{"id":6378,"date":"2022-08-16T20:54:24","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T20:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=6378"},"modified":"2023-01-22T21:57:50","modified_gmt":"2023-01-22T21:57:50","slug":"film-good-morning-vietnam-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=6378","title":{"rendered":"FiLM REViEW: Good Morning, Vietnam, 1987"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I\u2019ve never seen this film before. So here goes\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Robin Williams\u2019 character, Adrian Cronauer, was indeed a DJ in Viet Nam. He\u2019s portrayed here as an eccentric extrovert comedian, who upsets some of the stiff-necked \u2018brass\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a kind of odd film, inasmuch as most American films about Viet Nam dive right in to the very obvious struggle with issues around American guilt. In comparison, this starts out seeming more like a feel-good movie. The rugged individualist sticking it to the man. As American as apple pie, and, er\u2026 napalm!?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cronauer in DJ mode.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not until an hour into the film that the ugliness of war momentarily intrudes. And quite soon after that, the movie gets back to romance. Even if it\u2019s a stilted or unrequited one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather bizarrely, whilst the cast keep the film interesting enough, it\u2019s not until three quarters of the way through the film that it notches up a gear or two, with the sequence where Cronauer is made to realise what he has come to mean to the troops. He then plays Satchmo\u2019s \u2018Wonderful World\u2019 whilst the movie shows some of the horrors of the war!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The core radio team cast.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

So now we\u2019re back into more familiar territory. The ugly and dirty complexity of war. Williams still manages to get both emotional nuance and laughs out of it. Impressive. And it\u2019s impossible not to think on Williams\u2019 fate. Life, eh!? And death? It\u2019s in this film, and it\u2019s in Robin Williams\u2019 long celluloid shadow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unsurprisingly the movie and the reality of Cronauer\u2018s stint on air in The \u2018Nam are galaxies apart. That\u2019s Hollywood for ya\u2019! And maybe this points to a fundamental issue with the American psyche? Is it any wonder they continually blunder into appalling geopolitical messes, when they live on a diet of dreams?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve never seen this film before. So here goes\u2026 Robin Williams\u2019 character, Adrian Cronauer, was indeed a DJ in Viet Nam. He\u2019s portrayed here as an eccentric extrovert comedian, who upsets some of the stiff-necked \u2018brass\u2019. It\u2019s a kind of odd film, inasmuch as most American films about Viet Nam dive right in to the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “FiLM REViEW: Good Morning, Vietnam, 1987”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[89,106,77,15],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-1ES","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6378"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8124,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions\/8124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}