WEBVTT - Friendly Fire on Platoon 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:29.400 Hey, everybody, Welcome to Movie Crush Special a dish. It's 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.080 a lot of shish is going on in there. It's 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:34.120 Charles W. Chuck Bryant here at the Home Studio on 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.479 Pont City Market, Atlanta, but setting up a show that 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:41.080 I recorded in California, not one of the l A sessions, 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.879 but the lone Max fun Con session. As most of 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:48.960 you know, every year in June, I go to Lake 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.199 Arrowhead in California for Max fun Con. And that's the 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:57.040 Maximum Fund Podcast networks annual hang that they have in 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.000 the woods every year. And so what happens is Jess 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:02.080 he Thorne, who the leader of the Maximum Network, gets 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:05.280 a bunch of comedians to perform and people to teach 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:10.120 classes like acting classes or crafting classes or role playing, 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:13.040 LARPing and stuff like that. It's just like nerd Heaven 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:17.000 out there. And I go every year and do a 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:19.399 trivia thing with John Hodgeman, and we've been doing it 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:21.800 for like nine years straight and it's an annual tradition 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.560 I love. And this year my pals from the friendly 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:29.880 Fire podcast we're there, John Roderick, Ben Harrison and Adam Pranica. 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.560 They do the friendly Fire podcast for maximum fun and 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:37.000 it is one of my favorite shows. It's definitely tops 0:01:37.040 --> 0:01:40.680 for my movie shows. And uh, it's a war movie podcast. 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:42.800 They sit around and each week they pick out of 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.080 the hat and talk about a different war movie on 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.480 their list. And they're all three very smart guys. Roderick 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.920 is so insightful and knows more about history than anyone 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:54.120 I know, So he's great on a war movie podcast. 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:59.640 Ben Harrison is one of the smartest, uh nicest, most 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:03.320 in fightful, well spoken guys you can have a conversation with. 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:07.480 And Pranica he's the secret comedy weapon everybody. I love 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:11.000 Pranica and his rise sense of humor and his sweet, 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:15.040 sweet comedic delivery gets me every time. So that's friendly fire, 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:17.160 and uh, I'm pals with all these guys. Like I said, 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.320 So I said, let's get together and do a true 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.600 crossover app Uh, let me pick the movie. Let's do 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.240 Platoon if you guys don't mind, And they were all 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:27.399 way into it because Platoon is one of the great 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:29.760 great war films of all time and one of my 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.000 favorite uh movies and war movies of all time for sure. 0:02:33.639 --> 0:02:36.040 And so we got together in a cabin in the 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:41.160 woods quite literally and recorded a crossover that is going 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:45.240 to be airing on Friendly Fire, Speed and Movie Crushes, 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.320 so they're gonna edit it how they want to, and 0:02:48.360 --> 0:02:51.000 we did segments from both shows, like the segments that 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:53.320 I do and the segments they do, so it was 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:56.240 a true crossover. So I would recommend listening to this 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.360 thing twice if you can go over to Friendly Fire 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:03.440 listen to their weird, short, shorter, ter edited version, and 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.840 then mine, which you know me, I just kind of 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:07.520 throw it all out there and let you sift through 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.560 the rubble, and I think it'd be pretty interesting experience. 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.600 So here we go, without any further ado, with the 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.320 Friendly Fire dudes and me in a cabin in the 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:25.160 woods on Platoon. Have you guys ever recorded in the 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:29.880 same room. Yeah, okay, And it's a it's very enjoyable 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:34.480 to be able to see there. They're bright, scrubbed young faces. 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.600 Most of the time we've done it, we've done so 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:42.720 after having a giant barbecue dinner, and so to demystify 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:44.960 what's happening here, we're actually doing this in the morning, 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.040 the best time to record Poda, Like Roderick literally put 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:51.840 on his first article of clothing about eight minutes ago. 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:55.400 I'm still my body is still resisting having a shirt on. 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:57.240 I don't know why I thought we were going to 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:02.119 start at nine, but we're starting at ten. Yeah, well, 0:04:02.120 --> 0:04:04.160 that's that's the pad that we give ourselves. I think 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:05.360 we all knew that this was not going to go 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.560 down to nine. Yeah. We are up at max fun 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:12.120 Con for the weekend, and we prepared for the weekend 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:19.560 by watching a super gruesome and pretty upsetting movie. Yeah. Uh, 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:22.440 what's your relationship with this movie? Check? Well, this was 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:27.799 a big, big movie for me and my roommates in college, 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:30.960 So it was you know, I saw it in the theater, 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.280 but then for on VHS. When did this come out? 0:04:34.320 --> 0:04:38.440 What year was this? Six? I think, oh really, Okay, 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:40.680 so it was well, and you know, I didn't go 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:44.320 to college until this would have been ninete, like four 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:46.760 years later when we had it Heavy Heavy in the 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:49.960 rotation in the in the VHS player, And I mean 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:54.400 we watched it probably a twenty times in the space 0:04:54.440 --> 0:04:56.960 of a year. It was one of our movies. It was. 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:59.320 It was kind of one of my movies in college too. Yeah, 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:03.200 I was kind of sessed of it. I mean it's 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:07.120 such Uh, I mean, it's a really funked up movie 0:05:07.160 --> 0:05:09.560 to be obsessed with that. Yeah, I was obsessed with 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:15.400 Tommy Boy in college. Like, how did that impact your 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:19.599 life and your reputation? I don't know. I mean it 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:21.560 was like the era where you watch movies on a 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.680 computer by yourself. You know, we didn't have like a 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:28.320 wave to It was that weird era where like there 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.480 was not really DVDs anymore, Like all of the movie 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:34.800 rental places had closed. But John still in that era. 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:36.400 He's like, what are you talking about. I'm listening to 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.880 nostalgic about, Like, oh, well, it was way back in 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:42.640 the old days when you had to watch movies on 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.599 your laptop by yourself. Well, it was a weird middle 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:48.919 time where like you could I think you could know. 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:51.240 I guess I wasn't streaming them, but I was the 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.039 Middle Ages, Like we didn't we didn't have a way 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.480 to like watch movies together that much. Wow. So it's 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.960 just like walking six miles to school in the snow 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:02.640 every morning. It's so weird. Did not be the youngest 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.760 person in the room at any point. We just didn't, like, 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:08.360 we didn't have a VHS and nobody wanted VHS at 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.839 that point. So I don't know. I saw this movie 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:12.960 in the theaters and I was a senior in high school. 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:15.920 So if you can imagine what it's like to be, 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:18.120 you know, senior in high school in a movie like 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:22.039 this comes out, which and this movie was absolutely groundbreaking 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.560 in the in its time, right it's uh yeah, the 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.359 first one told from the grunt's perspective. Is that true 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:33.400 fully from or is that not true? Well, it depends 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:35.880 on how you how you put where you put Apocalypse 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:38.720 Now in there, like is but you know, in Apocalypse 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:42.240 Now obviously as super groundbreaking, but by we were still 0:06:42.320 --> 0:06:46.880 culturally reckoning with Vietnam. We had not at all dealt 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.560 with it as Americans, and it was really still still 0:06:50.600 --> 0:06:52.560 felt really raw. And when this movie came out with 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:57.800 all of its brutality and all of it's like unvarnished h. Gorey, 0:06:58.160 --> 0:07:04.640 but also like really reckoning with American um over violence 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.920 and and losing the war, which we still I mean 0:07:08.920 --> 0:07:14.280 Adam's favorite movie being Rambo where he saves us from Vietnam, 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.840 where he wins it for us. Right, Um, this was 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.520 like the first movie where we just full on lost 0:07:20.640 --> 0:07:23.160 right in front of everybody. These guys weren't supposed to 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:28.960 just take pictures, so it was it can you imagine 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.120 developing their film at the photo mat when they get back. 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:38.000 So John, uh, for listeners of movie crush, they may 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.000 not understand that you are and you're the job you 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:45.720 serve unfriendly fired a lot of times is historian, because 0:07:45.760 --> 0:07:48.280 you know much more than what you like to call 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.480 these dinglings. It's not that, it's just you know, I'm 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.880 a I am a generation different and not even I'm 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:59.200 not even that much older, certainly than you Chuck. You know, 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:02.560 I'm just I'm I'm not yet fifty. But my dad 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:07.720 was born in and fought in World War Two. I 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:10.880 was a younger child of his, but you know, we 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:14.240 spent a lot of time watching war movies together, and 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.960 he was watching them from the perspective of somebody that, 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.400 you know, it fought in the Pacific. So I grew 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.880 up really thinking about war, digesting it at a different 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:28.600 level than sort of I wasn't I'm not a veteran, 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:32.360 but right, but but you may as well be. I'm 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:37.480 you know, I'm I'm a veteran of a thousand psychic wards. 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.160 I think we can agree that John will eventually become 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.679 the docent at an air and space museum, like getting 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:51.240 me yeah, like most veterans do. That will be his eventuality. 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:59.360 The pincacle of Florida Mustang. So, since you're the historian, though, 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:01.880 I thought you could say it up the setting a platoon, 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:08.160 which is late nineteen early nineteen, what was where was 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.199 that in the Vietnam War? So we had we the 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.320 this is it begins a year before I'm born, right 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.559 September of sixty seven, and it's prett offensive, it's a 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.800 it's a time when you know, I guess you would 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:28.480 call it like pure Vietnam. And it's before before Nixon's elected, right, 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.840 So it's still the Johnson administration, and it still feels 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:35.960 like we are fighting a war. We understand in the 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:39.520 back in the States, the anti war movement hasn't yet 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.640 become It hasn't tipped over. It's still the province of 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:50.000 students and intellectuals. It hasn't become a mainstream movement yet. 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.280 So there's still support for the war. We're still fighting 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.520 it like a conventional war, thinking that you know, if 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:59.040 we just get in there and bomb them and shoot them, 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:05.360 the surrender. All that changed in and this is kind 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:11.480 of this is describing the run up to the realization 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:16.600 that like, uh, we're not fighting a conventional war. And 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:19.120 that was that was the tet offensive, you know that 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:24.400 that um, the North Vietnamese staged a massive, massive um 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.160 invasion you know, of the South, and they came at 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:30.320 came at us from all sides, and it was like, 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:31.840 how did how do they have the power to do this? 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:33.880 How did where do they? Where do they find this strength? 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.280 Like we felt like we had them on the ropes, 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.240 and we did have them on the ropes, but we 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:42.080 just didn't have them. We didn't understand the kind of 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.880 war we were fighting. Yeah, because even Charlie Sheen is 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:47.600 Chris Taylor in this movie, I mean, there's plenty of 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:51.360 disillusionment that happens as his character arc. But at one 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:54.880 point in the you know, we could admit very obvious 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:59.400 voice over letters to Grandma talks about, you know, fighting 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:03.040 for the freedom of Americans. So there is still that 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:07.040 idea that there they have a righteous job to do 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:10.120 over there. We think of that kind of of uh 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.040 language as being a thing of recent years, you know, 0:11:13.120 --> 0:11:18.800 like our freedoms, but this hearkening back twenty years and 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:24.160 it was language that was it didn't ring jingoistic even then, 0:11:24.760 --> 0:11:27.480 it felt like, yeah, sure, how do you think Grahama's 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:32.760 feeling reading those letters? Well, you know, so my dad 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.600 was a veteran right and also a liberal in the sixties, 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.520 and heat impossible. It's I'm afraid it's true, the contradiction 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:44.000 in terms. And he had a really really hard time 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:48.480 coming to grips with the idea that the American military 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:52.400 was not a force for good, and so he was 0:11:52.559 --> 0:11:56.200 late to turn against the Vietnam War because he was 0:11:56.280 --> 0:12:01.080 just he couldn't fathom uh situate ation where we weren't 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:08.400 actors on the in the service of of like global 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:11.679 peace and unity, and so we had to have been 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.520 doing the right thing there. It was inconceivable. And so 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:17.440 I think Grandma is reading these letters, and and this 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.640 was happening across the country, like people, people back in 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:25.280 the States were becoming disillusioned, and they they didn't understand 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:28.920 it because that this had never happened before. What a 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.960 strange like Grandma had experienced the Great War in her 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:36.800 in her own terms, but to be receiving letters that 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.320 are so different from what her expectation must have been 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:45.440 Gammy Sheen's world was rock right. She loves her boy. 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.840 She knows he's not a drug addict shirker, which is 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:53.040 what she's seeing on the evening news, like the hippies 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:57.560 are these disgusting uh cowards. But this is her son, 0:12:57.760 --> 0:12:59.920 for her grandson fighting in the war, and she's getting 0:12:59.920 --> 0:13:02.800 the letters who volunteered, who volunteered, which is a very 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:06.839 important character trade for him. And I think that's Oliver 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.199 Stone's story, right, He like, I don't think this is 0:13:09.360 --> 0:13:13.280 entirely autobiographical, but he kind of it though. It recycled 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.120 back from the war and went to film school and 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:21.679 then made I think he made did he make uh 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:26.000 the El Salvador movie before this, Yeah, came before, but 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:28.280 he wrote I actually didn't know this. He wrote this 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.920 movie right after he started writing this movie, right when 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:35.120 he got home from Vietnam, and at one point send 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:39.240 it to Jim Morrison to play that role. Uh. So 0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:41.760 that's how old that the Platoon story And it wasn't 0:13:42.200 --> 0:13:46.040 this script, but it was his Vietnam experience movie that 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:48.880 that eventually morphed into Platoon. Did you guys see his 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.439 student film that he made when he was in film 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.320 school with Martin Scorsese. I've I've actually seen it projected 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:58.840 on film really as I went to the same films Goal, 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:03.120 but it was it's on YouTube now, and it's like 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:05.920 it's hard to find the whole thing. It's like pieces 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.440 of it are on YouTube in weird ways, and it 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:11.440 is real, like it is it really like Pegs the 0:14:11.440 --> 0:14:18.440 Needle for like art student, like like super pretentious student film. 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:22.600 But it's it's you know, I think probably has a 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:25.720 lot of the DNA of Platoon in it. It's a 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.920 lot of it's a lot in French. Right, It's in French, 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:31.960 which is the thing that made it's so pretentious because 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.480 it's in New York, right, It's but set in New York. Yeah, 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.480 But Scorsese talks about having Oliver Stone as a student 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:40.480 in his class and just like, you know, this guy 0:14:40.600 --> 0:14:43.600 was really intense. He was he'd like he would do 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:45.320 a rail of coke and then he'd get up and 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.520 present to the class, but like he'd you know, he'd 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:50.280 been in the ship and the rest of us hadn't it, 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:52.600 And it was Yeah, I think this is the first 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:56.520 war movie made by a veteran of the war that 0:14:56.560 --> 0:15:00.520 he's depicting which is pretty landmark. You know, well, at 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:04.240 least in Vietna in the case of Vietnam, right, Like ever, 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:09.160 I think any war that a veteran directed a movie 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.760 about the war that they were in, damn the very 0:15:12.840 --> 0:15:15.840 least Vietnam. But I think it was any war. That's astonishing. 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:18.920 I don't have access to that. Do you think there 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:23.480 was a resistance to making a tent pole Vietnam film? 0:15:23.520 --> 0:15:29.640 Starting Starting a Sheen not long after Apocalypse Now, Like, 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.000 I wonder if they had any second thoughts about casting 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:35.960 she and the younger? How do you think about that? 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.960 That really wasn't what seven years later and he's the 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:42.640 spitting image of his dad. Yeah, that was That's a 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.000 big part of it. And the voiceover is the same 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:51.400 dead pan um sort of walk you through the walk 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:55.360 you through what's happening? Poly sounds a little more artful, 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:59.520 I think, And also he's way more broken. Yeah, Sheen 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:01.920 stayed is kind of a college kid through the whole 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:04.400 movie some in some ways, Yeah, I mean his like 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:09.040 his end of movie ruminations on the nature of war 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:13.000 and togetherness are really like, oh wow, it's very heavy handed, 0:16:13.040 --> 0:16:16.360 even for Oliver Stone. You know, what do you guys 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:19.440 think about Oliver Stone because I've always enjoyed a lot 0:16:19.480 --> 0:16:22.640 of his movies. But I always, even when I was 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.440 younger watching his movies, before I even had much of 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.040 a film aesthetic, it was like, come on, man, like 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.720 we get it. You don't need to literally tell everyone 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:35.280 the theme He lost me at JFK up. Until then, 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:39.560 I thought that he because born in the fourth of July. Yeah, 0:16:39.600 --> 0:16:41.880 that was pretty good. Was also, you know, like a 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:48.080 really intense experience, intense watching experience as someone who was nineteen, 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:49.840 I guess when it came out, you know, like that 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:55.160 was and especially at that moment in American history. Um, 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.840 just what it was like in the late eighties. That 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.360 was That was because I was you know, we've talked 0:17:01.360 --> 0:17:03.440 about this on our show before, but this was the 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:06.840 height of the m I a p O w R 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:10.680 in the U S where we were. Vietnam was still 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.960 a raw, raw wound. So I thought, Oliver Stone, Yeah, 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.200 he's heavy handed, But what compared to what like Rambo two, 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:22.040 I mean, there was just would you stop? There was 0:17:22.119 --> 0:17:25.439 just nobody else working in this working this way. He 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:32.280 was only supposed to take pictures. What about you made it? 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:38.440 What about you guys with Stone Are you stoneheads? Yeah, 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:40.800 by the time you came along, been like his whole 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:43.919 his whole thing was developed. Yeah, he he had a 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.359 like a known of at at that point. And uh, 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.760 they saw I had the Oliver Stone box set in 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:56.560 my dorm room, Um did you? Yeah? Which was what 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:01.240 Wall Street Platoon, Natural Born Killers FK one on the 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:05.840 fourth of July, Salvador Um, I mean it's hard to 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.919 think of a good movie he's made recently. And yeah, 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.840 he still has the power to have a film made, 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:15.240 So I mean, it's not how about that choice to 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:17.919 choose not to It seems like there would be a 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:21.000 lot for him to say right now, Yeah, what what? What? 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:24.480 What are his recent movies? Well, he's done. He made 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.560 George W. Bush movie that was a little while ago. 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:29.760 One of the things he has done a lot recently 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:34.760 is go interview like Boogeyman. So he has a documentary 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:40.200 where he's interviewing Putin on Showtime. And there's a couple 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:45.159 of documentaries he made where he interviewed Fidel Castro that 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:50.439 are really wild to watch because it doesn't seem like 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:56.800 Oliver Stone ah cares that much about the like human 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:00.840 rights abuses, of the Castro regime, they like kind of 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:06.520 get along. Really. His politics are yeah right pretty uh 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:11.160 like yeah, pretty like on his sleeve. Yeah, and uh, 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.639 I mean he made he made like that Alexander the 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:17.359 Great movie And I heard him talking about that before 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:20.399 he made it, and he was saying like, yeah, like 0:19:20.400 --> 0:19:22.359 it was just like a totally different time where like 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:25.840 the relationships between people are totally unimaginable to us now. 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:30.720 And uh, if that sounds like a recipe for a 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:34.000 film that is unrelatable, that is the film that he made. 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:38.239 So he made I forgot. He made the Wall Street sequel, right, 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:41.720 Money Never Sleeps. Yeah. He made a movie called Savages, 0:19:41.760 --> 0:19:45.000 which I remember was like a drug movie. Yeah, and 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.560 then um, it's about two guys that are in a 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:53.720 threatle with Blake Lively. None. He made the Snowdon movie, 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:57.120 which I did not see, And then I love this. 0:19:57.280 --> 0:19:59.199 This is so all every stone. He just produced it. 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:05.119 But he deuced a documentary called All Governments Lie a 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:07.959 Little on the Nose title eyes there. But sure, so 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:09.440 he does have a lot to say and he is 0:20:09.480 --> 0:20:12.160 saying it to very few people, I guess. So. Yeah, 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:14.119 but he has kind of fallen off the map. What 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.040 about you guys. What's your relationship to Oliver Stone? Uh? 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:22.360 Mine actually is opposed to yours. With respect to JFK, 0:20:22.640 --> 0:20:27.800 I I actually really enjoyed JFK. That's where I onboarded 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:33.280 with Oliver Stone, mostly because at that time in my life, I, uh, 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:38.679 it was unexpected to find a courtroom drama so exciting. 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:41.640 I mean, say what you will about the you've never 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:46.280 seen an episode of Matlock. Obviously every summer I'd watch 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:54.760 Mattlock in syndication. But you didn't watch mash No why. 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:57.840 I mean, it's it's a film. You could argue that 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:02.040 it's a film for cranks by inks, but I thought 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:04.320 it was extremely well made, and it was. It was 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:06.280 one of the first examples of like a three hour 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:10.040 film that I found totally riveting. Did you like the 0:21:10.080 --> 0:21:15.200 one part where Kevin Costner was giving his long soliloquy 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:17.479 talking about doing the right thing and he looks right 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:19.800 at the camera it's up to you, the American people. 0:21:21.440 --> 0:21:24.760 I like that part. Did you like Joe pesci with 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.800 with his like electrical tape eyebrows. Oh yeah, I got 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.680 about the whole thing. He was seen the real pictures 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:32.280 of that guy, right, Yeah, he looks just like it. 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:42.320 So one of the things that struck me about this 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:46.360 movie was the and especially watching it now in my 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:50.720 mid to late forties as opposed to in college, was 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:54.840 the brutality of the conditions and just the sort of 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:56.840 it's the first time I had ever seen the day 0:21:56.840 --> 0:22:01.600 to day of war, like filling sand bags and hacking 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:06.960 down brush and burning trains, burning boot and I think 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:10.560 that was kind of definitely what Stone was after was 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:13.520 it was not clearly not glorification, but like a lot 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:17.120 of it is just shit work every day and then 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.840 you go out and kill people at night and try 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:23.560 not to get killed. And somehow he communicates in all 0:22:23.600 --> 0:22:29.359 that ship work the like pregnant tension, like it's no 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:32.960 you never you're never bored watching guys fill sandbags because 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:36.320 you feel in the room, in your own you know, 0:22:36.400 --> 0:22:39.600 watching it all by yourself with your DVD collection or whatever, 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:44.600 you can feel how how much this is just like, 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:47.600 this is just some busy work in between the next 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:49.840 time we go out into the jungle and yeah, and 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:53.800 you know, face the enemy set off claym wars Um. 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:57.199 It's uh. The movie that also spends a lot of 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.439 time on class because he is so different from the 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:03.199 people that he's there with. And I think that was 0:23:03.240 --> 0:23:06.000 something that kind of went over my head when I 0:23:06.000 --> 0:23:08.600 was in college because I was like a sallop cistic 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:14.640 college student. Yeah, when did that stop? It hasn't. I'm 0:23:14.720 --> 0:23:23.159 just like, is that the title of the episode, the 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:36.400 most solipsistic Midshipman and friendly fire inside joke? Everywh Yeah? 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:39.400 So the but that but that class stuff I think 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:42.440 hit me a little harder now. And I think maybe 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:45.840 it's just like where we're at politically now. I mean, 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:49.639 I don't think that like anybody was screaming socialism in 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:52.600 response to George W. Bush, but like we're in a 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:57.560 political era now where like the the liberal response to 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:01.680 what's going on in Washington is a lot more like 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:06.040 a lot more about like uses the language of class 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:08.520 and class warfare a lot more so that stuff like 0:24:08.840 --> 0:24:12.040 came out in higher relief for me watching it. I mean, 0:24:12.040 --> 0:24:16.000 And I hadn't watched this movie in ten years, I think, so, uh, 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:18.880 I guess, yeah, I had forgotten how much a part 0:24:18.880 --> 0:24:22.679 of it that was. And like the like Sheen's character 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:25.760 like makes friends with these guys, but there are like 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:28.720 he describes them as like people from the end of 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:32.119 the tracks, like people from towns you've never heard of. 0:24:32.320 --> 0:24:37.280 And that's really interesting to me. The this movie is 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:42.240 like bringing in a general American audience and showing them, hey, like, 0:24:42.359 --> 0:24:45.520 you guys have people you don't care about fight your 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:49.840 fights for you like and saying that really explicitly, Like 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:53.080 he says everything very explicitly. This is one of the 0:24:53.680 --> 0:24:56.160 first times you would ever the first time, I think, 0:24:57.400 --> 0:24:59.560 I mean, I can't say for sure, but like Rambo 0:24:59.640 --> 0:25:02.360