyone's story is wrapped up. Ranch Wilder gets fired by the team owner for consistently haranguing his listenership and belittling the team on-air. And in the final scene, Knox announces that he is adopting Roger and J.P.

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I don't really see what's not to like about this movie. It certainly raises some interesting philosophical conundrums. For instance, what if a kid in Chicago had also prayed for his team to win? Does God have a system for sorting out mutually exclusive baseball miracle requests? Maybe God would split the difference by giving angels to Roger, and making the Chicago kid break his arm and become Rookie of the Year.

Anyway, this one may be pretty silly, but it's

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So why not mention some of the things this movie teaches us about sportsmanship:

1. Children do not understand sarcasm.
And they are not above summoning superhuman beings because of their misunderstandings.

2. Championships have to be won on their own.
Of course, every single other game of the season is fair game for angels.