![]() THAT is how you handle a child serving up a largely unrealistic dream that is technically still a possibility. She said: “I really hope you do, and I love watching you play basketball, but you have to understand that a very, very small number of people make it to the NBA.” I remember my mom’s reaction vividly, only because it was as jarringly realistic as the sweetest woman in the world could be. It was also a fact that wasn’t going to keep me from dreaming the biggest of dreams at least in elementary school. Basketball was the weakest of the “big three” sports for me, a fact which broke my heart then and still breaks my heart now. Despite being destined for a sub-6-foot existence and despite not doing anything particularly well on the basketball court besides shooting, I told my mom that when I got older I was going to play in the NBA. When I was probably 8 or 9-years-old, I remember having a talk with my mom about what I wanted to be when I grew up. W8Wv47uIxn- Rudy’s dad sucks October 4, 2023 The exhibits begin accumulating less than five minutes into the movie. Papa Ruettiger isn’t just a tough-love dad whose straightforward thinking makes Rudy’s climatic triumphant just a touch sweeter, he’s maybe the most unredeemable dick dad in cinematic history. Re-watching the film, though, this is much, much more than that. The writers attempt to portray him as this gruff, post-World War II dad who is yet another realistic doubter of the realization of a dream that was so unlikely a movie was made about it. ![]() It’s apparent that the character of Rudy’s dad isn’t intended to be a total heel. was all stuff along the lines of “he wasn’t really that much of a dick and he actually supported Rudy.” To me, that only makes the character these monsters forced (Louisville’s own) Ned Beatty to portray that much worse. Now let me preface this evisceration by saying that the only information I could find about the real life Daniel Ruettiger Sr. You have the high school priest/teacher who tells his students that being a dreamer basically makes you a Nazi, and then tells Rudy to his face that he’s too stupid and poor to even be allowed to ride on a bus with the rest of his classmates and see Notre Dame’s campus.īut worst of all, you have Rudy’s father. You have Rudy’s first girlfriend who punishes Rudy for not wanting to get married at 19 by shacking up with another one of his older brothers the moment Rudy leaves for college. The writers decided they needed to juxtapose young Rudy with the biggest asshole in the world, and VOILÁ!: Frank, everybody. There wasn’t a whole lot of character development with Frank. Rudy’s not as good at high school football as he was? We never really know why. ![]() You have the consummate movie heel in Rudy’s older brother, Frank, who hates Rudy because. A bigger part is how almost inconceivably unlikable nearly every supporting character in the movie is. ![]() Part of that is because the real Rudy appears to be nowhere near as likable as the Sean Astin one. I’m not going to sit here and lie and say that I no longer enjoy Rudy as an adult, but there’s no question that time and age have removed some of the shine from the film. So began a cycle of me watching a VHS copy of Rudy every month or so and fully buying into both the American sports dream (my dad’s response to my question about whether Rudy went on to play in the NFL knocked this buy in down a peg) and the mystique of Notre Dame football. One of the most memorable for me was when he brought me along with his college girlfriend to see Rudy when it was in theaters.Īs a young Catholic kid already obsessed with sports, the movie spoke to me in a way that few others had up to that point in my life. Despite being 12 years my senior, Oliver - fully cognizant of my hero worship - made a habit of including me in some of his young adult activities whenever he could. Growing up, my older brother Oliver was my idol.
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