Bill,

I would be a bit more charitable to Full Metal Jacket. I think Kubrick
missed, but not by a large margin. The business of the woman sniper was
stupid. Yet the ending is very ambiguous. I knew anti-war types that
considered it a pro-war movie. My biggest criticism is that it was very
predictable. (Kubrick is an odd duck: the guy made both Dr. Strangelove and
Barry Lyndon: one of the greatest and one of the worst films in the history
of cinema.)

Among Vietnam movies I like 84 Charlie Mopic (A Sundance Festival winner
before Sundance became famous); and Go Tell the Spartans – it had some
clunky scenes but Burt Lancaster was in fine form and the period it dealt
with (1963-64 somewhere out in the Delta) made the tone of the movie work.
No jets, choppers or firepower: just a couple of US advisors out at some
broken down outpost with some terrified Vietnamese militia. Then of course
there is Dear America: Letters from Vietnam, one of the great military
documentaries and a perfect vehicle for introducing the war to a generation
who considers it history.
>
>As to Full Metal Jacket … I lump it in the same category with Apocalypse
Now.

Eric Bergerud, 531 Kains Ave, Albany CA 94706, 510-525-0930