Production Hell - Full Metal Jacket

Rest In Peace Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey.

Vincent D'Onafrio advised Tom Cruise to get an apartment in London when he told him he was doing a Kubrick film. He said 'you're gonna be filming waaay longer than you think'.

R Lee Ermey was the PERFECT person for his role, and he got a whole career out of that performance. Really great stuff.

You can totally tell R. Lee Ermey was a former drill instructor. So freaking ruthless and aggressive. He got robbed of an Oscar for Supporting Actor

My father served in the Marines during Vietnam. He said the boot camp section was 100% spot on to what he saw and experienced, ESPECIALLY the Drill Instructor.

My father-in-law is a 25 year marine drill instructor. When it came time to meet him all I could think of was R. Lee Ermey's portrayal. Come to find out he was a very nice man that I have come to respect immensely, however, he did say Ermey's portrayal is spot on.

A teen girl who never acted before was so traumatized by her own performance she ran out of the room crying. A victim of her own success.

There were plenty of Vietnam era war films in the 80’s that may have done the combat better, but I’ll always remember the first parts of the movie during training. That was the thing that really set this film apart from the rest and made it more memorable than other good Vietnam era films like Platoon and Hamburger Hill

Best opening 11 minutes of all time any movie bar none

Funny thing about this movie is that when it was translated into my language some time around the collapse of USSR, the translator probably had a bad day and didn't research properly what "full-metal jacket" actually is. So he translated the name of the movie basically as "A vest made of lead" and after it became so famous, it was hard to change. So it never did.