Sean Astin, Ned Beatty and the film ‘Rudy’

The University of Notre Dame has been a power player atop American collegiate football for much of the twentieth and twenty-first century. Having the skills and ability to dress for the team on Saturdays in the fall football season is the dream of many young men of skill, physical abilities, and grades commensurate with the reputation for the major academics and athletics program that exists at the university.

(Left to right – Mary Ann Thebus as Betty Ruettiger, Ned Beatty as Daniel Ruettiger Sr. and Scott Benjaminson as Frank Ruettiger).

The mythology of that dream is the subject matter of the film Rudy (1993), which has the basis in fact. Sean Astin stars in the feature role of Daniel E. ‘Rudy’ Ruettiger, an undersized, physically over-matched, academically struggling young man with the heart, determination and dream of proving to himself, his family and his community that he has the part of playing for the Notre Dame football team in a game.

(Robert Prosky as Father Cavanaugh, left, and Sean Astin as Daniel E. ‘Rudy’ Ruettiger in the film Rudy).

The young Daniel Ruettiger, or Rudy, was the product of the small Illinois steel town where he lived with his parents and brothers. Mary Ann Thebus as Betty Ruettiger and Ned Beatty as Daniel Ruettiger Sr. were Rudy’s parents. Scott Benjaminson as Frank Ruettiger was one of the brothers who joined the chorus of folks back home to see steel mill work as his brother’s future. This truth isn’t lost on Father Cavanaugh, a priest played by Robert Prosky serving at Notre Dame, who first aims to council Rudy to head back home yet comes around to help Rudy work for the dream that became the film of the same name.

(Sean Astin as Daniel E. ‘Rudy’ Ruettiger, left, and Charles S. Dutton as Fortune in the film Rudy).

Unlikely heart and unlikely help appear in the months and years for Rudy, who enrolls at Holy Cross College in the same town as the University of Notre Dame. That help comes through Father Cavanaugh. Rudy then approaches Fortune, the head groundskeeper for Notre Dame Stadium, gets a job, and surreptitiously sleeps on a cot in Fortune’s office due to having no funds to live on either campus. Charles S. Dutton plays Fortune in Rudy, later giving Rudy a key to the office, blankets, and emotional support in getting an education while Rudy keeps his dream, as unrealistic as everyone knows it to be, alive.

(Sean Astin as Daniel E. ‘Rudy’ Ruettiger, left, and Jon Favreau as Dennis ‘D-Bob’ McGowan in the film Rudy).

Educational support for Rudy comes in the form of socially awkward yet book smart Dennis ‘D-Bob’ McGowan, played by Jon Favreau in the film. The mutual relationship becomes a friendship that holds its own merits while also satisfying a dream for D-Bob. The support Rudy gets along the way from Fortune, in Fortune seeing Rudy rise, is an emotional win in the friendship won for these two as well.

(Writer Angelo Pizzo, left, and director David Anspaugh helped bring the film Rudy to the big screen).

David Anspaugh directed Rudy, which was written for film by Angelo Pizzo, who worked together on the film Hoosiers (1986). Rudy offers the emotional uplift that Hoosiers does while offering a similar origin story with a different feeling on the subject of redemption. The means of delivering an emotionally gratifying story that uses the sport of football to tell us something about the power of dreams, heart and determination, along with the costs of getting there in the face of pragmatism, are heartwarming. I give Rudy 4-stars on a scale of one-to-five.

Matt – Wednesday, February 19, 2020

The Year 2018 in Movies and Television

Cinema and television were two joys that entertained me for much of my life. Through the year, we at Matt Lynn Digital averaged reviewing roughly two movies or television shows per month, even as we enjoyed more than this. On a rating scale of 1-star to 5-stars, Matt rated 19-films as well as the first season of a television series that debuted in August.

Four (4) films outshone the rest by rankings of 4.00 or higher. These simply were films of the highest quality that we would like to watch again and again. The gold rated as reviewed in 2018 include:

1 The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

2 One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest (1975)

3 Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)

4 It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) tells the story of a friendship and humanity forged behind the bars of a Maine prison as one of the two was completely innocent of the charges raised against him. The endearing quality of the film is that the true bonds of decency can persevere even against the strongest of odds.

Eight (8) films earned rankings of 3.75, which would commend repeated watching, enjoyment, and discussion among friends. While not the all-stars among all-stars, the great movies included are:

1 Hoosiers (1986)

2 The Shape of Water (2017)

3 Logan (2017)

4 Dunkirk (2017)

5 Wonder Woman (2017)

6 Platoon (1986)

7 First Man (2018)

8 Vanilla Sky (2001)

Hoosiers (1986) told a story of friendship, redemption, and community in small town Indiana where high school basketball was king. Checkered pasts were the tale as we also were gifted the chance to see a recovering addict stand up and redeem himself in his big screen community as well as Hollywood.

Six (6) movies and one (1) television show were reviewed this year as engaging with passing grades of 3.5-stars on a 5-point scale. Redeeming qualities were present, yet these features might not muster repeated watches from the good folks at Matt Lynn Digital.

1 The Post (2017)

2 The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992)

3 Live By Night (2016)

4 Atomic Blonde (2017)

5 Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

6 Deepwater Horizon (2016)

1 Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan (2018)

The Post (2018) tells us of the widow Katherine (Kay) Graham, who takes over leadership of The Washington Post following her publisher husband’s death. Not only was Graham facing 1960s era chauvinism and misogyny, she also was facing a president competing with the media for control of the political narrative coming out of the nation’s capitol.

Finally, one movie came in at slightly less than the rest with a grade of 3.25-stars on a 5-star scale. This movie tells of a man manipulated into doing a random string of unethical behavior at the behest of another. The outcome is less than satisfying, and thus the lowest ranked movie review of the year.

1 The Commuter (2018)

Matt – Wednesday, December 19, 2018

The redemption stories of 1986’s Hoosiers

It was 1986 when the notion of an underdog upset in the NCAA basketball tournament came to the foreground when little known 14th-seed Cleveland State University of northeast Ohio defeated the Big Ten powerhouse Indiana University Hoosiers in the first round of that tournament. The Indiana Hoosiers had won the national championship under Bob Knight in 1976 and 1981; the Hoosiers would do so again in 1987. In 1986, the little known Cleveland State University Vikings would win twice before falling a pair of games later to a Navy team that included NBA champion David Robinson.

That same year, a fictional account an of underdog story came to movie theaters with Hoosiers (1986). While the movie felt more like a redemption story for a visionary coach with a checkered past in Coach Norman Dale as played by Gene Hackman, the redemption of Dennis Hopper in Hollywood and in his role as Shooter in Hoosiers landed Hopper the Academy Award nomination this year. The character Shooter had a redemption story of his own in this movie, though Hopper himself said in a DVD-interview for Blue Velvet (1986) that his role in Blue Velvet deserved the Oscar-nomination. The role of Shooter at least echoed the effort in coming back from alcoholism.

While you are suspecting that redemption and underdog tales are the story of this movie, you definitely get the story of an outsider (Coach Norman Dale) coming into town at the behest of Hickory High School principal Cletus Summers. Sheb Wooley plays Summers, bringing Dale into small town Hickory while knowing Dale’s backstory of having coached in college in Ithaca New York. Dale was banned from coaching in the NCAA after punching a player on his team; Dale then shipped out to the navy for ten years because he couldn’t coach anywhere else, either. That is, until the opportunity offered by Summers came up when the previous coach died unexpectedly.

We join the movie immediately after the deal between Dale and Summers was reached by way of Dale driving across country. Dale arrives at Hickory High School his story with Myra Fleener is introduced. Barbara Hershey plays Fleener, whose role in the film survived as a benefactor for star player Jimmy Chitwood, acting principal when Cletus takes ill, and marginally told love interest for Coach Norman Dale who speaks as the small town interpreter between Dale and the community of Hickory, Indiana. The love interest between Dale and Fleener could have included further embellishment.

Much of the further story of Hoosiers first included the building-up of a basketball team. Second, the story was that of an outsider coach gaining the confidence of a small-town who values its high school basketball with unquestioning passion, devotion, and say over how things get run. This includes getting to know the high school kids, learning about who they were and who they could be. Further, this was a sports movie that focused on practicing, learning, discipline, and then seeing the real thing when all the competitive stakes were presented.

Hoosiers was not ranked in the Matt Lynn Digital listing of top 20 movies prior to this review. The story of redemption in the face of adversity is strongly American and followed the well-established formula. Life lessons were strong and endearing. The closing quotes as a young man shoots hoops in front of this image as the films end are a positive uplift.

From these perspectives, you will complete a viewing satisfied. If you like basketball, sports, and an underdog tale, then seeing Hoosiers will make sense for you.

Matt – Saturday, January 13, 2018.