The movie Rudy is based on the true story of Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger whose dream was to play for Notre Dame. Everyone, including his family, friends, and even clergy told him that he’d never do it.
Rudy was small and didn’t have the physical body for a premier football program like Notre Dame. None of his older siblings had gone to college. He had been told that he wasn’t smart enough for college and that he should go to a technical school instead. Yet he overcame obstacles to play his senior year for 27 seconds for Notre Dame. He was carried off the field on the shoulders of his team mates. Since 1975 no other player has been carried off like this at Notre Dame.
One of the more memorable quotes comes from one of Rudy’s mentors, Fortune. He tells Rudy this as he is about ready to quit, after he has made the team, but may be unable to dress for his last game.

You’re 5 foot nothin’, 100 and nothin’, and you have nearly a speck of athletic ability. And you hung in there with the best college football team in the land for 2 years. And you’re gonna walk outta here with a degree from the University of Notre Dame. In this life, you don’t have to prove nothin’ to nobody but yourself.

Sometimes the toughest person to convince is yourself. We tend to put alot of high expectations on ourselves. We get anxious when we don’t meet those expectations in our own minds. Sometimes its best to remember that we don’t have to be perfect in order to accomplish our goals.
In the movie Rudy meet another football player who is disastisfied that he is playing for Notre Dame. He says he would have preferred to play for other teams, but he chose Notre Dame because his father was an All-American there. This player doesn’t even try anymore. He says the coach keeps him on because he is a legacy.
The moral of the above exchange is some people remain ungrateful for their gifts. Rudy would have done anything to play for Notre Dame, yet this other player could care less. Eventually this player says that it was Rudy who convinced him to stick it out his senior year.

Firestarter is a 1984 movie which deals with telekinetic abilities. The storyline involves a government experiment in which 10 participants are given injections of experimental drugs which would give them psychic abilities. Eight of the experiment participants died or committed suicide. Two lone participants, Andy and Victoria, survive.
Victoria’s psychic abilities are never discussed in depth. We only know that she can read Andy’s mind. Andy’s abilities are shown to be extensive, including moving inanimate objects, causing people to go blind, and mind control. Andy and Victoria have a psychic bond and get married and have a child, Charlene “Charlie.” Charlie inherits dramatic psychic abilities from her parents. She is able to start fires, sometimes out of her control, on any objects or persons which she hates. Andy and Victoria try to control their child’s abilities. Their home is filled with fire extinguishers.
Eventually the government becomes wise to this family’s psychic abilities and tries to capture them. Victoria is killed by government agents, sending Andy and Charlie on the run from the agents.
This was Drew Barrymore’s next big role after E.T. Many of her fans no doubt went to see Firestarter thinking it would be another cutesy E.T. movie and instead got a psycholocial thriller. There is nothing cutesy about this movie.
Andy is played by David Keith, who could have easily been a 80s version of Patrick Swayze in mannerisms and speech.
The movie itself could have been developed more. Instead of having a large portion of the movie being Andy and Charlie’s capture by the government, instead it should have been how they escape from the government. It’s a good 80s movie and decently done for its time.

In the movie, Pleasantville, we see the two main characters in direct contrast with each other. David Wagner, the protagonist, is a shy teenager who is apprehensive about asking a popular girl out. His parents are divorced and he is unhappy in the imperfect world that he lives in. He finds escape in his favorite black and white TV show from the 1950, “Pleasantville.”
By contrast his sister, Jennifer love the world she lives in. She could be considered a “bad girl,” – sexually promisculous smoker. She is concerned about dating the cutest guy in school.
During an argument over control of the TV, Jennifer and David are transported to the black and white TV show world of Pleasantville. Initually they are shocked, but eventually they decide to play along as the TV characters of Mary Sue and Bud.
Pleasantville is a perfect world. The basketball team is undefeated. It never rains. Wives have dinner for their husbands promptly at 6PM. Firemen have no knowledge of fire (for there are no disasters like fire in Pleasantville). A Pleasantville Fireman’s only purpose is to rescue cats from trees. Any problem one may encounter can be solved within a half hour (including commercials breaks).
Interestingly enough there is no interaction with the outside world. Geography classes study the geography of Pleasantville itself, without mentioning where Pleasantville ends. Books contain blank pages, as if to say information from the outside is unimportant or irrelevant.
Mary Sue finds the Pleasantville world unrealistic. She resolves to change the world and teach the characters in the sitcom about how real life is. Bud by contrast realizes that this could turn their world upside down and might not let them get back to the world of reality.
Change occurs. The basketball teams starts loosing. Wives don’t have dinner on the table for their husbands promptly at 6PM. The clouds produce rain. Pleasantville becomes the imperfect world of reality.
The selling point for the audience is the color change in the black and white world. Initually it is subtle: pink bubblegum, a green car at the soda shop; the red cherry on top of a sundae; the red hearts in a card game.
A first the color change in people comes from sexual experiences. One would think the movie is promoting being sexual promiscuity. Instead the movie is promoting change. Color represents seeing the world in a different light. Jennifer/Mary Sue doesn’t become colorized when she has sex, like many of the other characters. Instead she changes when she discovers the world of reading. David/Bud experiences color change when he finally stands up for himself.
The movie deals with alot of other social issues such as racism. When some of the Pleasantville residents turn colors we see “No Coloured” signs in storefront windows. Segregation is seen in the trial of Bud and Bill when the colored people are in the balcony in tribute to “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Censorship is also dealt with. When words start appearing in the books and the citizens start learning about the outside world, the city has a good old fashion book burning reminicent of Nazi Germany.
There is a conversation between Bud and his father near the end of the movie. The father asks his son “What went wrong?” “Nothing,” Bud says. “People change.” This pretty much sums up the moral of the story. Change, no matter how we feel about it, is going to occur. It our duty to make the best of it, and even in some cases embrace it.