That's "The Complete Jacket of Metal" in Amsterdam
One of my favorite flicks, Full Metal Jacket, was on last night.
For me, the whole movie is the first half or so. Everything after the suicide scene gets weirder and weirder, it starts to drag, and byt he end I really don't care what happens to these characters, who I nominally cared about to begin with anyway. But every scene that includes Gunnery Sergeant Hartman cracks me up. And the harder he pushes his recruits, the harder I laugh. Lady Lethal, who I have asked to endure the movie in the past, doesn't really get it. Even after I pause the scene, and repeat the rapid-fire obscenities just to make sure she got them, she agrees they're terrible but can't quite get from there to humor. So, alas, I laugh alone.
And for no better reason than because I fucking feel like it, here are two quotes from FMJ that crack me up to tears. These have been washed and then, heh, back-washed through Altavista's web translator:
Who said that? To whom did the Bumsen say that? Who has slimy little communist shit, Twinkle toed more cocksucker down here, who signed straight its own Exekutionsbefehl? Nobody, huh? Fairy fucking the patin said it. From bumsenden standing. I will pint it all cube bumsender to it. I will pint you to their ass hole suck butter milk.
And my personal fave:
Private Pyle you had the best place your ass far and beginning shitting I them cufflinks or me of Tiffany get stuffed will certainly upwards.
Curiously, with the movie fresh in my mind, astonishingly perceptive-and loyal- reader Othershoe provided me this link to discussion of what Joker calls "the Jungian thing". I went two ways with this exchange. First, I was excited at reading reasonably detailed explanations or interpretations of Kubrick's intentions and results with Jungian philosophy in the film. Then, about halfway through, I thanked the Dark Ones that my college days are safely behind me and I didn't have to listen to a roomful of students discuss the hidden, and probably made-up, meanings in movies.
Mad props to Othershoe for providing a trifecta of entertainment, nostalgia, and the creeping feeling you're going to blow the final, all in one swell foop.
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I love FMJ except for the
I love FMJ except for the suicide scene. That scene is so stupid on so many levels.
Full Metal Jacket hit HBO after I had enlisted and about a week before I left for Paris Island. I damn near crapped my pants the first time I saw it. Now, of course, it is hilarious. Gunny Hartman also gets me seriously pumped (I believe he triggers some of the deeply planted mental conditioning, resulting in a massive surge of adrenaline and a desire to commit violence on a scale most people cannot imagine).
I have come to appreciate the second half of the movie more over the years. This is my favorite quote from Crazy Earl:
“I will never forget this day. The day I came to Hue City and fought one million N.V.A. gooks. I love the little Commie bastards, man, I really do. These enemy grunts are as hard as slant-eyed drill instructors. These are great days we're living, bros! We are jolly green giants, walking the earth with guns. These people we wasted here today ... are the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to the world, we're gonna miss not having anyone around that's worth shooting.”