Kubrick at war with how we see war usually

Rating: 10/10 (13 January 2000)

Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. Ohe could write about how startling a film this is even the 10th or 11th or 15th time you've seen it, like I have up to now (as with most of Kubrick's films I've lost count how many times I've seen on a television screen, in the theater is another matter); how chilling it is to see once again the same method previously experienced in Clockwork Orange of rip-roaring, abyss-black satire blending together with a sense of tragedy and horror that is ever so rare in cinema (i.e. going from a vicious combat scene to the song "Bird is the Word" played over more combat, or just the general serio-comic attitude between Hartman and Pyle); how the ending brings to a head a fresh concern in the war film that is still as depressing, if not as authentically tear-jerky, as Paths of Glory; how any image seen on a big screen from Kubrick is Solid Gold, or how, admittedly, one or two scenes don't quite work that great (i.e. the "documentary" interviews the soldiers give to the camera crew).
But since that's been written, might as well just sign the Mickey Mouse Club scene and go on with your day.