I just came back from a screening of Jarhead.
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Outstanding!
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I liked it alot. The cinematography was fantastic and Jamie Foxx did a great job.
This would be a [i]real[/i] good film to see while doing a couple of hits of blotter… 
[quote=“Comrade Stalin”]I just came back from a screening of Jarhead.
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Outstanding!
[/color]
I liked it alot. The cinematography was fantastic and Jamie Foxx did a great job.
This would be a [i]real[/i] good film to see while doing a couple of hits of blotter…
jarheadmovie.com/welcometothesuck.html[/quote]
Damn, CS, I thought this was going to be an autobiographical thread. 
Holy shti, I just had a flashback.
I hated getting off that bus.
huh hunh huh hunh…He said…[i]JARHEAD[/i]…unh hunh…unh hunh…
Did not like this movie at all. Guy flick. That’s okay. What I didn’t care for was the OBVIOUS directing references to “Full Metal Jacket”
Well, it is about Marine Corps Boot Camp.
Well, it is about Marine Corps Boot Camp.[/quote]
Yea, but there have been plenty of ‘guy flicks’ that I have enjoyed. But there are some that are solely for men.
But don’t you feel when a director does that it’s like doffing his cap? In this case rightly so I think. I thought the basic training scenes from Full Metal Jacket were particularly good and imagine it would be very hard to improve on or even present in a different way while maintaining credibility.
There’s something universally familar about military basic training. I guess it’s the same awful process wherever you are.
HG.
i thought the actor playing the drill instructor showed much more sensitivity than Lee Ermey’s character in Full Metal Jacket. I especially liked the way he smashed Swafford’s head in the wall. Brought a tear to my eye… 
But don’t you feel when a director does that it’s like doffing his cap? In this case rightly so I think. I thought the basic training scenes from Full Metal Jacket were particularly good and imagine it would be very hard to improve on or even present in a different way while maintaining credibility.
There’s something universally familar about military basic training. I guess it’s the same awful process wherever you are.
HG.[/quote]
Hell no I don’t feel like it’s ‘doffing his cap’. I think that FMJ was a fine piece of work and should stand on its own. No the problem I have is with these directors and producers who are so effin’ uncreative these days. Rather than they make their mark, show their own creative turn on the event, they get together and make re-makes of their special moment they had while watching their favorite film. 
:fume:
[quote=“Namahottie”]
Hell no I don’t feel like it’s ‘doffing his cap’. I think that FMJ was a fine piece of work and should stand on its own. [/quote]
Full Metal Jacket was compared to An Officer And A Gentleman.
[quote=“Huang Guang Chen”]
There’s something universally familar about military basic training. I guess it’s the same awful process wherever you are.
HG.[/quote]
I was in Paris Island in 1985. The Drill Instructors were incredibly professional. Cuss words were not allowed, nor was ANY kind of violence between recruits or the Staff. I fully enjoyed myself there. I got into the best shape of my life and could 5 miles in 20 minutes, do 50 pushups and 20 pullups before getting bored, run obstacle courses all day and totally dig it.
It’s been downhill since for the ole bod.
The violent training/abuse at the time though was happening in San Diego.
But let me tell you, the DI in FMJ gives me shivers. He is the voice of one of my own Drill Instructors (God, even 20 years on I can’t call those guys DIs…a blasphemous curse).
I believe the DI in FMJ actually WAS a DI, wasn’t he?
It think that in the book they talk about watching movies like FMJ over and over while waiting.
[quote=“jdsmith”]
But let me tell you, the DI in FMJ gives me shivers. He is the voice of one of my own Drill Instructors (God, even 20 years on I can’t call those guys DIs…a blasphemous curse). [/quote]
Damn right. I still have nightmares featuring mine…Drill Sergeant Parker.
R. Lee Ermey. A certified badass. The story goes that Kubrick hired him as technical advisor…after seeing him instructing the DI actor, he replaced the actor with Ermey.
[quote]Meritorious Unit Commendation
Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
National Defense Service Medal
Vietnam Service Medal (w/bronze service star)
Vietnam Campaign Medal (w/60 Device)
Vietnam Gallantry Cross (w/Palm)
Good Conduct Medal (w/2 bronze service stars)
Marksman Badge (w/Rifle Bar)
Sharpshooter Badge (w/Pistol Bar)
R. Lee Ermey spent eleven years in the Marine Corps. Two of which were spent as being a Drill Instructor at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, India Company 3rd Recruit Training Battalion 1965-67. Arrived in Vietnam in 1968 spending 14 months attached to Marine Wing Support Group 17 and 2 tours in Okinawa. He rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant and was medically retired for injuries received. Using G.I. Bill benefits, Ermey enrolled at the University of Manila in the Philippines, where he studied drama. Francis Ford Coppola was filming “Apocalypse Now” in the area and cast Ermey in a featured role. He has since gone on to star or appear in approximately forty films.
As a Golden Globe nominee and Boston Society of Film Critics Award-winner for Best Supporting Actor in director Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket”, R. Lee Ermey is one of the most successful and talented actors working in film and television today.[/quote]
Imagine that school at that time!
I suspect the Oz experience is something different in a sense. In the Oz army it all comes back to “mateship.” Your training Sgt is a mate, a buffer/conduit between you and your working class mates and the officers. The pressure is not so much directed by a threat of violence by the sgt, but rather retribution from your barracks pals for letting the team down. The sgt of course directs this at his whim but you will always come away feeing as though he was a good friend. A rough paternal figure but one you knew you could depend on as long as you’d done the right thing.
In another link I referred to the lyrics of an Oz song about Vietnam. My Sgt was a vet, as were all the NCOs in my brief stint in the Oz army in 1981. One line in the lyrics always echoes true . .
While mercifully spared ever fighting, the pressure of mateship was extreme. It was clear to all of us that if you let the side down the team would off you and this was something that would never find it’s way to officers or the outside.
When referring to the common features of basic training I meant the breaking down of the indvidual to the unit and the common methods - lack of sleep, exercise, fatigue, mindless reptition, sudden barking of commands and I guess the constant menace of potential violence. Oh yeah, and the drinking. An incredible mind circus.
Back to the thread, I liked Jarheads immensely. The constant frustration . . . the 99% boredom 1% sheer terror as war was always described to me and very much how I imagined it. Also the humanity. Soldiers are people too.
HG
I have yet to see the movie, but I shall as soon as possible. I bought Anthony Swofford’s book in 2003, pretty much on impulse. It’s pretty well-written, if rather self-indulgent. But that’s what’s good about it. It offers glimpses on the personal dynamics of small-unit cohesion, the ever present differences between the military and civilians, and some interesting observations about being a U.S. Marine in a Surveillance and Target Acquisition Platoon.
I only hope the move retains some of the gritty realism that the book presents. I despise it when war movies alter or ignore the mundane details of history, in the hope of saving some cash (“those plebes will never know the difference”). Stuff about the uniforms, how weapons are used, and the sound & feel of an operative military unit in harm’s way.
I have always watched war movies, but it’s been a while since I saw anything REALLY good.
[quote]
1Meritorious Unit Commendation
2Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal
3National Defense Service Medal
4Vietnam Service Medal (w/bronze service star)
5Vietnam Campaign Medal (w/60 Device)
6Vietnam Gallantry Cross (w/Palm)
7Good Conduct Medal (w/2 bronze service stars)
8Marksman Badge (w/Rifle Bar)
9Sharpshooter Badge (w/Pistol Bar) [/quote]
1: bs
2:bs (you were there, here ya go)
3:bs
4:the bronze star is no bs; he did something to get that
5:hmmm, sounds like a good one
6:sounds lame
7:crap and bs, but the 2 bronze stars indicate a hard on
8 and 9: total crap
So badass? I dunno. He definatley saw some action for sure though.
[quote=“TheGingerMan”]
I only hope the move retains some of the gritty realism that the book presents. I despise it when war movies alter or ignore the mundane details of history, in the hope of saving some cash (“those plebes will never know the difference”). Stuff about the uniforms, how weapons are used, and the sound & feel of an operative military unit in harm’s way.
I have always watched war movies, but it’s been a while since I saw anything REALLY good.[/quote]
I got a serious rush from watching it…it reminded me alot of “the good old days”…a party in the 44th Airborne Training Company that went a little too far with a WWII Nazi P-38…although it was about the Marines and I served in the Army, I thought it was [i]extremely[/i] accurate. See it. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.
[quote=“Comrade Stalin”][quote=“Namahottie”]
Hell no I don’t feel like it’s ‘doffing his cap’. I think that FMJ was a fine piece of work and should stand on its own. [/quote]
Full Metal Jacket was compared to An Officer And A Gentleman.[/quote] :roflmao: :roflmao: and that’s a sick sick comparison.
I always wonder if the “badass Marine” thing was a myth.
Marine amphibious force: that’s what they told us we were.
First to fight. We don’t need no war declaration. The President’s men.
We have no internal police force: the Navy takes care of that. We just fight.
We train day after day: how to fight, how to shoot, how to surround, how to engage, how to divide, how to conquer.
We trained to kill.
Period.
That is some scary shti.
The guys I recall: crazy as in certifiable; dumb as in doorknob; smart as in genious; honest; good; true; a thief or two; funny as in lifelong giggles; moral as in will not bend the truth.
They were all things and all people.
I wish there had been a Forumosa for those guys. THAT would have been a nightmare to moderate.