Friendly Fire on Platoon

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to Movie Crush Special a dish. It's
a lot of shish is going on in there. It's
Charles W. Chuck Bryant here at the Home Studio on
Pont City Market, Atlanta, but setting up a show that
I recorded in California, not one of the l A sessions,
but the lone Max fun Con session. As most of

(00:45):
you know, every year in June, I go to Lake
Arrowhead in California for Max fun Con. And that's the
Maximum Fund Podcast networks annual hang that they have in
the woods every year. And so what happens is Jess
he Thorne, who the leader of the Maximum Network, gets
a bunch of comedians to perform and people to teach
classes like acting classes or crafting classes or role playing,

(01:10):
LARPing and stuff like that. It's just like nerd Heaven
out there. And I go every year and do a
trivia thing with John Hodgeman, and we've been doing it
for like nine years straight and it's an annual tradition
I love. And this year my pals from the friendly
Fire podcast we're there, John Roderick, Ben Harrison and Adam Pranica.

(01:30):
They do the friendly Fire podcast for maximum fun and
it is one of my favorite shows. It's definitely tops
for my movie shows. And uh, it's a war movie podcast.
They sit around and each week they pick out of
the hat and talk about a different war movie on
their list. And they're all three very smart guys. Roderick
is so insightful and knows more about history than anyone

(01:51):
I know, So he's great on a war movie podcast.
Ben Harrison is one of the smartest, uh nicest, most
in fightful, well spoken guys you can have a conversation with.
And Pranica he's the secret comedy weapon everybody. I love
Pranica and his rise sense of humor and his sweet,
sweet comedic delivery gets me every time. So that's friendly fire,

(02:15):
and uh, I'm pals with all these guys. Like I said,
So I said, let's get together and do a true
crossover app Uh, let me pick the movie. Let's do
Platoon if you guys don't mind, And they were all
way into it because Platoon is one of the great
great war films of all time and one of my
favorite uh movies and war movies of all time for sure.
And so we got together in a cabin in the

(02:36):
woods quite literally and recorded a crossover that is going
to be airing on Friendly Fire, Speed and Movie Crushes,
so they're gonna edit it how they want to, and
we did segments from both shows, like the segments that
I do and the segments they do, so it was
a true crossover. So I would recommend listening to this

(02:56):
thing twice if you can go over to Friendly Fire
listen to their weird, short, shorter, ter edited version, and
then mine, which you know me, I just kind of
throw it all out there and let you sift through
the rubble, and I think it'd be pretty interesting experience.
So here we go, without any further ado, with the
Friendly Fire dudes and me in a cabin in the

(03:17):
woods on Platoon. Have you guys ever recorded in the
same room. Yeah, okay, And it's a it's very enjoyable
to be able to see there. They're bright, scrubbed young faces.
Most of the time we've done it, we've done so

(03:37):
after having a giant barbecue dinner, and so to demystify
what's happening here, we're actually doing this in the morning,
the best time to record Poda, Like Roderick literally put
on his first article of clothing about eight minutes ago.
I'm still my body is still resisting having a shirt on.
I don't know why I thought we were going to
start at nine, but we're starting at ten. Yeah, well,

(04:02):
that's that's the pad that we give ourselves. I think
we all knew that this was not going to go
down to nine. Yeah. We are up at max fun
Con for the weekend, and we prepared for the weekend
by watching a super gruesome and pretty upsetting movie. Yeah. Uh,
what's your relationship with this movie? Check? Well, this was

(04:22):
a big, big movie for me and my roommates in college,
So it was you know, I saw it in the theater,
but then for on VHS. When did this come out?
What year was this? Six? I think, oh really, Okay,
so it was well, and you know, I didn't go
to college until this would have been ninete, like four

(04:44):
years later when we had it Heavy Heavy in the
rotation in the in the VHS player, And I mean
we watched it probably a twenty times in the space
of a year. It was one of our movies. It was.
It was kind of one of my movies in college too. Yeah,
I was kind of sessed of it. I mean it's
such Uh, I mean, it's a really funked up movie

(05:07):
to be obsessed with that. Yeah, I was obsessed with
Tommy Boy in college. Like, how did that impact your
life and your reputation? I don't know. I mean it
was like the era where you watch movies on a
computer by yourself. You know, we didn't have like a
wave to It was that weird era where like there

(05:28):
was not really DVDs anymore, Like all of the movie
rental places had closed. But John still in that era.
He's like, what are you talking about. I'm listening to
nostalgic about, Like, oh, well, it was way back in
the old days when you had to watch movies on
your laptop by yourself. Well, it was a weird middle
time where like you could I think you could know.

(05:49):
I guess I wasn't streaming them, but I was the
Middle Ages, Like we didn't we didn't have a way
to like watch movies together that much. Wow. So it's
just like walking six miles to school in the snow
every morning. It's so weird. Did not be the youngest
person in the room at any point. We just didn't, like,
we didn't have a VHS and nobody wanted VHS at
that point. So I don't know. I saw this movie

(06:10):
in the theaters and I was a senior in high school.
So if you can imagine what it's like to be,
you know, senior in high school in a movie like
this comes out, which and this movie was absolutely groundbreaking
in the in its time, right it's uh yeah, the
first one told from the grunt's perspective. Is that true
fully from or is that not true? Well, it depends

(06:33):
on how you how you put where you put Apocalypse
Now in there, like is but you know, in Apocalypse
Now obviously as super groundbreaking, but by we were still
culturally reckoning with Vietnam. We had not at all dealt
with it as Americans, and it was really still still
felt really raw. And when this movie came out with
all of its brutality and all of it's like unvarnished h. Gorey,

(06:58):
but also like really reckoning with American um over violence
and and losing the war, which we still I mean
Adam's favorite movie being Rambo where he saves us from Vietnam,
where he wins it for us. Right, Um, this was
like the first movie where we just full on lost

(07:20):
right in front of everybody. These guys weren't supposed to
just take pictures, so it was it can you imagine
developing their film at the photo mat when they get back.
So John, uh, for listeners of movie crush, they may
not understand that you are and you're the job you

(07:41):
serve unfriendly fired a lot of times is historian, because
you know much more than what you like to call
these dinglings. It's not that, it's just you know, I'm
a I am a generation different and not even I'm
not even that much older, certainly than you Chuck. You know,
I'm just I'm I'm not yet fifty. But my dad

(08:02):
was born in and fought in World War Two. I
was a younger child of his, but you know, we
spent a lot of time watching war movies together, and
he was watching them from the perspective of somebody that,
you know, it fought in the Pacific. So I grew
up really thinking about war, digesting it at a different

(08:24):
level than sort of I wasn't I'm not a veteran,
but right, but but you may as well be. I'm
you know, I'm I'm a veteran of a thousand psychic wards.
I think we can agree that John will eventually become
the docent at an air and space museum, like getting
me yeah, like most veterans do. That will be his eventuality.

(08:51):
The pincacle of Florida Mustang. So, since you're the historian, though,
I thought you could say it up the setting a platoon,
which is late nineteen early nineteen, what was where was
that in the Vietnam War? So we had we the

(09:12):
this is it begins a year before I'm born, right
September of sixty seven, and it's prett offensive, it's a
it's a time when you know, I guess you would
call it like pure Vietnam. And it's before before Nixon's elected, right,
So it's still the Johnson administration, and it still feels
like we are fighting a war. We understand in the

(09:36):
back in the States, the anti war movement hasn't yet
become It hasn't tipped over. It's still the province of
students and intellectuals. It hasn't become a mainstream movement yet.
So there's still support for the war. We're still fighting
it like a conventional war, thinking that you know, if

(09:56):
we just get in there and bomb them and shoot them,
the surrender. All that changed in and this is kind
of this is describing the run up to the realization
that like, uh, we're not fighting a conventional war. And

(10:16):
that was that was the tet offensive, you know that
that um, the North Vietnamese staged a massive, massive um
invasion you know, of the South, and they came at
came at us from all sides, and it was like,
how did how do they have the power to do this?
How did where do they? Where do they find this strength?
Like we felt like we had them on the ropes,

(10:37):
and we did have them on the ropes, but we
just didn't have them. We didn't understand the kind of
war we were fighting. Yeah, because even Charlie Sheen is
Chris Taylor in this movie, I mean, there's plenty of
disillusionment that happens as his character arc. But at one
point in the you know, we could admit very obvious
voice over letters to Grandma talks about, you know, fighting

(10:59):
for the freedom of Americans. So there is still that
idea that there they have a righteous job to do
over there. We think of that kind of of uh
language as being a thing of recent years, you know,
like our freedoms, but this hearkening back twenty years and
it was language that was it didn't ring jingoistic even then,

(11:24):
it felt like, yeah, sure, how do you think Grahama's
feeling reading those letters? Well, you know, so my dad
was a veteran right and also a liberal in the sixties,
and heat impossible. It's I'm afraid it's true, the contradiction
in terms. And he had a really really hard time
coming to grips with the idea that the American military

(11:48):
was not a force for good, and so he was
late to turn against the Vietnam War because he was
just he couldn't fathom uh situate ation where we weren't
actors on the in the service of of like global

(12:09):
peace and unity, and so we had to have been
doing the right thing there. It was inconceivable. And so
I think Grandma is reading these letters, and and this
was happening across the country, like people, people back in
the States were becoming disillusioned, and they they didn't understand
it because that this had never happened before. What a

(12:29):
strange like Grandma had experienced the Great War in her
in her own terms, but to be receiving letters that
are so different from what her expectation must have been
Gammy Sheen's world was rock right. She loves her boy.
She knows he's not a drug addict shirker, which is

(12:49):
what she's seeing on the evening news, like the hippies
are these disgusting uh cowards. But this is her son,
for her grandson fighting in the war, and she's getting
the letters who volunteered, who volunteered, which is a very
important character trade for him. And I think that's Oliver
Stone's story, right, He like, I don't think this is
entirely autobiographical, but he kind of it though. It recycled

(13:13):
back from the war and went to film school and
then made I think he made did he make uh
the El Salvador movie before this, Yeah, came before, but
he wrote I actually didn't know this. He wrote this
movie right after he started writing this movie, right when
he got home from Vietnam, and at one point send

(13:35):
it to Jim Morrison to play that role. Uh. So
that's how old that the Platoon story And it wasn't
this script, but it was his Vietnam experience movie that
that eventually morphed into Platoon. Did you guys see his
student film that he made when he was in film
school with Martin Scorsese. I've I've actually seen it projected

(13:56):
on film really as I went to the same films Goal,
but it was it's on YouTube now, and it's like
it's hard to find the whole thing. It's like pieces
of it are on YouTube in weird ways, and it
is real, like it is it really like Pegs the
Needle for like art student, like like super pretentious student film.

(14:18):
But it's it's you know, I think probably has a
lot of the DNA of Platoon in it. It's a
lot of it's a lot in French. Right, It's in French,
which is the thing that made it's so pretentious because
it's in New York, right, It's but set in New York. Yeah,
But Scorsese talks about having Oliver Stone as a student
in his class and just like, you know, this guy

(14:40):
was really intense. He was he'd like he would do
a rail of coke and then he'd get up and
present to the class, but like he'd you know, he'd
been in the ship and the rest of us hadn't it,
And it was Yeah, I think this is the first
war movie made by a veteran of the war that
he's depicting which is pretty landmark. You know, well, at
least in Vietna in the case of Vietnam, right, Like ever,

(15:05):
I think any war that a veteran directed a movie
about the war that they were in, damn the very
least Vietnam. But I think it was any war. That's astonishing.
I don't have access to that. Do you think there
was a resistance to making a tent pole Vietnam film?
Starting Starting a Sheen not long after Apocalypse Now, Like,

(15:29):
I wonder if they had any second thoughts about casting
she and the younger? How do you think about that?
That really wasn't what seven years later and he's the
spitting image of his dad. Yeah, that was That's a
big part of it. And the voiceover is the same
dead pan um sort of walk you through the walk

(15:51):
you through what's happening? Poly sounds a little more artful,
I think, And also he's way more broken. Yeah, Sheen
stayed is kind of a college kid through the whole
movie some in some ways, Yeah, I mean his like
his end of movie ruminations on the nature of war
and togetherness are really like, oh wow, it's very heavy handed,

(16:13):
even for Oliver Stone. You know, what do you guys
think about Oliver Stone because I've always enjoyed a lot
of his movies. But I always, even when I was
younger watching his movies, before I even had much of
a film aesthetic, it was like, come on, man, like
we get it. You don't need to literally tell everyone
the theme He lost me at JFK up. Until then,

(16:35):
I thought that he because born in the fourth of July. Yeah,
that was pretty good. Was also, you know, like a
really intense experience, intense watching experience as someone who was nineteen,
I guess when it came out, you know, like that
was and especially at that moment in American history. Um,

(16:55):
just what it was like in the late eighties. That
was That was because I was you know, we've talked
about this on our show before, but this was the
height of the m I a p O w R
in the U S where we were. Vietnam was still
a raw, raw wound. So I thought, Oliver Stone, Yeah,
he's heavy handed, But what compared to what like Rambo two,

(17:17):
I mean, there was just would you stop? There was
just nobody else working in this working this way. He
was only supposed to take pictures. What about you made it?
What about you guys with Stone Are you stoneheads? Yeah,

(17:38):
by the time you came along, been like his whole
his whole thing was developed. Yeah, he he had a
like a known of at at that point. And uh,
they saw I had the Oliver Stone box set in
my dorm room, Um did you? Yeah? Which was what
Wall Street Platoon, Natural Born Killers FK one on the

(18:01):
fourth of July, Salvador Um, I mean it's hard to
think of a good movie he's made recently. And yeah,
he still has the power to have a film made,
So I mean, it's not how about that choice to
choose not to It seems like there would be a
lot for him to say right now, Yeah, what what? What?
What are his recent movies? Well, he's done. He made

(18:24):
George W. Bush movie that was a little while ago.
One of the things he has done a lot recently
is go interview like Boogeyman. So he has a documentary
where he's interviewing Putin on Showtime. And there's a couple
of documentaries he made where he interviewed Fidel Castro that

(18:45):
are really wild to watch because it doesn't seem like
Oliver Stone ah cares that much about the like human
rights abuses, of the Castro regime, they like kind of
get along. Really. His politics are yeah right pretty uh

(19:06):
like yeah, pretty like on his sleeve. Yeah, and uh,
I mean he made he made like that Alexander the
Great movie And I heard him talking about that before
he made it, and he was saying like, yeah, like
it was just like a totally different time where like
the relationships between people are totally unimaginable to us now.
And uh, if that sounds like a recipe for a

(19:30):
film that is unrelatable, that is the film that he made.
So he made I forgot. He made the Wall Street sequel, right,
Money Never Sleeps. Yeah. He made a movie called Savages,
which I remember was like a drug movie. Yeah, and
then um, it's about two guys that are in a
threatle with Blake Lively. None. He made the Snowdon movie,

(19:54):
which I did not see, And then I love this.
This is so all every stone. He just produced it.
But he deuced a documentary called All Governments Lie a
Little on the Nose title eyes there. But sure, so
he does have a lot to say and he is
saying it to very few people, I guess. So. Yeah,
but he has kind of fallen off the map. What
about you guys. What's your relationship to Oliver Stone? Uh?

(20:18):
Mine actually is opposed to yours. With respect to JFK,
I I actually really enjoyed JFK. That's where I onboarded
with Oliver Stone, mostly because at that time in my life, I, uh,
it was unexpected to find a courtroom drama so exciting.

(20:39):
I mean, say what you will about the you've never
seen an episode of Matlock. Obviously every summer I'd watch
Mattlock in syndication. But you didn't watch mash No why.
I mean, it's it's a film. You could argue that
it's a film for cranks by inks, but I thought

(21:02):
it was extremely well made, and it was. It was
one of the first examples of like a three hour
film that I found totally riveting. Did you like the
one part where Kevin Costner was giving his long soliloquy
talking about doing the right thing and he looks right
at the camera it's up to you, the American people.
I like that part. Did you like Joe pesci with

(21:24):
with his like electrical tape eyebrows. Oh yeah, I got
about the whole thing. He was seen the real pictures
of that guy, right, Yeah, he looks just like it.
So one of the things that struck me about this
movie was the and especially watching it now in my

(21:46):
mid to late forties as opposed to in college, was
the brutality of the conditions and just the sort of
it's the first time I had ever seen the day
to day of war, like filling sand bags and hacking
down brush and burning trains, burning boot and I think

(22:06):
that was kind of definitely what Stone was after was
it was not clearly not glorification, but like a lot
of it is just shit work every day and then
you go out and kill people at night and try
not to get killed. And somehow he communicates in all
that ship work the like pregnant tension, like it's no

(22:29):
you never you're never bored watching guys fill sandbags because
you feel in the room, in your own you know,
watching it all by yourself with your DVD collection or whatever,
you can feel how how much this is just like,
this is just some busy work in between the next
time we go out into the jungle and yeah, and

(22:50):
you know, face the enemy set off claym wars Um.
It's uh. The movie that also spends a lot of
time on class because he is so different from the
people that he's there with. And I think that was
something that kind of went over my head when I
was in college because I was like a sallop cistic
college student. Yeah, when did that stop? It hasn't. I'm

(23:14):
just like, is that the title of the episode, the
most solipsistic Midshipman and friendly fire inside joke? Everywh Yeah?

(23:36):
So the but that but that class stuff I think
hit me a little harder now. And I think maybe
it's just like where we're at politically now. I mean,
I don't think that like anybody was screaming socialism in
response to George W. Bush, but like we're in a
political era now where like the the liberal response to

(23:57):
what's going on in Washington is a lot more like
a lot more about like uses the language of class
and class warfare a lot more so that stuff like
came out in higher relief for me watching it. I mean,
And I hadn't watched this movie in ten years, I think, so, uh,
I guess, yeah, I had forgotten how much a part

(24:18):
of it that was. And like the like Sheen's character
like makes friends with these guys, but there are like
he describes them as like people from the end of
the tracks, like people from towns you've never heard of.
And that's really interesting to me. The this movie is
like bringing in a general American audience and showing them, hey, like,

(24:42):
you guys have people you don't care about fight your
fights for you like and saying that really explicitly, Like
he says everything very explicitly. This is one of the
first times you would ever the first time, I think,
I mean, I can't say for sure, but like Rambo
tries to say that, but it's like he's an action hero,

(25:02):
you know, like we don't we believe that, we that
society doesn't care about him for the first thirty seconds
of that film and then it's out the window. I
don't mean to dunk on you, but which Rambo film
are you referring to? Just so I can tailor my response,
don't give him, don't give him a chance to say
ub again. Uh this is There are several moments, several

(25:27):
moments in Platoon where there are no white faces on
the screen, where there there's a vignette where it's just
the black soldiers interacting with one another, and that was
unprecedented at the time, and when you think about the U. S.
Military even at the even at the start of the
Korean War, military was not integrated and there were not
really very many black frontline combat soldiers. Grandma must have

(25:51):
been really confused getting these letters Gammy sheen. She didn't
know what was coming, trip and balls. Right, But this
is fifteen years later, her uh, And the the U. S.
Army is black soldiers drafted. So a massive change in
the way war was fought and the and the this

(26:13):
and this class because it wasn't just like blue collar.
I was from Brooklyn, but it was like we were
building an army from the underclass and if you have
any money at all, you can skate um. And that
was like that was wholly new. But the country was
reckoning with it then and in the eighties too. I

(26:33):
mean this it wasn't the language, didn't didn't seem alien.
We were all very conscious of the class disparity of
the Vietnam War. Yeah, I think that that's something that
maybe got lost to me, and like, you know, it's
what I don't remember, like learning about the Vietnam War
and history classes they skated over to did much detail

(26:54):
at all. It was the last day of the year,
right before summer. They were like, and then the Korean
War in Vietna, um Watergate and have a great summer.
It had the worst pr as wars go. They wanted
to talk. World War two was the one that took
a week to get to in those classes. I mean,
you guys were growing up in a world where it

(27:15):
was understood that we had lost or at least gotten
battered in Vietnam. I don't think I did understand that.
I Like, I remember when I saw a fish called
Wanda and they make fun of Kevin Klein for losing
the Vietnam War, and he goes it was a tie,
being like, wait, what what happened? Like was it a tie?

(27:36):
Or that my father was in Vietnam. I didn't really
know what the outcome of the war was growing up.
I think my understanding was that it was the complicated
war and that's about all I knew. Right, Hey, Ben, Uh,
my dad wasn't in Vietnam and this isn't this isn't
a joke or anything. But does your dad not like
to talk about it or what was his relationship to
you about the war? I mean, he wasn't in combat,

(27:58):
so he was he was in the rear with gear,
as they say, but it must have he must have
had strong feelings about it. Yeah, And I'm I'm sitting
here wondering, like he had enough privilege to have like
made himself a college student instead of somebody who was
eligible to be drafted and did not. And I don't

(28:19):
really know what factored into that, if it was a
sense of obligation or did he say whether or not
he believed the United States one Vietnam, Like, I don't
think I've ever talked to him about it in those terms. Interesting,
and he texts him right now, maybe platoon is going
to bring you guys closer. Hey, Pops, by the way,

(28:41):
one in your estimation, did we win Vietnam? The boy,
when I was a kid, there was, you know, to
to suggest that we hadn't one in Vietnam would start
a fight right even on the playground, because because it
was still inconceivable. Uh. And then you know in the

(29:04):
narrative that that that that transformed into we still here today,
which is that we weren't allow those bureaucrats in Washington
didn't allow us to win the Vietnam right, And so
it became a it became a political football to indict
those whoever you want to indict in Washington, whoever it is. Um,

(29:25):
But we could you know this idea that the American
military still has never been defeated except for that one
time where we were kind of but you know what,
we've already we'd already left. It wasn't us, It was this.
You know, there's just this like constant rationalization about what happened,
and we're still you still get into a fight in
a bar. I bet we if we went to this
bar a mile up the road, you can get into

(29:46):
an argument about it. Let's do it, guys, Let's take
our microphone. We've never done we've never done field segments
on either of these shows, but I think we could
make that happen. See if we can get a Vietnam
fight at Lake earra Head at ten fifteen in the morning. Well,
let me ask you guys watching it now, does I
mean you have all described it as as a brutal film. Yeah,

(30:09):
but does it still feel like I mean, other than
Charlie Sheen's kind of cornball voiceovers, does it still feel
really real and hard? Or or is it? Does it?
Is it two technicolor? I hadn't seen it in many years,
probably ten years, and I was surprised at how affected

(30:31):
I remained by the film here. It never lost any
of it teat for me. I mean, it's the I
think it's those those scenes in the village where there
are uh all over the map in terms of what
like like the individual soldiers like come into this village

(30:52):
with very different agendas and you see them all play
out and some are like explicitly horrifying and summer not
and like, I don't, like, I can't think of a
lot of war films where like a group of American
soldiers like are involved in a project where some of
them are doing things that like our crimes and right

(31:16):
like they should go to jail. Yeah, I mean that
whole sequence still is just especially now that I have
a kid, uh, just brutal to sit through. Still, it's
very upset, and in the central piece of the movie,
you know, everything in the movie sort of spins out
of that that incident, which was clearly a I mean,
I'm sure these things happened a lot, but what was

(31:37):
the big famous Yeah. I was watching it last night
and Chuck was sitting there with me. You know, we're
kind of what he'd already been through it once, but
we were watching it together. You just wanted to see
that one part again. Well no, and then and then
as they're walking up that hill into the village, Chuck
was like, I can't do this again. It was brutal
to sit through. I mean, this is weird to say,

(31:59):
but like when I was in my twenties, I like
don't know if I had developed enough morally to like
understand how horrifying that was. No, totally, it affected me
more now than when I was in college. And it's
not like we were rooting it on in college, but
just like, man, that's fucked up. But like this disturbed
me to the core. And and Charlie Sheen's acting was

(32:21):
really great in that in the in the scene where
he thwarts the rape. I think the acting in general
in the film is great, and the cast is stacked. Yeah,
everybody isn't that guy basically, Yeah, everybody acting the ship
out of their parts. I mean just Tom Barrenger ever
been better. I mean he was great in the Substitute,

(32:43):
the Substitute and outwithstanding, but his you know, Barnes, Sergeant
Barnes is like a pillar of cinema like one of
the ultimate roles, and he inhabits it so completely and
it's so affecting. I don't understand why Why was he
nominated for an oscar for this? Is this something? That
he and Willem Dafoe were both nominated for Supporting Actor,

(33:07):
which is a rarity to see two actors in the
same film in the same category, and they lost to
somebody from my cousin, Vinny Or's, but it did win
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editor, Best Sound Mixing. This
sounds incredible. I mean, we we can get to that.
But yeah, and then was nominated for those two acting
roles in script and cinematography. So it was I mean,

(33:31):
it was a powerhouse movie across the board. And I
remember that year at the Oscars, it was it was
such a big deal for a Vietnam movie because it's
sort of old hat. Now we've seen so many Vietnam
movies since. But I forget in NI we had Apocalypse
Now and not a ton of other ones there were.
That was the common ballor if you want to count that,

(33:53):
that was the era where we were where Rambo spawned
a bunch of here we go, let's go back and
kick some map us right, Chuck Norris did several of those.
If we want to have another Rambo podcast, we can
have another Rambo. You're gagging for it. But if you
think about it, like the first Vietnam movie you drew first,

(34:16):
like Green Berets came out in Night with John Wayne
and that was the corniest war movie ever made. Well,
we'll talk about it on Friendly Fire ventially. It is
so so bad. And then Deer Hunter. Right in the
mid seventies, there were there were a few movies coming home,
a few movies about Vietnam vets coming back and being trashed,

(34:41):
but Apocalypse Now was the first one that took us there.
And then the Chuck Norris stuff of the early eighties
was just that was all filmed in Santa Monica. And
then this you know that just uh that just landed
like a fucking sandbag full of blood on everybody. Yeah,
I don't know where I got that. That's a pretty great, yeah,
a pretty great way of describing this movie, sandbag full

(35:03):
of blood. So John that they had that first firefight,
that first firefight is so uh scary when Um Junior
falls asleep on his watch and Charlie Sheen to have
that great shot where he's just so still with his
little hood pulled over his head, doesn't know what the

(35:23):
funk to do as he sees the soldiers creeping from
the jungle and he's so green and it's so scary.
It's almost like a horror movie at that point. And
then they had this firefight, and I just wondered, in
the context of Vietnam, it seems like a lot of
these were like guys fighting fifteen to twenty guys, Like

(35:44):
were they trying to advance? It didn't seem like what
was the what was the goal in the firefight? Just
to kill some soldiers? Yeah, that was the problem with
with the with fighting the war in Vietnam. Every prior
war is about gaining and holding territory. Yeah, like take
that hill, and the Vietnam had some obviously well, but
they took the hill, but the hill was not really

(36:07):
a strategic uh place in terms of advancing forward, right.
I wondered why this bunker was like built where it
was like just deep in the jungle there's a bunch
of holes, Like why, yeah, it was what are we
doing with them there? We would take a hill and
we hold it, but it wasn't connected to any greater plan.

(36:29):
It wasn't like, now we have the advantage because we're whatever. Yeah,
you'd hold up there, and then they would they'd kind
of build you know, that's the thing about the Hochi
Min trail, right, we would blow it up and they
would just build another one over here, because there wasn't
any Because what we weren't trying to do was conquer
North Vietnam. What we were trying to do was stabilize

(36:51):
the government of South Vietnam, which had been through multiple
political upheavals and because corrupt governments and turnovers, and there
wasn't there wasn't a sense that the people of South
Vietnam embraced the government of South Vietnam. And the risk
was ideological. That's why we were there. This was the

(37:14):
domino theory, right, if if these little countries fell to
the ideology of of Marxism, then it was so appealing
two uh, you know, two people in underdeveloped countries, that
the Soviets would gain this global advantage by getting all

(37:36):
these little el Salvadors and Angolas and Vietnam. So but
we weren't trying to conquer North Vietnam. We were trying
to like beat them, but what that looked like wasn't clear,
and we couldn't beat them because every night, and this
was was so horrifying about it, Right, every night, the
guy that was in the village during the day working

(37:58):
put on his black pajamas and became envy. Yeah, so
the enemy. That's why it's so parent. It's such a
paranoid war. The enemies all around, And it's not they're
not the enemy. They're just like people living in their
country who want you to stop doing weird, like, you know,
just like stop doing this please, You get it. You
really get a sense of that ambiguity from the soldier's
perspective of like what are we even doing with these

(38:21):
firefights night after night? Like it didn't feel like to
them like they were gaining any advantage or anything. We're
just like playing war guys. From the standpoint of like
did we win Vietnam? Like we killed hundreds of thousands
of Vietnamese, they were right on the verge of just
not being able to at the end of the war, right,

(38:44):
there was no North Vietnamese army for all intensive purposes.
But when we left and said okay, South Vietnam, you're
on your own there, you know, there the South Vietnamese
government couldn't stand and people just sort of rose up
and and toppled it. But it wasn't like South Vietnam

(39:07):
didn't um didn't fall to an invasion from the North.
It just fell out of its own bloated. Uh, they
couldn't support themselves. But from a military standpoint, we had
and we dropped hundreds of thousands of tons of bombs.
How different was the idea of Vietnam from the idea

(39:29):
of Korea? Because Korea is like another Asian country where
the North went to communism in the South didn't, and
we got involved and built a bulwark there, which, like,
you know, sure, it's debatable whether our involvement there was
a net good or net bad for global history, But like,

(39:51):
why did whatever we set out to do in in
Korea achieve a situation where there was a capitalist government
in part of Korea even though there was a communist
government in the other part. You know, in the Korean War,
the Chinese were actually engaged in battle, right We the U. S.

(40:13):
Army fought actual Chinese like Red Army soldiers, So it
was really a a war between the U. S and China,
and it was at an era where the there was
because nuclear weapons were really new. There was a lot
of pressure in the U. S. Government from MacArthur and
all these guys that are just like, well, you know,

(40:35):
we could just like drop some tactical nuclear weapons and
wrapped this right up. So it was a whole different
moment in history. And when we when we arrived at
that stalemate line, it was really like in part because
the question was how far do we want to go

(40:56):
with it? If we go any further, it's going to
be like really yeah, Like the Chinese understood like it, well,
if we go all the way, this could really get
ugly for us. But but in the US, like what
was the end game there? All the way into China
who had an army of two million men or something

(41:18):
at the time, So there wasn't a It was again
like what are our objectives here? And when we when
that c spiral line happened, everybody was like, let's just coolest,
extremely long pause, gentlemen, And here it is like what
sixty eight years later and the war still technically it's
still technically by the time this comes out, chances are

(41:40):
pretty good that will be so and and that wasn't
a guerrilla war right there. It wasn't like um a
thing like this where there just was no front There
was no Korea had had old fashioned like here's the
front line. Yeah, well, I'll take part of the blame
for this, but we've gotten really far off the movie.

(42:02):
Well back to the movie though it didn't. We kind
of go to one of my favorite sequences, which is
the um latrine emptying like fire in the sky. That
great shot of the of the silhouette of those dudes
as the sun goes down. Are the doors playing? No,
that's what the mud the go ask Alice music que starts,
you know, that snare role, which is so great, and

(42:24):
then it goes into the scene with the Heads, which
is one of my favorite sequences in the movie, when
Charlie Sheen when King introduces into the guys the pot
Heads in their bunker, which I would so love to
live in. That poker. It was so cool that that
super wide angle shot of Willem Dafoe that is like
the only time in history that he's had the face

(42:45):
of an angel. I love the one Clear and Present
Danger episode. You guys did you described him as not
always looking like a tree, but he's pretty fresh faced
in this. And I remember when I first saw this
being really surprised that Alias was one of the potheads. Yeah.

(43:07):
I just didn't think the Serge would affiliate like that,
But there he was in the hammock stoned out of
his mind. Yeah, I really. Uh So, there's a shot
right at the beginning when they're first getting off the
airplane and a man walks past them who has like
a skull face, and that's specifically cast because his face

(43:29):
looked like a skull, and that that moment where Ali
is like kind of comes through the pot smoke and
his like moonfaced. I feel like it's kind of like
an interesting counterpoint to that, like this is kind of
a way to have a little salvation here in this
place that is death and destruction. Which was great. I
mean that scene when they are all dancing two tracts

(43:53):
of My Tears and genuinely having a good time, and
then the camera just kind of booms up away when
Forest Whittakers dancing and singing, And it's just interesting to
think about a war where you're getting drunk and you're
getting stone back on base and trying to forget like
the horrors that you experienced that day. There's a ton

(44:13):
of christ imagery in the film, and it all points
to Willem Dafoe's character, like he offers Charlie Sheen's character
communion through the barrel of his weapon, constantly putting his
arms over his weapon as if to be crucified while
walking through the jungle. That scene. This is the first

(44:34):
time I ever watched it where this occurred to me.
But that moment when he first walks in and the
the character played by Anthony Quinn's son, Yeah, Taylor, you lame? Yeah,
that guy, are you lame? It turns the peace pipe
and it's like, are you lame? It always read his
pot to me every end and throughout the movie it's

(44:57):
always kind of referred to those guys are potheads. But
the this time watching it, that exchange the are you lame?
And then Charlie Sheen's response to that toke uh suggested
this time to me that it was heroin. Oh interesting
because he tookes it and he's not just like WHOA,

(45:17):
I'm high. He's like, oh, I feel no pain, like
my my injury has gone away, And there's a there's
a whole lot of like heroin vibe there. Well, there's
a hair some Heroin stuff that was cut out apparently
the one uh, I don't know which guy, but he
was the only um black senior officer. And if someone

(45:39):
makes a remark about that some of that ship you've
been smoking or whatever, shooting, yes, shooting. There was a
Heroin stuff that was cut out from that character was
supposed to be like Heroin addicted. And then at the end, uh,
there's the part where it maybe King even that's going
around and he reaches in the pocket of a Vietnamese
soldier and pulls out a little thing and that's a

(45:59):
little heroin bag Yeah, it was like a napkin or something.
I was like, what is that? I know, I had
to look it up, and apparently that was a little
heroin baggy and that the soldiers would use heroin like morphine.
I guess yeah. I mean Heroin was a big, big,
big part of the American experience in Vietnam, and that
was that Heroin came back to the States, and which

(46:21):
is crazy to think about soldiers on heroin fighting in
a battle all that heroin and not one hero m
but but yeah, that's show myself that seemed read differently
to me this time, like whether that was Oliver Stone
kind of coding that in there for this thing for

(46:43):
the heads that would go. You pointed out how strange
it was that for Alias to be there to begin with.
But I think he has to be there to stand
in opposition to Tom Berenger's character. I mean they are
polar like again, Stone is heavy handed and drawing the
most polar opposite characters wiser versus yeah, we exactly, yeah

(47:06):
for sure. And and in contrast, it shows the other
part of that scene is what's going on in the
the other tent, with which literally starts with Merle Haggard singing,
we don't smoke marijuana. It's like the first thing you
hear as it smatch cuts from the marijuana scene, but
they're getting drunk playing cards, and then elements of race

(47:27):
are coming in that as well, because Junior is the
one guy who's kind of abstaining from all that stuff.
It's interesting like the roles that those characters play in
the village scene to like it kind of like the
morality kind of falls on the same lines, like, oh,
like Junior and those guys are gonna go do some

(47:49):
raping and Kevin Dillon is gonna crush you guys skull
with the butt of his shotgun, and Charlie Sheen and
William Dafoe or like trying to bring some sanity to
the situation. It's a platoon divided, and that was kind
of the point of the movie. Even said so at
the ending, I'm looking back. We fought ourselves. But are
you on team Alias or Team Barnes. That's the big question?

(48:12):
And a country divided? Like watching it, you're and I
think part of the tension of that village scene as
a viewer is you're, uh, you really have to reckon
with in a situation like that where you have where
the rules are gone, where you're where you're used to

(48:33):
following orders and now the people that are giving orders
are behaving like anarchically. Where what do you do? Like personally,
which side do you fall on? Do you know you
want get back? Like the that lieutenant that is so
so subordinate to barringer John C. McGinley, super ineffectual babyface lieutenant. Yea, yeah,

(49:00):
yeah yeah. Mark Moses, I believe you don't even see
characters in the film kind of wrestling with like well
ship I mean, can we just do anything? Yeah? Can
I just like just just go for it? And watching it?
You kind of have to you know, what makes you
uncomfortable as your consciously or unconsciously searching your feelings? Where

(49:20):
would I be in this? Like? What would I do
if you can just go for it? What you know?
Where do you do? Really stand there and say like
stop you guys? I mean history is pretty um ambivalent
about like there aren't a lot of heroes and even
in uh, when King finally gets his papers, uh, he

(49:44):
says to Charlie Sheen, you know there's no such thing
as a coward out here, don't mean nothing? Like that
was the idea. You get the feeling among these grunts,
like and you even see with John c McGinley full
on pulls the soldier, the Vietnamese soldier over his body
and hides in a bunker. Just do what you gotta
do to get through this, because he was he was
trying to go to fucking Hawaii and leave, which that's

(50:07):
felt weird to me, but I guess that happened, have you?
I mean, you just got to Hawaii for a week?
Can got the got the car? Like they're they're about
to be overrun and they're like, but this guy, his
orders came through, so you're out, and he's like, oh great,
Like how bizarre, right bye, motherfucker's especially when you contrast
that that idea with like there's the disciplinary structure is

(50:30):
gone at that point, and yet the one thing they
still observe is, oh, this guy asked paperwork that allows
him to leave. But this other thing about perhaps disciplining
someone for an unauthorized killing, like we're not going to
pay attention when we're we we will give lip service
to taking that very seriously, right, What's interesting in watching

(50:55):
that scene in particular, which one the climactic battle um
and this is something none of us were like active
duty soldiers in a war zone. But when you think
about in terms in terms of your own life, like
there are probably events for all all of us when
we were nineteen, that something something that happened just once,

(51:19):
a brief moment where you were tested you still reflect
on now, right, like, oh god, you know, like what
does that say about me? When I was nineteen, there
was that moment I was tested and I made this choice,
and I made this choice and and the rest of
my life follows from that but in a situation like
that where you're in a foxhole and you pull a

(51:39):
dead body over the over your head and waited out
the rest of his life, he's going to think about
that and reckon with his choice, and and you have
to face whether or not he was a coward, whether
or not you know, uh, Like he'll be rationalizing with
that until until his dying day. And I think in

(52:01):
war you have that situation. We see it in war
movies all the time, where some some episode that lasted
two seconds is going to affect you the rest of
your life. It's gonna and like affect you, not just
like wow, I wish I'd ask that girl to dance,
but like this is the number one hot coal in
your mind. Yeah, I think I think he put it
pretty well. And he said he's gonna be sitting at

(52:23):
a Pontiac dealership staring off into the middle distance thinking
about that, right, Like, am I a coward for the
rest of my life? But I'm one of only a
handful of dudes that made it out? So would you
rather be a dead non coward? I wanted to say hero,
but just fought with the rest of the guys matter,

(52:44):
Just a guy that just happened to catch a bullet. Yeah,
well he was just sleeves ball through this whole movie.
He was John C. McGinley was, you know, one of
the classic unlikable characters that he's really good at that.
I love that scene where he's like holding the lighter
out but not paying attention. I wondered whether that was

(53:05):
a gaff that they just rolled with or whether that
was intentional. I think it's I think he like, he's
like a great actor and he didn't break character and
he just did it again one barings are two just
sat there like I mean, if that was a gaff
that they left in, that was a great moment. Yeah.
I agreed, so and and so good in like that

(53:25):
moment in the movie because it really like sets a tone. Um,
do you guys want to hear a very distracting mistake
from the films that an Internet pet dance has brought
our attention to. Yeah, they're there are a lot listed
for this movie. It's a big, fairly long list. Yeah,
and there's there's always like plot holes and like oh

(53:47):
there's a boom pole in one of the shots, which
I'm never interested in, but somehow like there's a whole
section of the internet commentary and they're like, oh, I
saw part of a light stand assholes, But I like
the ones where like it's a mistake and like how
they present how the military operates. Sure, this one is.
Tunnel rats were a special group of individuals who performed

(54:11):
a dangerous job during the Vietnam War. Having said that
the majority were small men, usually less than five ft
six inches, due to the fact that the tunnels they
needed to clear were built by Vietnamese and men and
women who are of small stature. Since he is at
least five ft ten Alias would be too large a
man to ever try to squeeze through those tunnels small hips.

(54:34):
It's very sinewy. Yeah, but I mean he that scene
and and actually the other scene that I love with
Defoe is when he's just charging through the woods. He
goes off on his own, and he's just a badass
man in this movie. Like he is every bit the
badass that Bringer is in terms of like war fighting ability.
It's a real sex in the city question are you

(54:55):
a Barnes or are you an Alias? And it was
also interesting to see Taylor's Charlie Sheen's progression from so green.
He's you know, throwing up on his first hike too,

(55:17):
becoming like a legit soldier by the end of it. Yeah,
he's doing he's running around shooting his gun. Yeah, he's
running forward right, not not back, not to the side,
only forward. So Barnes kills Elias in a very fucked
up powerful shot in the movie. You know when they

(55:37):
confront each other, Barnes lowers that gun a little bit
and you see de foes he kind of smiles at
him that like e s u on his eyes where
you can see that he's stopped smiling, but you can't
see his mouth. Yeah, it's really a great shot, Like
you see his expression change through his eyes, like, man,
this guy's about to kill me. It's not one second

(55:58):
of his face is another is another moment in cinema
where William Dafoe is beautiful, like the light and the
way his smile kind of creeps into his face like
it's he's um. Yeah, he is genuinely happy to see
He kind of forgot for a minute, like wait a minute,
I'm trying to court martial this guy. It's not who

(56:21):
I want to run into in the middle of the woods. Uh.
And yeah, he pops him. I mean, there are two
murders of their own men in this movie. Barnes analyze
because she gets gets him in the end. You know,
is that a good kill? Do you guys think there's
always there's always been fragging in war. It's a it's

(56:45):
the thing that didn't get talked about in World War Two.
But you know, like incompetent officers, bad sergeants like this
this happens, um, but this one where he's like basically
his father figure killing his bad dad. Um. I mean
there's so much like sexual charge in a lot of

(57:07):
these relationships in this movie too. Oh yeah, yeah, Well
you were watching this film naked John, so I think
that might have colored your But yeah, I mean, it
wasn't a good kill. I guess that's one of the
things you walk out of the theater wondering. Yeah, get
a piece of pie and talk about whether that's a
good kill. My answer to that question has to do

(57:29):
with when it occurs. I think if that kill were
to happen while there was still a disciplinary structure in place, right,
that's a bad kill. But the rules had changed at
that point in the film to where there was no structure.
They were I mean he was like about to club
him in the head with a shovel. Yeah, what was

(57:49):
what saved him? So? And did they do that? I
mean that last firefight was just food bar to put
it in military terms, and that that one, I think
he was a real life army guy that played the
the major general or whatever, they'll they'll die. Yeah, So
I mean he he basically was just like he called

(58:11):
in the airstrike, knowing that he would lose most of
his men as well dump all remaining ordinance on my pause. Yeah,
that's tough ship, man, It's really tough ship within my
perimeter and he and he's one of the few that
makes it through that. In the end, like that there's
that shot of him just standing like bleary eyed, like
looking at the craters around him, I mean, while the

(58:34):
Bobcat just shovels bodies. Yeah. And I think you know,
we've talked a lot in our show about the about
how well a film communicates the geography of the environment. Yeah. Right,
if you watch Saving Private Ryan, you understand they're going
from Omaha Beach or whatever to some town and find
but it's like the geography of that film is a

(58:55):
little unclear you're not sure exactly where they like really
deep in France or is it like a little ways
down the road. Yeah, And then when we were watching it,
it was like, oh, wait a minute, this this is
only like two and a half miles into France, and
that's not what it feels like in the movie. It
does a somewhat bad job of communicating the geography. And
some movies are great at it. You always know where

(59:16):
you are, and some movies are awful. You don't. You
have no sense of what the mission is. And the
fact that in this movie the geography is so uh
like incomprehensible. You never know where you are. You don't
know where you are in Vietnam. Every once in a a
while somebody references like Cambodia is right over there, but
you don't know where that is, or where you are
north to south, like even just the battle seeing that

(59:37):
precedes Barnes killing Alias, where they're like kind of pinned
down in the you know, like Charlie Sheen is like
hiding behind a h ant hill or something. Yeah, but
that's stop a bullet too, by the way, that I
was interested in that too. Don't feel like it would.
But you know, those ant hills are pretty substantial constructions.
But like even that which is like like a flat

(01:00:00):
piece of terrain with trees in it, like you don't
know what the angles are, and that that felt intentional
in this movie, where it's like this is confusing and
terrifying because that's exactly what they wanted us to experience.
And often they run at each other like, uh, their
allies run at each other in a way that is confusing.

(01:00:22):
They're like calling in air strikes on themselves, and well,
then that that's kind of what I meant, Like the
geographical confusion is a character in the story. I'm agreeing
with you, John, It's okay, I know, I know, I
know you are, but I was, I was, I was
trying to address Chuck's question, which was in that final
scene where he calls in that that fire just on himself,

(01:00:43):
and it's basically like, well, anybody who survives is the winner,
but like you have an equal chance of getting hit
by our fire or theirs. But you know that's the way,
and it and it and it absolutely is a description
of the Vietnam War. Are there is no there is
no rear, there's no line. It's just you were encircled

(01:01:07):
all the time, and the bombs are just landing everywhere
and you and you have no idea which direction do
you run? Remember there's that great scene where the lt
is like, we're pulling back and the captains like to
where stay in place and fight? And they had all
just given up at that point, Like the lieutenant has
that one scene where he's just like I just don't
give a funk anymore, Like no, but they're just so

(01:01:30):
done because of this, the hopelessness of their thing. You
get the feeling as soldiers they don't even know are
we accomplishing anything out here with these firefights? That guy die,
the captain, he is a decorated Marine Corps vet who
started the company of like veterans consulting in war movies,

(01:01:54):
and so he was a consultant on this film and
consulted on Banda Brothers. And he's somebody that's there to
make sure the uniforms are right and that soldiers do
what the soldiers would do, and also make the actors
through ship right right here, starving in them and depriving
them to the training camp thing. Yeah, he sort of
invented that for Hollywood, and then George Clooney went on

(01:02:14):
to do that after Three Kings as well. After Three
Kings that was that was like at the end of
the movie that he said, that's what he went Also
at the end of the last scene there, the last
firefight that was just so fucked up in the it's napalm,
right they napalm them? Or is everything all remaining bombs um?

(01:02:35):
I kind of felt like, did you guys feel like
that next day that like all of second Platoon should
have just gotten to leave, Like a couple like Charlie
Sheen and then Corey Glover from Living Color he gets
they get to leave, but some of the other guys
stay back, like Quinn stays back, puts a knife into
his thighs. Yeah, but I remember feeling when I watched

(01:02:57):
it two days like you guys should just get to go.
I mean, Quinn at that point is the ranking n
c O. He's there's no sergeants left, you know, he's
the he's the guy. Well and then McGinley though that's
his come up into the end is right now get second. Yeah,

(01:03:19):
but it's hard to imagine going through something that fucked
up in large and a lot of them get to
go home. And the other guys are like, all right,
start filling sandbags. Get back to it. That moment when
McGinley is given that command is such a feeling of
like the reward for survival is actually a worse circumstance,

(01:03:41):
And the way his face looks when he gets that
news is one of it's one of the most tragic
parts in the film, in a film full of tragedies. Yeah,
but deserved, Like he was such a jerk that Yeah.
I mean, clearly he's an unlikable, awful character in the film,
but still I still felt empathy for him in that moment. Yeah,

(01:04:04):
I mean, sure you don't want him to die necessarily
if you're looking for schadenfreude in this movie. That end
scene where basically everybody you hated gets its shot in
the face, it's like, well I didn't like that character either,
but he's dead now, And that guy caught some shrapnel
And what was up with the swastika flag on the
tank stuff, stuff like like Nazi imagery and Confederate flags

(01:04:31):
and stuff like that. At that time, we're I mean,
this man, I just like the pattern and the colors. No,
it was like being remember original Hell's Angels used a
lot of that iconography because it was it communicated badassary
to them, and they weren't they There wasn't a there

(01:04:52):
wasn't a climate of like reckoning like there is now.
It was much more like, um, I mean, they weren't
saying like I'm an see. They were saying like fucking
swastika ema right, fucking boom look out. It was an
uninterrogated swastic Yeah. I was just like, fuck you, like
this is this is fucking this makes us as bad.

(01:05:12):
They're just trying to be as badass as they can.
And I think if in the military that the Confederate
flag and the Nazi flag took the that on though,
because they're both the flags of losing armies. Yeah, like
why did Why was that Badassah? Yeah, because because I
think this's the sense of the like mythology of both

(01:05:33):
of those um you know whatever whatever they represent now
um sort of lost causes rather than I mean, that's
what they say about the South Right, the defeated Confederacy
is that it was a lost cause. It's like it's
like wearing a Seattle Mariners capt on. No. Yeah, I

(01:05:53):
just I feel like that's there are in the U
s military today. If you could, if you could paint
a swastika on your t dudes would do it. And
they go into war with the Punisher logo painted on
their helmet because that's the toughest thing they can think
of that they're allowed to put on. There. I say
a photo on the Internet of a police cruiser with

(01:06:16):
a Punisher logo painted on the hood, and somebody commented,
we've reached peak dork fascism. So I had met Gore
Lean earlier this week to do a Bond special and
we somehow ended up talking about Platoon for a minute,
and he pointed out something that I've never seen. I

(01:06:36):
think it's in the Bond universe. Um. Yeah, like when
Charlie Sheen beds that woman in the middle of the
jungle that's on the silken sheets. Um. He pointed out
a gap that I had never noticed. It is so clear, Uh,
in the defot dying scene, that iconic scene from where

(01:06:57):
we get the movie poster, he doesn't have the bullet holes.
He the squibs don't go off, and he says, look
at it when you watch it, and he said, in
his left hand he's clicking and clicking for the squib
and by the time he falls, he's still going and
it's all in super slow mo. And you see the
wire had come out on that one that was great,

(01:07:19):
and the wire had come out of his of a
sleeve and it was spilling out and he was still
trying to click it. The whole time he's acting and
doing his thing, and there are no squibs going off.
He's not getting shot, even though he's flailing his body
as if he is. And there was so much there
was such a complicated scene that they didn't have more takes.
They couldn't do it again because they're like shooting helicopter.

(01:07:41):
And I've seen that movie twenty times and never noticed that,
And then Gory pointed out it's like there it is
man like like mashing the button over and over in
slow motion. I wonder if Olliver's Stone has ever considered
George Lucas in his movie and adding CG explosions it
really in that. I mean, that's like so much Christ imagery,

(01:08:04):
and the theme is just swelling and slow motion helicopters.
Everybody loves a slow motion helicopter. But when he when
he finally gets shot there and you're like, uh, uh,
and no, there's no special effect given how much other
everybody else in the movie gets lots of blood flying

(01:08:24):
all over the place, even in the theater. I remember
watching that and going like interesting, interesting choice to preserve
his chests, as you know. And that's the iconic image
from the movie. But the image that really sticks with
me is when, uh, when Sheen makes eye contact with

(01:08:45):
Barnes in the helicopter and like you see like just
a little glimpse of shame or like realizing that he's
he's kind of that that you know that he knows.
So there's the the scene that we didn't talk about
that with Barnes when they're talking about getting back at
him and Barnes is in the corner drinking whiskey. Yeah,

(01:09:10):
what what do you all know? And that's that's an
intense scene, man. I mean they literally talk him out
of stabbing Charlie Sheen and the eye with that knuckle knife. Yeah,
but he gives him that little quick cut two, which
is throughout the movie. That sound of the knife hitting

(01:09:30):
skin is one of the great sounds in this film.
Is throughout the movie barringer. Like, there are multiple times
that I noticed in this watching that I don't think
I picked up on where he shows real love of
his men, total sorrow when people die, Like a lot
of emotion in that character that you kind of don't

(01:09:52):
see because his face is so scarred and he's so
he's such the villain in the movie that it's easy
to watch it and not see that Stone is really
trying to humanize him over and over again. Every time
somebody dies on his watch, he's like really hurt by it,
and his reaction is often to be like, get the

(01:10:13):
fucking what's your goddamn problem. But it's because he doesn't
like to see his guys die. And throughout the movie
he's given you know, he has that scene in the
Helicopter where he shows he shows his culpability. He's not
like Kevin Dillon is playing a psychopath. He is not.
Barringer is not. And and when Alias, you know when

(01:10:35):
they're when, because there's that great scene where Barnes is like,
Alas is a water walker, and then right away Alias
is like Barnes, you know, Barnes is a true believer
or whatever, like uh, and those are both assessments of
one another, but really Barnes gives Alias, I'm sorry Alias

(01:10:56):
gives Barnes a lot of credit in that moment, and
you know, and Barnes is like, he also gives the
last credit, but he's he he feels like like Alias
has become soft a trader. Yeah. Um, but Barnes is
a way more complicated character than just just like the

(01:11:18):
tip of the spear, and it's but it's really hard
to have sympathy for him. Yeah. So um, We're gonna
do a segment now everybody movie Crush listeners called Who's
Your Guy? And it's a It's a Friendly Fire crossover
segment where how would you describe this? Is it the

(01:11:39):
person that you most relate to? Yeah, it's like it's
who are you, like, not usually not a main character,
but like, who are you rooting for in this movie?
Who who among the the platoon in this case? Did
you say, like I kind of see myself the guy's shoes?
All right, Well, who's your guy? Guys that got my guy? Uh?

(01:12:02):
My guy is uh no, I'm not proud of this
being my guy. But Junior is a character that, uh,
you know, is one of the bad guys, is one
of the one of the rapists in the in the scene,
and that's not he was there. He was there tearing

(01:12:22):
him on and like ha ha ha yeah, kind of
waiting his turn. Yeah, So that is it is not
for that reason that he is my guy, but it
is for the reason who's your guy? But like, kind
of in a very complicated way, he's the character that
speaks the injustice of the situation the most loudly of

(01:12:44):
of anyone. And uh And at a certain point kind
of tries to take matters into his own hands by
like inflicting a foot rot injury on himself to get
out of this thing, because he's like, like, there's no
reason for him to be here. I don't like believe
in this. I don't I'm not like yeah yeah, Like
and and his his sense of the injustice of the

(01:13:15):
of the way things were going, it was kind of naive,
but it's something that I related to, so uh And
and I think that, like, knowing myself, I probably would
be trying to find a sort of dubious reason to
get out of the war. My glasses are fog. Somebody
get warby Parker on the phone, Oh, one of my

(01:13:38):
cuff buttons came off. I can't go into battle, John,
who's your guy? So you know, I have this movie
more or less memorized, right I could. I could. I
could do a pretty close version of a lot of
the dialogue in the film, and I've had when we
do this show live, we should just have him do that.
John's one man show. Ship. Still don't know what that means.

(01:14:06):
Mary Jane, Yep, she's the one for me. I don't
need this ship. I am reality. Great line. But the
character that it's the Captain Um and what's his character's name,
the character played by Yeah, the the real deal guys,

(01:14:30):
capthan Harris Um. Every time he's on the screen, there's
a very similitude that like of actual officer war fighter guy, right,
Like he's the lt playing the green Lieutenant is a trope,

(01:14:52):
and particularly a Vietnam trope. That guy does do it,
particularly job that trope. Yeah, he does. But and you know,
and you and you you kind of watch him get seasoned,
but his seasoning doesn't take He's not born again hard
and he's still a leader. He doesn't have any leadership skills,
never never develops them, right, I mean, he's chicken ship
right to the end. He's just becomes he's just bitter

(01:15:14):
and you know, like um. But he's a classic college
boy where it's presumed that he's going to be a
leader because he went to cornell Um and he comes
from a rich family. But he's a you know, it's
a surprise they didn't frag him before. But the captain's
like a useful idiot to Burns. Yeah, right, I mean

(01:15:35):
just an example of like how the in any military culture,
the idea of the fresh out of college lieutenant ordering
around a chief master sergeant is a kind of it's
a thing that every we all joke about. And right,
a good officer knows how to let his non commissioned
officers lead, but but without disrupting the chain of command.

(01:15:58):
But the way the die speaks, the command that's in
his face, that's in his eyes when he was when
he's in that situation. Because after the village, right, you
just get this sense of like fucking nobody's in charge
except Barnes, and that is not who you want in charge.
And then this guy arrives and he's just like Barnes
sergeantalias once you need you to stow this ship, and

(01:16:21):
you're just like fuck, yes, thank you, Dad is here,
and like he there will be a court martial like
he felt good to hear him say those words there
will if they But he also is like, I don't
need this ship right now, you guys, you guys zip
it up, and I need you to fight. And every
scene he's in, I'm just like he he um. He

(01:16:46):
just so real to me and I wanted to cleave
to him to survive this movie because and he shows
it all in his face too. It's a great it's
not just some like he's not a trained actor, and
he does some great face acting, like when it washes
over him, like how funk they are? When the sapper
goes into the other bunker and kills Oliver Stone, who

(01:17:08):
was supposed to be the major, I guess like that
that's like a wordless reaction that he has, but it
speaks volumes, you know, and you get you know, like
the gunnery sergeant from from Full Metal Jacket who went
on to be a reality TV star. The Army is
an example of a of a veteran that's playing that character.

(01:17:30):
The the the sergeant, the training sergeant. What are the
funk am I trying to say? The boot camp sergeant, Yeah,
the Luke Gossett, yeahler, But but that's such a like
chew up the scenery type of of character. And the
captain is like he never says a word, he doesn't
need to say. So from the first time I saw

(01:17:52):
the movie and every time I've seen the movie when
he's on screen, I'm just I can't take my eyes
off him. Rana, He's my guy. I think when we
were starting the Friendly Fire project there were a couple
of reasons to feel reluctant about about doing a project
like this. I think the first one was like tying

(01:18:15):
any sort of schedule to John Roderick. But the second one,
uh is maybe truer today than it ever has been,
which is my own personal reluctance to comment on a
thing I can't possibly understand. And so for that reason,
that's why your Star Trek podcast is so good, Because

(01:18:38):
like one of three things you totally understand, what are
the other two? U he Man and Rainbow? But there
is one character in this film who embodies that spirit
more than anyone. And for that reason, I'm choosing Grandma
as my guy. I knew it because she's the woman

(01:19:02):
in the film. She's not there, she's only hearing about it.
To me, this film is the letter home from the war,
and I'm reading it, and anyone else who watches the
film is reading that letter, and it's a way to
understand what happened there for someone who couldn't possibly know. Wow,
strong guy, ad M what you chuck? Did you have

(01:19:25):
a guy? I had a guy that there was no
question that my guy was King? Uh, the character played
by David Keith Keith, David Sorry, yeah, man, his his vibe.
I just dug it. Uh, he was. He's just one

(01:19:45):
of the great ones. Yeah, he was one of the heads,
and then I would have been down there and then
bunker with those guys. He's just he just sort of
sort of had a very comforting, relaxing vibe. But he
fights hard. But he fights hard, which is not so
much me. That's kind of where we diverge. But but
he's like he also like he meets Charlie Sheen's character

(01:20:07):
halfway on becoming friends, Like, yeah, they're speaking to each
other across the divide. Like when when Charlie Sheen tells King,
like why he's there, King is like laughing his hats
off at him, like he didn't need to be here,
you dope. Before he got Here's a crusader. That great
moment at the end where Charlie is like, well, you've
got my address and information and Kings like yeah, and

(01:20:29):
just like right off, changes the subject right away, like
we're never going to see each other again. See Taylor
at gmail dot com, across mounted dot com. It's like
it's like bandmail at but King, you know, he steals
the beer, he's hanging out smoking weed. He's he got

(01:20:50):
he got out of there, he got his he got
his papers and got the out of there and was like,
It's one of the great scenes in the movie to
me is when King gets to leave and I and
I yelled at earlier, but I'll yell it again when
he's in that helicopter. His final salutation, goodbye, motherfucker's just
so great. So you know, keep your keep your pecker

(01:21:10):
had and your powdered dry and the world will turn.
So King's my guy, great guy. He becomes the philosopher
the film after Elias dies, does Yeah, he picks up
that mantle. Um, So I don't rate movies on movie Crush,
but you guys do. And um for the for the listeners,
Every week, Adam picks a a standard by which we will.

(01:21:35):
I'm not a standard what do you call it, actually system?
A rating system, rating system. The important thing about this
is that it's not stars, so they're not interchangeable exactly.
Can't say that one film really relates to another with this,
and that's crucial. Yeah, so it's a movie specific. So
it's one of the ways that I could say First
Blood is one of the best war films because because

(01:21:56):
you gave it five turds. What was first Blood or
was that pre No, it was because we did that
as the live show, so we recorded like twenty episodes
by that point. Was it was exploding arrows? No, that
was First Blood? Part two? What was first Blood? Yeah?
First Blood wasn't ye first Sorry, that was pretty early

(01:22:17):
first Blood something it did. So what's Platoon? What are you?
What are you going with there? This film is like
stacking hopeless all the way through, right, There's like the
hopeless situation of being there to begin with. It gets
hopeless er when when the system breaks down. It gets

(01:22:40):
hopeless yest at one specific moment though, and that is
the moment you talked about earlier where the suicide bomber
runs into the bunker. The one thing that struck me
most about this scene was the like the modern Jim
backpack with the spaghetti straps that he wears, which I'm

(01:23:01):
assuming is the thing containing the expo parachute. Yeah, but
it's tiny. Yeah, there's like a free bag. Yeah, there's
something so contained in something that looks so benign. And
and it's a lot like this film to me, Like

(01:23:22):
how hard can a film hurt you? This film hurts
a lot, even though it's just a DVD or whatever,
a lot like that backpack. Uh, this film is devastating.
I watched this a couple of mornings ago, like Rise
and Shine style, and it changed the next few days
for me. That doesn't make it a bad film. I
think it's one of the things that makes it great.

(01:23:43):
And so four and a half backpacks full of explosives
is the rating I will give Platoon and what did
you check? Uh, I'm gonna go with four and a
half as well, Like four isn't isn't enough? Five is
too much because to me, the one thing that holds
this movie back still is that voiceover. And when I

(01:24:06):
was watching it, the voiceover has always bug me, and
I was watching those scenes where they use the voiceover
and I would love to see a version with that scrubbed,
because it's all there on his face. You don't need
It's like idiocracy. It works without the voice over. Yeah, exactly.
A daggio for strings is the letter. Yeah, like that's
the voiceover. You don't need anything else the voice over

(01:24:28):
at and then you don't have your guy. Yeah that's fair.
I could project a grandma out there somewhere. Yeah, so
four and a half backpacks full of explosives. I'm gonna
join you guys at the four and a half mark.
I this was like a like like for you, Chuck,
a real heavy rewatch film for me, And I don't

(01:24:48):
think I will. I'll watch it again for a long
time after this rewatch it. We'll do a tenure special.
Tu might it might have to be addressing because it's
like it's very upsetting like and up setting in a
way that I didn't remember it being. I remember it
being like an awesome action movie and here that's really
not what it is to me now. So uh that said,

(01:25:10):
it's beautifully made, like astonishing, like they got like amazing
location sound, they got amazing cinematography. It's it makes it's
setting look beautiful. Before it part and um and just

(01:25:30):
a crazy crazy tour DeForest cast And yeah, I mean
like Sheen might be the weakest performance in the movie,
and he's like pretty great in it. So yeah, four
and a half exploding backpacks. You know, Sheen is the

(01:25:51):
worst performance in the movie, but it's the best thing
he ever does. And you know, you could argue that
Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now was also maybe miscast. Have
you never seen minute work? I never have seen men
at Work? Oh, what's the one with Richard Dreyfus and
Charlie Steak out right, isn't isn't there a movie with
the two of those guys? But there there? Like I

(01:26:18):
don't mind the voice over, but I also like the
um the orchestral version of Long and Winding Road, right, Like,
I don't I'm not above um the corn. I won't
split hairs about it, right, because when I look at
this movie and try and think of how you would
do it better if you were Oliver Stone, Like, I

(01:26:39):
just can't see how you would avoid it. You. I mean,
he could have been more artistic, but he needed to
say those things clearly, that was that was in him.
He'd I mean, think about working on this script for
fifteen years and having and having it be so autobiographical,
like I wouldn't be able to to stay out of

(01:26:59):
it as the director and writer. I would have had
to have gotten in there and said, you have to
go back to the twenty century. Uh so the you know,
like there. I can point to the moments that irritate me,
and one of them is William Dafoe's death scene that
never read properly, and I didn't know about the failure

(01:27:23):
of the exploding blood packets, and if that had happened,
that might not have been a beef for me. The
very final scene of Charlie Sheen lifting off in the
helicopter where he like waves goodbye to the people on
the ground. He does it badly. He like, I feel
like they cuts somebody out, like there was He salutes

(01:27:43):
and then kind of does another salute, and it's just like, hey, guy,
you know, like we get it, and I think you're right.
There was probably somebody else that he was saying goodbye to.
But that always graded on me from the first moment.
It still grates on me. Um, But like, this is
a movie where Johnny Depp is on screen a lot
and he is never he never even really steps forward

(01:28:08):
because everything else is so incredible, like even beautiful young
Johnny Depp, who's acting the ship out of If you
just watch this movie just looking for Johnny Depp, he's
fucking killing it. He's in every scene, but he disappears
completely into this ensemble and into the jungle. Right. Um,

(01:28:30):
I have to give it five stars. It's a seminal movie.
I'm sorry, I gotta get lectured on this show. I
have to give it five exploding backpacks because I can't
split hairs about it, you know, like there are there
are five things that I would have done differently. But
I think it's just an incredible accomplishment and like a gift.

(01:28:53):
It's a gift to as you're saying, it's a letter
home from Vietnam. I think it helped us all process Vietnam.
I think it's set the tone for how we were
going to think about the war for the rest of
the century and beyond. Yeah, it sounds like such a
whank off to call a movie important, but this is
one of those rare films that it was a seminal

(01:29:15):
important film. It came at the right moment in in
time and it. It changed the narrative, and so I
can't look at it. I can't like apply any kind
of retroactive oliver stoneness to it. I don't look at
it as a you know, like as some kind of
thing that's tainted by his interviews with Castro twenty years later,

(01:29:38):
or you know, you know what I mean. Like, there
are a lot of ways to look at movies, but
this just stands as a totem to me. So five
exploding backpacks and the fact that we've all seen it
multiple times, and that it's that now you watch it
and it hurts you more than it did before. It
evolves over time. It's no longer like a like an

(01:30:02):
action movie. It's now just like this moral reckoning, especially
with how much more acute movie violence is right now.
It's more than it's ever been before. And yet you
go back thirty years into this film and it hits
harder this because there's so little moral reckoning in film there.

(01:30:23):
It's all exploding blood packets. All right, guys, Well, let's finish,
if you'll indulge me with the movie crush five questions,
Um do we each get five? Is it? And this? Uh,
well it is? And so we'll just keep your answers
short and we'll just kind of go around. I'm sorry
you may not understand my role in this show. The

(01:30:45):
first movie you remember seeing in the theater? Ben Harrison, Dick, Tracy,
John Roderick, Bugsy Malone, whoa Granica? Both batty movies? Right, No,
Buggsy Malone? That was just bugs Buggsy Malone started, Jodie
Foster and O're gonna have to watch that movie together.

(01:31:11):
I don't remember the first movie that I ever saw,
but I do remember the first R rated movie that
I snuck into. Another Speeds question. Speed? Yeah, all right,
well what's the first R rated movie? Guys? Speed was
my first R rated movie? Really, for both of you together,
it was not Speed. No. I was forbidden to see

(01:31:33):
Animal House in the theater by my mom, who actually
went to see Animal House to see if I could
go see it, and she said no. She came almost
like you cannot, and I was, I don't know ten,
like Animal House was like what I was ten, and
uh so I snuck in to see it because I

(01:31:54):
was not going to go with another fucking day without
having seen Animal House. I didn't even know what it
was about. I just knew that this was this was
the beginning of adults. Uh, will you walk out of
a bad movie? And can you name one? Um? I
have not. I have turned off bad movies a couple

(01:32:16):
of times, but if I'm in the theater, it'll take
a lot to get me to walk out. And yeah,
I think I thought really hard about walking about out
of Spider Man two, but I did not. I stuck
it out Spider Man too. McGuire years ago. Yeah, that
was the good one. I hated it is that the

(01:32:38):
one with Doc Doc. Yeah, I couldn't stand that. But
it's largely regarded as like one of the best in
this year. I know, I Jesse Thorne, I have heard
seeing that movies praises a bunch of time and I'm like,
what are you talking about? Man, that's a terrible movie.
I don't know why. Maybe it was just maybe I
was having a bad day. What about you, John? I
will walk out of a movie. And the first movie

(01:32:59):
I ever walked out on was Bugsy If you can
believe it, the Warren I did not think so. And
I had smoked a bunch of weed and I went
in and sat down. I was like all the things
I was like, let's go, like, whoa, this is gonna
be amazing. And it was so wooden and and just
so like unfun that And it was pretty early on,

(01:33:23):
like I think in the first half hour, I was
sitting there in my chair just like this is this
travesty and I and I stood up and was like,
I think I might have even made a speech to
the room. How dare you? I could probably second guess
that vouch for that, say yes? So I went out.
I went out and went found another movie and went

(01:33:45):
in and watched some other movie. Yeah, that's Runaway Train
with John Voyd. Probably what about you, Branica? I saw
you googling feverishly over there. I often confused this movie
with another film, which is why I wanted to make
sure I got it right. I almost never walk out
And the only film that I actually can remember walking
out of was Chris Farley's last film. It was called

(01:34:06):
Almost Heroes. It came out after his death, and it
was so bad and it was so clear that he
was dying, like right in front of us. Couldn't take it.
It was too sad to watch. Besides it being totally unfunny,
it was almost equally tragic and I just couldn't do it. Yeah. Um,

(01:34:27):
number four, I'll taylor to you guys. Um, what's your
favorite war movie, favorite all time war movie? Mm hmmm.
We just watched Dr Strange Love and that might get
it from me. Yeah, it's still a ways away in
our release schedule, but and also on the bubble of
war movie. Yeah, but it's I mean sure ends with

(01:34:49):
a bunch of nuclear bombs going. No, I get you,
but I know you guys are it's the boundaries, Yeah,
I guess, um, but yeah, sure, yeah, I really love
that one, right John. We haven't watched it yet on
Friendly Fire, But it was a mid seventies war epic
called Midway with Charlton Heston and another all star cast. Um.

(01:35:14):
And it was the first big, big World War two
movie that I saw in the theaters with my dad,
the two of us, like they're watching this thing and
this was the theater of war that he was in
and uh and it's you know, it's just one of
those big, big budget Hollywood films made at a time

(01:35:34):
when there was still World War two surplus shit lying around.
So when you know, when the F four US flew over,
they were real and they and they still had them,
and they've had live AMMO and the guns. You know,
so well, we'll get to that on our program Midway
Midway Pranica. It's a little bit of an edge case,

(01:35:55):
but it's the final that would be great answer, and
I would accept it if I weren't already thinking of
the Final Countdown, which is also an edge case. I
think Final Countdown. The thing I think about a lot
when I watch a war film is like, how tragic
it is to have arrived at this circumstance to begin with.

(01:36:17):
And that's I don't know if you've seen that film.
It's a time travel film where an aircraft carrier goes
back rise goes back to World War Two before Pearl Harbor,
and it has a chance to stop it. It's got
some famous actors that it's it's stacked. But I love
that movie because it actually pays off the idea of like,

(01:36:38):
if you could stop the thing, would you? They're there
December six, really like mid eighties nuclear carrier and they
have to reckon. We're like, well, what do we do? Now?
Do we stop that? That's on our list. We'll get
to it eventually. Finally, guys, movie going one on one.
What's your movie ritual at the theater? Where do you

(01:36:58):
sit and what do you eat? I'm a dead center guy,
and uh, I'm sure this will be controversial, but I
have often snuck something in from outside the theater. Not controversial. Um,
it happens a lot. Like I grew up where we
would pop a bunch of popcorn at home and put
it in like a brown grocery store. Controversial in your

(01:37:22):
own popcorn. Other guests have done that too. Yeah. My
mom had a giant purse and she would put a
brown grocery jack in it. Popcorn. Yeah. Yeah, and my parents,
I don't know. My parents were really against the like
processed but are like product that they were pumping all
over popcorn and those days, I guess it's probably still
the thing. But Sy being oil John, what about you.

(01:37:45):
I don't go to the movies that often. Yeah, it's
a a special occasion for me because I'm not somebody
that's just like, yeah, the movies. You know, it's like
a well and they started a certain time, but you
know I have to be awake and say run the picture. Uh.
So I go to the movies sometimes, but by the

(01:38:05):
time I get to a movie. It will have been
running for a while. I will have heard from other
people that people I trust that is good, And I'll
go at a time when there won't be anybody else
there because I don't like being in the movie theater
with other people. And I don't object since I go
to the movie so infrequently. I don't object to buying
popcorn and soda and a candy bar at the at

(01:38:27):
the front desk, even though it costs twice what the
movie costs. You know, you can spend twenty just getting
nothing at the front desk. The concierge at the front desk. Yeah,
I go to the front and like, bring me a
popcorn and and roll film. But when I get give
me a wake up call, I fall asleep in the film?
Where are my cigarettes? But I sit right now if

(01:38:49):
I said right in the middle, and I try to
be you know, I try to be in there at
a at a time when there when you know, the
only other people are like two guys in the back
and trench coats who aren't watching the movie, and you know,
like a couple of canoodling over here. So I'll just
pick the best seating and sit and because I get

(01:39:12):
immersed in a film, right, I don't want any distractions,
Like I fall into the screen and i'm and I
live there with them. And that's why I don't want
to go see shitty movies, because it's I don't want
to live there. I don't want to live there. I
don't want to live in Chris Farley's death scene. Adam,
we feel a lot of like about this. I prefer

(01:39:33):
to go to films long after they've been in theaters,
mostly because I'm easily distracted by other people's sounds. It's
why when I do go to see a film, I
sit in the back because I don't like hearing people
behind me. My least favorite thing about going to a
film is hearing anyone talk about a trailer after the
trailer is over, like oh that looks good or that

(01:39:55):
like it's so irritating. Yeah. My a wife makes fun
of me for famously like I don't want to move
in a film. I don't react to her if she
nudges me and says like, who's that, Like we've gotten
an arguments over after the film. She's like, I asked
you a question in the film, and I was like, yeah,

(01:40:17):
I'm a real son. Of a bit. When I go
see a film because I just want to be in it,
I cannot. I cannot brook any sort of distraction. What's
your worst? Something is distracting me in this theater story,
the light of a cell phone, just two people behind you.
The experience of seeing a film on opening weekend is

(01:40:38):
often really bad because people is going to sound like
super Old managed to say, but people don't know how
to watch a movie anymore with other people. It's a
ton of cross talk and cheering at stuff on the screen.
I was in a movie one time in a theater
Times Square, and it was a pretty sparsely attended screening,

(01:41:00):
and about fifteen minutes into the film, a guy came
in with a huge garbage bag and the garbage bag
was full of other plastic bags. And he just went
and sat in like the front row furthest right seat,
with the garbage bag in his lap and just kept
moving it. And it was just like the plastic wrestling.

(01:41:23):
Had a lot of strange New York experiences, like you knows,
a certain point, people started shouting like, please put down
that giant bag full of plastic bags. It is very distracting.
I saw the Witch in New York. You know that movie,
and you know how disturbing intense that movie is. And

(01:41:45):
it was a very crowded theater, and that was the
one scene where the crow is is picking at the
woman's breast and it's so fucked up and disturbing looking,
and just you could hear a pin drop in the theater.
Everyone's so uncomfortable. And this girl in the front row
says that is so fucked and everybody died laughing, and

(01:42:09):
I was like, thank God for you, like in that moment,
it was so well placed. It's just like, God, bless you, lady.
I didn't answer the second part of your question. I
have recently gotten heavy back into raisin ets at movies, like,
oh yeah, look, that is a wildly unpopular candy. Yeah,

(01:42:33):
let me see if we still have any here? Yeah,
like blows off the dust. Was I can't imagine raisinet's
ever go bad, though, Do you have any worths? Would
you make me some tea? Like trust me on this.
Next time you go see a film four weeks after
it's been out, John, and get those raisints. It's a

(01:42:54):
good match. I actually have a friend who dumps the
raisins into the popcornure. Yeah, that's a classic. Yeah, but
they put peanut butter on a hot dog too. All right, guys,
do we do it? Hey? We did it? Hey, just
before we go and before we throw to whatever outgoing credits,
either version of this is going to have. We're putting

(01:43:16):
this episode in both the Movie Crash Feed and then
the friendly Fire Feed. So if you enjoyed this and
you're a movie Crush fan, come check out friendly Fire.
And if you enjoyed this and you're a friendly Fire fan,
please go check out Movie Crush Jack. This was super
fun to do. It's a lot of fun, good times.

(01:43:43):
All right, everybody, how about that? I kind of want
to just be on the friendly Fire podcast. I want
to be the fourth guy. I don't know if there's
room though. They're already h already pressed for getting words
in edgewise because they're all smart and insightful and funny
and always have great things to say about the movies
they they dissect. So that was Platoon, one of my

(01:44:06):
favorite flicks, and it was great watching that movie again.
It had been many, many years, and I learned a
lot about it through my Converse agents with not only them,
but if you heard recent podcasts with Matt Gorley and
Paul Sheer. We also kind of dabbled in Platoon, so
it's been getting a lot of love here lately. Great
movie and I hope you enjoyed this show. Definitely please
try and go out and support the Friendly Fire Show.

(01:44:28):
They've been going at it for a little while now
and have a nice stock of really good war movie podcasts,
so check it out on the Maximum Network. And I
thank you for your support. And in the meantime, why
don't you go hang out in the bunker with the heads,
because that's where the party's at. Movie Crush is produced, engineered, edited,

(01:44:58):
and soundtracked by Noel Brown in Ramsay unt at How
Stuff Work Studios, Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia,

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Movie Crush News

Follow Us On

Host

Chuck Bryant

Show Links

Popular Podcasts

Crime Junkie

24/7 News: The Latest

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Friendly Fire on Platoon