Natey & Katy: At the Movies
Natey & Katy are two friends who love movies and love talking about them. Join them on their cinematic journey!
Natey & Katy: At the Movies
Improvised Brilliance and Wartime Realities
Have you ever wondered how an actor's improvised lines could redefine a film's authenticity? Join us as we sit down with Bob LeMent from Static Radio (staticradio.com) to dissect Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket." We focus on the compelling themes of the Vietnam War's dehumanizing effects and R Lee Ermey's unforgettable performance as the drill sergeant. Bob sheds light on Ermey’s unexpected casting and the incredible impact of his improvised dialogue. We also touch on Kubrick’s consistent exploration of violent themes by comparing this film to his other works like "A Clockwork Orange" and "The Shining." A humorous moment ensues when Katy mistakenly mixes up "Full Metal Jacket" with "Platoon," adding a lighthearted twist to our conversation.
We delve into the intricate character development of Joker, the protagonist, observing his transition from self-preservation tactics in boot camp to an empathetic soldier by the film's end. Our discussion critiques the film's portrayal of urban combat, a departure from the usual jungle warfare seen in Vietnam War movies, and applauds Kubrick's unique filming choices. Bob provides a balanced view of the movie's strengths and weaknesses, with our final rating landing between four to six stars. Don't miss our sneak peek into the next episode, where we review the timeless classic "Citizen Kane," and remember to send us your own film suggestions for future episodes. We wrap up with a memorable quote from "Full Metal Jacket," ensuring a thought-provoking and engaging experience for our listeners.
Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new episode of Nadie and Katie at the movies. I'm your host, nathan aka Nadie, of course, and on today's episode we have a very special guest. Yes, katie is here as well, but more important than that, we have another special guest. Special guest, please introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm Bob Lament from Static Radio, Staticradiocom. At Static Radio on socials or wherever.
Speaker 1:Very cool. So I actually met Bob on PobMatchcom, which is kind of I hate to call it this, but it's kind of like a dating service for podcasters. So you go on there. I wouldn't call it a dating service at all. Well, it kind of has like the same. You know, it's kind of like a tender. You know swipe left, swipe right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, it has that, but but anyway.
Speaker 1:So Bob reached out to me and said hey, I think I would be a good fit for your show, cause he talks about movies, pop culture, and so I send him our list, which is the 250 top greatest movies of all time, according to IMDb anyway, and this movie that we're going to be talking about today was his first pick, and so that movie is Full Metal Jacket. But before we can talk about our likes and dislikes, I have to go over the synopsis. A pragmatic us marine observes the dehumanizing effects the vietnam war has on his fellow recruits, from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in hui. Full metal Jacket stars Matthew Modine, R Lee Ermey, vincent D'Onofrio and Adam Baldwin. So why did you pick this movie to talk about out of all the movies?
Speaker 2:Well, joker, I like this movie. Joker, I thought you know I've seen it several times. I'm a huge Stanley Kubrick fan and although I will say it's probably not one of his best movies, it probably is one of his better movies against, you know, against war and the cruelties and debilitating psychological effects war has on people.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's too deep no, no, no, so last. So last episode, katie and I, my co-host, we talked about a clockwork orange. Okay, um, which is Obviously another Stanley Stanley Kubrick movie. Have you seen that one before?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I've seen it many times again another violent movie?
Speaker 1:Yes, very much. So I think Stanley Kubrick, you know, has a theme going on because he did the shining, he did clockwork, orange and then obviously full metal jacket. So what would you say is probably one of the highlights of this film for you.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the interesting thing to me in one of the highlights is R Lee Ermey. Even though he has a very negative persona in the movie. I think he's one of the highlights because, you know, to be honest, he's probably the best darn thing in this movie, and he wouldn't have said it that way either. He probably would have been a little more explicative in his description of himself, and the backstory for him was he wasn't even supposed to be in this movie, wow. So he was actually a consultant for the movie to teach the person who was going to be the drill sergeant how to act. The fact that at some point during the process they said this guy is not doing very well, r Lee, why don't you jump in? And then he had a great career after that. He was in all kinds of interesting stuff, little known fact.
Speaker 1:After that he was in all kinds of interesting stuff. Little known fact. I don't know if you know this, katie, but I looked it up because as you were talking about it his voice came in my head from another movie. Did you know that arlie ermy played the sergeant toy soldier in toy story?
Speaker 3:that's so random, but that's perfect.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was like I knew.
Speaker 3:I wonder if that was like a callback, like people, parents who were taking their kids to you know it would have been our parents, parents taking their kids to see Toy Story, where maybe they recognize that off the bat.
Speaker 2:I don't know if this was the first thing he was in as far as movies go, but I know it was one of the first, and so it brought to the world this, this character that he portrayed, which was quite convincing yeah, he did a great job and and I heard that actually a lot of his lines were improvised, like he just made it up on the spot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which, because he was the drill sergeant.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, so he just basically put these people through their paces as if it was real. But the funny thing is you say that and you say, oh, it sounds simple, he was a real drill sergeant. But if you've ever tried to have anybody who is in a position act the position they're in, they can't do it most of the time. So kudos to him for pulling it off, because most people you act like you're a doctor, act like a in. They can't do it most of the time. So kudos to him for pulling it off, cause most people you'll act like you're a doctor, act like a doctor. They can't do it. I don't know, I just do you know. And then they can't be themselves.
Speaker 1:But he could, so yeah, and and, like you said, he became probably one of the most iconic parts of this movie.
Speaker 3:Are you guys talking about William Defoe and Charlie Sheen? Yet Not yet.
Speaker 2:Did you guys?
Speaker 3:get to that part yet.
Speaker 1:What? Not quite William Defoe and Charlie Sheen. That's Platoon, though. Are y'all talking about the?
Speaker 3:right scene where you know Defoe, oh Platoon, yes, yeah, we already reviewed that.
Speaker 2:We can talk about that too, if you want.
Speaker 3:Are you just telling me there's a secondary Vietnam War film that talks about the brutal effects on people that fought in the Vietnam War?
Speaker 1:Katie, you don't know what you're talking about, just go away.
Speaker 2:The funny thing is you're right, because Platoon got all the accolades and this movie didn't. If you look at it from a distance now, this movie is a better movie than Platoon.
Speaker 3:Whoa, those are fighting words. Could you explain to me? I actually chose not to watch this one. I watched some clips of it and I was, as you said, nate, that I was just very I could, even though I'd never seen this movie. I knew of the drill sergeant. I think that people I'm thinking of major pain in other movies that have like spoofed that across time since that point. But from what I, what I was seeing, I don't know. I wasn't very intrigued. What sets us on above platoon for you?
Speaker 2:Kind of the realities of things. So the it really is to me, and no one's ever written this anywhere as far as I've read. But, um, it's like two different movies. There's the bootcamp movie and then there's in the field movie, right, and they're kind of put together, but the connective tissue between the two is basically Joker and then cowboy at some point, right, cause those are the only two people that really carry through the movie. That's the interesting part to me is it really could have been two separate movies, but they put it together.
Speaker 2:So you have this whole, uh, boot camp thing which is, I'm assuming, and I've had, you know, people tell me very realistic experience of boot camp, and so you really don't see that even in platoon and everything, everything is kind of very glossy and so forth. Now, even the combat stuff is a little more realistic in a sense and we can get into some of that later but very realistic in a sense of what happens there. Where there's a lot of confusion, you're going for hours of boredom into mass confusion, and that's the way war is, whereas the with platoon and so forth, the story arc is a little more kind of hammered home and stuck to. Where is this? You know, you feel like it's. It's fairly somewhat meandering at points, and that's the way war is, as opposed to being a story arc, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Nathan said he finished the movie. He said don't watch this, it ends sad. I said okay, great. But Nathan, you know, speak to that. That seems to be exactly what you felt with this movie in terms of the split.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought, cause when I first watched watched it, I'm going to be honest I fell asleep. I fell asleep after the boot camp part and, and because I was so, I was so sucked in by the drill sergeant's performance and vincent d'onofrio, who I thought was brilliant as his character in and what happens? I'm not going to say exactly what happens, but it's super tragic, I would know. We know spoilers. I'm going to try my best, because I do I do.
Speaker 1:This is a movie that needs to be seen, even though you know, obviously, some of the language content and the violence content. It's a war movie, it's the genre, right, but the performances just were just phenomenal at the beginning of the film and then I I found myself kind of like you were saying, feeling that meandering and that draggingness of of on the field and nothing really happening for for a good while until the, until the, the war action really starts. So the first viewing I did fall asleep sitting up. So I apologize, stanley, you, I'm sorry, but I I did want to watch it again because I just wanted to see how it connected. And, bob, what you said is absolutely correct, like this really could have been two separate movies the, the characters of joker and cowboy kind of connect it.
Speaker 1:But one of my, one of my biggest dislikes as a, as a viewer not necessarily viewing it for the realism of the war, but as just as a movie I didn't like how there was no mention of earlier events. It felt kind of disconnected from the beginning of the movie. Would you agree with that or how would you justify? Oh yeah, I already did.
Speaker 2:But I've seen I've probably seen this movie half a dozen times, but I watched it again over the weekend and my wife was was there with me. She really didn't necessarily want to watch it, but she was there, so she watched it. And when they got done with the first half of the you know the first part of the movie, the bootcamp part of the movie, and they went into the next part, they're like, well, what happened? And I'm like that's the point. The point is is you know, everything moves forward. There is no sitting still in a war machine and things happen, and guess what, the next day or the next month or the next, whatever, you are on your way to the next thing, because nothing stops the machine. So you know that to me is you know it's. They don't say that it's all implied, but I mean that's what they're saying, that's what they're implying is like you know, joker moved on. He had a job to do, even if it was being a reporter, and all that's behind him.
Speaker 3:I think you're so spot on. And then even to add to that, you know, nathan and I have have lived in a military town at one point together and you talk to these guys and some of them are really messed up when they come back. And you know, I kind of made the point to nathan when we were talking that I think there is not supposed to be a mention of that. You, it's something that's part of why these guys come back, because they don't get a chance to talk about it and it's not until years, maybe even decades later that they're processing as what the mental toll was or they're at the grocery store and somebody drops a can of peas and everything goes crazy.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, the uh interesting thing is if you talk to um, well, these guys were marines and I have talked to marines, but not in this.
Speaker 2:You know, vein, but I've talked to somebody in the army and he talks about the rucksack and he talks about you take all your feelings and you stuff it in your rucksack and you keep doing that the whole time. You are dealing with, you know, an undealable situation and then that rucksack fills up and at some point in the future it all comes out no-transcript encouraging. This guy's not encouraging in the same sense, and so it starts way back there and it is really a systemic traumatization of these people and it just keeps getting worse and worse. Systemic traumatization of these people and it just keeps getting worse and worse. But but part of the, you know, if you look at it from that standpoint, it's very, very negative. But if you look from the standpoint of what they're trying to accomplish and you can step back a bit you're like this guy is setting them up so when you gotta sit there and shoot somebody, you can shoot them because you'd be desensitized, right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's basically you or me, and that's it. That's the choice.
Speaker 1:Well, even Adam Baldwin's character, when I think two of his fellow soldiers die. His line is better you than me, Better you than me, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:So he's so desensitized by the violence all over that in a morbid way he of a. In a morbid way he's kind of okay with his fellow soldiers dying right, because it's not him.
Speaker 2:I get to go, I get to keep going, I can maybe make it to the finish line and go home, even though I'll go home broken. I go home. When you got to the uh, second part of the movie, which was more of the combat part, everybody experienced it differently, right, and so, if you remember Rafterman, who was the photographer, he got into it, it inflated his ego, right, and he thought it was interesting and neat to be doing this, even though he was scared to death at the initial thing. But whenever they, you know, kind of made it through, he was like you know, yeah, and cause, he was talking to the film crew, yeah, man, we're in the country and you know, and then. But each one of the people dealt with it in a different way. Some people were kind of psychotic, some people were like I just got to get through this. Adam Baldwin was, you know, I'm in it for me, me, you know, I'm taking care of myself, um and so.
Speaker 1:And then joker, who's our protagonist, through the most, you know, through the movie, it gets to that point and essentially it's horrific, yeah, right, and you can see a difference, not till the very end, but you see an incredible difference in his demeanor within, you know, two minutes at the end of the movie yeah, because like, in a way, his character not maybe not to the extent of adam baldwin's character, but his character was kind of like I gotta look out for me almost the entire, like the boot camp part, yeah, and and he was trying to be helpful with Vincent D'Onofrio's character, but even with that he was doing it for his benefit.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:He had to get through bootcamp, right To work himself up, and then it's kind of like his big character arc was was what happens at the end of the movie. So was there anything about this movie that you didn't like?
Speaker 2:I mean, you've you've said a lot of good things, talking a lot about the realism, um, was there anything about this film that that was like no, this, this isn't this isn't so the part I didn't like and and I've got some time with this movie so I've read other things and so forth, but the one thing I didn't think about it at least first showing, but uh, upon, but upon multiple showings is they focused on combat in an urban area, in a town, right, and that's not. This is where platoon gets the better is. That's not probably most people's experience from Vietnam. Most people's experience from Vietnam was being in the jungle Vietnam. Most people's experience from Vietnam was being in the jungle and the town fight, the city fighting and so forth was probably over fairly quickly, you know, in relation to having to trudge through the jungle for you know, days in order to try to find what was going in the jungle.
Speaker 2:And I had the I'll call it pleasure or displeasure of talking to a gentleman at some length because I was working with him. He was a tunnel rat and so he was a little person, right, small in stature, and what happened in Vietnam was most people who were small in stature would go in the tunnels and they'd take and he would talk about it at lunch, they would take a flashlight, one of the 90-degree flashlights, and a nine-millimeter pistol. That's all you could carry and everybody else would be outside the tunnel and they'd be like Jimmy, you're going down the tunnel, and when he went down the tunnel he would have to kill people all along the way. So it was a horrific experience. And also be shot at himself and attempted to get killed Horrific experience.
Speaker 2:So we didn't see that in this movie, right, but I think Platoon give you a little bit more of that. And then the whole going village to village and having people be on the North Vietnam side, viet Cong and so forth, and just kind of the whole chaos of that where we didn't get that in this movie. This movie takes place, but the bad thing is the reason it takes place in the city is because Stanley Kubrick would not leave the London area and so all those buildings are outside of London, in an old factory area of some kind that he could blow up and everything, and so that's why they were there, because everything took place around London, believe it or not? Wow, which is just hilarious if you think about it.
Speaker 1:Overall, I think, like I said before, I think this is an important film. I mean, that's why it's on this list of one of the greatest movies of all time, because I do think there's messages within it that need to be seen, whether it's in the context of war or whether it's just in general. People need to see the effects of not just war but how we treat each other. I mean, and and from the bullying that they put pile uh Gomer pile through at the beginning of the film and what that makes him end up doing and and just being surrounded by negativity and what that could do with to your mental state, and the fact that Joker again goes from kind of the Adam Baldwin character mindset to seeing even his enemy as a human at the end of the film. I think that's just that's just a general message that I think everyone needs to hear anyway. So just by that standpoint, I think it's very important film. So let's go ahead, and let's go ahead and rate this thing no-transcript.
Speaker 2:I would say it gets six. It's a six, uh, six. Infinity stone, star slash, star movie. For sure. It's not for everyone, I'm going to tell you, but if you look at it from its merits as as cinema, it's a six star movie cool.
Speaker 1:Well, I would actually give it a four out of six. I'm sorry it's. It's mostly just because but you kind of, you kind of justified my feelings of how, why it dragged on for a little bit. So I don't know, I kind of might bump it up to maybe a five, because I do think it's an important film to watch. Again, the content isn't the best, but it just fits the genre.
Speaker 2:So that is Full Metal Jacket Bob thank you for being on the show today. Oh, no problem, I appreciate it, it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me on so if people want to listen to your show, how can they find you?
Speaker 2:Oh sure, Staticradiocom at Static Radio for most of the socials. I mean. There's some that aren't that way, but you probably don't use those anyway, so it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll be sure to put the link to your show in our show notes. And next week, katie and I are going to be talking about a classic film, and here is a clip right now.
Speaker 3:Rosebud. What's Rosebud? That's what he said when he died. Get in touch with everybody that ever worked for him, whoever loved him, whoever hated his guts.
Speaker 1:You're a reporter, you want to know what I think about Charlie Kane. But he never believed in anything except Charlie Kane. He never had a conviction except Charlie Kane in his life.
Speaker 2:I wonder, you put all?
Speaker 3:this stuff together palaces, paintings, toys and everything. What would it?
Speaker 1:spell. You're right, Mr Thatcher. I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in 60 years. We're covering another classic, Citizen Kane Rosebud. That's going to be fun, Can't wait.
Speaker 3:I only know Citizen Kane because it was a band I listened to in high school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with the band I'm excited to listen to or watch Citizen Kane?
Speaker 3:Hopefully not.
Speaker 1:Nothing.
Speaker 3:I'm excited about it. I don't want to do a quick plug. Nathan does a great job of keeping you updated on what we're going to review, so if you see something on the list, then reach out to us me or Nady and then also maybe you have a suggestion of a movie. We've done some really wacky, weird movies, so nothing's too out there for us, I think. So if you have movie suggestions, we can always do those on a secret surprise Saturday.
Speaker 1:And you can get in contact for those suggestions by hitting that Send us a text link in the show notes to go straight to our fan mail. We'd love to hear from you. So here's the quote from full metal jacket. Are those live rounds? 762 millimeter full metal jacket.
