Question

[lapsedmodernist]

Which feature films have boot camp scenes? I can think of "Full Metal Jacket," "G.I. Jane," and "An Officer and a Genleman" off the top of my head. What other movies have boot camp? Does "A Few Good Men" or am I making that up?

Thanks!

Comments

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

Pat Conroy wrote a heart-wrenching novel called _The Lords of Discipline_ which was adapted into a not half-bad cinematic version ... and that's pretty much *all* about the boot-camp mentality, even though it's technically set at an "elite" military academy.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

cool, thanks!

[fengi.livejournal.com]

-A Few Good Men has them in the flashback.
-A Soldier's Story takes place in boot camp.
-Biloxi Blues takes place at boot camp.
-Buffalo Soldiers takes place at an army base, perhaps boot camp
-Tigerland has boot camp scenes, it's like a quieter Full Metal Jacket. It was an early Digital Video movie done by a major producer. According to IMBD: The word "fuck" is used 276 times in this 98-minute film.
-Then there's Stripes - you can't forget Stripes.
-"No Time For Sargeants" launched the career of Andy Griffith, and then was ripped off to create "Gomer Pyle UMSC".

By the way - what were those links and books I mentioned to you? Send me an email at hey at fengi dot com and I'll look them up.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

wow, what a plethora. Thank you!

I can't remember everything you promised to email me, but I remember being interested in all of it! We have to think together here. One item was definitely that woman columnist. There was lots of other stuff, too. Please think!!!

I think this is all of them...

[fengi.livejournal.com]

Amanda Marcotte is a generally decent writer who contributes to the political blog pandagon.net.
Her series on Men's Rights Activist is great. The last essay (with links to the earlier essays) can be found here: http://www.pandagon.net/archives/2005/05/mens_rights_mov_1.html

Todd Pruzan's Global Warning from the 4/11/05 issue of the New Yorker may is about Favell Lee Mortimer, a once popular author of children's books putting down every nation on the globe who never left England. It might even be better than the collection of her work he edited. It's not online, but a description is here http://emdashes.blogspot.com/2005/04/41105-issue-this-weeks-best-piece.html

Harry Shearer is that comedian and voice of the Simpsons, but he's also been running Le Show, the audio equivalent of a blog on the radio for at least 21 years. His broadcast after 9/11 was one of the more thoughtful I've heard. You can find the Le Show archives on his website http://www.harryshearer.com/ (it doesn't allow direct linkng). The archives go back to 1997, but the files seem to be missing for anything before 1999. The Sept 2001 shows work just fine, however.

If you haven't seen Medium Cool, you need to do so. The new DVD is excellent, if limited by only having commentary features.

Hey do you know about a novel by a popular young russian novelist which is a series of vingettes about about people acting like insects? It might even have the word insect in the title... I think he was also the same guy who wrote a novel about russian adverstising.

[lilsamkudu.livejournal.com]

you're making that up.

Stripes, Renaissance Man, and that movie with Charlie Sheen and the black people... Taps?

that's all i got...

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

but fengi sez they did have them, in the flashbacks...

either way, thanks!

touche...

[lilsamkudu.livejournal.com]

but fengi is an asshole.

one should never forget that...

[darkadaptedeye.livejournal.com]

and in that grey area of movies/series, there's the first part of "Band of Brothers".

but, to be honest, most "boot camp" scenes are pretty softcore compared to even what i saw at Ft. Benning when i went to basic training and infantry school. and i know that places at Benning like Kelley Hill and Harmony Church were considered far more rough.

[orpheusinhades.livejournal.com]

Private Benjamin.

[polymorphic.livejournal.com]

yes. goldie's flick. sister to (the) Stripes

[sunshyncat.livejournal.com]

Forrest Gump?

Two great films

[sunshyncat.livejournal.com]

Glory (Civil War era)
Biloxi Blues

Basic.

[apathyfabulous.livejournal.com]

The horrible movie "Basic" is all about what did or didnt happen during an Army Ranger training exercise. Not quite boot camp, but possibly usable?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264395/

[orpheusinhades.livejournal.com]

The film version of "Hair", too. Also, you might count Starship Troopers, which is only slightly far afield. Of course, if you're not limiting it to modern American boot camp, there are also things like the training of Afghans in the Man Who Would Be King, or the gladiator boot camp in Spartacus.

[paracelsus.livejournal.com]

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Major Payne yet.

[mjmj.livejournal.com]

could it be from our general amnesia? clearly, too many of us live in our own private idaho. nonetheless, something must be done. perhaps, corporal punishment?

[paracelsus.livejournal.com]

It is surely a shame we are not more steeped in martial lore.

[mjmj.livejournal.com]

i was about to post how it was hard to believe that neither clint eastwood or john wayne (no boot camp in "green berets"?) had made a movie with a boot camp sequence, but then amazon told me otherwise: c. e.'s boot camp movie is "heartbreak ridge."

boot camp movies at amazon. it lists a few not mentioned already.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/listmania/list-browse/-/ET91WCZ322B9/104-8676323-4173555