Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2004 5:47 am Posts: 27904 Location: Philadelphia Gender: Male
Stripes (1981): Directed by Ivan Reitman
In a time when there's nothing remotely comical about serving in the American armed forces, it's nice to be able to sit back and laugh at a movie that, created during peacetime, poked fun at the institution of the U.S. Army. And so we have Stripes, one of Bill Murray's earlies vehicles about a man who joins the Army and ends up with way more than he bargained for.
As we meet John Winger (Murray), he's just lost his job as a New York city cab driver and his girlfriend leaves him because of his lack of motivation and promise for the future. He convinces his best friend Russell Ziskey (Harold Ramis) - working as an English as a second language instructor - that the Army is their only salvation for finding some meaning in life, or so it seems. But from the moment the two friends walk into the recruiter's office, we can see that Winger doesn't take a thing in life seriously. Then he and Russell and enlist, and the hijinks ensue.
Stripes is a one-joke movie stretched over an hour and forty-five minutes, but it has it's fair share of laughs, especially during the lengthy basic training part of the movie. Murray is his usual sarcastic self, and Ramis plays the straight guy to Murray's smart alec perfectly. But they're only a part of the equation, as the other recruits in basic training (most notably John Candy as Dewey "Ox" Oxenberger and Conrad Dunn as Francis "Psycho" Soyer) cause just as much havoc to Drill Sergeant Hulka (a bitterly funny Warren Oates). The first half has plenty of of laugh-out-loud scenarios and quips ("Beat the shit out of 'em, Ox!!) to give the movie enough steam to march through the second half, which is lackluster in comparison. Nonetheless, Stripes is still required viewing for the Murray fan and those who revel in over-the-top shenanigans.
Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2004 5:47 am Posts: 27904 Location: Philadelphia Gender: Male
Growing up with the name Francis, the above was quoted to me each and every time I stepped out of line as a teenager (which was a lot). I laugh about it now.
_________________ It's always the fallen ones who think they're always gonna save me.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:14 am Posts: 37778 Location: OmaGOD!!! Gender: Male
On a kind of serious note, for a comdey, you mentioned that it's hard to find humor in the military when we are in the middle of this stupid war today. This movie was made just a few years after the end of the draft (which had been in place from 1940 through 1975). Since that time, we have had a completely volunteer army, and there was some apprehension about whether a volunteer army could actually stand up to the massive military might of the Soviet Union. Especially since, if you weren't going to get drafted, the thought was that anyone with half a brain would avoid military service like the plague. The military would end up being filled with psychopaths, burnouts, retards, and generally out-of-shape losers.
Much of societal humor is about laughing at our collective fears. Like "dead baby" jokes came out of the legalization of abortion, and "elephant" jokes came out of racial integration. Stripes is laughing at our fear that this "new Army" was inferior and incapable of defending our country. To many people's surprise, the volunteer army has been a tremendous success for most of the past 30 years and today we look back at this movie as simply a wacky gag-based Bill Murray vehicle. But I think it was something more than that when it first came out.
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
Joined: Mon Oct 18, 2004 9:10 am Posts: 17256 Location: Chichen to the Thing
punkdavid wrote:
On a kind of serious note, for a comdey, you mentioned that it's hard to find humor in the military when we are in the middle of this stupid war today. This movie was made just a few years after the end of the draft (which had been in place from 1940 through 1975). Since that time, we have had a completely volunteer army, and there was some apprehension about whether a volunteer army could actually stand up to the massive military might of the Soviet Union. Especially since, if you weren't going to get drafted, the thought was that anyone with half a brain would avoid military service like the plague. The military would end up being filled with psychopaths, burnouts, retards, and generally out-of-shape losers.
Much of societal humor is about laughing at our collective fears. Like "dead baby" jokes came out of the legalization of abortion, and "elephant" jokes came out of racial integration. Stripes is laughing at our fear that this "new Army" was inferior and incapable of defending our country. To many people's surprise, the volunteer army has been a tremendous success for most of the past 30 years and today we look back at this movie as simply a wacky gag-based Bill Murray vehicle. But I think it was something more than that when it first came out.
really unfunny post, pd...
just kidding... i never thought of Stripes this way, great insights. Now people will think i'm smarter when regurgitate everything you've said here.
_________________ I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door
Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2004 5:47 am Posts: 27904 Location: Philadelphia Gender: Male
punkdavid wrote:
On a kind of serious note, for a comdey, you mentioned that it's hard to find humor in the military when we are in the middle of this stupid war today. This movie was made just a few years after the end of the draft (which had been in place from 1940 through 1975). Since that time, we have had a completely volunteer army, and there was some apprehension about whether a volunteer army could actually stand up to the massive military might of the Soviet Union. Especially since, if you weren't going to get drafted, the thought was that anyone with half a brain would avoid military service like the plague. The military would end up being filled with psychopaths, burnouts, retards, and generally out-of-shape losers.
Much of societal humor is about laughing at our collective fears. Like "dead baby" jokes came out of the legalization of abortion, and "elephant" jokes came out of racial integration. Stripes is laughing at our fear that this "new Army" was inferior and incapable of defending our country. To many people's surprise, the volunteer army has been a tremendous success for most of the past 30 years and today we look back at this movie as simply a wacky gag-based Bill Murray vehicle. But I think it was something more than that when it first came out.
Excellent points. While writing the initial paragraph of the header post, I actually thought about how this movie was perceived upon release, knowing that Vietnam wasn't all that far away. However I had no basis to comment on it, for I was 3 at the time and never took a history class that explained how the army was viewed by the civillian both in and out of times of conscription.
You would have made an excellent film student, because comments like what you posted above are the wet dream of every film school instructor from here to Honolulu. While I agree in theory with what you wrote, I'd also buy that filmmakers were just running out of ideas to spoof and the army was like an untapped resource to exploit (this was the early 80's, when exploitation was reaching new heights in film). If I tried hard enough, I bet I could pinpoint this movie as the absolute death of the hippie/counter-culture and their anti-war/anti-violence campaign. Or I could just laugh at a 300 pound man in basic training ripping bras off of hot female wrestlers in a mud pit.
_________________ It's always the fallen ones who think they're always gonna save me.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 2:47 pm Posts: 13660 Location: Long Island Gender: Male
Army Dude: Are Either of you homosexuals? John: You mean like flaming? Army Dude: It's standard question. Russell: We're not homosexuals but we are willing to learn. John: Yeah, would they send us someplace special?
i had a vhs copy of this movie when i was in 7th & 8th grade and i nearly wore it out from jerking off to the two nudie scenes.
_________________ i was dreaming through the howzlife yawning car black when she told me "mad and meaningless as ever" and a song came on my radio like a cemetery rhyme for a million crying corpses in their tragedy of respectable existence
_________________ “You’re good kids, stay together. Trust each other and be good teammates to one another. I believe there is a championship in this room.”
-Ernie Accorsi in his final address to the NY Giants locker room before retiring as GM in January of 2007
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 5:22 am Posts: 1603 Location: Buffalo
I saw this movie with may Dad in the theater when it first came out at, I believe, ten years old. It'll always be special to me because I saw tits on screen for the first time and I knew it'd be a lifelong love affair.
Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2004 5:47 am Posts: 27904 Location: Philadelphia Gender: Male
vegman wrote:
I saw this movie with may Dad in the theater when it first came out at, I believe, ten years old. It'll always be special to me because I saw tits on screen for the first time and I knew it'd be a lifelong love affair.
It's posts like this that make the MotW threads worthwhile to me.
_________________ It's always the fallen ones who think they're always gonna save me.
Joined: Sat Feb 25, 2006 8:48 am Posts: 1578 Location: Mass.
"so what your saying is, the problem is me. where's that sharp knife?"
I love this, can pretty much throw it on any time no matter my mood. The only thing that sucks about it, is when you start quoting lines from it, it goes over most people my ages head.
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, bit after the wrestling 'well sir we were on are way to the bingo parlor'.
