1941 (1979)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi, Lorraine Gary

Have I Seen It Before: Yes. I have the strongest memory of sitting in my bedroom and watching the thing on VHS. Why wouldn’t I have done so? Spielberg? Check. Aykroyd and Belushi? More check. Script by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale? Yet more check.

Did I Like It: Well, I suppose Coppola went to Vietnam, and Spielberg decided to instead go to Santa Barbara… Both of them probably thought on some level that they were going to war in their own way.

Spielberg was absolutely right in understanding that he was two-ish decades away from being ready to handle a serious war movie, and so went lighter with the whole affair. Thank God he got the idea that he could do a big, John Landis (if not out-and-out ZAZ-style) comedy out of his system here, or we might have been forced to endure Bill Murray as Indiana Jones or something unfathomably awful by the time he came around to Saving Private Ryan (1998).

And I say this all without trying to say that the film isn’t worth a look. Spielberg is working with that same “Gee, Sammy Fabelman loves movies more than the rest of us ever could” energy that made virtually every other film he’s ever made a classic. The John Williams score is exactly what any reasonable person would want out of one of his score. If the film had stuck with the collective imagination a little (probably a lot) more than it did, it might have joined the pantheon of his great works.

It's just not very funny. I can’t remember laughing once during the thing. That’s okay, there are plenty of great films that aren’t particularly funny. Zemeckis and Gale harnessed similar energy in Romancing the Stone (1984), and yes, even in Back to the Future (1985). Spielberg, certainly in this era, is the absolute, undisputed king of light pop entertainments. But it is impossible for a viewer to look at Aykroyd, Belushi, or even John Candy and think they are supposed to laugh. And when those laughs come, there isn’t a whole lot else to say.

Rudy (1993)

Director: David Anspaugh

Cast: Sean Astin, Ned Beatty, Charles S. Dutton, Jason Miller

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: There’s a certain emotional target that I imagine most films are probably aiming for, and if they hit that target they move beyond the confines of normal movies. It is an ephemeral goal. For every, say Rocky (1976) or Saturday Night Fever (1977) that hits it, there are any number of examples like say… Staying Alive (1983) (to mix and match the same ingredients) that miss it entirely.

It doesn’t matter what the topic of the film is, if the target is hit correctly. I return again to my affinity for the Rocky (and by extension, Creed) films. I couldn’t possibly sit through a single boxing match. For that matter, I don’t really have any particular desire to serve in a maximum security prison, but I don’t think that a year has gone by where I haven’t watched The Shawshank Redemption (1994).

If the target is hit, it doesn’t matter if the story is schmalzy or too melodramatic for its own good. It doesn’t matter if—in the case of Rudy—that the “based on a true story” parts are, if Joe Montana is to be believed, more of a joke than a rousing triumph of the human spirit. As long as that spirit is right and properly roused, we tend to ignore any and all flaws.

Maybe it’s all tied to Jerry Goldsmith’s score (which I could eat with a spoon, were the opportunity afforded), or maybe it’s that deadly earnestness at the film’s core, but Rudy hits the target with room to spare. It doesn’t really matter that I couldn’t give even a little bit of a crap about football or the University of Notre Dame. It doesn’t matter that Rudy’s (Astin) goal is kind of singularly nuts and he may just need some therapy*.

But it’s probably a good thing he Ruttiger didn’t get involved with ending the Cold War.

*They had therapy in 1972, right?