That's right. Had never seen it before and man was it fantastic! Always heard it was a great, just never got around to it. Better late than never.
Never had heard of a "reach-around" until that film. They could have stopped the flick after the boot camp stuff and I still would have felt I got my money's worth.
My dad served two tours in Vietnam and said "Full Metal Jacket" is the most realistic Vietnam movie he's seen.
had the pleasure of knowing a few vietnam vets and they said FMJ nailed it. platoon, gump, Fourth of July, and thin red line distant last. Apocalypse now doesnt count, since most grunts cant attest to whether that movie is real or some filmakers acid trip..... still a good movie, just not a war film.
I recently saw We Were Soldiers and enjoyed it. But FMJ is beyond awesome. We played the hell out of it and a few others when we were actually in the barracks and not out in the field or doing something somewhere to some people who did things worthy of having things done to them.
R. Lee Ermey as the bootcamp drill instructor stole the movie for me. He was one of the few actors ever allowed to improvise their lines in one of Kubrick's movies. Was he even nominated of Best Supporting actor? One of the greatest war movies of all time hands down.
Ermey was hired as a technical adviser to teach some actor how to be a badass DI. Ermey was (naturally) so good that Kubrick fired the actor, gave the role to Ermey, and told him to say what he wanted. Most of his lines were his, the same mean **** that he had screamed at his trainees for years. Great stuff, some of the most quotable / memorable of any film.
And we are reliving great scenes from this fine flick on the "Find Your Princess" thread so loop can find someone that love him long time, give him everything he want, even if he is too beaucoup.
FMJ is amazing for the first half and I have watched half of this movie almost as many times as the first 15 minutes of Blazing Saddles. But it tails off from there to a solid war flick but definitely not an all time best. Band of Brothers while not really a movie is on another level from any war film of any kind.
To say that FMJ "tails off" in the second half is akin to saying the Titanic took on a little water on her maiden voyage.
"Oh that's right, Private Pyle, don't make any f***ing effort to get to the top of the f***ing obstacle. If God would have wanted you up there he would have miracled your *** up there by now, wouldn't he? "
Watching Pyle on the obstacle: "You climb like old people f*** ". A friend who went through Army basic said that one of the challenges was that the drill instructors were yelling so many funny lines at you that you didn't dare laugh at.
