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Full Metal Jacket

Galoots, poultroons and lollygaggers harp on about Kubrick ‘discovering’ top turn and only decent thing in this film R Lee Ermey, when of course he’d been in loads before, and playing the same character, inevitably. He turned in a blinky-missy semi-role in Aloadofooldtoot Now, and was similarly the only decent thing in watery Cheryl Ladd Vietnam romance Purple Hearts, but the real deal was early doors ‘Namathon The Boys in Company C, which instigated the Ermey persona practically wholesale, but didn’t just hang the whole bleeding film off it. And they play football and everything! So in short, nice one Lee, and up yours, Stan. Oh, and don’t forget www.rleeermey.com, wherein you can ‘Purchase the ‘XTRA SALTY’ Gunnery SGT R. Lee Ermey 12″ Motivational Figure and receive  FREE the Gunnery SGT. R. Lee Ermey Talking 7″ Motivational Bobblehead!’ That squeaky woman off of Poltergeist’s got a long way to go to beat that. Point of soundtrack order here – we all know that “Abigail Mead” was really Kubrick’s daughter Vivian, but whither the mysterious Nigel Goulding these days?

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Richard16378

    May 18, 2011 at 10:55 pm

    No mention of the song mostly composed from sound bites from this.

  2. Tom Ronson

    March 31, 2022 at 11:16 pm

    The glut of late eighties / early nineties Vietnam war films (Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill, Born on the Fourth of July) seemed to manifest itself in a lot of British teenagers and twenty-somethings suddenly wearing chinos and listening to Motown and The Doors. Bearable enough, until a few of them (far too many, if I’m honest) got in a little too deep and started claiming that their dads or uncles had “been in ‘Nam and saw some shit you wouldn’t believe.”

  3. Richardpd

    June 9, 2022 at 10:43 pm

    Much of this was oddly shot around in & abound Beckton Gas Works, probably because of Kubricks fear of flying.

    There were a few other bits of Americana that became popular around the time this came out, like Zippo lighters & American Whiskeys, the latter being popular with hair metal fans.

    Add Good Morning Vietnam to the list along with Apocalypse Now & Australian miniseries Nam.

  4. Sidney Balmoral James

    June 10, 2022 at 6:04 pm

    Indeed, as I understand entire film shot in Britain, same as The Shining (apart from opening helicopter shots – all the interiors of the Overlook are in a studio, as is the maze), 2001 (including the scenes at the beginning with the monkeys). I think Aliens also made at the same gas works (and I think it’s the disused factory where Roger goes for a remote control helicopter ride at the start of For Your Eyes Only.

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