Welcome to an episode that takes you behind the scenes of the classic 1987 film, Full Metal Jacket. Hosts Steven Pierce, Matt Mundy, and writer Dean Imperial explore Stanley Kubrick's audacious masterpiece, from the profound impact of the opening scene to the painstaking detail that went into the film's production.
Along the way, we also share a personal intoxicating delight - a special cocktail mixed by one of our favorite mixologists, friend of the pod, Chadwick Sutton. He affectionately calls this play on the Mexican firing squad the "Jelly Donut", served to you by our friends at MISGUIDED SPIRITS:
2oz MISGUIDED blanco tequila
.75oz fresh lime juice
.75oz fancy grenadine
4 dashes of angostura bitters
Shake strain, rocks glass
Garnish: lime wheel
As we navigate through the gritty realities of war depicted in Kubrick's film, we dive into the casting decisions, and the unanticipated role of R. Lee Ermey. We also delve into the hurdles encountered during the film's production, and the experiences of the cast that worked amidst these challenges.
This episode is more than just a discussion. It's an exploration of the iconic scenes and the symbolism that Kubrick masterfully weaves into the film. From the daunting dilemma faced by the character Cowboy, to the exploration of themes such as the duality of man and the impact of the system - this episode examines it all. We also discuss the competition with Oliver Stone's Platoon, and the undeniable mastery of Kubrick's work. So, join us on this riveting journey as we delve into the depths of the Full Metal Jacket.
Hey all, a quick reminder, no matter where you are listening to us, if you could rate us and drop us a review on Apple Podcasts, we’d be so grateful - it really helps us spread the good vibes. Thank you!
HAPPY HOUR FLIX is produced by James Allerdyce and Lori Kay, and hosted by Steven Pierce and Matt Mundy.
Main Title is by Johnny Mineo.
Happy Hour Flix | Movies You Love
Welcome to an episode that takes you behind the scenes of the classic 1987 film, Full Metal Jacket. Hosts Steven Pierce, Matt Mundy, and writer Dean Imperial explore Stanley Kubrick's audacious masterpiece, from the profound impact of the opening scene to the painstaking detail that went into the film's production.
Along the way, we also share a personal intoxicating delight - a special cocktail mixed by one of our favorite mixologists, friend of the pod, Chadwick Sutton. He affectionately calls this play on the Mexican firing squad the "Jelly Donut", served to you by our friends at MISGUIDED SPIRITS:
2oz MISGUIDED blanco tequila
.75oz fresh lime juice
.75oz fancy grenadine
4 dashes of angostura bitters
Shake strain, rocks glass
Garnish: lime wheel
As we navigate through the gritty realities of war depicted in Kubrick's film, we dive into the casting decisions, and the unanticipated role of R. Lee Ermey. We also delve into the hurdles encountered during the film's production, and the experiences of the cast that worked amidst these challenges.
This episode is more than just a discussion. It's an exploration of the iconic scenes and the symbolism that Kubrick masterfully weaves into the film. From the daunting dilemma faced by the character Cowboy, to the exploration of themes such as the duality of man and the impact of the system - this episode examines it all. We also discuss the competition with Oliver Stone's Platoon, and the undeniable mastery of Kubrick's work. So, join us on this riveting journey as we delve into the depths of the Full Metal Jacket.
Hey all, a quick reminder, no matter where you are listening to us, if you could rate us and drop us a review on Apple Podcasts, we’d be so grateful - it really helps us spread the good vibes. Thank you!
HAPPY HOUR FLIX is produced by James Allerdyce and Lori Kay, and hosted by Steven Pierce and Matt Mundy.
Main Title is by Johnny Mineo.
Happy Hour Flix | Movies You Love
It's a movie where the most famous line is Me so Horny, and yet it's not directed by Paul Verhoeven, it's Full Metal Jacket. Let's go on a sea movie. Let's go on a sea movie. Let's go on a sea movie. Let's go on a sea movie. Let's go on a sea movie. Let's go on a sea movie. Let's go on a sea movie. It's 1987, we got Hellraiser Dirty, dancing Spaceballs, planes, trains and Automobiles. Good Morning Vietnam. It's 0600, what's the O stand for? Oh my god, it's early. Lost Boys Raising Arizona, robocop Predator, the Untouchables Princess Bride, as you wish, and, honestly, of all the great 80s Vietnam movies we've got Born on the Fourth of July, platoon, like I said, good Morning Vietnam. Killing Fields, first Blood, hamburger Hill, casualties of War, but of course this day we are talking about 1987, Full Metal Jacket and, as always here with my host, steven Pierce, how you doing bud.
Speaker 2:Matt Mundy. It is great to be here, sir. Thank you very much once again for having me Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being had. So also want to introduce our fantastic guest here to talk about all things Full Metal and Jacket. And he's our dear friend, writer with work such as Adults Only, impostors, Godfather of Harlem Hammerhead, the man whose talent is Tubuku, our friend Dean Imperial. What's up, dean?
Speaker 3:Really nice to be here nice setup in here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, absolutely. We love your work long time.
Speaker 3:Somebody at some point was going to do that. It had to, so really, let's get it out of the way now.
Speaker 1:And also to help us get in the mood, in the right mood. We do have a drink brought to you today. Our cocktail is, as always, brought to you by our friends at Misguided Spirits, and today's beautiful concaction is mixed by Chadwick Sutton, and you can find him at Chadwick R, sutton and Dean. What do we got here?
Speaker 3:Okay. So we got two ounces of Blanco tequila, 25 ounces of lime juice, 75 ounces of grenadine. Checking this out here, mixing it right up here it says fancy, palm grenadine.
Speaker 1:Oh, fancy.
Speaker 3:Well, this is the grenadine.
Speaker 2:I have in here. It's nice and red color. I think Chadwick did another drink for us too, and it was also like super red, wasn't?
Speaker 1:it. Yeah, this guy's into horror, so.
Speaker 3:And four dashes of Angostura bitters.
Speaker 1:Oh, there we go. I don't even know what that is.
Speaker 3:But.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's that stuff that settled your stomach before they invented ginger.
Speaker 2:ale you gotta listen to the nice subtle sounds here. There we go.
Speaker 1:Make sure you wash your hands after that, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Nice and sticky Lime juice makes it all sticky.
Speaker 1:Alright, man, that looks fantastic. Dean, do you remember the name of this fantastic cocktail Chad has for us?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, the jelly donut, jelly donut. That's why it's red. Where do you follow Chad?
Speaker 2:Do we say that yeah, Chadwick or Sutton.
Speaker 1:Okay, sorry if we already said it, so we should cheer.
Speaker 2:This is the first time we've had a guest on the show. Now we are early on here, but this is the first time we've ever had a guest that I've done that. So, dean, it's like you know it's a really nice. You know, we've always known both of us, we've known our guests, so this is my first time meeting you. It's very nice to know you. Oh a pleasure. Oh, that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is fantastic. You know well, it's just like boot camp. You gotta get to know each other very well. And we were like, well, there's no better way than Excellent, yeah, full fricking metal jacket.
Speaker 2:And you showed up and I mean in full, honestly, you know, with wearing the short skirt and hula skirt and floral shirt. You are wearing. I would just quote the film and say it looks like you can suck a golf ball through a gargoyle.
Speaker 1:Yes the so, and feel free to give that right back, because he cannot take it.
Speaker 2:I will cry and leave the bathroom is just down the hall if I have to go.
Speaker 3:I've got two shoes firing away. Just met him Tissues all sharing away. No, you can play dirty, it's fine.
Speaker 1:To go off script. He's in the wrong movie. He's Denangmé, Denangmé when I get a rope and hang so. So yeah, we're talking about one of our favorite movies. Yeah, full metal jacket, jacket.
Speaker 2:So when did you guys see this movie the first time?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did, I was. I mean I would say I was probably it was on HBO or Cinemax.
Speaker 1:Mm, hmm.
Speaker 3:And I guess I was 13 years old, I mean in 1987, 1987, I was probably 10 or 10 or 11. So yeah, I probably said 12, 13 years old.
Speaker 1:So appropriate age.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I think I actually remember seeing it in my grandmother's house. She had HBO and I would stay up all night watching HBO, because we didn't we didn't have it at the time, right, and I remember it was just the opening is just completely arresting.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, this movie is just. This movie come out in 1987. Yeah, yeah it's something like. This was like Kubrick's last movie that came out while he was alive, or he died shortly before it came out.
Speaker 3:Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. He did after this, he did.
Speaker 1:I did.
Speaker 3:I shot. I shot 12 years later.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, really yeah.
Speaker 3:And he died right before.
Speaker 2:Right, so this is the last movie that came out while he was.
Speaker 3:Exactly yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then they kept him frozen until 1998. I mean 1980. I mean this movie came out when 1985 to 1987.
Speaker 3:So you saw, the year came out on HBO. Yeah, not the year came out. No, no, no, no, no, I saw it probably 88, 89.
Speaker 2:Okay, so like short, so I was 12 or 13 at the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I see it in the theater at that time even though I you know there was a time when I started going to the movies which your parents had to take you and I wasn't really tuned in to fill full metal jacket at that time, or movies like that, right, you know. But I mean I saw it and I like I was not my parents Let me watch anything anyway, you know, and most of the stuff at home was on VHS, vhs or Betamax or whatever. But I watched as I stayed up all night and I just remember relating to the Caprio character to a Comer Pyle, hmm, because I was a chubby kid then. I'm a chubby kid now, but I was chubby kid then and you just, you know, I found that there was something about the in the moment when, at the beginning, you're watching this movie and you can see a smirk on his face, which I think anybody would have, a smirk. When Sergeant Harman comes out and he starts that barrage, I don't know how I would have kept a straight face.
Speaker 2:That's the. That's the moment of that scene is always so impactful because he's grinning the way, I'm grinning watching it and I would be like I couldn't not do that in real life and then it gets it turns on its head so hard, like, and it's like wow, and not in a way you expect it's so demeaning. That's the thing about choke yourself.
Speaker 2:It's like don't move my fucking hand, but you know it's like. It is so demeaning and that is what Arleigh Ernie is so fantastic at in all that it's not just like you're a piece of shit, it's. You are such a specific piece of shit that you really don't matter at all in the world.
Speaker 3:Exactly Right, you know. And the tragedy of it's like the first. It's the first turn where you see this guy's been funny and now he literally did choke the humor out of him. He choked whatever, whatever innocence and whatever. He choked it out of him in that moment and I think I don't remember, but they do this every once in a while they cut to cowboy.
Speaker 2:Yes, arles Howard, observing this, it's almost like he's clocking this and he's our only moment as the audience member to kind of understand how we should feel like that so disturbing because I wanted to say like so you saw that you were 131415 somewhere on there right and it started at 10, by the way, I just want to say usually like nine to 10, and they came back and then we're 11 to 12 and now we're 131415. So the first time you saw it you were 22.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was doing the math wrong, so it came out in 87. I was too young to see it, but I saw it in 8889 when I was then.
Speaker 2:I'm just, you know, being a math perfectionist over here.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like we got it, we got to make sure all our fractions are appropriate as many takes as you want. This is Stanley.
Speaker 3:Kubrick, that's right. So that's the theme, and I will burn our outtakes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I so, steve, do you remember when you first watched this?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this for me was I think I love mid high school, so, like I was, like you know, I was probably 16 years old when I saw this, or the first half of this movie. This is like the whole thing of this movie, right? Is there two movies? This is two movies. There's the first 40 minutes and then there's it's not even halfway. I checked this morning when I was watching it again, I just watched this movie a month ago, so I watched this movie twice in a month. Then the last half is the longest bit of the film, which is you know, it's, it's, it's, that's the Vietnam film, right?
Speaker 3:Well, it's almost like I watched it again last night and it's actually almost cut in three. Yeah, because before they go to and I'm going to destroy them to bow, or before the battle of who are oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, when they're right, there's a yes, yeah, right, and there's kind of a middle area, the last battle or oh no, it's its own chapter.
Speaker 2:I know you're talking about like the sniper comes out of the sniper.
Speaker 3:That's its own film. So, even though it doesn't feel like it's like, when I was watching I said like oh, there's another beat, there's a beat change here, because now they're in this final battle which is distilling the conflict for us.
Speaker 2:Oh sure, and so that's the way I saw it last night.
Speaker 3:But, however you know, kubrick's own people refer to it as half right, because that's what it feels like, that's right.
Speaker 2:I mean, it is such a sejura, hey, hey, hey, hey. So like, look at that, I mean Matt Mundy's doing this podcast. I gotta have my game. You know, I got my tosaurus out.
Speaker 3:Like I'm trying to keep this shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying to keep this shit legit, but it is such a big difference between the opening and the end. I will honestly say the most I watched this morning. It felt the most vignetti that I've ever felt watching it because it feels like there's the 40 minute movie and then everything in kind of what you were saying is like everything once they get to Vietnam sort of feels like not not connected scenes, like there's obviously the same characters.
Speaker 2:They feel like time is sort of suspended Totally, you know when they go from like the stars and stripes to he goes out into the field. To now we have the whole meeting of the you know the Baldwin and you know the all that whole thing. And then they all go to a first conflict, at a thing which this time of watching and I was like, oh, this is where the sniper is.
Speaker 1:Oh no, there's a whole conflict before where touchdown got taken out exactly with the mine and you know, and I was wrong, because it's it's way, that's the way, because Fubai is where we meet Animal Mother.
Speaker 2:Right, right yeah Animal Mother.
Speaker 3:No, no. I was going to say, well, yeah, I know, and what's interesting about it is the film, really, and this is the thing I didn't realize until last night, and I was reading how dare you battle? Am I saying who?
Speaker 1:a who, a yeah, sure, we're all saying it. Sorry, sorry, sorry, I was in the comments.
Speaker 2:I was going to use a writer, not a reader.
Speaker 3:No, no, or somebody comfortable with the English language, frankly, because I'm not one of those writers.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, no, no, no, no, no. Honestly, I lose a little respect for writers that can spell.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you. People that like know grammar really well, I'm like you know. I mean, you're a real writer.
Speaker 3:No, no, no, I'm the king of typos and spelling errors and just being completely blind to them Like I will purposely go through some days. I'll just be, I have time. I'm going through this one more time for typos and then somehow in the first three sentences Something's like I miss a two or an and or like so it's one of those right that sneaks in, there it's, then it's just debilitating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's not really you know, and we're just going to take a total aside here, but it's such a weird thing writing like especially screenplays, because you're not writing, you're not writing a novel, right, this is the medium, the ultimate medium, for this is not print it is people talking about.
Speaker 2:There is this whole subculture of writers engineer it for reverse engineer and there's a whole subculture of writers that will judge you and like if your shit is not formatted exactly the way they expect it and the punctuation is not the right way and it's not written grammatically correct, and like, yeah, I mean, you know, not everything needs to be. You know, you know down home, like Kurt Vonnegut novel under the names, like not everything. Like trying to be like affecting the south, like sometimes people just speak a little bit different, is like each more to be that subtle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not a mistake, it's how I hear it in my head. It's one of my favorite things about the opening of Henry five is like the fact that they take out so much of the beginning because they see it Right. You know you're right, we see it and yeah, sure you know. As a if I go, if I go see the player here, the play, I want to hear it being described, but I love the fact that they cut out most of the opening of it and you talk about Henry five the brand on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's excellent. Yeah, it's one of the best excellent film so good and he was 27.
Speaker 1:I think he's the youngest Henry at the RSC ever, yeah and he goes nominated for best actor.
Speaker 3:What is his?
Speaker 2:let's hear we are let's talk about.
Speaker 3:Welcome back to Kenneth Branagh podcast but I mean, his Hamlet is by far the best it is the one that you watch.
Speaker 2:You watch his Hamlet. It is seven and a half hours long. Conservatively.
Speaker 2:I'm still watching it and I started it two years ago exactly, but it does pay off when you get to the end. I mean, but back to, you know, the back to the get back to get a full metal jacket. It is to. The first 40 minutes of this film is perfect. Gene Wilder even said like there's a famous gene Wilder quote like that, if he's like, if this movie is stopped at 40 minutes, this is the best film ever made is a perfect and I completely agree with that because I do think that it loses a little luster in the last 75% of the movie.
Speaker 3:Yes, I agree. And the thing is it's like this is what's great is the story goes and this is where Kubrick shot himself in the foot, being so brilliant and the showman kind of, because if you start with that, how are you going to follow that story? And Sergeant Hartman, and what happened was, you know, that wasn't supposed to be, ernie wasn't supposed to have the role he was a technical advisor. They given it to Tim Coleseri. Yeah right, and he ended up playing like the gunner. He's excellent.
Speaker 2:How do you shoot? How do you shoot women and children?
Speaker 3:He's just so much. He's just don't lead him so much. Excellent, but but and it's a sad story, but the thing is that I'm sorry. So he, he, you know, arley Ernie is a lot of people know kind of like edged into it and took it over, started wearing the uniform and just outperformed that guy. And Kubrick, literally, was so taken with Hartman and appreciated like this is so entertaining that he said, you know, rip out half of the first part of the script and let's just put the camera on Ernie and he so he found this incredible nugget.
Speaker 3:It was so entertaining and that story with also incredible performance by Donofrio, but he shot himself in the foot because he just got. He became too sensational and it was because it's like you can't, you can just watch. It's like watching a like Don Rickles. You know what I mean. It's like you're watching, it's funny, it's arresting. You like him, right, you like him. And so when you cut back and now we're in the second two thirds of the film, there's nobody to carry that gravitas after that, right, pull your eyes, you know animal.
Speaker 3:Mother is the maybe.
Speaker 2:But he's totally different. I mean, everyone's ripping off this like God. Sorry, go ahead, matt.
Speaker 1:Well, no, I was just going to say it's interesting. But this is, this is more about production of it. So because, remember that thought is it's interesting because they shot all of that last and, and and. To me I'm wondering if there was something you know it's like well, I've already got it. You know I've already shot all of the Huey stuff and all the Fubai stuff and which they all shot in Britain. I mean, yeah, it's called Kubris Kubris.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but no, no, like the like, I mean he I don't think it was. He did improv a lot of it, most of it, but then he would improv it and then right down and maybe like that's the one, like that's the bit and that's the bit, yes, and that's the. And that is just you and you watch him. You do what you just said. You like Arley Ernie and, yeah, you like him.
Speaker 1:He's fantastic.
Speaker 2:He's so likeable while he is screaming at someone in the face, which is again like that's, that's how casting works. So there is online. You can go to YouTube and I just watched it. His Kubrick's daughter filmed a bunch of behind the scenes stuff.
Speaker 3:Oh last night.
Speaker 2:It's great. But you can see like rehearsals where Arley Ernie is like kind of 50 percent, like he's not really yelling, he's kind of talking and it doesn't work at all.
Speaker 3:Well, you know what Kubrick did, because he, kubrick's whole thing was this when an actor is weak or they're complaining about something, that's usually because they don't know their lines. And he, what he did with Ernie was he knew that he wasn't a professional actor and he knew he would have to be so confident. When the cameras on the lights are on, you say action, it's so easy for them to keep screwing up. So he had to make sure that Ernie was so new, every line so well that he would. He had him and he would throw oranges and tennis balls at him as he was doing the lines. And they apparently they did that like 23 times an hour at a time at him. Just repeat the lines, repeat the lines, repeat the lines. That was Kubrick's idea.
Speaker 2:What a crazy motherfucker.
Speaker 3:I love it. I'm not like.
Speaker 2:Can I honestly I ask you, Matt, I ask you as a producer on films that I do. Can I do that? Can I throw? Can we get a bucket of fruit that I can throw at actors while they're doing their lines?
Speaker 1:Sir, I respectfully would like to one know if the fruit is expired.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean it has to be fresh fruit expired fruit.
Speaker 1:It's a little soft. Well, that's true, that's your. It depends on if you're throwing it. It's if you're throwing it, it can't be green fruit.
Speaker 2:I can see that it can't be throwing it.
Speaker 1:If you're throwing it at actors, it has to be rotten fruit because it's soft, but if it's stunt coordinators, then it can be ripe, right, right, get the hell out of it.
Speaker 2:I'll go ahead and give you pairs, no pairs. We can't do pairs, they're just no one alone likes a pair.
Speaker 1:But to your point you're absolutely right. It's insane and like it would be, like just a gross misappropriation and like just delinquency of my own job as a producer to allow any of that kind of behavior. And yet we know that that was rampant and we know. But and then it's so hard because you're watching and you're enjoying.
Speaker 3:Yeah, go ahead. I listened to Matthew Maudine's his diary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the audio. Yeah, full metal director diary or something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 3:They were getting hit. Hartman, when he slaps him, when he's hitting Joker and Dinofrio, he's hitting them. I mean they're getting hit. Yeah, there's no, can't happen anymore. Nope, that can't happen. No, but that's back in the day and like nobody, you can see it.
Speaker 2:You can see the Matthew Maudine face, because it looks like a real slap because he didn't really expect it and you can see is like jaw, like you can feel it looks like it looks like a real slap. It's on the way that a fake slap is like the head turns and like the body pitches. He doesn't move at all.
Speaker 1:He's so shocked you can tell those moments in Rocky, one in two, where you're like, oh, they connected, oh yeah. Well, you know what though, when you?
Speaker 3:when you're in the middle of doing that stuff and you know this is this stuff is being this, this stuff is, this is history right here, and it's my performance and his performance. Right, go ahead, hit me. Well, I mean, but that's so.
Speaker 2:I will say this is one thing that we've talked about a lot. This is like, as a performer, I would. I'm a person that would be like fuck yeah, hit me. You know what I mean. Like if I'm acting like, yeah, hit me, I don't care, it's like it's okay, it is not the right decision.
Speaker 1:I will just straight up say like.
Speaker 3:I would.
Speaker 2:I would do it, but even I would be wrong. And because it endangers the production, because if you actually get hurt now, you don't think about that when you're performing. You think about. I want to be a good performer and I want to give it everything I can, but that is not the right way to think about it, because, whatever you know, you knock a tooth loose and now it's like oh, it's not fun anymore, now I'm missing my fucking tooth. You know, it turns very quick.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know it's an interesting story quickly, and I won't go up about getting hit in the face and making it look realistic, but not really getting hit and I don't know why more people don't do this. But in the chase, which is a yeah, arthur Penn, I believe with Marlon Brando, he has a scene where he just gets beat to hell and he said, instead of he said, like why are we faking this? He goes why don't we hit me in slow motion, like really hard across my face, and then we'll speed it up. You know, and when you watch that scene, like it's those, right, it's connecting hard to his face, but they just sped the film up. However, they hide it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah and it's actually really effective and I'm like God. Why wouldn't people think to do that?
Speaker 1:Like now, the closest I can, even it's. This is so different and yet it still comes to mind, is when they sped up film for Gladiator with the Tigers. Oh right, you know, to make it look like I mean it's different. I will argue that that.
Speaker 2:So I've not seen that and I don't know that film, but I would argue the Tigers work because it's sort of a heightened moment and it's also the way it is shot Right, it is. It sort of works because it's character point of view, so it sort of works. So when you feel it, I would argue that that doesn't work, because now we're getting super technical.
Speaker 1:Here we go.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to a technical film making with. Steve but it speeds up. It's going to speed up a lot of sharpness and a lot of the noise like in a way that I think I will identify, and also your body doesn't move that well, I still that's a good point, it's a hard. I'd still do a stunt performer and just say be like just you, do a still do it.
Speaker 2:There's a reason why there's only a few Bill Irwin's in there, and also actually I mean also, that's actually also somebody getting slapped in the face, and when we know this from theater, you can get slapped in the face. There's ways to do it, you can be taught to do it. There are risks to it, but there are ways to do it so you can. These are things that can happen but again, they have to be done. But I'm just saying arguing, in this scene they did not do that and you can tell, and I'm not look, I'm not hitting on the film. I think it's fucking awesome, dude, like I think the moment's incredible. But you know, like you said, matt, you can't really. You know you can't really ask for that. The same way now, cooper, could I'm sure that some directors could you know, because what did and what's his name in Joker, walking Phoenix was like wanted to improv all the scene, the fight scenes with the stunt performers, which is fucking insane. I mean, come on like brilliant performers.
Speaker 2:That's come on.
Speaker 1:That's insane man Like you know, you know no part of the reason, you know, a ballet is beautiful is because it's choreographed. That's right, you know, and I'll never forget. You know I was doing oh gosh, you know production of Romeo and Juliet and the fight choreographer said if I, you know, and we all know this, the same background as soon as I go from worrying about the character to worrying about the actor, then you haven't done your job. So whatever.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, and that's exactly right. That's a good point.
Speaker 1:That's exactly right and I just love that, and I've always kind of kept that in the back of my head, and so, anyway, I break the suspension of disbelief, and sometimes you can tell in films and that's anyway.
Speaker 2:That movie was so real though I will say that's the argument for the full metal jacket, the the. The thing that Arley Ernie does with his is his beratements are so specific, right, and so universally terrible that you can tell they weren't comfortable. No, right, I mean like no one was performing this as like, oh, here's a really the cleverest thing. There's a lot of times when we do it as a writer, as we come up with the most clever version of something yeah, what is the smartest version of this? What is the most insulting version of this for this character? His is always like 85 percent right, you know what I mean, but it's 25 percent wrong and it just is. So. That's what makes it feel real.
Speaker 1:Well, so, so that does make me think. So it's like they took. You know, it was Vitaly who was someone who had worked with Kubrick as an actor and then became like an assistant for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1:Yes, you know, and so he was the one doing all those takes with with him. And so I want to ask Dean specifically so as a writer and looking for, looking for a performer to give that specific performance, are you more? I guess my question is more about like I I've chosen these words because I know they will work in your mouth and I just need you to get there, or I've given you a suggestion and you find where it lives in you. Well, it depends on the scene.
Speaker 3:OK, depends on the scene. Yeah, like I mean, for for my money, it's case sensitive because an actor, I like actors to feel completely free, right, but at the same time, like you know, it's like anything. It's like if you wrote it a certain way, because now that's the specific reason why I wrote it that way, then you've got to try and get that and you communicate that, you know. But I mean, I'm frankly, I'm always open to negotiate, like I mean I've, of course, there's a couple of things that I, you know, directed that I wrote. I mean because I was thinking myself as a director who writes. You know, I write, I write like a director and I always find that like, yeah, I imagine it in my head, the way I try and write roles that are that an actor it's would love to perform. That's how I think. However, that actor may show up and the reality of the scene and the energy in the room and things might change and they might be like God. This just feels awkward to say this and like I trust that actor's instinct.
Speaker 2:There's nothing more comforting than whenever you've, like, created a whole thing and somebody shows up prepared with an idea. That is the most comforting thing in the entire world. Well, because you're like hey, I can agree, I can disagree, but you've brought something to the table. What happens nine times out of 10 is people show up and barely are holding on. They're barely holding onto the thing. In my experience at least, people are like I mean, I just don't. I, you know, I don't like to be confined by the text or I don't like to rehearse. In my mind. Every time I hear is like well, you're not prepared.
Speaker 1:You're not prepared. Yeah, you're not prepared, and that's what you were talking about earlier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because if you're prepared people that show up there like this word here doesn't sit well on my mouth, and every time I'm like let's fucking change it.
Speaker 3:Exactly what would work for you, sure?
Speaker 2:Because that's. That means you have enough of an insight into what we're trying to do here and you've put the work in and you've earned the opportunity to speak about it. When people are like I just, I just, I can't rehearse again because it's going to blow the authenticity, in my experience, that has never worked out well. I've never had one good experience where somebody's told me that as a performer and their performance has outweighed what was on the page. It usually is.
Speaker 1:they're unprepared and I've I mean, and then Well, I think that makes your point about what we have been kind of going around with with this situation where he stole the role, if you will, seduced his way into playing hardman and it was, he was. His improvisations were so good, but then Vitaly said this is what's in the script. We've taken what you've said and I have to make you to your point, dean, so comfortable, and to your point, steve, that I can get the performance I want from you. But I'm not going to roll until I know you're comfortable, because you think you're. It's not. I think you're a writer, you think you're a fucking writer, like every single time. It's like that's what this is. And he's.
Speaker 2:I mean some of the most iconic lines of all time. I mean Jesus Christ. The first 40 minutes are the most court. It might be the most courtable film of all time. Yeah, speaking of, I would say what's, what's, what's.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a good point. So that does make me think let's, because I do. Maybe we want to look at this in thirds or you know like we can even talk about the locations. I know. That's kind of the thing. This shit was shot all within, like what, 30, 40 miles of Kubrick's house. Yeah, and he'd go back home at night and be with his family. An abandoned factory.
Speaker 2:Well, he's apparently didn't like flying, or was afraid of flying or something, so he didn't want to travel outside London.
Speaker 1:He's at that point in his career and he's just like I want to do this and I want to go home at night. You know what?
Speaker 2:Matthew Modi and what you said. You read his journal earlier. It's crazy to understand the timeline of this film. Because he started, Matthew Modi got cast. He also Kubrick wanted no names, no names. No one in this film was a name, which I fucking love, yeah. And they got. He got cast, got engaged, got married, got pregnant, had a kid. The kid turned one year old before production was done. We're not even talking before the film came out, before production was done.
Speaker 1:Right To August. That's insane.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's true, you know, and Modi was saying he was talking about the process to of casting, where they had 10,000 tapes and, like he's responsible for Vincent Donofrio being in the film.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you tell about that? Yeah? So Donofrio was the doorman or the bouncer at the Hard Rock Cafe at the time, wherever that was, I guess 57th Street I remember coming to New York when Hard Rock, first of all, still existed and, second of all, what was on 57th and when 57th dude 57th Street, like when I was a kid, that was where you wanted to go. It was not Times Square. Times Square was seedy, it was still like Urban Cowboy Street.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was 57th Street, yeah so yeah, oh yeah, so he was, and he was an actor and he had been in a play with Maudine or something. And they saw him outside the the, the Hard Rock, and he said, hey, you know what are you doing? He goes. You know, I got this role in this Kubrick film was a role they just can't cast and they're having a hard time and maybe you want to take a look at it and you know, back then making a tape was like a royal pain in the ass.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, this is back when, like a five, six this is where camcorder is like a backpack.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean. Like this is a pain in the ass so anyway, he figured out how to do it and he, of course he, you know, gave his reading and he's Vincent Afrio and he got, he got the role.
Speaker 2:This is so I want to introduce. I was introduced to Vincent Afrio in full metal jacket. That is the first thing I became aware of him as an actor and apparently it was for me to beforehand. Apparently he was sort of a heartthrob beauty. Yes, he was an ingenue. He gained something I don't know an insane amount of weight. Like 70 pounds something crazy to do this film. And now, now he's a heavier guy as he's acting and still, by the way, an incredible actor.
Speaker 1:I love it. It's a real, and you know. And Matt and a smooth, like he looks good, yeah, he really does Like he carries it.
Speaker 2:He carries it well. Yeah, I don't think I'm just impressed. No, that's your hell out of me that I was like. This guy was like not that he wasn't like cast for this, he became this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, after he was cast and had to maintain it too, yeah.
Speaker 2:And that motherfucker and Arleigh Ernie are in 40 minutes of a two hour something movie. Yeah, 40 minutes. I don't like I can. I mean I could talk in high density to act one of this film.
Speaker 1:Well, I do, and I do, I let's. I know I'm skipping a lot because we can go back, but I just want to get to the end of that 40 minutes and talk about the night that they are all Marines, that they are about to be shipped off and Modine is on the payoff scene, yeah, and he's on Night Watch. The flip flop scene, yep, and and just that, all of it, all three of them, and just the way it was shot, the stillness of it it's the drip for me.
Speaker 2:It's the drip the drip sound effect. Yeah, that for me in the echo through the tile. That that's what sets a tone of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and also it's one of those bold choices. And this is an interesting story too, if you don't know it. It's like that Kubrick wanted that you know private pile to have a look on his face that looked like it was out of a horror film and he said I want you to watch some Launchini tapes, whatever it is. And do you know that Donofrio, on his own, had already had Launchini movies sent to him?
Speaker 3:He was on the same page as Kubrick, they were already on the same page, yeah exactly and like, and that's another thing about that scene which is really interesting because it's it's also part of the theory that that film is like a poem not to sound you know, it's poetic and sparse because Hartman gets shot in the heart, you know he also comes in and he says what is this Mickey Mouse bullshit. And what are they singing at the end?
Speaker 2:You know, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:There's there's these, there's these things in this film that make you look at it differently, even though it's almost impossible. It's very hard to look past the fourth with the first 40 minutes. But right, yeah, but it's a but. That scene to drip, that was like dude, it's so true to drip.
Speaker 1:I mean, and you're absolutely right, it is the poem. It's like Rupert Brooke Owen, those guys from World War One, they're some of my favorite poets ever and they're talking about death and they're talking about this whole idea of what it is to be quote immortalized, and yet I'm sitting by a pound of rubble. That is my brother, right, you know and the, the dialectical tension of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know it's funny because and it's funny how that scene ends, because you know this film more than platoon and platoon Charlie Sheen is arriving, he volunteered, right, ok, and he's writing to his grandmother and you're just there. You're there and they're in the bugs and he's being treated like shit and all that stuff. Yeah, here I'm getting my head shaved, I'm drafted, I'm at basic training and I'm thinking to myself I'm, I would end up like Vincent Zanoffrio. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, you can't help but put yourself into this because I mean, look, this is something in the awareness of like, at least when I was growing up and where I was growing up in Missouri, like the draft was something that was ever present, you know, because my father went through that this exact draft and was not drafted, like he was one of the numbers, didn't get called up and like.
Speaker 2:So I mean, as many of our you know like and you think you just it's a constant. It was a constant awareness of my life and especially at the time I was like 15, 16, I think, when I saw this, like you know, you have to register. At least you know I did. You have to register for the draft on your 18th birthday and I remember doing it in high school. You had to fill out the card and you have to, had to register and I had to turn it into the counselor and they put it in. I don't know if that's different in every state, but I did and that's like it's a thing you're very you watch that and you're like I mean, these men were thrust upon thrust into this and this, this story.
Speaker 2:There are a lot, a lot, a lot of Vietnam films. This one is the most about that. It is most this is the most about the head fuck of the system that you are put into, regardless of what you mean. It comes down to the duality of man or whatever that you know Matthew Maudine has is like born killer or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's just like what the fuck is that all is? It's ridiculous for a journalist to have that. But that's what it's kind of about is because this does inhabit this kind of duality at the moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean you're getting dragged into something and you're you're getting dragged into becoming a killer, you know, I mean that's really what it is. I mean you're getting dragged into something and being made a killer. I mean I don't know if there's anything. I don't know that there's a film that that takes that on with the same kind of specificity, where it's like other Vietnam films, you know, I mean I, you know you can go back to. I mean I'm I'm not as big a fan of the deer hunter as many people are. I like coming home and I don't really think Apocalypse. Now, I love the film is really about Vietnam.
Speaker 1:No I really but, but, but hamburger hill is my, is my, very good, just putting that out there.
Speaker 3:It's a very good film, yeah, but this film I feel like, especially when I watch, that when you watch the beginning you get hypnotized and brought into the experience yourself, because it walks you in from the innocence and the beginning, where you're like you're right. You're ripped from how you're ripped from home. You know you're ripped from home and I, you know you. Purposely you don't know anything about these people in the past, because that's kind of sentimentalizing it.
Speaker 1:Like, think about it Like there was a scene where there was a monologue about yeah, here's my, you know my girl back home, you know like the only monologue is this movie which, short of simpsons episode, where he's like this is my girl and they're doing it's a parody of Apocalypse now, and he's like, oh, it's a Valentine for my girl. And then he gets shot through the Valentine's card, which is a heart, through his heart, you know, and it's like, yeah, that's the, that's the sentimentality of it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'm not saying. I mean, I think that you know this is you know, honestly, it is like it. I totally lost my train of thought, shit.
Speaker 3:But it gets Sunday. I feel like the film gets under my skin more than any other war film that I've ever seen. I mean, you can say which one you know saving private Ryan. You want to talk about the opening battle scene? It's powerful Graphic. I didn't get walked in from basic training though, yeah Right, so I don't know what the hell. It's a shock.
Speaker 2:And that was my thought actually a minute ago. Just came back around. It's like it is, it is more about a jerk anymore, yeah, do, you were never a jerk. I mean, it's more of this, it's this childlike sort of perception of war where it's like I mean, and then I think that it even comes to part act two, well, act two and three, but like when do they go in there? And they're like, these are literal children, like these are 18, 19 year olds, like with guns.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like and they're like. You know, he's like taking a picture with the dead guy he just killed.
Speaker 3:I was like and they're like, and then they're like going in and it feels so impotent.
Speaker 2:Whenever they like, have the sniper at them. You know like they're, these guys that pushed so much machismo and so much power of you and power of Marines down to my favorite line, I think, of the film is you know, marines are not allowed to die. You know what I mean Without approval of, like, whatever.
Speaker 3:It's like I can't even say what permission without permission.
Speaker 2:So you just get shoved down your throat and then they go to you know the actual war portion of it and they're like fucking around with, like oh you know, to boo coo no, not to boo coo, like oh no. And they have two scenes of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fifteen dollars and they have the. You know all that.
Speaker 2:My like Joker says earlier, there are two scenes of negotiating with whores and you know, or and like you know, no, but you're right.
Speaker 1:Like of all the things that they were training for and that gets us to the other. Like that I mean the, if we want to go talk about the end of it.
Speaker 2:I mean, here we have the kids that these. Oh, and that's what I mean is like the. I mean I legitimately think it's more impotence, even because when the sniper is shooting in, they're all watching eight ball get shot. And then go out and try and get him is like, and they're like, they're all terrified, so am I watching it.
Speaker 3:Animal mother runs out to go get them, but he doesn't impotence, right he? Runs past them and realizes where the sniper is, and they just keep getting shot, and I mean, you know we can't leave them out there, but impotent, like you said.
Speaker 1:Well and the best thing that he had going for them. And this is kind of a weird thought I'm having. But it's like you know, after after one thing happens, it's an anomaly. After a second thing happens, you have an idea, and after a third thing happens you have a pattern. So you just had the anomaly and the thing and then it's like all of a sudden the third guy, who happens to be animal mother, is the pattern. That's the only reason I think he lives is because you've gotten two guys shot. So he kind of has an idea, but then the impotence comes across because he can't do anything about it.
Speaker 2:Well, and then again what Dean mentioned earlier, they end with you know the whole Mickey.
Speaker 1:Mouse song. Well, I am children and it's a 12 year old child.
Speaker 2:that kills them the most, the wealthiest and raptor man nation in the world is the one that, man after man, is the one that ends up shooting. And that's intent. All of that is intentional. I was just going to talk about raftor man. You're right.
Speaker 3:And that's so important because remember, at the beginning, when he's over at the paper and the editor says almost as like, kind of like a slider or whatever it is it's a total thing, Well, he did. He goes like all right, and you're, you want to go, and to the ship he goes, then you're going to take raftor man with you and you're responsible for him, right, right, and who ends up saving?
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's like the little brother, but then you watch him be actually enthusiastic about it, where nobody else is like. You watch even animal mother who you are supposed to be the most like dastardly fighter here. Stop, and he's not, is like, and then now you see this kid like oh fuck, I did it, you know, like and it's like kind of it's, it takes the the wind out of you, you know for a second.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like damn, because he goes like this earlier, because you're like he does the, it's classic, he does the thing where he was like yeah, you know, this is not I'm behind the camera, but like, if I have to put it down and I got to pick up the rifle, I got to pick up the rifle.
Speaker 2:So in your head is the audience You're going.
Speaker 3:Oh he's getting killed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh he's getting shot the way that when he did those, those interviews were back and forth and you get to know these, you know these actors. There are these characters. You get to know them a little better. And then the fact that they just had it like the only one who had a gun, just like straight up strapped to his interview, was fricking Rafter man, and you're like you're the only one who hasn't had any of this training. That's right, it is oh and yeah. And you're like, oh, your ass is going to get handed to you. But he.
Speaker 3:He ended up saving Joker and he goes oh my God, I killed, I saved you.
Speaker 2:He said he's like I think the thing that's not exciting about that are not exciting. The thing that is sad and affecting about that is not that he did it, it's his reaction to what he's yes, you know that and that's that's sort of you know it is. I will again say, as far as Vietnam films go, I like how clumsy the second half is and I have to imagine that was the intention, because Kubrick was a genius and I think that this is what he wanted it to be. But the first half of the film is a different movie. It is just so much it's amazing. Like you said, it walks you in through the innocence. But the second half Platoon, I will say, I think does it better. I think it does the same thing but deeper with a deeper heartfelt hit.
Speaker 2:Like I'm not really criticizing the movie because it's not a game.
Speaker 1:No, exactly it is different things.
Speaker 2:This is Kubrick's Vietnam movie and unfortunately that is something we have to like. Vietnam movies are a thing. It's like you know every. It's like every boomer that has had got money is going to make a movie about World War Two. You know, that is just a thing, that is like what they grew up with. Or they're going to make a Vietnam movie Like that just kind of is what it is. Or Star Wars, yeah Well, or both.
Speaker 1:Most of them both.
Speaker 2:But, you know, like it just kind of, and so when I look at the last half of this, I see something that I find very interesting for its clumsiness, because I don't think the film making is clumsy, I think the characters are clumsy and I think the story is really clumsy and I think that's intentional, but it doesn't affect you as much as Act One does.
Speaker 3:Yeah, interesting. You know, reading the Matthew Maudine book he says that one of the running things as part of the production was Kubrick constantly asking him has he thought about he goes? I don't know how I want to end this. He didn't know how he won.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Right, because in the book the short timers, which is based on by Gustav Hasford, joker gets killed and he didn't want to end it that way. He didn't think, yeah, they got like a huge fight about it. They got into a fight about it, and then he had the other guys in the trailer like yeah, he brought in the other and and Arles Howard had a couple of them in there and he was like, yeah, we're talking about the ending.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you thought about it at all. You know he says to him and he said I don't and I haven't, I didn't get to the part where they, where they figured it out. You know, right, figured it out. But you know it's intentional. But I also wonder, you know, it is possible for somebody to get lost in the weeds. You know, even a great filmmaker.
Speaker 3:You know, I mean, because it does feel it's like he, it's like he's such a fine craftsman that he could take a scenario and he would craft it to perfection, I'm like he would find the way to make it. He would mine it and shoot it until he found the way to make it interesting, affecting, fascinating. And that's because he was a great craftsman, like when I was watching it last night, because I you know to speak of platoon, because I have to say platoon, which I also had, just by chance, had watched recently, wow, you know, you know the story. I mean it came out before, kind of like when platoon came out on, when they were yeah, they had to have a serious when they knew platoon was coming out. There was a serious meeting on the set where people were like real, of full metal jacket.
Speaker 3:They had like a huddle, because they were really concerned because like this is going to rip the the energy out of this, so we have to. They had to wait till the summer of 87, right to get the thing out. So it was a summer movie and it ended up making what?
Speaker 2:$120 million and made 138. So it did well comparable.
Speaker 3:Platoon, I do think I mean what what that does is it's kind of more of the celebration of the soldier.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, right, and it brings you into the right.
Speaker 3:It brings you into the, into the thick. You feel the bugs, and it's made by a man who was there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and you get that and that and you feel that. That's my real argument.
Speaker 1:Full metal jacket is as cold as the shinier like metal jacket isn't like you, you know it's because there's not a palm tree.
Speaker 1:That's real. All those palm trees were bought and brought in Right. Like there is a picture as version of this and to me, so like I'll go off on a tangent here for a second because there is an. We always talk about the uncanny valley about humanity. When I see something that isn't real about a person, I'm like there's an uncanny valley. There is an uncanny valley about the environment in this movie, like in all of it, how beautifully perfect the first half is and how messy and weak the second part is. It is uncanny because it's not realism, it's naturalism, and so you're looking at it from a point of they should feel real, but it's not quite real, it's not, but everybody's natural and so it's. I'm simultaneously having this experience of how heartbreaking it is and yet it's. It's keeping me at a certain distance with its pinky.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's saying you know what I mean. I think they're too different. I mean, I do think that both, where it's platoon says screw it yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Both have value. Exactly what I'm saying about all of your stones platoon, right, it feels like the person on the ground, because full metal jacket feels like sort of an assessment of what happened. It was children we sent in to play, you know, and it to fight and it's like but their chess pieces and it's brutal when they die, but it's not. The scope of it is different. You know what I mean. Like I take out of full metal jacket the terror of the draft and being thrust into a war. I take out of platoon the horror of a terrible jungle war.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're similar but slightly different.
Speaker 1:And that's, and it's in that Right, having that point of view, those different point of views, are so important, right? Because, like you, if you copy one person, you're a copyist, you copy two people, you're a disciple.
Speaker 2:Well, and I will say that neither three people or more.
Speaker 1:You're an artist.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, and neither of them are. Are gore born Right? They don't want to have the definitive view.
Speaker 1:They're not saying this, but they're both correct, they're both real, they're both beautiful, right, but to your point, they're coming at it from different points. Well, when I think about and look, we got a little tune at some point.
Speaker 2:But when I think about full tune, I think about the loss of people you care about, right, individual, individual relationships. When I think about full metal jacket, I think about drill sergeant demeaning and I think about the impotence. I don't know. I've come up with that word today, so we're going with it, we're going with it. We're going to be behind that wall as the snipers. There are none of them knowing what to do.
Speaker 3:And that.
Speaker 2:I also empathize with of being like what the fuck would I? Do I can't do anything I don't know what to do is like, if I need a decision, I make you know it's going to get them, my friends killed Like it just did. Like that's what it sympathize with. Those are very, very different, you know, like the fear of versus the loss of, I guess to some degree, but without being able to find it better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's funny, as you say that I mean I always remember. One of the things that really stuck with me watching it again was when private cowboy has to become the squad leader and you can feel like he's like ah, I don't know yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's struggling. He's struggling. He's talking to Murphy, which is Kubrick, by the way. Murphy's on the other. I love that. No way, I didn't know that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, trying to get you a tax, whatever he says. Yeah, I'll do the best we can with the tax.
Speaker 1:No success on the tax, no success on the tax.
Speaker 3:But I'm looking there, I'm like that was happening constantly. People were getting put in charge. They had no idea what direction to go in, where the hell to go, and now they had lives. They had these guys' lives in their hands and he keeps calling for backup because he doesn't know what the hell to do. He doesn't have an answer and I'm like that, right there when I felt that I was like, oh my God, can you imagine? You don't know where to go, where to turn you don't know what the hell is going on, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's no the fact that he's prepared, but he's never been of that rank, and so this is your first moment.
Speaker 3:And he was right. He said you don't go in there, he goes to Sniper. I've seen these situations a million times. I've been trained. I've been trained you don't go in there. They're drawing us in to knock us off, one at a time.
Speaker 1:And he was right, yeah.
Speaker 3:But he gets pulled in. Because what's this? Because an animal, mother goes and he runs and then he identifies where the Sniper is.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure I believe him, though, when he says the phrase like. I've seen this a million times. I don't think he has. I think he's justifying it, but yes, he is right ultimately.
Speaker 3:But that is, but that's a good point Because, you're right, it doesn't really ring of like. I've seen this a million times. Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1:It doesn't really ring true. No, because you still see his innocence and you know, and just to kind of overshare here, he, you know is.
Speaker 2:I've hit the mic a third time. James the producer. James the producer is cringing right now and I'm going to hear about this later.
Speaker 1:But the so to overshare is looking at these decisions and just knowing what we've kind of all been talking about and this kind of speaks to what you mentioned earlier with your dad. And you know this was something I grew up. I did not see this movie until later, but I grew up in a house where we didn't that the war was not talked about, and my dad I didn't know much about his service until maybe 10 years ago and I've slowly learned more. But there was the brief thing to tie this into. What happens to Cowboy is. My dad was on a base in Fort Wachuka, arizona, and he I don't remember what his rank was, but he ends up in the I want to say, the captain's quarters with my mom at the time and my mom at the time. I was not born with the woman that would become my mom. I don't know how to phrase that.
Speaker 2:That's sounds great when you say it like that. You know the my mom at the time.
Speaker 1:That's yes, my mom at the time and who is?
Speaker 3:the woman who would be my mom?
Speaker 2:Yes, both of those sound really good. We should just click those on and send them to your mom. Yes, perfect.
Speaker 1:She's a happy mother's day. So is is the fact that you know my, my mom and dad were newly married, whatever right, and they were. My dad was of a certain rank, but he ends up staying on the captain's quarters or at the high ranking quarters, not because he was promoted but because they all ran out like they were getting drafted and killed at such a rate that my dad was moving up into quarters that fast to make room for people coming through. On the draft.
Speaker 1:And yeah, and so like and how do you, how do you digest that, how do you respond to that? And it's just like you just do, and I realize that's why you know I don't, I wouldn't talk about this film with my dad. I think as a younger, more aggressive son I probably would. But in this way I'm like, let me just take the experience of something like platoon, which is personal, and full metal jacket, which is what I think we've already kind of said, more of operatic or poetic, and use that language as an, as a way to open up if he wants to talk about it, because I will never forget and this circles back to what you said about the opening of what is it 1994 or was it 94? No, that was Forrest Gump. What's the one I'm thinking of with?
Speaker 3:Spielberg and 98? That's saving private, saving private.
Speaker 1:Thank you. And I remember one summer I was preparing or repairing an engine on a boat with an old, surly dude and I had just seen it and I thought I was like, yeah.
Speaker 1:I know everything about the war and I mentioned it to him and he just shut me down so hard. He was like I mean, I don't remember what he said, but it was maybe six words, but what I heard was you stupid kid, you have no idea, you never will. Don't talk about it. I'm glad you saw what you saw. That was for you, not for me. Shut up and get back to work. And I did. But I took that and this was all before I then was able to understand that my dad had gone through some stuff. And so, watching this movie again recently, I take just a little bit that I know of, like that Fort Wachuka example that I gave you, and recognize the cowboy moment of how fast things were happening. And they're happening much faster than the human you know like we can evolve. There's a reason why evolution takes so long.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, intelligence is intelligence, but wisdom takes forever. And there there is no wisdom, in that moment of I can't go in. And then that's why cowboy is simultaneously, simultaneously correct with animal mother. Right, animal mother is not wrong. You're also like yeah, go. And he's like because he's in, he's going to save his friends. He's not wrong, no, but neither is cowboy, sorry.
Speaker 3:I just know that's a really good point, yeah.
Speaker 2:Can we talk about some technical Kubrick stuff? Yeah, because you know, like the technical Kubrick is like the thing I love, this movie I think embodies and again, we're really talking about the first 40 minutes because I think it. I think the first 40 minutes of this is the most Kubrick style film, except maybe 2001.
Speaker 3:Sure, oh yeah, the most symmetry.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, this is the military form.
Speaker 3:It's kind of perfect, everything's in order. So you've got all these great opportunities to have for symmetry and for tracking shots that go down this, right down the line, right down the center, you know, and you've got this great weird like mechanical performance by Arlie Ermey, where he's my. You know everything about it is like a perfect kind of, like you said, it is kind of the quintessential Kubrick style film, the first 40 minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, yeah, and then it totally debauches from that. But I mean he has a background in a documentary, that's how you got started. So that feels like again two sort of different dichotomies of film. I do think that you know I love Stanley Kubrick.
Speaker 1:I really do. I do too, I think we all do.
Speaker 2:I'm a big fan. Oh yeah, Big fan. I think this one always holds a special place for me because it has both of them. It does feel like the two Kubrick's. It feels like the first 40 minutes are perfect. They just are. I just don't know. I mean, if you just stop there and it's just a short movie, I think it's the best movie ever.
Speaker 1:You get the mathematics of Mozart and then the passion of Beethoven.
Speaker 2:It is, it is Mozart, it is that short punchy, perfect it is. I don't think you could change a thing about it, like I really don't think you could have any notes on it, like they're just, it just is perfect. The second half is more Beethoven, which, again, like to quote you is like, but it is in my mind Many people would agree is perfect. I would say it's a little bit long and a little bit. You know, yeah, it has a point of view, but it isn't. It isn't crystallized fully, it is mostly crystallized.
Speaker 1:I would say, is there a moment outside of the big shock moments like we know with the? You know obviously in the bathroom, and I will say, just the moment that he comes in with his short sleeves and it's the first time we've seen him with short sleeves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it means him so much.
Speaker 1:It's so weak.
Speaker 2:I was like oh, that's back in your bunks and you're like you have no authority in this moment.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I just wanted to say is there.
Speaker 1:Is there a moment that you're like you have no authority in this moment? Is there a subtle moment that, especially on these re-viewings, that especially any of our listeners who obviously have seen it and maybe we're like go see it again is something that you have missed until this? Recent re-watching that was either huge, small or just something that's kind of stuck with you, since that maybe didn't hit you earlier. You know, I don't know. Dean is there?
Speaker 3:I'm trying to think. I think it was Well. I think the thing that that I tuned into was the fact that the film much like how Kubrick does because he's a stylist like it's just the same way. Eyes Wide Shut is kind of also a dream. The streets are too wide, the nothing is accurate, right, everything is kind of seems off and it's like you were saying, the second half it feels off or it feels weird or it feels artificial. But I'm like I do see a consistency from the first 40 minutes through the end, where it is part of that. It is this poem, this crafted kind of poem that takes you, that lands you at the right place. Now, whether or not, again, the question could be was that intentional? Was he inspired by that decision? I don't know, but I don't think, because, think about it, we really only see one sniper. He distills it down to a sniper, a female, and it's kind of like it's so simple.
Speaker 3:He distills it down to a child, to a child right, exactly. And I feel like that, right there, tells me that there was a simplicity that he was going for there. And that's what I noticed. I was like, oh wait, a minute, this is a very specific take on the Vietnam story that is unlike anything we've seen. Again, it's from a guy who wasn't there and it's from an observer's point of view, even though, watching it, I mean, like anybody, you get pulled into it. But I think that's what I noticed when I was like. I was like, oh wait, a minute, there's a cleanliness to this, a singularity through this that is simpler than and that's what he was going for and whether it's actually effective or as effective as platoon it's. The thing is it's like apples and oranges, but I think that's the thing that I noticed.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's cool that's great, yeah, and that sinew that connects it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it boils down to a child and they start, and it starts as children.
Speaker 1:It starts with children and it ends with one child.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's the tragedy of it all, or the children, I mean, that's really what it is, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oof, wow, on that happy note, steve, I would say on this reviewing what was something for you that felt more poignant or stood out to you, or something you had never noticed.
Speaker 2:You know, there's one line that always stands out to me, and it stood out again on this, watching and says, like I will teach you, it feels like the one of everything that the drill sergeant is doing. I forget the drill sergeant's name.
Speaker 3:Hartman, sergeant Hartman, yeah, sergeant.
Speaker 2:Hartman. But everything he's doing is like that's the one time he's like you will learn, I will teach you. And it's in that weird Kubrickian super low angle kind of POV thing and that's the one that always stands out because it is the one crack of humanity that I find in that whole thing, you know it's the one that's a good point. Yeah, it's the one line that always stood out to me. I will teach you.
Speaker 3:I will teach you. You know my Tessa, my girlfriend there's also a writer and she said wait a minute. She said he's doing his job. Right, Hartman's doing his job. They're about. Because I said, how much more aggressive can you get than somebody hiding behind in it? Because this is urban warfare. It's not the same as that, but as hiding behind a bunch of bricks trying to kill you, he's giving you everything up until that point to break you down completely. And she said, like that's the tragedy of this, is that like he has to do that, because what they're about to walk into is a thousand times worse. Right, yeah?
Speaker 2:absolutely, but that's a good point. I will teach you. I will teach you, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:And also it's that you know, and just the big theater school thing here it's like we all know that the good teacher will break you down, but only a great teacher can break you down and build you back up. That's right.
Speaker 2:I only have one thing here we have covered in my notes, oh shit, and that is they had many production issues. Obviously, the production went on for a super long time. Sure, but the one that I found the most interesting apparently, in one of the Vietnam battle sequences, an entire family of rabbits was killed by an explosion. What? I did not know that, and Kubrick was a big animal lover, so he shunt down production after that. Is it really Really? Yeah?
Speaker 1:Oh, no, well, and then they went back and you know that was they re-filmed it and called it Watership Down.
Speaker 2:Oh, don't do that, you're welcome. Yes, don't do that, that's right. Happy hour flicks everybody, oh man.
Speaker 1:This is why we pour the cocktail.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I guess, or Peter Cottondale.
Speaker 2:This cocktail was very good. I really appreciate it. This was great.
Speaker 1:Jelly donut the jelly donut, jelly donut Dude this and I said this to Steve earlier, but we were off air. But that jelly donut cheers, by the way.
Speaker 3:Cheers, cheers, cheers, cheers.
Speaker 1:That jelly donut like ASMR listening to someone drink on.
Speaker 2:I was about to say you have to drink because you're superstitious.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's, I am totally. It's Matilda. And it's the chocolate cake scene in Matilda where they just plow them with the chocolate cake and it's so disturbing. But in that moment it's all about the grotesqueness of the chocolate being piled on the child, Whereas this is one little jelly donut.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And that jelly donut leads to the pain and the piling on gomer pile of everybody else.
Speaker 2:Anyway, they're paying for it.
Speaker 3:You eat it, you eat it, yeah, and he's got to sit there and eat the donut, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean how humiliating. I mean, look, I've played sports in like competitive environment and that is what? Because that is how it is run. Yep, that resonated to me because that is the kind of shit that happens.
Speaker 1:What's the same thing that happens early on with the terrible but beautiful but terrible John Wayne impression that continues on.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, who said that?
Speaker 1:You know, and it's just like oh well, everybody's about to suffer because of you Go ahead.
Speaker 3:No no no, no, it's interesting that he does that. I was like I was thinking about that. Like that Joker does that Right, like the balls to do that, what is?
Speaker 2:that quote from I don't.
Speaker 3:I've never looked it up, but it's like I don't know.
Speaker 2:Is that you? Is it me? Is that a real?
Speaker 1:I think it's. I think it's from, is it? Oh gosh, he does it twice.
Speaker 2:Yes, he does it twice in the film Right. Is that you, John Wayne? Is that me? It can be real.
Speaker 3:Well, I guess that's you. Oh well, what it is is, I guess it's some kind of yeah, I mean it's obviously I don't know what it's from, but it's a mockery of the machismo, and I guess like, but I mean, god the balls to say that. I mean it says a lot about that character, you know. I mean, like, think about that. You're like, wow, the bobbing. Yeah, is it smart to say, was it?
Speaker 1:you know it's not, but he's also the one to live to tell the story. Yeah, you know, so is that? Yeah, is it the idiocy, the naivete, the balls, the whatever you know, or just the? Well, I can't help myself. I don't have a paradigm to understand how, what, the appropriate response is yeah, I mean it's not too dissimilar to Pyle's reaction when he's smirking the whole time. Yes, that's right.
Speaker 3:Because it's like.
Speaker 1:I can't help myself, I don't know, and it just I mean the difference between Pyle getting piled on because I am not calling him his real name and, or, you know, Joker. Same thing, not getting piled on but giving given responsibility. Yeah, and then how do we respond to the responsibility we're given? Or how do we respond to the waiver's shadow? I didn't know, they stacked shit back, right yeah.
Speaker 1:But I want to say for me one of the things and this is more technical than it is beautifully philosophical that you guys went into, that I did not oh, I hate to say this, Did not track, was how the in this very confined barracks they used that the tracking was just constant, constant and slow, methodical. And then when you get into the field it's not dissimilar, the what you're looking at is dissimilar, but there are so many very similar slow, methodical, low, angled, right on the floor tracking shots, and then it's, and then they bring it up at the end where you watch them walk from left to right singing Mickey Mouse, and then immediately at the end they're walking right to left. And that's a whole other thing where, you know, in a Western society you read left to right and so in a film you can look at the celluloid of it and understand that most movies, if you're in this drop.
Speaker 2:Look at the celluloid. I just need to make sure I'm filing this away appropriately for archives. I'm just.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to do you. Do you write when you said when you're on a podcast with Matt?
Speaker 2:No, I just want to make sure you're like out there like looking at the celluloid.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, Personally, like straight up, like I got it. Yeah, with one eye, I'm right up on it.
Speaker 2:Matt. He's rigged himself a little wheel in front of an X-ray screen and he's just like a little tiny magnifying glass in his apartment cranking a wheel, that's right, yes, yes, I have no room for that in a stool, that is.
Speaker 1:That is a New York apartment, but but from that idea it's like you walk left to right and things feel resolved Right. When you walk right to left, it's it. Things are unresolved. When you go from away from camera to towards camera, there's aggression. When we talked about this on another, I don't want to. Well, maybe we did, who knows, but it's like in some. And then if you walk away from camera or walk away from the foreground of the background, it's a resolution.
Speaker 2:All those are Peter Brooke. Yeah, it is, and that's my point.
Speaker 1:It's Peter Brooke, you nailed it. That's exactly where I wanted to go. So we're looking at the empty space here and I want to say that there is a language that he introduced that I think Kubrick just kind of allows himself to play in, because he's moving from the upper left hand side to the lower right hand side and doing back and forth, and so he he does that for this entire tracking shot of you know Mickey Mouse, at the very, very end, where he's just tracking one way and he slowly tracks back the other, but he's messing with what is resolution and what's confusion. And it's very, peter Brooke, that's exactly what he's doing. And and here I am getting, you know, called out for celluloid.
Speaker 2:I would argue that a human is more. I don't know.
Speaker 1:But all I wanted to say was the one thing that I didn't, and I that this, this most recent time, really stood out to me was the echoing of the same movements in the barracks as in the field. And then we actually see it that one time we see the documentarians, and what are they doing? They're at a low angle, just moving right to left, watching these guys, which would, you know, be left to right, and I just, I don't know, there was something about it that felt. Well, that goes back to what you were saying, dean, unifying the two, whereas one felt like the Mozart versus Beethoven, as I said earlier. And then here it is, there's that unifying thing in it. I, that's, that's all I wanted to say. That's not, I'm not trying to get it. I love it when Steve gives me that smirk because he's just digging into me. He doesn't have to say a thing for those of you can't see him.
Speaker 1:It is a beautiful smile. It is like Jack Nicholson, a fantastic Joker smile. But instead of being Batman, I am totally in Dick Tracy right now, so I am in the wrong comic.
Speaker 2:So this is the thing If we don't say anything, dean, you'll just he's going, you're just going now we're in Dick Tracy. Let's go after this oh yes.
Speaker 3:But where are we going after that? And so, archie, come on now.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean Archie Connix is a great way to go, because then we're going to be right into World War 2 or two.
Speaker 2:We don't have any longer for this podcast. No, no, no.
Speaker 1:So we're going under here and so, which actually makes me think of the very, very end, and we've already kind of mentioned her, but and we've also talking about the fact that Rafter man kills her, you know, or you know, it says I saved you Down Right it gets her down.
Speaker 1:I saved you, but then Joker has to do the thing. In the original script it was Animal Mother and he and he is supposed to take her head off, and I just wanted to say, like at the, this was the last thing that really caught me was when she was, when they're like oh, she's praying and she's, and then later at the end, she just says kill me, kill me, kill me.
Speaker 1:I don't remember that affecting me the way it did this time, where I was like I don't know what, just just just shoot her to shoot her. I don't want to hear it anymore. Um, I don't know, that was just something that.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you, I was in that moment last night and I don't want to now like retcon it, but I did. I did think why wouldn't Animal Mother just shoot her? Like what the hell? Like they're standing there looking at her. Why, why wouldn't they? Just? You know what I mean. They would do it anyway. Like, like.
Speaker 2:I don't. I think the implication is they all talk a big game and they all possess a machismo, but they ultimately don't have the follow.
Speaker 3:That's it Given. That's the step.
Speaker 2:Given the moment to think you can't give them the edit against the end, where it's the Mickey Mouse Club.
Speaker 1:I think that's.
Speaker 2:I think that is the message.
Speaker 3:At least that's what I take. Well, when you're staring, when you're looking into the face of somebody and can you pick up the gun and put them out, Well, and it's again like you know an animal mother from the first time you meet.
Speaker 2:him is very much in everyone's face and like right right up in and presenting himself as being the toughest, and everyone like thinks he's the toughest. I think that just is like you know.
Speaker 1:I think that's that is my first memory of Adam Baldwin too. Like was his introduction of animal as Animal Mother. I did see the bodyguard, which is beautiful, but it is that there's an aggression to him. When you first meet him, you think he's going to be the next guy. You realize now he's just another.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally yeah another one of the boys who's just I don't know what's happening out here, right, you know, but anyway. So I guess, steve, to wrap this up, I think we know the answer, but I want to ask each of us, you know, start with you does this movie hold up?
Speaker 3:Yes, there we go. I believe it does. Yeah, yeah, because of this conversation makes me want to watch it again.
Speaker 2:Same, exactly Same. I like I just watched it this morning and, yeah, I would watch it again right now Like, it's the Kubrick superpower.
Speaker 3:See the sweet platoon, outstanding film. And you can argue one or the other. I don't really feel like watching it again.
Speaker 2:It's got that distance it does. It has the distance where you can be an observer and don't have to dig in too deep.
Speaker 1:I can go as deep as.
Speaker 2:I want yeah, yeah, yeah, you can kind of choose, that's it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Right, I guess.
Speaker 1:Right, that's a great point. Yeah, I mean, I'll answer yes and I think I think it's exactly what we're kind of talking about is the distance allows me to be an observer, be a participant?
Speaker 1:you know and we can, you know, talk about other Kubrick films on this as well, but this particular one, such a personal war and such a just reverberations throughout culture. And then he presents it in such a way that is both about the dehumanization and also the impersonalization, where we can go in and empathize with you know cowboy or you know animal mother or, of course, pile and, and then also just look at the, just look at it. We can go be in it or we can go look at it, we can go watch it or just look at it, right.
Speaker 2:One quick question I have for you guys, and this is literally got to be the last thing Is it In today's Hollywood, is this classified as a comedy?
Speaker 1:There's a reason why Ben Stiller made a sequel, because I think made a sequel, sir. Oh well, not necessarily a sequel, but Tropic Thunder. He goes in and does, and then what's the tagline? For Thunder gets some.
Speaker 3:Oh, ok, right, Straight from the gun. I mean, I'm just, saying but no, but no to everything anymore is like, at least in this comedy television world is like, but everything is like.
Speaker 2:Every dramedy is now a comedy If it has one joke in that episode is not comedy Like. So I'm like, is this a comedy that goes? No, I think this is very funny, it is funny.
Speaker 1:And I think this is more honest because Because what, what happens in our darkest moments? We usually try to find some levity because we'll be swallowed up by it. And this thing is so dark, so like just can be, especially in that first half before Jackson Pollock, against the back of the wall is so pristine that it can feel cold and just overwhelmed by it. So we have to find the comedy. So I think it's 100 percent as dramatic as you get. And that's where I get to the uncanny valley that I mentioned, uncanny Valley that I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 3:I would say. I mean, I think it would be classified as a drama for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Steve, are you? Are you kind of walking?
Speaker 2:No, I was just being a smartass, oh, ok.
Speaker 1:It's a Ted Lasso with guns. That's funny.
Speaker 3:No, it's great.
Speaker 1:Well, Dean, thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Oh, this was such a pleasure hanging out. Well, I mean, this is you know, this was great. I mean, there's a great time.
Speaker 1:There's a reason why movies like this just kind of resonate right.
Speaker 3:We're so much more oh absolutely yeah, and at any time. Kubrick, I mean it's like Scorsese, as he said. He said. He said, you know, one Kubrick film is worth ten of anybody else's. I mean he's like the master of imperfection. You know what I mean it's like, and then you can talk about it forever. So anyway, that's a big part of it, but anyway, this was fantastic.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a great way to end. So cheers gentlemen, lovely to meet you.
Speaker 3:Lovely to meet you. Hey, till next time, man. You're really nice to see you. I can't wait. I'd love to come back.
Speaker 1:Yeah so, and thank you all for joining us on Happy Hour Flicks.
Speaker 2:Happy Hour Flicks is produced by Framework Productions. See more at DFPTV, and you can check out our cocktail for today's episode there as well. The song you're listening to is by Johnny Minio. Check him out on Instagram at Hello Modelo. Thanks for listening.