May 10, 2013
Movie Meltdown - Episode 228
R. Lee Ermey declares war on lame podcasts and so he joins forces with us here at "Movie Meltdown" to deliver a great episode! Most people know R. Lee Ermey from his legendary performance as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in "Full Metal Jacket". But in his time, he's been involved in 75 movies, hosted TV shows, done animated voice-over work, been a product spokesperson and so many other projects. But more important than that, long before his acting days he served his country in the Marine Corps and actually went to war himself. So we discuss his early days, just how he got involved in the military, and what eventually led him to Hollywood. Plus we hear his stories about working with the likes of Stanley Kubrick, Francis Ford Coppola and Peter Jackson! And even though he's been through the horrors of war, we discuss what might just be the scariest thing R. Lee Ermey has ever experienced... kissing Jack Black!
And since we are talking to the man most synonymous with warfare on the silver screen, we settle into "The Grind" where the group sits down to discuss - War Movies. And along the way we mention... Leo Tolstoy, Inglourious Basterds, Apocalypse Now, The Steel Helmet, The English Patient, learning history from film, Born on the Fourth of July, Anna Karenina, The Patriot, hegemony, Thor, The Big Red One, General Grant, Enemy at the Gates, Albanian genocide, Principal Skinner, Cold Mountain, Tom Stoppard, stock war characters, Henry the V, Sam Fuller, K-19: The Widowmaker, the birth of text messaging, shell shock, military therapy, Fixed Bayonets!, Osama Bin Laden, keeping the Emperor, Terrence Malick, George Takei, D.I. Darren McGavin, Zero Dark Thirty, Casablanca, 300, Erwin Rommel, Black Hawk Down, making a movie in a typhoon, Tribes, internment camps, relationships against the backdrop of world events, I turned down ten films last year, The Return of Martin Guerre, the civil war, Schindler's List, MASH, Braveheart, do war movies have to be historically accurate?, what do you say when there are Nazis about?, The Boys in Company C, going to Vietnam, trying to get away from the law, Patton, War and Peace, George Washington's military career, war hero as super hero, honor or emo?, Vassili Zaitsev, the revolutionary war, joining the Marines, The African Queen, is the individual greater than the war?, The Black Robe, Purple Hearts, The Deer Hunter, Nathanael Greene and changing trench warfare.
"If you see my name on a movie... better go see it, because it's a kick-ass movie."
Special thanks to SOG Knives for their help on this episode, check out R. Lee's exclusive "Gunny" knife at: http://www.sogknives.com/