Doc Jay and Eightball are wasted...
FULL METAL JACKET
with audio commentary
My House
DVD
11/13/07 & 11/15/07
I realized while watching the commentary on Full Metal Jacket that it's been almost ten years since I've actually sat down and watched the whole thing. And I love this movie. I think the last time I saw it was at the Naro as part of the Warner Bros Fest. It's weird seeing it in the theater. For one, it's in mono. And that takes some getting used to. And on the big screen it's a hell of a lot more intense than it is on video.
And it's pretty intense on video.
The new DVD, which is apparently only available as part of the new Kubrick box set looks good. It's the first time that it's been available letterboxed, which isn't absolutely necessary because it was shot open-matte, but there's something about the images in this that are enhanced by the cropping. Kubrick made movies to be seen in theaters and for Full Metal Jacket the rectangle works better than the square.
The commentary is interesting, though I don't know if I'll go through it again. There are a few good tidbits in it. I had no idea that the Vietnam scenes were filmed first, before the Parris Island stuff. But it makes sense - why wait around for Matthew Modine and Arliss Howard to grow out their hair when you can shoot the bits where their hair's grown out and then shave it off for boot camp.
And it was pointed out that Pyle and Animal Mother are mirrors of each other and that Animal Mother is what Pyle would have become if the machine of the film's first act had worked. We don't know anything about any of these characters prior to the moment they appear on screen. There's no backstory and few hints about what or who they were prior to the Corps. It's intriguing to look at Animal Mother's helmet decoration, where he wrote "I am become death." He's quoting the Bhagavad-Gita or Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad-Gita. Either way it's not necessarily something you would expect someone like the character as presented would know (though that does make assumptions and stereotypes the guy) and raises the question - what was this guy like before?
And what will he be like when he goes back?
FULL METAL JACKETwith audio commentary
My House
DVD
11/13/07 & 11/15/07
I realized while watching the commentary on Full Metal Jacket that it's been almost ten years since I've actually sat down and watched the whole thing. And I love this movie. I think the last time I saw it was at the Naro as part of the Warner Bros Fest. It's weird seeing it in the theater. For one, it's in mono. And that takes some getting used to. And on the big screen it's a hell of a lot more intense than it is on video.
And it's pretty intense on video.
The new DVD, which is apparently only available as part of the new Kubrick box set looks good. It's the first time that it's been available letterboxed, which isn't absolutely necessary because it was shot open-matte, but there's something about the images in this that are enhanced by the cropping. Kubrick made movies to be seen in theaters and for Full Metal Jacket the rectangle works better than the square.
The commentary is interesting, though I don't know if I'll go through it again. There are a few good tidbits in it. I had no idea that the Vietnam scenes were filmed first, before the Parris Island stuff. But it makes sense - why wait around for Matthew Modine and Arliss Howard to grow out their hair when you can shoot the bits where their hair's grown out and then shave it off for boot camp.
And it was pointed out that Pyle and Animal Mother are mirrors of each other and that Animal Mother is what Pyle would have become if the machine of the film's first act had worked. We don't know anything about any of these characters prior to the moment they appear on screen. There's no backstory and few hints about what or who they were prior to the Corps. It's intriguing to look at Animal Mother's helmet decoration, where he wrote "I am become death." He's quoting the Bhagavad-Gita or Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad-Gita. Either way it's not necessarily something you would expect someone like the character as presented would know (though that does make assumptions and stereotypes the guy) and raises the question - what was this guy like before?
And what will he be like when he goes back?
posted by PunchBuggyBlues at 10:17 PM
1 Comments:
Funny. Matt selected that very movie to watch last night. I wonder if he'd been looking at your blog. I enjoyed the movie (it was the very first time I had seen it from start to finish). I like the boot camp chapters more than the second half of the film. However, this film boasts the greatest line of film dialog ever, "Me so horny, me love you long time". There was even a song about it, it's so good.
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