‘Rudy’ With Bill Simmons and Kyle Brandt
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We call it good morning football, Bill. Good morning football. A staple. A staple of our football diet. You can watch that with Kyle and Peter Schrager and the gang. Kyle comes on every once in a while. Normally we do 80s action movies. But today...

This podcast is the most beautiful sight these eyes have ever seen. Rudy is next. Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! Hey, kid! Not supposed to be here. His courage will surprise you. I'm here to play football for the Irish. I need your help. Why should I help you? His spirit will inspire you. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to go to school here. When people say that dreams don't come true... Hey, you guys! My son's going to Notre Dame! Ha ha ha!

Tell them about Rudy. I'm ready for this my whole life. Rudy, now playing in select cities. Rudy, football movie. Came out 1993. And I think for seven, eight, nine years was a pantheon sports movie. People loved it.

And then the internet rounded up into shape. Yeah. And then the picks began. And now it exists in this weird place in 2024, 31 years later. I think it's a much maligned Pantheon sports movie. I don't think a lot of people would have it in the Pantheon.

I watched the first hour plus and I'm like, ah. And then it just turns into one of the best sports movies of all time. It's basically two movies. It's this one movie for 65 minutes, 64 minutes, and then all of a sudden becomes one of the best sports movies of all time.

And I don't really know where I land on it, but you have even more detailed thoughts. Walk us through what you're thinking. You're all over it. I watched this with my 10-year-old, and he looked at me like an hour in. He's like, I thought you said this was a football movie. What is this? And I'm like, I get it. It's two movies. It's about a movie about a kid trying to get into school and then about trying to make the dress list. But I think where it washes out, Bill...

I think it's the most polarizing sports movie of all time. I think it's the whole spectrum from beloved, untouchable treasure to I fucking hate this movie. It's like, it depends on how you see it. It's either...

a beautiful movie about believing in your dreams at all costs and a love letter to Notre Dame, or it's a snuff film about an insufferable young man with a pain fetish who sacrifices his entire life for six seconds that sort of happened, that's the choice you have to make with this movie. Yeah, and it's weird. The Notre Dame people seem like they hate it. For the most part. Like, I think because it probably gets mentioned to them a lot, and everyone knows the nitpicks at this point.

You once upon a time, Notre Dame was an important school for you. Yeah. So I should set the table like this for this pod. I grew up about a hundred miles from South Bend in Chicago. My dad went to Notre Dame. He was there. He was a huge part of it in the late sixties, right before Rudy got there. And like my heroes growing up were Rocket Ismael and Chris Zorich and Tony Rice. And I was a massive fan. I would go to the games in South Bend. I would be there cheering. I would get really upset if they lost. I

I saw this movie, Bill. But you also played football. You played football in college for Princeton, right? Yeah. And I, like Rudy, my whole dream growing up was to play for the Fighting Irish. And I took one unofficial recruiting trip and about five seconds knew that wasn't going to happen. So I went, oh my God, let's try something else. But I wanted to go badly.

to Notre Dame to play football. And it's like, I didn't have to cheat and steal my way in like Rudy did, but I had to play it the right way. And I like I this is what I should say right now, because I feel like I might run into some opposition from Bill on this pod. I cry every time I watch this movie, including this week on the rewatch. I full tears the entire time. Like I'm in on the aura of Notre Dame. I am not a skeptic when it comes to I cry every time. Last night I cried watching it for real. I'm into it like that.

So you think I'm going to zag against that? I'm with you. I really like this movie. Oh, good. I think one of the things I really like about it is the first hour is super fun to make fun of. Yeah.

You know, it's like Rocky II, which is a really flawed movie for the most part. And then in the last 25 minutes, a little like Rudy becomes the best sports movie of all time. You're like, oh my God. As soon as she says, I want you to do one thing for me, I want you to win. And it's like, oh my God, we're on a fucking ride right now. Rudy's like that a little bit and you just have to get through the first hour. But the more I've seen it,

There's just so much good stuff to make fun of. We're going to go through all the nitpicks. We're going to go through all the unintentional comedy. Rudy's a maniac. I know. I know. I wrote down in my notes, Rudy, dot, dot, dot, the most annoying, needy, pushiest, emotional stalker you've ever rooted for? Question mark. Rudy, an underdog story crossed with a dangerous tale of obsession.

Rudy earned his place by getting the shit kicked out of him, not in the weight room, not by studying game tape, not by being like, I'm going to add 20 pounds of muscle, just by getting abused for two years, just getting the living shit kicked out of him. God only knows how many concussions he had, what kind of broken bones he was wearing. And that's basically the movie. It's like how much abuse and how shitty can you make your life be to accomplish your dream, which is weirdly a fun message.

But at the same time, this movie's insane because 99,000 out of 99,001 times, this goes terribly for Rudy and he probably ends up in prison. It's true. Or just killed on the field. And I think...

The way you put it. Yeah, he's just dead. Like he's bring out the trainers. The trainers can't do shit. It's the seventies. Give him some salt pills. But I like the idea that it's a movie you can make fun of. And then an incredible movie. It's like an opening band. It's like, it's like if Corey Feldman opened for Pearl Jam, like that's what it is. You laugh. And then you just like, Oh, this is awesome. And the second half. And I think like,

A huge part of the legacy right now. Like so much of the Rudy conversation, it's not even about football or Notre Dame or Sean Austin. It's just people are obsessed with what's real and what's bullshit. And that is like the 2024 legacy. And the internet, you mentioned they're obsessed with that. Well, I wrote, based on a true story, the most five dangerous words in a movie. I know. Because...

And we've done 352 movies at this point. Anytime you see it, all bets are off. Mm-hmm.

We do like based on a true story of this podcast right now. And we're doing a podcast and like aliens land. It's like, all right, well, they were doing a podcast. It was based on a true story. So the all bets off factor of this is multiplied by a hundred. And we're going to go forget the, the, the idiot brother of based on a true story, which is inspired by real events, which I think is even looser than,

Like, but this is they go based on a true story. So you immediately like, oh, this all happened. And then you come to find out that many things didn't happen and people get pissed off about that. And I think people are already out to hate Notre Dame a lot. So if it was about a different program that hate wouldn't be there, it's the Notre Dame is that you're bullshitting us about this and people have their knives out.

It's also like you identify with Rudy. You root for him. He's a good sports movie character, but he's also fucking annoying. No, really annoying. There's a piece of it as you're watching it where you just kind of want somebody to backhand him or just be like, God, you're a fucking narcissist, dude.

Like it's all about Rudy at all times. You just like, your friend, your friend dies. You're halfway through the funeral and you're like, I gotta get out of here. Oh, I'm going to leave my girlfriend I'm about to get married to. I'll see you guys later. I've got to follow my dreams. And from that point on, just becomes this narcissistic maniac. And it's all through this prism of,

I just want to get on that field. I just want to come out of the tunnel. And it's at the expense of really everything. He wears the same clothes every day for two and a half years. He's sneaking into, into a stadium. Um, he becomes a pimp for D Bob. Yep. Like he's a pimp. He's basically huggy bear and star skiing hug. Um, but it's like whatever it takes to make, to make the dream happen. But as you point out, the dream is dicey. There's a YouTube clip of the real sack.

So for people who don't know, like, like the, the based on a true story, the true story is he was a walk on. He got the shit kicked out of him for a while. He got to play in the last home game and he did get a sack. Yeah.

which he was offsides for, by the way, which is a big part of the internet dialogue of this. He was clearly lined up offsides, Dee Ford style, in the Chiefs-Patriots game seven years ago. - So I've spent a lot of time on this clip on YouTube, and if you're listening, watch the, we're talking about not the movie, the actual black and white film of Notre Dame versus Georgia Tech. - You can go on YouTube, it's like Rudy1975's sack. You can watch it. - So a couple things.

He doesn't get off the ball too fast. He doesn't jump the kind of fact if anything is a little slow, you're into the details where you think like he's lined up in the neutral zone, right? Oh, he's, he's deforting it. There's no question. The problem is, is that the other, the real bullshit too is,

It's a half a sack. Okay. They don't show that in the movie. There's another, the other side's defensive end gets at least half the sack. And it's like Rudy is completely assisted. And I have a lot of thoughts on that play that I'll get into later. It's, it's really interesting to watch because there's a lot of bullshit that doesn't happen and a lot that does, but it's a half sack and he's probably lined up in the neutral zone.

And the running back, for some reason, whiffs on the block. Almost like Rudy paid him. Yeah. It's one of the worst running back blocks ever. I have a couple lists for you. Yeah. The best stalking movies ever. Sure. Cape Fear. Fatal Attraction. Sleeping with the Enemy. Fear. Yeah. One Hour Photo. And Rudy. Because I think Rudy stalked the University of Notre Dame. Oh.

Yeah. He's basically the husband in Sleeping with the Enemy showing up halfway through the movie and just kind of standing out. Like, it's basically, if a university could ever file some sort of complaint or whatever against a person who's trying to get into school, it would have been Rudy Rudiger, I think. Yeah.

Yeah, that dipshit Barney Fife security guard who sends him to a priest, I think, because he knows he needs religion. He should have more. I think also you got a single white female. He's like the Jennifer Jason. Single white female is another good one. Totally, totally. Single shitty athlete is the name of the movie about Rudy and stalking Notre Dame. The flip side of it, this is one of the last old school, chill scene, sports centric movies. You think like Rocky in 76. Yeah. The Natural in 84. Yeah.

Karate Kid won, 84. Hoosiers, 86. Rudy, 93. This kind of closes the door on a certain era of old school sports movies where it's like, here's the underdog. Here are the people who don't believe in him. Here's some inspiring music. Here's the chill scene at the end. You're going to have goosebumps coming off your goosebumps. And this is just how we did it. And I think

Right around here, I was thinking about like there's a specific era starting with Bull Durham. Really till about 94. This is like the second generation version of the sports movies we grew up with. And then we move into this He Got Game era in any given Sunday and just like the next iteration of what sports movies were. And Rudy feels like it could have come out in 1981. Yeah.

Could have come out in 1979. Could have come out in 1985. But it's kind of the last of its era. Then we went into that Disney era in the early 2000s with, remember, the Titans, the Rookie. Those are kind of the legacy movies based off these. But Rudy does feel kind of timeless, right? I think partly because it's set in 1975. Yeah.

but I don't like this movie came out in 93. Does it feel like a 1993 movie? I don't think it does. To your point, it could have come out in 73 with the year that he shows up at Notre Dame. It's, there's not a lot going on. It's just, it's a period piece and the haircuts in the, in the jackets are a little interesting, but it doesn't matter. The football works. And I, again, like,

I showed it to my 10-year-old. He got a little bored in the first half, but it held his attention. Field of Dreams, another one from that kind of era, the Costner era, held his attention. And I think he likes it. And I think my question is, do NFL players now, does Caleb Williams, is he into Rudy? The USC, the Notre Dame thing aside. I don't know if the young, super young, teenage 20-year-olds like it or not, but

But I still love it, man. I got to make that so clear. And I love that you get emotional about the second half, too, because it's such a treasure chest for skeptics. You can just make fun of the whole thing. The ending's amazing. Yeah, I would say from the moment he makes the team, which I think is like 45, 50 minutes, the rest of the movie. Yeah, it takes a while.

there's not a single minute I would change. Even like when they go play shuffleboard with, he goes back to play shuffleboard. Like even that, I was like, oh cool, shuffleboard. I love it all the way through. I have it like for that era, which I think is a specific sports movie era from 88 to 94. So if I was gonna do my sports movie pyramid just for that era, Bull Durham's at the top. Field of Dreams, League of Their Own. White Men Can't Jump, Bloodsport, Major League.

I think I have over Rudy. And then I have Rudy right there with the Sandlot and Bobby Fisher and above the rim. I think it's because of the flaws of the first hour. Yeah, there's almost no sports. I get it. They had to do it that way, but it's slow. It just is. And there's a lot of unintentional comment in it that I do not think they intended.

Well, I just, I can't wait to talk about his older brother, Frank. And like, like if you hate this movie, Frank is your mouthpiece. Like that, that's your muse. Everything you ever want to say about is Frank. I can't wait. Yeah. Frank is basically the internet as an, as a 1973 older brother. So nobody believes in Rudy brothers, dads, priests, girlfriends, coaches, janitors, co-eds. He's over 300. Mm-hmm.

And it works out. So do you think nobody believed in his football potential for Notre Dame and just him going to Notre Dame? Did they not believe because of his size? Because he wasn't smart? Or because he was fucking annoying? If you're going to pie chart it, how would you pie chart it? Size like 50%?

I think the size is a lot because the football thing they're actually worried about is physical safety. Then I think in a close second, though, is the fucking annoying. The truth of the ethos of that family is that it's like they're all jealous. They don't want him to succeed because they never had

dared to dream and they used to be the high school football player and they never did and like god rudy's so i don't want to it's gonna make me look bad but i i think it is the size and then the you know you can always get around the grades thing one way or another i guess back then but i think the the annoyance is a factor for sure yeah all the right moves tapped into that family thing 10 years earlier because his uh steph's brother in that movie is kind of like who are you you think you're bigger that you think you're better than us he's doing like a little bit of the town

Another thing that's great, two really pro things for this movie, for defending the movie, which I think we both are. The cast is super eclectic and really fun. We got our guy, Sean Astin, who I know we're going to dive into. The Toy Soldiers pod we did was almost a year ago, almost an homage. He's Rudy. Young, heavy Jon Favreau as D-Bob, his buddy. Ned Beattie as his dad. It's fantastic in this movie.

Vincent Vaughn as hotshot running back Jamie O'Hare. Not Jamie O'Hara. Jamie O'Hare. Goes as Vincent in the credits. Rock Charles S. Dutton as the magical janitor. Spike Lee had some thoughts on characters like this in the 90s, but it's fine. I love Charles S. Dutton in this movie. Just period. He's perfect.

The priest from The Exorcist, Jason Miller, as Coach Parsegian. Yeah, the difference is in this role, he wants to throw up all over Rudy's face instead of the other way. He wants to throw up pea soup all over this idiot walk-on who keeps barging into my office. But he's great in the role. He's really good, and it's inspired casting. I think they even said, like, you know, that they...

They like the fact that it was such a swerve because here's this guy who you just, The Exorcist was such an indelible movie. You just associate him with this priest that's getting puked on. And there he is as the Notre Dame coach. Chelsea Ross, Sports Movie Hall of Famer as Dan Devine. We'll get to him later.

Lily Taylor is the girlfriend who ends up with the brother. Joe lies. Joe lies when he cries from Say Anything. Robert Prosky, one of those guys, eventually became Robert Prosky. And then I'll let you take the floor on Ron Dean.

Oh, I mean, Jesus Christ. Hey, hey, I screwed around. Guys screw around. Nothing wrong with that. Except you got caught, sport. Either that or sitting there with a bloodstained Richard Kimball whose wife was just murdered and said, so financially, you're not going to be doing too bad after this. Sorry. If you have a Chicago movie, even Chicago adjacent, like Indiana, you have to have him in there. First ballot Hall of Fame, that guy. He's a, I would say, Chicago movie royalty. Have to.

multiple Seagal movies with him, I think. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Like I think it's like, it's even more than movies. It's like Michael Jordan, Walter Payton, Caleb Williams, Rondine. That's it. Caleb Williams. He made it already. He's already on there. Oh my God. Two preseason passes. Yeah. If there was a movie set in Chicago in the eighties or nineties with cops and Rondine wasn't involved, you just have to assume he was filming. He had a conflict. No, like we couldn't get him. He was already busy. Even like, listen,

Chris Nolan's doing The Dark Knight in Chicago, the best filmmaker of this generation. He's like, we're shooting in Chicago. Give me Ron Dean. Give me one scene with Two-Face in a bar, and Dean was there. I feel like Dean has a writer, and he has his personal trailer, and it's really expensive to get Dean. You go, Dean. He was Andrew Clark's dad back in the Breakfast Club 40 years ago in the car. He's been doing it for years. When he checks out Ally Sheedy at the end, it's one of my favorite moments.

Favorite scummy dad moments. Let's do it now, Bill. Who won the movie? Ron fucking Dean. You won the movie. Sean Astin, you're out. For the people listening, Ron Dean was one of the two great assistant coaches. And he's the one who basically goes to bat for Rudy. So he's that. The white assistant coach, the black assistant coach. He's the white one. He's the white one.

And then the other piece of this, which I can't believe we've spent almost 20 minutes and haven't gotten this yet, is the Jerry Goldsmith, the score. Okay, let's go. So he does this in Hoosiers, which is probably enough for a sports movie score score.

Goat status, but you know, the, the Rocky, Rocky's tough. Yeah. Rocky kind of creates the template for it. And, uh, what's the, I'm blanking on the Rocky score guy. I don't know either. I'll look at a fly now talking. Um, but this guy, John Williams was Michael Jordan of movie scores. Talk about it. This guy's probably Kobe. He was nominated 18 Oscar nominations. He won for the omen in 1976. He did a lot of movies that you and I like.

Uh, first blood. That's great. Uh, he does alien total recall, sleeping with the enemy, basic instinct, the vanishing China. All things where you can like hear the score in your head. Yeah. And, uh,

And this one, the tryouts is like, I mean, all the music in this is great. My wife actually said, cause I watched it a second time and she, and she, I made her watch it with me the first time. The second time she was just walking around and she's like, should we just play the rooted music in the house every day? Just so we, it just feels more inspirational here. I'm like, not an awful idea. Um,

It's such a good idea. I have a bunch to say about this. I think this score is more important than any other rewatchables pod. Bill, my wife and kids are on the other side of the country. Now I'm in the house by myself. A half hour before we started doing this, I played the Rudy score around the house, like on our Alexa system, just to fire me up for this. Da-da-da-da!

Yeah, it's so good. Here's my take on the score. I think it does more heavy lifting for this movie than any score in history. Meaning you can have Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Jaws. Those are all amazing movies if you take the score out despite that. This movie, this score carries the fucking movie. It's like the co-leads are Sean Astin and Jerry Goldsmith. It is so important, more important to any movie ever because the first half is rough.

But all he's doing is walking through the quad with his backpack. But then that goldsmith drops and you're like, I have an affection for this guy. I kind of root for him. It's so valuable. Bill Conti was the one who did the Rocky one. Sure. So I have I went through everything. I really wanted to get this correct.

If you're going to do like a sports movie, you can't do Mount Rushmore because there's five. But if you're doing like first ballot Hall of Famers for instrumental. So you're the best by Joe Esposito. That's out. Win in the end of Teen Wolf. That's out. Like anything where somebody's singing, those are out. And we're just going score, orchestra. No vocals? No vocals. So there's five. Gonna Fly Now, Rocky. Yeah. Tryouts, Rudy.

Hoosiers, the theme song. It's really good. And then you could also like basically twist that into the Jimmy joined the team. We're now kicking ass. The natural is, is just absolutely elite. Beautiful. Really, really great. Um, and then chariots of fire has to be on there. I mean, that, that was a dominant, dominant, dominant theme song of the early eighties. It was in literally everything.

So I think that's the five. When you make a list, you know how it's going to go. There's going to be snubs. Who'd you leave out? And I got a big one. I know you have Gonna Fly Now by Rocky, but the song training montage in Rocky IV is completely... That's a good call. I didn't want to have two Rockies. You're right. That might be the best one. I mean, I have it as my personal number one.

It actually has two of them in there. All right. So I got to add the two Rocky IVs in there too. That's good. So those six. That's great. That's a great list that I'm sure we left something out. Did Goldsmith get nominated for an Oscar? I'm going to say yes, please. But I don't know. No. Oh, Christ. The Lion King wins. Hans Zimmer. That's seminal.

Shawshank got nominated. Good. Should've. Forrest Gump. I'm okay with that one too. Two other spots. Interview with the vampire. Oh, come on. Like, honestly, fuck you. What is the score of that? Has anybody ever mentioned the score of Interview with the Vampire? And Little Women. Again, fuck you. Like, how does Rudy not...

Get a nomination at least. What are we doing? Let me tell you something. We had a string quartet at my wedding, Bill, and they played the Shawshank score as my wife walked down the aisle. So that's up there. I'm going to bat for that one. I never heard that story. That's amazing. It was beautiful. Did you have bogs eaten out of a straw on the side watching? Yeah, it was cool. It was great.

Yeah, Hadley was there. He just beat the shit out of all my friends when they got drunk. It was good. Romantic scene. We set the tone for our wedding movie about prison rape. It was good. Like it. And escape. Yeah. So Goldsmith, no nomination. It's a travesty. This movie was written by Angelo Pizzo and directed by David Anspaugh, the two guys who did Hoosiers. And a big part of the story is that

Real life Rudy, who spent a whole decade trying to get this movie made about his life and somehow got Pizzo because he loved Hoosiers. I don't know if it's Pizzo or Pizzo, but I'll say Pizzo. I don't know. And convinces him to take a run at it. And six months later, he had this script and we were off. So they made it. The movie did not do well. Maybe that's one of the reasons it didn't get nominated. $13 million budget made $22 million.

But as we've talked about many times in the rewatchables, the stuff that came out in that 92, 93, 94 range, the tail you had with the cable and with blockbuster was unassailable. And this movie went right into that. And by 96, 97 felt like a Pantheon sports movie because it was.

You know what's wild too, Bill, is that we talk now about like maybe the lack of the really quality sports movies. This movie came out within a matter of weeks of the program. Another movie we've done a rewatch of this. Which did better. Yeah. And so you have two memorable college football movies within the span of a few weeks. And the program was a bigger hit. And I don't know why, because it was like the PG-13, like modern version of this. But it was an incredible fall. I was a freshman in high school. I was in heaven.

Not enough college football movies. No. I feel like we're late. I know they're probably difficult to do. You got to get the jerseys. Like in this movie, it took them forever to convince Notre Dame to even use it. So you end up doing that necessary roughness where you're just creating a fake school and fake opponents. But...

Um, not enough, I would say. No, it's tough to do, but I think these movies dropping when they did, I think a lot of athletes grew up with these movies. I have this, this, this random personal thing, a guy that you're very familiar with Chris Hogan, the old wide receiver for the Patriots, right? I've become buddies with him. I was texting him about Rudy and he was like, dude,

I watched that movie before every single high school football game I played. Before my first Super Bowl with the Patriots, the last thing I did was watch Rudy to fire me up. And this is like an all-time lacrosse legend and a guy who won rings with the Patriots. He is like, he's like, I know every line. He's texting me all these, these D-Bob lines. Loves, loves, loves the movie. And he's just like that perfect age where he was probably like a kid in 93. And there's that generation that like, it really does it for it. And they don't give a shit that the internet hates it.

Chris Hogan, a couple of big catches in the 28 to three game. Just huge. 7-11. Yeah. Roger Ebert. Come on. You know the answer to this? I know a little bit. Yeah. Three and a half stars. Fuck yeah. Rudy. Roger. Feels like a half star too high.

It doesn't feel half star fat. Well, Raj loves story. He loves character and story. And this at least had a story. He wrote, in Rudy, Aston's performance is so self-effacing, so focused and low key that we lose sight of the underdog formula and begin to focus on the dogged kid who won't quit. And the last big scene is an emotional powerhouse.

Raj, I'm surprised. I was bracing for like two to two and a half, but he went big. I think your take of three and a half, being a half star heavy is on. I watched the segment, the TV segment. And you ever watch one of those segments they do? And it feels like maybe Gene and Raj hit a bar on Rush Street before the show started. And they were just loose. Siskel goes out of his lane to not only like it, but to say it's better than Hoosiers. He likes it better. Siskel had takes on that show.

Wow. Yeah. Surprised to hear that. All right. We're going to dive into the most rewatchable scene, which is brought to you by Nissan. Find your path in the Nissan Pathfinder Rock Creek. Okay. You know, it's a weird one when I don't really think we have a completely rewatchable scene until the 64 minute mark, but I have three that I like. I'm going to give like honorable mention. Let's do it. I like when best friend Pete

gets into the fight with Frank in the bar. It's great. You know it's coming. It happens. And then the next scene he blows up and we get Sean in the slow motion with the Vandam blood sport. No! Reaching forward as Pete's blowing up with some hot water thing. I kind of enjoy it.

Can you believe that he has to work at that steel mill because he's such a bad football player and such a bad student? And he's the shittiest steel mill employee, too. Is it negligence or incompetence? I mean, he basically kills Pete. His one job is to keep the fucking water flowing. He kills Pete. He's terrible at everything. Come on. I had that in unanswerable questions later. Was he was he guilty of of what's that homicide where it's like, man,

Yeah, like unintentional manslaughter, whatever that category is. Like, was that possible? It also looks like maybe the most unsafe place in the history of the world. Like, it looks like the final act of Terminator 2. You know those meters they say, like, how many days since a workplace accident? It's at zero. That place is a death trap.

all the right moves had that too i think when they film movies and places like that they're like do you have any abandoned plants that haven't been used for 10 years we need some grit in this movie and some guys with like uh uh ashen faces and like hard work and sweat cigarettes so i got that one as an honorable i have rudy seeing notre dame's field for the first time hey kid not supposed to be here hey this place is really something else huh

Hey, someday I'm going to come out of that tunnel and I'm going to run onto this field. Well, ain't going to be this day. And the music's just kicking in. And then he gets to see Charles S. Dutton, who I knew as Rock. You weren't a rock guy. Not the Rock. Not Rock. No. There's a show called Rock, right? Rock. Yeah. He was like a garbage man with a good heart. It was on for like seven years.

And then as Rock was on, they cast him in Rudy. And he's, Charles S. Dutton's been a lot of good stuff, but Rudy became the character for them. But I like that part. Also like, and then the next one when Rudy goes in the locker room. So I have this at the 43 minute mark and he reads the new Rockne speech and it cuts to Charles S. Dutton get a little choked up. He's smiling. Yeah. Cause the other reaction would have been like, this kid's a lunatic. Yeah.

But he went the other way. He's like, ah, it's took my heart a little bit. But the movie starts getting going. The first real chill scene. Go on. The first real rewatchable scene is 64 minutes into the movie when Rudy gets into Notre Dame. How do you feel about the whimper cry on the bench facing the water? Are you okay with it or no? A little background on this. I read Sean Astin's book years and years ago about his career. And he tells in great detail on that scene, he just couldn't cry.

Couldn't cry. It's take after take. The director's getting nervous. The lighting's changing. We got to get the shot. He can't cry. And the director comes out on the last take and kind of pissed off and kind of yells at him and is like, and he uses the phrase, what are you afraid of? And immediately Aston started crying right there. He's like, roll, roll, go, go, go. And they got it on the last take. And I still feel like to your question,

I think he's trying really hard to cry. It's tough, and the camera pulls away quickly, and he's like, oh, well, thank God, you know, and then he jogs off. I think it was a struggle that day for Aslan. He's great in this role. I think the scene he got in was tough. Because, I mean, I'm measuring him against toy soldiers after Wil Wheaton character dies, and I feel like the tears are pretty genuine in that scene. I don't know.

Maybe That's you Bill Everyone's like oh Rudy is selling a movie Now when Wil Wheaton gets shot by the terrorists And he really brings it in his underwear In his dorm room I think you're right he's better So much more emotional in that scene Even when his buddy dies He's at the funeral He can barely work up the tears Wil Wheaton really hit the hardest for him Alright so 64 minutes in He gets in Goes to see his dad His dad goes My son's going to Notre Dame Yeah

And then this whole stretch is just unbelievable because we get the one assistant coach lays down the rules. Yep. My job is to basically beat the shit out of you for the next five days. Whoever's still standing at the end, maybe we'll use for our scout teams. I love that guy. And then he does the, and he, you want to run home to mama? Now's your chance. And then he goes, they're all yours. It's such like, he's basically like,

Leave now. You might die. And he knew how fucking annoying Rudy was because when the other coach wants him, he goes, not in my defensive backfield. You want him? You got him. Rudy, I'm going to take in that kid. That's awesome. Great. I love that guy. So right there, we go into tryouts, the theme music, and we get the whole tryout scene. Rudy gets a couple good licks in.

And Rudy eventually makes the team. We get the scene. He's the guy, the Ron Dean. He's basically like Bubba. And he's like, wait, does that mean I'm on the team? Yeah, kid, you're on the team. I have a question about, I mean, there's so many great, this is such a good stretch. Anyone who's against this movie, there's just no way you, if you like movies and sports movies, there's just no way you're not going to like this stretch. Try out or practice scenes in sports movies for football. I think I have a hundred percent batting average. They're awesome.

What hasn't worked? What has been the tryout? I haven't seen Johnny Be Good in a while with Anthony Michael Hall, but even that might have worked. Wildcats, name the football movie. Anytime we have the montage of people hitting each other

on like kind of a crappy field. And I'm just, and it's like, okay, now it's what's that, what's the drill where it's just like the one V one Oklahoma. Yeah. The Oklahoma, like has Oklahoma ever not worked in a sports movie ever? Well, there's Oklahoma drill where they get up and they run into each other, like in a tunnel. And then there's something called bull in the ring and they do all of them in the program and they do it to welcome to the jungle. And like, that's pornography. It's straight porn as someone who likes sports movies. Um,

but they have a lot of that in the Friday Night Lights show. They have a lot of that in Remember the Titans, the movie. It's just a weird thing. Sometimes the practice sequences are better than the game sequences. They're just so gritty. There's always cool music, but the practice sequences in this are fucking awesome, especially when you know that Sean Astin was doing a lot of it himself, and it makes it better.

Right. Like basketball is not going to work as well. Baseball, no. Hockey, not really. It's because you have violence. This is violence. Boxing, sparring isn't the same. Wrestling maybe gets a little closer, like some of this stuff in Vision Quest, like some of the practice scenes, but not close to the same. You can't really montage it out.

I guess lacrosse would work, but there's never really been a lacrosse movie. Not a lot of lacs movies. My favorite calling card that happens in all these, someone gets the shit knocked out of them onto the ground, and as they're getting up, they get hit again. And that happens in all of them. Oh, it's so good. It happens really hard. Also, they have the part when the coach tries to pull him. He's like, no, coach! That's almost like a military thing. All right, quickie scene. This isn't a total rewatchable, but Charles S. Dutton, though.

Hey, kid, you have your dress? I'll be there. I like that. Okay, next one I have for Rewatchable. Rudy gets the shit kicked out of him for three minutes. The left tackle demolishes him, Tony Buscelli style. And then the next time takes it easy on him and Rudy gets mad. Just hit me bad. And then he says, if I cool it, I won't be helping you get ready. And then we go in the parking lot where he says that and they come to an understanding. And then Vincent Vaughn.

Out of nowhere goes, he's just a showboat, man. That's all he is. He's out of like the 80s. He's a Cobra Kai. It's like, where'd this guy come from? I want to tell you, man, I'm sorry about having to practice today. Don't be sorry. Don't you understand, man? If you don't cool it out there, you're going to end up getting yourself killed. If I cool it, I won't be helping you guys get ready for the next week's games. Got it? I got it. He's just a showboat, man.

That's all he's about. He's just doing his job, Jamie. Can it. You watch the deleted scenes because you rented this on Amazon. There's a bunch more Vince Vaughn, right? Yeah. If anybody listening has not seen it, Amazon, if you rent it, has two versions. And you'll notice that one of them is like maybe 18 minutes longer. And I just clicked on it absentmindedly just watching Rudy. There's...

a lot more scenes and Vince Vaughn's character is in a lot more. There's one of him in the weight room that I had never seen before with Rudy. And then there's a crazy one where the girl, Mary, the journalist student, Rudy tries to pick her up and it doesn't work. And then Vince Vaughn comes through and is like spitting game at her. And it's the weirdest thing, Bill. She doesn't want to go out with him, but he goes, but baby, you're so money. You don't even know it. And it just works on it. It's just like, that's his catchphrase comes through. It's like swingers. Vince Vaughn shows up.

He says this baby is so money you don't even know it. But he has the vibe. I'm a producer. No, but she goes out with him and she goes and sits down with him. And like, I have some questions about where it went that night with those two. It's pretty cool.

Wow. Yeah, it's unbelievable. And a weight room scene? Rudy is lifting weights with the football team because he gets a fake ID from D-Bob and he sneaks into the gyms for the Irish football players. So he's lifting next to Roland Steele and Jamie O'Hara and Jamie O'Hara just is a complete asshole to him. Why wouldn't they put that in the movie? I don't know. I think it's too long. They could have taken a lot of other shit out, but watch it with the deleted scenes. It's so weird. Vince Vaughn's in a lot more. Wow. Vince Vaughn.

Next one, I have Rudy asked coach to suit up for one game and he's like, you doing this for you? And he said, no, it's for everyone who told me being a Notre Dame football player would be impossible. My brothers, the guys I work with at the mill, they can't come to practice and see that I'm a part of this team.

The counter might've been, Hey Rudy, you're five, six. And the reason you're not on this team is because you're not as good as football as 80 other guys. And you signed up for this deal to get the shit kicked out of you. Now I have to have you run out of the tunnel. Like what, who the fuck are you? Yeah. But coach is like, all right.

twist my arm 60 guys probably only playing 32 of them fine already already parcision at that point had one leg out too like he was his it was the stress of the job was catching up to him so i think there was a lot of fuck it let's just i just want this kid out of my office he was like he knew he was leaving a week later it's like yeah yeah you're in coach oh you'll definitely you know what in fact i'll play you too you'll start at defensive end i promise yeah and he's fucking out of the last game the uh

The didn't, I just have this written down the, just the didn't like make the lineup montage. I had this in what stage the best. I like when we have the montage of somebody not getting something they want. And it's just like, did he get it this time? Ah, did he get that? He didn't, uh, got some good Goldsmith music there. Um, okay.

I know you have a lot of thoughts on Fortune screaming at Rudy. Rudy quits his last practice. This fucking kid, he's been sleeping in a cot and hiding for three years and all the stuff. He's going to quit in the last practice? Fortune lays into him.

It's just it's a perfectly acted scene. It's beautifully written. The five foot nothing hundred and nothing that's become that's a joke. That's a meme. And the best thing about that is this movie has almost no surprises or twists whatsoever. It is straightforward. Every character is very transparent. You can't do it, Rudy. Rudy. Yes, I can. The only like original twist in the home is holy shit.

fortune played here and not only that like there's there's some racism allegations and he has a chip on his shoulder and a real character and it's just a beautiful beautiful i tear up every time i watch that scene it's it's awesome i'm sorry i never got you to see your first game in here hell i've seen too many games in this stadium i thought you said you never saw i've never seen a game from the stands you were a player i rode the bench for two years

Thought I wasn't being played because of my color. I got filled up with a lot of attitude. So I quit. Still not a week goes by. I don't regret it. And I guarantee a week won't go by in your life. You won't regret walking out, letting them get the best of you. Yeah. Hot take. Yeah, go ahead. Maybe introduce that fortune part 35 minutes sooner. You could still have all the motivational speech at the end, but

then we'd have a better sense of like, all right, what's this guy doing? Like maybe a scene where they're just in the gym at like eight 30 at night and fortune's like, Hey man, you want to,

Want to have a beer? And then he's like, so why are you in this place? And it just felt like that would have been a good scene we needed in the first hour of a movie that's not that good for the first hour. The deleted scenes have no additional Charles S. Dutton. What you see is what you get. And it's just beautiful. I also think, Bill, I think that there should be a new category in the Rewatchles. I think it should be a Fortune from Rudy GIF award about what is the best GIF from this movie. That one where he...

claps his hands at the end. You see that all the time on social media. The three clap. Yeah, the triple clap with the gloves. You'll see that all. If someone announces like an accomplishment or I got a new show or blah, blah, blah, you'll always see that one. And it's the best gift from this movie is him and his very limited screen time. That's an interesting idea for a category. Um,

most gif-able moment, something like that. I like that. - 'Cause almost every movie that is on the rewatchables, if you type it in, there's 50 different gifs. What's the best gif? Best gif from this movie, it's Charles Dutton, the triple clap. - I have another gif that we'll get to later for that. - Oh, good. - But we get the amazing speech from Fortune. This is his Oscar moment, he did not get nominated. - Absolutely. - Right into Rudy coming back.

Here comes Rudy. Come on, do it. Slow clap. Bill, I got it. So is it, I'm jumping on it. Is it apex mountain for slow clap? Do you have a slow clap that you like more? Cause I know you're like a sommelier of slow claps. Is there one you like better than the Rudy clap?

I mean, I'm so glad you asked. I have to find this in my notes. Oh, I jumped on it. Save it if you want. All right, we'll save it. It's somewhere in my notes. I do have a slow clap list. Okay, good. I knew you would. Well, I think the next scene is my number one scene. What is it? The jerseys dropping on Coach Dan Devine's desk. Let's get into it. Come on. Steele comes in. He's like, give my spot to Rudy. He does the you're an all American, act like it.

Counter. I am. I believe I am. Great line. Then our left tackle comes in who, you know, who's came to an understanding earlier in the day with Rudy, me too, coach. And we just get the jerseys dropping and Chelsea Ross, great job doing the, I'm trying not to get choked up, a really hard thing to pull off in acting. The I'm trying not to get choked up subtly, but I'm not also trying to act like I'm trying not to get choked up, but he just kind of does. He's like, wow.

It's emotional. That scene is like genuinely emotional. And anyone who's against this movie, fuck you. Because if you, if you don't get touched by that scene, you don't have a heart. It's the number one lightning rod moment in the whole movie. Everyone understands he really had a sack, but it is a fact that that did not happen. They did not do that. They did not lay their jerseys down. It's completely manufactured. It's a cool moment. It's totally unrealistic. And there's this great quote that, uh, that Dan, so we can get into this.

Dan Devine, the real coach, was fucking furious about this shit. He was not only supportive of Rudy playing. A lot of accounts says it was his idea. He's completely vilified. He dies, I think, maybe 10 years later. That's how people remember him being like, I'm not fucking playing Rudy anymore.

The idea that he even said, listen, if any player put their jersey down on my desk, they would never get it back. They're off the team. Like he's like, I will not stand for that bullshit. And meanwhile, he just takes the glasses off and cried because it's Hollywood. I know a lot of people get pissed about this scene. Even Joe Montana is like, listen, I was on the team. Like I want to put my jersey down. Believe me, I'm not doing that shit. Nobody would. But it is a sweet moment in the movie. So you're anti the scene.

I can relate to the players that if someone came to you and says like, hey, you know Rudy, right? Yeah, I know who he is. Like, listen, they're not going to play him. Like, will you sacrifice your jersey? And like, no, I hope he plays. They read the best. I'm not putting my fucking jersey down. I'm a senior. It's my last home game. No, I like the moment in the movie, but it's bullshit. Maybe I'm a sap. I had a way bigger problem with Steele letting Rudy lead the team out.

for the last home game. If I'm still, I'm like, I'm an all American. I'm leading the team out. This is like the cherry on the hot fudge Sunday of my Notre Dame career. I'm going out first.

It's not like, hey, five foot six Rudy, can you go out for us? It's, Roland Steele is the nicest teammate in the history of sports. Like, all the stories about, like, what Brett Favre wouldn't do for Aaron Rodgers. Roland Steele was ready to let, like, Rudy, like, sleep with his girlfriend. Anything you want, dude. You can have it. I love you, you little annoying sack of shit. He loves him. Anything. Take it. That was a deleted scene where Roland Steele sets him up. He got game Rick Fox style with two co-eds. Yeah.

All right. So I like that scene more than you. The pregame, this is the most beautiful sight these eyes have ever seen. It's beautiful. We get the Dan Devine speech. No one, and I need no one, comes into our house and pushes us around. We get Rudy saying, I've been ready for this my whole life. And then Rudy had the tunnel. And then the end.

which I guess is the most rewatchable scene. We had that. They saved Rudy's chance to play with the controversial halfback pass for a touchdown by Jamie O'Hare, who hated Rudy 30 minutes earlier. And then we've had no other scene with them. And now he's trying to save them.

Um, we get the sack, we get rocks, uh, Charles, that's the spastic slow clap, the three clap. We get who's the wild man now, John Favreau, which instantly became a, an incredible meme. And, uh, it's a great chill scene. They lift them on the shoulders. What's better. It's fantastic. We should, I know everyone's out here wanting to see what's bullshit. What's not.

The halfback pass is completely made up, ludicrous, never happened. That's one of those tropes in sports movies, Bill. The football movies are like, hey, let's change the play. Let's get this guy the ball. They do it in varsity blues. They do it everywhere. In reality, there's no scenario where you throw a halfback pass at all. And the only reason they put that in is the closed –

the vince bond story arc about he's a dick and then turns nice but with all the deleted scenes it seems like they're working really hard to vindicate him at the end yeah and then at the end he's like that was for you and it's like you fucking hate me you just screamed at me it's it's disingenuous i don't like it either um i really like the i really like this scene just as a sports movie because they got the jerry goldsmith music in there just a sports movie ending it's wonderful

It's really good. And then as the years pass and you find out more and more about the movie, it's hard not to separate the actual facts from what happened.

You know, where it's like even that Joe Montana interview that he did, I think like nine years ago where he just was like, yeah, we thought Rudy was like, you know, it's kind of funny. But I think a couple of people carried him off as a joke. And and he really that I thought that was the most damage because that was right in the YouTube Twitter. So when he gave that interview, it blew up and people like, whoa, Joe Montana. Yeah.

shitting on Rudy. Yikes. And it changed everything. I think it changed the legacy of the movie of that guy because he was a teammate. He was there. Montana went on to win a national championship with Dan Devine a few years later. But he said that not only did a couple guys carry him off, the two biggest pranksters on our whole team were the guys that carried him off. So it's a Bronx cheer. It's sarcastic. It's not authentic at all. It's like,

Oh, this little shit that annoys us. He got to say, hey, come here, you little knucklehead. Let's carry you off. It wasn't this beautiful moment. It is, though, when you put the music on and have Sean Astin. But in truth, he's like, it was a whole joke. No one took it seriously. He crushed it. What do you have for most rewatchable scene?

I just think from this take us out from the second that Roland Steele grabs him by the face mask and he runs out. I'm crying for the whole thing. And I'm crying mostly because of Ned Beatty's reactions and Dutton's reactions. And I think it's really funny that even still, Frank, the brother, is still a dick. He still doesn't believe it. He barely allows himself to smile. Right. He's like barely clapping.

I have the ending as well, but I love the Jersey scene. So that was today's most rewatchable scene brought to you by Nissan from Rocky trails and money past the Sandy dunes and snowy roads. Take more off road with the 2024 Nissan Pathfinder rock creeks, tubular roof rack featuring up to 220 pounds dynamic capacity. How big, what was your biggest football weight? Uh, two Oh five.

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than other platforms. Start converting your audience. Claim $100 credit for your next campaign at linkedin.com slash rewatch. LinkedIn, the place to B2B. Terms and conditions apply. All right, come back. What's aged the best? We mentioned the soundtrack. We mentioned the comedy of seeing based on a true story at the top. In this one they did, the following is based on a true story. So all bets are up.

I mentioned the montages of someone repeatedly opening letters where they get rejected. I really like, I did not mention yet. Dads who say to their kids, buddies in a movie, Hey, don't you have your own home? It was like that. No, I know, you know, you're really settled at that point. What do you have for what's aged the best? Cause I have a bunch. A couple, I have something similar opening letters to find out big news. I have,

I have Aston's athleticism and his performance. We talked about this. You know, we saw it. We got a taste of it in Toy Soldiers with some of the sprinting. And we've had so much fun with Seagal and his running. Like, Aston looks great. He looks like a great sprinter, whether he's jogging, sprinting, even in the high school scene where he tackles the tackling dummy. I think he's athletic. He's talked about it a little bit that he says...

I'm pretty quick and I have a good arm. So like, he's not afraid to talk about it. He looks good in the scenes. My favorite age, the best. I don't know if this is best or worse, but telling your kids that they can't do shit and it's

and it's not possible and don't believe in your dreams. We don't do that anymore. I think it's funny that not every single person in Rudy's life is just there to tell him don't follow your dreams, including the scene in which Ned Beatty tries to make like a buzzer beater at the damn bus stop

and shows up with a story about Rudy's drunk grandfather who killed 200 cows in five months. Don't chase your dreams. That doesn't happen anymore. Everything's possible. You can be an NBA player and an astronaut. Just work hard. Not the Rudigers. They're like, don't chase that shit. And I think it's aged well. I'm with you. I think that's a really good note. In the trophy culture generation we live in now, we just have to tell our kids how great they are. It is nice to have somebody get slammed. Don't do that.

The Jamie O'Hare persona in a sports movie of the heavily recruited guy who was a huge disappointment. Yeah. And then even when he comes in at the end, the radio announcer, those college radio announcers are usually pretty favorable. It's like, there's Jamie O'Hare, heavily recruited, safe to say he's been a disappointment. But I like those. Those characters are fun though. I actually think that has been explored enough in sports movies. Yeah.

I mentioned earlier this speech, but Coach Dan Devine, who ends up winning a real title at Notre Dame, but his legacy becomes 30 plus years on NBA and NHL jumbotrons during when people trying to get fans fired up coming out of timeout. The Celtics played that Dan Devine thing over and over again that nobody comes in our house. Yeah, I think that's lasted. Sports movie shitheads who say to the guy we're supposed to like, you're making us all look bad. No, I love it.

No better way to say you're a shithead than saying that. That John Wayne bullshit out there. Yeah. And that guy speaks for a lot of people. I had Vince Vaughn. Now, I never wrote about this movie, but I did make this joke in the mid-2000s about...

Vince Vaughn in this movie, like as this movie aged in the 2000s, but he was now Double Down Trent from Swingers. He was now the guy from old school. So just him interacting with Rudy, you started expecting him to just become Vince Vaughn and be like, yo, he's Double Down in the 11. It was just fun to see him. But now he's been around for so long, it's moved to another Vince Vaughn vortex.

I do like that a lot of Notre Dame fans hate this movie that's A Wood's Age of the Best for me. That they just have virulent reactions to it. So the tryout song, Here's A Wood's Age of the Best, it's been used in at least 12 movie trailers is the estimated. Might have been more. It became a go-to movie trailer noise, right?

Imagine your score is so good that they're using it to sell other movies that have nothing to do with the movie. It's that good. And it works. You want to see the movie, you see the Rudy score. Or how about your movie? You're so like lukewarm on the movie you're making. Like what trailer music should we do? Just get that Goldsmith tryout one. We'll just use that one again. Mention football practices. Oh, here's the Chelsea Ross part. The sports movie, That Guy Goat.

So he's Eddie Harris, a major league. He's George and Hoosiers, who is a bad guy for 30 minutes and then flips. Yeah. And then he's Dan Devine and Rudy. That's a, he's, he was also in trouble with the curve. He's also in the, in the express. So he did five sports movies, but that top three is pretty good. I, I, I think he has a small part in the last boy scout too. Like he's, yes, he does. Right. Yeah. But he's,

If we count that as a sports movie, that would count too. But Major League Hoosiers Rudy is a pretty good trifecta. For me, it's Major League. It's Harris, the pitcher with the badger seal on his chest. Like, that's a great role. If you're viewing with Joe Boone. Yeah.

Okay, great shot Gord or most cinematic shot Rudy in the corner of the football stadium with the camera behind him. It's pretty good. Soak it in is really good. What else you got? I like they do a crane shot when he's trying to get tickets to the game and they go all the way up over the stadium. And the crazy thing is while they're doing the shot, there's a real Notre Dame game going on and Notre Dame scores a touchdown in the middle of the shot. And they're like, that's fucking we take it that you can actually watch it. There's a lot of cars that are like from the early 90s that don't belong in the shop. But who gives a shit? I love that. Right. That's a good one.

Den of Thieves, Benihana Awards, scene-stealing locations. Got to be the stadium. Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness Award for best needle drop. You could go a bunch of Goldsmith here, but when the final game starts, they really kick the music. They go like decibel 10, like that. Big Kahuna Burger Award, best use of food, drink. The birthday cupcake?

I tried. No? Can you get there? It's that. It's the hostess cupcake with the match in it, or it's just like those pub beers and the classic pub mugs. I don't like those hostess cupcakes. I'll go with the pub beers for me personally. The Butcher's Girlfriend Award for weak link of the movie. We've alluded to this, but Rudy's post-movie life had an unfortunate impact on this movie because he's super annoying.

Um, he did a motivational speaker whole run where the, the motivational speeches were about how hard it was to get the movie made. It wasn't even really about how he played. Um, he's been very like, ah, la da da da da about some of the factual stuff with this movie. He was charged with security fraud with a pump dump scheme in 2011 where he paid hundreds of thousand dollars. And then there's an ESPN profile, uh,

2019 by Ryan McGee. Here's one of the first paragraphs. Rudy is talking about how there's been a backlash against the movie. Rudy's personality is part of the reason. He's best described as likably abrasive. Best described as likably abrasive. Every day in every conversation is a relentless series of motivational stories punctuated by F-bombs and simplified explanations for missteps. As Jerry DiNardo puts it, he was my friend and he was a total pain in the ass. Um,

He turned this into a one man stage show. He did. He tried to sell chicken with it. He did a documentary about himself and he's just done. He's basically milked every ounce of this. He makes Mike Aruzioni look like shy. And I think that's probably the Butch's girlfriend of this, the real life Rudy and how he's overshadowed it. Would you agree?

Yeah, a couple things to add. People make mistakes. People want to find money and all that. Like when you have the Rudy image, that is priceless and you can't,

I smirch that by trying to get rich fast and have SEC issues like that. But more importantly, Bill, last week on Good Morning Football, we had on Manti Teo, where obviously there was a lot to talk about with Manti. But we're so loosely produced, we can just kind of talk about whatever we want. And I knew we were going to be talking about Rudy. So I asked him about Rudy like on the air. And he said, listen, Manti said when I first met him.

He said it was a little weird and I didn't recognize him right away. And he said something to me about like, you guys got to know your history. Now, Manti, when he met him, was a Heisman finalist on defense and like the biggest thing in Notre Dame in 20 years. And Rudy's like, you got to know your history, man. It's like, shut the fuck up, Rudy. And like, and to Manti's defense, he's like, we came to have a good relationship and it's fine. It was just an awkward start. But to your point about the friendly abrasive or whatever, I don't think this is like,

necessarily Mr. Congeniality when he walks in a room, from what I've heard. With Sage the Worst. A couple quick ones before we get to all the factual errors. Rudy...

Rudy and D-Bob, him being the guy who's D-Bob's conduit to trying to get a girlfriend or girls. What is that? It's like, here's my tiny, annoying friend. Can you go get me some girls? And then they have a montage where he's just talking to all these different girls. What's going on? Wearing the same jacket that just smells like BO because he's been wearing it for three years. What girls is Rudy meeting?

When he got the jacket, it literally came out of a trash bag that came from the flea market. He wears it for four years. He doesn't really know if he has a shower in that gardener's shed. No, that thing stinks. He's trying to take a girl's bike down the stairs. Does that montage not end with him getting pepper sprayed by some girl on campus? Get the fuck away from me. I'm not interested in you or your fat friend. It's a myth to be out of a jail cell. I know this is...

Gonna hit you hard. What do you got?

What's aged the worst? Bad sports movie interceptions. I don't know why we can't get interceptions right. All the Right Moves has this too. Steele has the interception touchdown with three minutes left. So bad. This is where, again, Ringer Sports Movie Consulting Firm is right here. They'll do the interception in a sports movie and they'll just throw it right to the cornerback. It's like even Daniel Jones doesn't... Well, I guess he's a bad example because he just did it. But for the most part...

Quarterbacks just don't throw a direct line to the cornerback doesn't stop and just run. He usually has to do something athletic. I don't know why directors can't figure this out. I think it's a hard thing to simulate. It's not just catching. It has to be a timing and you have to catch it at the right point. The number 21 interception at the end of the game looks very fake. It looks like the Georgia Tech quarterback was point shaving and tried to throw it to him. Yes. It's a great point. My guess is they try to simulate it

a couple times so it looks cool. And then, ah, that's it. Ah, fuck it. Just throw it right to them. We got to move on. We're losing light. And then they just do it. Okay. All the liberties this movie took. I'll try to get through this as quick as we can. I got you. Go.

You mentioned the jerseys thing never happened and that Dan Devine was actually super supportive of Rudy. And they're like, hey, we're going to make you a little bit of the villain because this had to get the movie made. He's like, yeah, that's fine. And then he turns out he seems like a shithead. Sal Ron. He said later, quote, the jersey scene is unforgivable. It's a lie and untrue.

Talk to your shit, Devine. Joe Montana said, it's a movie, not all of it's true. The crowd wasn't chanting. Nobody threw in their jerseys. He didn't get in the ballgame. He got carried off after the game by a couple of team's pranksters. Rudy was the oldest sibling. Yep. He had no brother named Frank. And apparently Frank was just everybody who told Rudy he couldn't do it in his hometown rolled into one person.

Fortune wasn't in person. He was three kind of people rolled into an amalgam. He's an amalgam character. After high school, Rudy went to the Navy for four years. Talk about it. Not in there. Nope. Rudy never snuck into the football stadium to sleep. That didn't happen. The admissions storyline was mostly made up. He needed to have four good semesters at Holy Cross to get in. He did. So the priest stuff.

Rudy was 5'6", but 185. That's kind of a tank. Yeah, he's built. So he was a pretty good practice player because he was low to the ground, but he was strong. Sean Astin, not 5'6", 185. And Notre Dame didn't play Penn State for over 70 years until the early 90s. And

but they were filming the movie and they're playing Penn State. So they just said, fuck it and used it. So that, that's a short list of factual errors and mistakes. There's a lot more. If you care about this shit, you can just go online and read about it for 10 hours. Anything glaring that I left out? I don't know if his friend was killed. Did they make that up? Like Pete, is that true? I think his friend died. I don't, I don't think Rudy was responsible for involuntary manslaughter. He didn't trade the water like in the movie Rudy did. Okay. All right. That's good to know.

The Ruffalo Hannah Rubinick Partridge overacting word. Ned Beatty, who I like in this movie, but when he breaks up the Pete Frank bar fight, he really dials it up for like five seconds. That's enough! He's just like way too upset. It's like, of course, you're in a bar in the middle of nowhere. Of course, you're going to... Don't nothing ever change? Don't nothing ever change? Kick him out! Was there a better title for this movie? I have one. What is it? I have one too. What do you got?

Stalking Irish. The Stalking Irish. Perfect. What did you have? I was going to say Take Us Out, but yours is way better. Take Us Out's good. I like that. Take Us Out's badass. I think they just gave up and said Rudy, but ironically in the streaming era where every title has to be one or two words so you can see them in the thumbnail box, Rudy's perfect. Got Rudy with a Notre Dame photo. It's awesome.

The can you dig it award for most memorable quote? Surprisingly, Pete comes up with this. Having dreams is what makes life more tolerable. Oh, having dreams is what makes life tolerable is the quote. I had that as coach Finstock as well. And I think it's true that having dreams. Bill, do you have a dream of a Drake May Super Bowl makes life tolerable?

I have a dream that they're not going to play him until week nine so he doesn't get killed with our offensive line where we have no left or right tackle. That's my dream. It's a good dream, buddy. Please don't play him until the schedule gets easier. Okay, here we go. The CR thinks Luke Wilson could have been Harrison Ford. Hottest take a word. I'll let you go first. All right.

A lot of takes on this one. My hottest take is that Rudy's asshole brother, Frank, was right about everything from the get-go. Rudy had an incredible wife, a lovely wife, a home, a job with union protection. He goes to junior college for a few years, makes no friends, has no love life, drains all his and his family's savings, gets his head kicked in, makes it into a sloppy-who-gives-a-shit garbage football game for five seconds in a play that everyone makes fun of.

And he could have done all these things he did after his career. He had a real estate company, a maintenance company without even playing. He got to be in a movie for five seconds, but that movie has caused him to be mocked and made fun of constantly for the rest of his time. And also he broke up his entire family because Johnny was with his ex. I think if you would have just played and stayed the course, I think Frank is right after all that. Rudy should have just not followed his dream and just stayed and he would have had a wonderful life. That's my hot take.

It's great. I mean, the only counter is that it got Fortune to watch a Notre Dame football game again. You know, and Fortune deserved that, damn it. Fortune deserved that moment. That was a really good hottest take. I don't know if I can top it. Outrageous take. So you're doing the based on a true story thing. And then you're starting to take liberties. My thing is like, if you're really going to do it, just go nuts. Take a bunch of liberties. Why not have a scene? First of all, why not work Joe Montana into the movie? I know. He's a freshman. Rudy's a senior.

why not have a scene where Rudy's like, you're Joe Montana, right? And just does something that leads the way for Joe Montana to become Joe Montana, where Joe Montana in the movie doesn't have a lot of confidence. And Rudy gives him some sort of tip like, hey, Joe, I think you have a lot of talent. You've got to learn how to calm yourself down. Take a deep breath. He's like, I know I can't. I get anxiety. And Rudy's like, no, no, let me give you two tips.

And basically paves the way for Joe Montana to become Joe Montana. Like, why not? You're making everything up anyway. I know. Rudy, I was thinking another one where he's in the bar. Rudy creates the college football playoff. She's like, hey, what if we had a system? I just feel like...

If we had a 14 playoff, maybe then ESPN might want to televise it and we'd make money. Rudy creates the NIL. It's like we should be getting paid for this. That's a good question. Just have Rudy just come up with a bunch of shit. He's got a big article in the newspaper and he makes a sack. Does Rudy have NIL? And is it with hopefully like some sort of apparel company to get him a new jacket? Like the 70s version of Fanatics and get him a fresh jacket for that moth ridden cloth? He needs one.

So 1975, Rudy maybe creates ESPN. He bumps into a Notre Dame fan and is there. He's like, hey, do you ever think of at all 24-hour sports network? But just keep it going. If you're going to make shit up, just go further. Draft things, all that stuff. Just make it up.

casting what ifs. I couldn't find any. And I was like, I can't accept that. So I deep dive Googled everything and actually found an interview with casting director Sharon Bialy. What's she got? She did a whole thing about her career and they asked her about Rudy. Sean Astin was not her first choice. You better be, you better be sitting down for this, even though you're sitting down. Can I guess? Let me guess. I bet it was, I bet it was, uh, Matt Dillon.

Oh, you almost had it. You had the, was it, was it Johnny drama? There was also somebody who came close to what I really wanted, which was Matt Damon. That's what she says. Young Matt Damon. He'd really done nothing at that time. He was very slight, you know, but he didn't have the builder thickness. Sean at that time was more of a name. I was young. He got excited. I really made a pitch for him as well. And they were like about Damon. He's too tall.

I was like, just put bigger, taller football players around him. They all talked about it at the kind of realization Sean was so right for it. You've got to follow the journey. But she said, oftentimes the most exciting audition in the room is not ultimately the best choice for the role. That's what I came away with. So you're reading through the lines there. Matt Damon blew away Sean Astin.

In the audition process. They could have written in a scene where he takes the letter to his father and says, I got into Notre Dame. How do you like them apples? And I would have crushed at the mill. Wow, that's amazing. He was that was super young, Matt Damon, before that was like the same year as school ties. So he wasn't he hadn't really been in anything yet.

It's an interesting thought experiment. Matt Damon is Rudy. He would have probably been unbelievably good, but he's so much more dashing and handsome and charismatic. So it changes it a little bit. And the stuff with the girls is a little different. I think to do respect to Sean Astin, but Matt Damon is the man.

He could have had a scene with Jamie O'Hare where he's like, you know how fucking easy this is for me? It's a fucking joke. He could add a rounders. Yeah, it's a good what if. Best that guy award, Christopher Reed as Pete or Scott Benjaminson as Frank? Because I don't know if I've seen either of them again.

I'm just still stuck on them. Give that the man, his Jersey, put him on the fucking dress list. Asshole. I believe I am. We need Damon in this movie. I wonder if he's ever talked about, I've never heard that Matt Damon even knows. I know it's, it was buried in the internet. Um, all right, though, that that guy, is that what you're doing? That guy? I'm sorry. Peter Frank, Peter Frank is that guy for you. Uh,

I like Frank a lot. I don't know who that actor is. I feel like I've never seen him again, but I like Frank. It really makes me laugh when Frank is drunk at the bar and Pete goes, you know, you used to like Notre Dame football. I was like, yeah, I used to collect baseball cards too. It's a fucking great line. His name was Scott Benjaminson. All right. Probably should have dropped the sun and just been Scott Benjamin. All right. We'll take one more break and then do Dion Waiters Award.

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This episode is brought to you by McDonald's. Sometimes classics, they get a twin. Like Goodfellas, Casino isn't the same type of movie, but you know, they're like fraternal twins. Scorsese did it, De Niro's in it, Pesci's in it. That's what happens. Well, another classic is getting a twin. Introducing the Chicken Big Mac. Oh my God, that sounds delicious. Two chicken patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, and pickles.

on a sesame seed bun. Sound familiar? So they wanted me to decide whether a chicken Big Mac is actually a Big Mac. And my take is, yeah, anything that has all of the other Big Mac stuff, but it could be chicken. It could be beef. A Big Mac's a Big Mac. The meat can be interchangeable. I'm in. I'm in on the chicken Big Mac. It's not, not a Big Mac.

but you can get it while you can at Participate at McDonald's for a limited time. Dion Waiters Award. I'll give you Pete. I'll give you Robert Prosky. I'll give you Vincent Vaughn. I'll give you the equipment manager just going up to Rudy near the end and be like, hey, Rudy, just want you to know I think this is a really great thing. I'll give you the two Notre Dame assistants. You can have both together or one of them. I'll give you Roland Steele, the greatest teammate of all time. Or...

rarely we do this but sean astin stunt double for dion waiters what do you got to me that equipment manager is a little bit of the action is the juice award where he's like i got one line with mikey from goonies i'm so nervous i can do this and his line's pretty stiff and weird but i'm gonna nail this is my moment and he does nail it i'll give it to him but you whoever you pick mine's a nonsense choice

That's pretty good. Yeah. I mean, I kind of do want to give it to Vincent Vaughn. Yeah, I know. Two scenes and they're completely different and it's Vince Vaughn. I think he probably wins. Yeah. This one's for you. Recasting couch director, City.

I'll let you pick either Frank or Pete. Will Wheaton. He's back. They're back together. Will Wheaton is brother Frank. Now, like a different, he's not doing the mafia accent anymore for toy soldiers. Now he's like the angry, disgruntled, jealous brother. But I was thinking, well, Wheaton is Frank.

I like him as Frank because I want to see Will Wheaton do more fighting because we broke down the fight in Toy Soldiers, which is like three six-inch rabbit punches. It's really bad. And the fight in Rudy is pretty bad, too, in the bar. So we could have seen. Yeah, you're right. We could have been on either side of the fight, too. Okay. Yeah. What real-life announcer would you want for the director's commentary? Romo, Collinsworth, or somebody else? What do you got? I'm thinking of that last play, Notre Dame versus Georgia Tech.

And I'm going with Gus Johnson. Rudy Rudiger, young fella. Whole family shits on him. The whole movie. Off the end. Oh, my man, Rudiger. That's what I want. I want Gus.

Gus probably Law of Averages would have been calling that game. Notre Dame. We're here at Notre Dame, Georgia Tech. South Bend, Indiana. None of this shit actually happened. Oh! I like that one. I had Pat McAfee. Oh, sure. What was he going to do?

Guys, I know Rudy's undersized. There's no question, bro. He's small. He's not a big guy. Doesn't have enough size. Physically, he's not big enough. But he's got that dog in him. Just doing that for two hours. And Pat, I think he's in Indiana. So he's close by. He's right there. Probably loves the movie. Half-assed internet research.

The story of Rudy pitching that movie all around for 10 years and then the Hoosiers guys bite and they start making it. Sell it to Columbia Pictures. The chairman of Columbia Pictures, Frank Price, leaves. Movie goes in a turnaround. TriStar comes in late, greenlights it. They have two weeks to do the script and two days to secure permission in Notre Dame. This movie really shouldn't have happened.

Uh, they shot the scene where they carry Rudy off the field at the Notre Dame BC game that year and all the crowd for the game was there. So I like when they do that. Um, when Rudy's cheering the stands, that's a real game between Notre Dame and Penn state from 92, which of course they did not play in 75 or for seven years. And then, uh, your guys in NFL films did all the football scenes. Hell yeah, they did. They look amazing. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

It's those that Boston College team would have had like Tom Coughlin was the head coach. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? That was actually a really good game. That was the tail end of Notre Dame's run from like 88 to 94. Yeah. Apex Mountain. Sean Astin.

I think it is. He got roles because of this. I think Encino Man happened because of this. Lord of the Rings was massive, but it didn't have the offshoot maybe for Aston that everybody would have liked. I think it's his signature role. I think if he were to pass away, God forbid, I think Rudy is the first thing mentioned. For me, it's Toy Soldiers. But I think for Sean Aston, just in general, I think it's Rudy. Yeah. But for me, it's Toy Soldiers.

He says he walks around still to this day and people will scream at him. Rudy was offsides. It was just 30 some years ago. I love toy soldiers. You know, I love it. I think it's Rudy for him. Yeah. I was Googling. I, cause I, I thought I had written something about Rudy and I never did, but in like 2006, when he was on 24, uh,

I did a mailbag thing about Sean Astin on 24 as Rudy with Kiefer Sutherland going up to him and be like, look, you're five feet tall and 100 nothing. And I did like a whole fake dialogue thing. So Rudy clearly was still carrying with him. Apex Mount for Notre Dame, I'm going to say no.

Charles S. Dutton, I'm going to say yes. Yes. And I have to double back. I think in them for the modern era, I think this is apex mountain for Notre Dame football. And let me just make you're right. I have that in there because like from 88 to 94, Lou Holtz, like no question.

This is the 93 football season. They were number one in the country. They beat Charlie Ward's Florida State team a few weeks after this movie came out. It was a huge, huge, huge deal. And it's like they haven't really gotten back since. They haven't had a Heisman winner. They've had seven coaches, if you count the one who lied on his resume. I love Notre Dame football, but like this was in a lot of ways the pinnacle. I hope they get back. But this 93 was a massive time for them. What was Rockets Heisman year?

It was the year he lost to Ty Detmer, which fucking pissed me off as a kid. It would have been probably 90, maybe. Early 90s Notre Dame felt like the apex mountain. Plus, this movie comes out there in the middle of it. Then Charles S. Dutton was on rock, so definitely for him. Chelsea Ross, I'm going to say major league. Yeah. Coming off Hoosiers probably leads to Rudy. Vincent Vaughn.

I think yes for being Vincent Vaughn in a movie because that was his credit. But I mean, what's aged the best him going to Vince? Like it's a way cooler name. Vincent Vaughn. Vincent Vaughn doesn't sound like an actor anymore. I don't know who Vincent Vaughn sounds like an attorney maybe. Yeah. Or a serial killer. It's just a different name. Vince Vaughn is now I want to see Vince Vaughn in a movie.

Ron Dean. I mean, he's got this and Fugitive in the same year. It might be it. This might have been Apex Mountain for him. Yeah. And it definitely is. This is the Dean-a-sance happening or the Ron-a-sance, whatever you want to call it. Him going toe-to-toe with a bereaved Harrison Ford. Yeah. And the same year he's going, he's putting Rudy through his paces. You're right. Ron-a-sance.

The concept of all-time centers and touch football. Oh, I love it. I'd never heard that before, but I think this was Apex Mountain. If you're an all-time center, you basically...

have to be like in crutches or like, I just don't know what scenario, who's going to be like, yeah, I'll be the all. So I just snap and that's it. I do nothing else in this game. Sounds great. Well, he's halfway there. I mean, he has a helmet on. If you want to hate watch this movie, the first three minutes are really good for you because this little shit is wearing his helmet. Literally the first movie of the film, the whole movie is Rudy, take that stupid helmet off. And like that kind of sets the tone if you want to hate watch it. All time quarterback happens. You don't see a lot of all time center.

I've never heard of all time center Vaughn Favreau movies I'm still going with Swingers for Apex Newt Rockne speeches I would go Bad News Bears Breaking Training the second one I gotta be honest my dad's gonna hate this I had the Newt Rockne speech for What's Aged the Worst come on boys we gotta run we gotta go we gotta go go go I mean like it seems 300 years old and when we get him on the run we're gonna keep him on the run it was great at the time

Sean Astin crying scenes. I still have toy soldiers. Have to go. Now listen, I know there's people screaming about return of the King and like at the end of the season, he's carrying Frodo and like, it's beautiful. Like you, Bill and I are into toy soldiers. That's what we fuck with. Let's understand that. Frodo's like a movie.

Yeah, it's a whole deal. It's based on a novel. It's a great... We should do it sometime. Rewatch. Is that that Rings movie? Yeah, it is. It doesn't have the dragons in it. That's a different deal. King of the Rings? And they have the force and the lightsabers. It's good. You'll like it.

I always thought one of my kids would be diving into Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, and that's when I would watch all of them, and neither of them cared. So I might just go through my whole life now unless I drop somebody. You're out. Last Apex Mountain, wet blanket, sports movie, family members. I still think Pauly in the Rocky series is the apex for this.

Like who was, who was the worst family member than Pauly? And then ends up losing all of Rocky's money in Rocky five, which didn't happen as a movie, but still. I always kind of put that also on Rocky who idiotically decided to take the Drago fight for no money. Right. Rocky, that's a big payday, buddy. I think you want to take that. Terrible job. Okay. Cruz or Hanks. You mentioned all the right moves. We're kind of seeing Cruz do it a little bit.

I would like Hanks as D-Bob, but I think Cruz has to be Rudy. The only Hanks football we've seen is Forrest Gump. So I don't know. Maybe there's a case. The category gets weird here because technically we're saying this has to be a Cruz movie or a Hanks movie. So if it's a Cruz or a Hanks movie, you would have to play the lead character and then Cruz would be the natural choice for Rudy, although he probably wouldn't take the role because...

Cruz is short. So it'd be like, oh, it's bad for my look. If we were saying what part does either of those guys fit into in this movie, Hanks as one of the Notre Dame coaches probably would have been good as a Hanks cameo.

But I think to stay faithful to what the category is supposed to be, it's got to be Cruz. I think Rudy has a fresh face innocence to him. And I think that risky business Cruz as Joel, like, I think he could pull that off. I think it's, I think it's Cruz. There's a world where he could have played Frank and just been like a few good men style, just a huge asshole. Like in taps. Cocky asshole. Yeah. Or like tap. He could have been taps Cruz. Right.

Racehorse, Rockband, Wrestler, or Fantasy Team Name. I'm partial to Stalking Irish unless you have something better. Wrestler.

roland steel what that's the name they made up like i play football and on the weekends i do porn and my son lexington is going to be in the family business role because you know the like the weird thing i don't know if people understand this all of the other players around rudy in the movie are made up players they couldn't use the real players names that's why he's joe montana so roland steel was not an all-american corner it's a made-up guy and the writers chose the name roland steel which is right out of boogie nights

It really is. I'm trying to think like Floyd, Floyd, God, Dolly, Jack Horner, Roland steel, Rocklanders, chest, Rockwell, Dirk Diggler, Johnny Wad, Roland steel. Yeah. Just do like Roland Jackson, uh, pick a knits.

Rudy leaves Pete's funeral early. He just leaves halfway through. Irish exit, literally. Pretty sure that's not how funerals work. You kind of have to stay and then walk out with the family to support them. Rudy's like, I'm such a selfish shithead. I'm just going to leave early. Good luck, everybody. Sorry. He should be leaving that funeral in handcuffs, by the way. He's responsible for it. Maybe he left because he thought he was going to get arrested.

Jamie O'Hare, I put this on the rewatchables Twitter feed, Jamie O'Hare tiptoeing before he gets crunched by Rudy. You do angry runs on good morning football. It's been a staple for you forever. So what's the opposite of an angry run? Because this was it.

We've never seen it before. Happy runs, gleeful runs, terrified runs. Benevolent runs? Benevolent, charitable runs. Charitable runs. Yeah, charitable runs. We're going to do it for a good cause. The play that Bill's talking about, this movie does a lot of good football. It's fucking unbelievable. Rudy just has a free run at the halfback and Vince Vaughn just like does nothing. He gets the ball, he kind of stops, he does this tiptoe thing and then just braces for a hit from five foot six Rudy. It's really funny. I have no idea what it is. Um,

The left tackle starting a Rudy chant. He loves Rudy. They're in the game. Rudy. Ridiculous. Jamie becoming pro Rudy. Ridiculous. Rudy. Here's a good nitpick. So Rudy is an absolute fucking maniac about Notre Dame. He knows everything about it, right? Yes. Did no fortune played there for two years. Good point.

Oh, yeah. He I guess even he because he knew he could recognize guys like just being see him on the street like he plays for Notre Dame. There's a deleted scene where he recognizes a guy at the dining hall. So he would know. It's a good point. You mentioned earlier running a halfback touchdown pass and a blowout to get Rudy back out in the field. Terrible. Ludicrous. And everyone's kicked off the team. Everyone is involved is suspended or like that's like the ultimate violation.

Yeah, well, they run it up on Georgia Tech and it's an old movie thing they do where they ignore that. You don't ever ignore the coach's call like that. That is a death sentence. You would never do that. But I got a lot of thoughts on and I have a lot of nits to pick about Vince Vaughn as a football player as well. Let's go. I only have one left. So go, dude, go pick it up.

It's absolutely preposterous that there is a six foot five college tailback. He is so poorly cast in this. He looks like a giraffe out there. And by the way, he's a terrible running back. We see Rudy crush him. He obviously should be a quarterback. The second he throws the halfback pass, it's a fucking beautiful throw in stride. And my hand in hand nitpick with this is.

The RB1 for Notre Dame, number 33, is ridiculous. He doesn't look anything like a mid-70s football player. He is this big 250-pound burly guy. He looks like Jerome Bettis' dad who played 20 years before him. It's always bothered me that that does not look like a 70s tailback. He's massive, massive.

But Vaughn, like note that there's not the tallest running back in NFL history is 6'4". And it only worked because it was Brandon Jacobs and he was like 280 pounds. A 6'5 tailback in the 70s is so bad. I hate that they did that. Yeah, I was trying to think other as you were talking other tall running back. It doesn't happen. 6'3 is the max. Oh, no, never, never taller than that.

They're usually there 5'10". Barry Sanders was like 5'9". Even the modern ones, six feet really at the most. They should have had Vince Vaughn be a wide receiver or a tight end. It's a fake character. You can do whatever you want with them. I hate that they did that.

You know, that's why you're in the permanent rewatchables co-host rotation for that. It's just such a great spot. I always knew it bothered me, but I never really dawned on me how ridiculous it was. He just should have been either receiver or quarterback. Parcision is so mad at him era. You have him playing in the wrong spot. Maybe he does have heart. He doesn't have the body to be tailback. He's completely wrong. If he was wide receiver, you wouldn't have lost the game.

Here's my biggest nitpick. Yeah. So Rudy comes in and they cut to the brother and the dad and they're like, Oh, he's in. Yeah. And then Rudy gets a sack. I just think they would be shell shocked at that point. Wouldn't your reaction be like, Oh, that's my son. I think it'd be more like you, like you would probably leave your body for like 10 seconds. Like what? It would be like, like watching a UFO land. Like what, what just happened? What did I know? I,

And meanwhile, they're acting like, you know, he won 20 bucks and bingo at the fucking sports bar. I don't understand it. They act like they go to every game and Rudy's been a three year starter and he made a sack at the end of the game. And so they cheer like they would. This is the biggest thing that will ever happen to anybody in their entire family's life ever. And they just cheer. Yeah. Wildly improbable. They just saw a miracle. Like they're at a work of God and they go, yeah, Rudy. They needed a little more somehow. I hear you.

Sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast are untouchable. Two possible sequels. One, like a black comedy about Rudy, post movie, The Real Rudy.

That's like a Rupert Pupkin, King of Comedy kind of black comedy done by some director or a sequel about the kid who lost his roster spot, even though he was on the list because everybody did the coup d'etat and got Rudy in there. And that kid just spirals out of control and eventually becomes a serial killer in mid seventies, Chicago. No, that's good.

I like the serial killer storyline where it goes dark. I would like a sequel. We're going back to the steel mill. I want to find more about the Rudigers. The fact that his older brother, when he was gone for five months, immediately moved in on his girlfriend of 15 years is absolutely insane. And I also think she's like,

I'm going to go for the brother who's going to run the mill and is also, by the way, about 18 inches taller than you, Rudy. I'm going to go for him. But I do think I would have liked it to be a better reveal. You know, you have the Mallory Rubin, should there have been a better sex scene? I would have liked Rudy to walk in on them as they're doing it in the scene and just completely traumatize them because she had a vendetta. She was out for him. She's like, I put in my time. I've done that. I've been patient. And then he

And then he just peaces on her. Or she's in the backseat of the brother's car just going at it. Yes. Jack and Rose. Wipes the frost off the window and she's just in there. I wish that happened. It's so bizarre, but I'll take the sequel. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Sam Jackson, JT Welsh, Byron Mayo, Harling Mays, Eva Laffey, Ramon Raymond, or Philip Baker Hall? I have Philip Baker Hall as the priest. The Robert Prosky part.

And Rudy comes in at the end to see, Hey, you're going to get me into Notre Dame or not. He's like, Rudy, I like simple pleasures. Like my ass.

Lollipops in my mouth. That's just me. That's something I enjoy. And you enjoy Notre Dame. I'm going to get you in. It's great. I love that dialogue, especially for someone in a priest's outfit. That goes well. That's what I was thinking. It's hot. I have my own choice, but I do like the... I can get you one semester at Holy Cross, and I like to watch people on film fucking. That's just me. That's who I am. No, here's what I want. I want Sam Jackson as Fortune. And it's crazy because...

Rudy comes and he goes, I quit the team. And Sam goes, say quit again. Say quit one more goddamn time. I double dare you, motherfucker. Do they speak English and quit? And he does the whole scene with a gun and a cheeseburger. And it's just really weird out of nowhere because he's fucking pissed about quit. I want Sam as fortune. I'm into it. That's great. As much as we love Charles, I'm signing up for that one. Yeah. Just one Oscar who gets it, clearly Goldsmith. Yeah, definitely.

Probably unanswerable questions. My first one was why didn't Jamie O'Hare make it? But you just answered it too tall position. Yeah. Not his fault. Uh, we talked about Rudy's jacket and what it might've smelled like in junior by junior year. Has anyone ever worn the same jacket? Plus he's wearing it in a hot medium or cold weather. So there's some days where it's like 80. Yeah. It's like that thing's like a fire retarded suit. Um,

More annoying for Jason Miller, the actor, to deal with, the exorcist girl or Rudy? Like if you had to rank...

Reagan or Rudy? Yeah, Reagan or Rudy in the more annoying co-star rankings. I think that character would rather go another round with Reagan than have Rudy barge into his office one more time. Reagan with the crucifix and all that shit, the bed. Give me Reagan. I don't care. Good question. Yeah, he literally quit the Notre Dame because he couldn't deal with Rudy anymore. Here's an answerable question. Why did Rudy just try harder in high school? He was dyslexic.

age 13 to 17 why not where was the work ethic why did it take blowing up his buddy to make him give a shit I hear you did you I have one more do you have any more I had two

One, Mary, the person who is kind of batting her eyelashes at Rudy the whole time. Do you think she ever tosses Rudy a charity makeout? Do you think there's ever a time that that happens? Because she doesn't drink. She doesn't break rules. She doesn't believe in prayer. She doesn't seem like that much fun. There's more deleted scenes of her, too. They're always together. Do you think she ever tosses him one? Just maybe late at night? I hope.

It's interesting. I think once he makes the team, even as a walk-on, the chances go way up. The fact that she's not drinking at all in the mid-70s ruins a lot of mistake potential. Yeah. Remember at the practice, he's like, don't I know you from somewhere? Rudy's flirting back with her. Yeah, I just feel like she locks somebody down and is probably future husband. Yeah, but you're right. Maybe like

Trying to think where that would have happened. It's not like Rudy's having a good time at these bars either. No, but it leads me to my second unanswerable question. And this is a very serious one, Bill. So I'd appreciate if you take it seriously. Has any college student ever masturbated more than Rudy Rudiger in their college career? I think, let me lay out the case for you.

He's in the cot room by himself with no TV, no newspapers, no radio or nothing. He's constantly running around all day recruiting these attractive women. He has this physicality was playing football and all this testosterone and stuff.

And he seems to have no friends except for one who himself is the biggest horn dog on campus. And I feel like Rudy like set a fucking record in there like all time. And I don't, I think the answer is no. Um, but I don't want to step on anything you've done. Have you ever done the master bedding movie character hall of fame in one of your columns? Maybe I missed.

I don't think I did it, but I mean, Migs would have been Michael Jordan. I forgot about Migs. All right. I got a list. I don't know who's next on the list, but Migs is the goat. All right. Let me give you my list. I think you got to do McConaughey and Wolf of Wall Street because he shows up with numbers and receipts just all the time. DiCaprio and Basketball Diaries is like an absolute fiend.

like all day, every day. You got our guy, Joaquin Phoenix as Gary in Parenthood, who's got his bag of videos. And Keanu's like, apparently he's going for a world record. And then my last one, my last one, I can't base this on fact, our guy, Andy Dufresne,

who does 20 years in prison the whole time with a poster of like hot women up on the wall. Not to mention he does a two month stretch in the hole. And I think he was a maniac in there. So I'm going to put Rudiger in there with that crew.

I have two ads. Who are you got? The guy from, it's an old movie, but it's a famous movie from the 70s, Midnight Express, where the guy's in a Turkish prison for 10 years and his girlfriend shows up and he's like, hey, can you pull a button down? And she starts like. She pushes it against the glass. Yes, just starts spanking it.

And then I think the two kids from Weird Science have to be up there. They were so horny. They created a girl to be like a fake girlfriend. Wyatt and Gary. Wyatt and Gary. That's a good initial list. We'll see what else people think. Feel free to tweet at us. I think Rudy's on the list. And I have an explanation for it. I gave it.

It's a great job. What else is he going to do in there? I had the slow claps, which we've discussed before. Yeah. So it's, it's Brubaker was, I think invented it. That's a prison movie. The Robert Redford ends on the slow clap. Lucas had a really good one with Charlie Sheen and Corey Haim. Yes. Hoosiers in the locker room. Can't buy me love. Great one.

with Ronald Miller when he bridges the gap between the losers and the cool kids. And then Rudy. And I think that's at least our first ballot. There's probably some others, but those are the five that jump to mind for me. I don't count the ones like Not Another Teen Movie that are making fun of it. No, you can't. It has to be the unironic slow clap. My favorite by far is...

Lucas. It's in the hallway. It's perfect. It's another letter jacket. He opens the locker and the jacket is there for him. I think that one's great. Best double feature choice for this movie. I'll give you Hoosiers or I'll give you Toy Soldiers and you can just ask that it up for four hours. Hoosiers, you get a double Jerry Goldsmith. I'm going to go Hoosiers. You do basketball. You do football. I'll do that.

Indian Red's Awane Award would happen the next day. Rudy was super annoying, would be my guess. Just on campus. Did you see my sack? Did you see my sack? Oh, my God. Can you imagine Rudy after the sack? Just insufferable. Trying to start a business with photos of the sack.

Can you imagine like if this was happened now, it would just be the Rudy pod and he would just tell the story every episode of his at the sack. And he'd bring on everybody from the sack and the left tackle and the right tackle. The right guard. Yes. Oh my God. Insufferable. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? Rudy's Notre Dame jacket that he wore for three straight years that must have smelled. Rudy's game worn jersey or a Jamie O'Hare. You could zag with the Jamie O'Hare jersey or a Roland Steele jersey.

Or the Dan Devine jacket that had coach Dan Devine on the, on the right pocket, which I thought was pretty cool. What would you got?

I'm going to zag. The Rudy jacket is basically a character in this movie. We watch it for two hours and five seconds. When fortune shows up at the end of the movie in his street clothes, he has the coolest corduroy jacket on with a scarf and a hat. He looks like he's on the cover of 1975 GQ. He's never looked cooler. I would go with fortunes, corduroy jacket and outfit. That's what I'm going with. Great one. Coach Finstock or best life lesson. I have, you need to have your best friend blow up to realize what you want in life.

They have to die violently at your hand. And then it just, you're like, I got to go to college. Then you got to chase your dreams. Got to do it. Who won the movie? The finalists are Notre Dame and Jerry Goldsmith. I have the University of Notre Dame. It is a two hours of Notre Dame pornography. And they almost like fetishize it, how incredible and special it is. And it really hasn't quite been the same since. And I say that as a childhood Notre Dame fan, I think Notre Dame wins the movie.

So that's the case why I didn't have Notre Dame winning the movie. Because this is the, as we talked in Apex Mountain, it's the peak of Notre Dame. Yep. Movie comes out. Within a couple years, the program kind of starts sliding the other way and it really hasn't been the same since. So I don't know what they won. Now it's like, oh, the glory days when we were awesome. It's in a weird way. Whereas Jerry Goldsmith, if you're like, hey, you like that tryout song from Rudy, I just feel like this is number one on the Jerry Goldsmith Wikipedia list.

What movies did he do? He won 18 nominations and won a lot. But what really mattered? It's Rudy. He composed Take Us Out. You're right. Goldsmith for the win. Rest in peace. Rest in peace. Just died a couple months ago, actually. All right. Kyle Brandt.

Fantastic is always great. So we might do one of these in person next month because you might be in LA a couple of times. We're starting to map out a strategy. I'm going to be in LA. We got some movies that Bill and I are talking about. I think there's going to be some, as they say, Bill bangers only coming up soon. Thanks to Jesse Lopez for producing. Thanks to Jack Sanders and Craig Horlbeck as well. You can watch this on the ringer movies, YouTube channel. If you're so inclined, thanks for coming out. We'll see you next week.