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Summary: Hello Vietnam,and greetings!
Review: "Hello Vietnam,and greetings!",says Bruno Kirby as Lt. Steven Hauk in one scene of this film. It was this scene where he filled in for radio personality Adrian Cronauer(Robin Williams) who was on reportedly on special assignment. Adrian arrives in Vietnam from America via aircraft. At first the military brass was delighted to have him grace the Vietnam radio airwaves. But they discover that Adrian's brand of humor is outrageous,very much like Howard Stern in real life. They also disagree with the rock 'n roll music he is playing. Hey,this was(set in) 1965 and rock 'n roll was dominating the music world especially with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones from the United Kingdom. When Adrian and Lt. Hauk first met,the lieutenant told Adrian that he was sort of a comedian himself. When the lieutenant first heard Adrian on the air,the lieutenant was not pleased at all with Adrian's stint. "You oughta stick to playing 'normal modes of music',not wild stuff",Lt. Hauk told Adrian in a meeting. The 'normal modes of music' refer to easy listening artists like Andy Williams,Perry Como,Mantovani,Jim Nabors,Lawrence Welk,Frank Sinatra and Percy Faith. "Would Bob Dylan be out of line?",Adrian asks Lt. Hauk and the lieutenant replies,"Way,way,way out of line!". Adrian becomes popular with the fighting men in Vietnam and they hoped that Adrian would permanently do his morning show there. The brass decides to suspend Adrian,bringing heartbreak to fans. When Lt. Hauk did his stint,many listeners wrote and telephoned about how they wanted Adrian back on the air. One listener said in a letter,"Captain Hauk sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls." Another wrote to Lt. Hauk,"You suck,eat a bag of s--t!". So Adrian is back on the air but not for long because Sgt. Dickerson(the late J.T. Walsh),the top man of the brass,demanded that Adrian be cancelled. Sgt. Dickerson's superior loves Adrian and even demanded his reinstatement. Sgt. Dickerson is transferred to Guam since his superior grew tired of the seargeant's abusive attitude. The title of this film is how Adrian began his morning show. On the very last show done by Adrian's friend Lt. Ed Garlick(Forrest Whittaker),Ed began the show saying,"Good morning,Vietnam",just like Adrian. Ed tells listeners about Adrian's departure from Vietnam. We hear Adrian saying,"Goodbye,Vietnam" in a pre-recorded message. Adrian also left Vietnam because of his association with a criminal who's the brother of a Vietnamese woman Adrian befriended. Other funny scenes include Adrian teaching the Vietnamese how to use profanity,Adrian doing a parody of the late Richard M. Nixon on the air and Adrian doing a live performance for a group of fighting soldiers while they were in a parked truck enroute to a battlefield. This film was a megahit for both Williams and director Barry Levinson. They were both at least nominated for Academy Awards. Levinson did win a Best Director Oscar for his next film,RAIN MAN. This film was released theatrically in late 1987 just like THREE MEN AND A BABY. Both films were made by Touchstone Pictures,a division of Buena Vista Pictures. THREE MEN AND A BABY was a megahit as well. Both films were still in theatres by spring 1988. THREE MEN AND A BABY inspired a sequel,why didn't GMV? Obviously nobody had any ideas,not even Mitch Markowitz who composed the screenplay.
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Summary: Wakeup Call, Williams Style.
Review: 1965 was the year when, as a result of the Congressional Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, American military buildup in Vietnam began in earnest, and troop strength grew by a factor of no less than eight; from 23,000 at the beginning of the year to roughly 184,000 at the end. 1965 was also the year when a new AFN DJ arrived in Saigon, which over the course of that same year would transform itself from a sleepy French-Vietnamese colonial town into the nightmare it has since come to be in the memory of countless vets. The new DJ in question was Adrian Cronauer; fresh from an assignment in Greece. While the idea for a fictionalized account of his Vietnam experience was Cronauer's own, fueled by the popularity of "M*A*S*H," the script for Barry Levinson's "Good Morning Vietnam" was ultimately penned by screenwriter Mitch Markowitz with only some input from Cronauer himself, who has since gone out of his way to underline the fictional nature of the account and stress that his true stance was not so much anti-military as "anti-stupidity." Thus, the film has to be taken with a considerable grain of salt; both as far as the portrayal of 1960s' armed forces radio and as far as the movie's plot is concerned. But that doesn't make it any less poignant; nor does it take away one iota of Robin Williams's performance as Cronauer: Indeed, the role of an irreverent, unstoppable DJ seemed tailor-made for Williams, who had burst onto the scene with his inimitable brand of lightning-quick ad-libbing ten years earlier in "Mork & Mindy" - and of course, all of Cronauer's hilarious broadcasts in this movie are ad-libbed, too. The film follows Adrian Cronauer from his arrival in Saigon in the spring of 1965 to his forced departure about a half year later (although the real Cronauer in fact stayed for a year and was not forced out but left when his regular tour of duty was over). While a comedy, and although not trying to be anywhere near the "definitive" take on Vietnam, it does take a close look at the year when the conflict escalated and, in particular, at the resulting toll on human relations. Robin Williams earned his first of to date four well-deserved Academy Award nominations for this role (the others were for "Dead Poets Society" [1989], "The Fisher King" [1991] and "Good Will Hunting" [1997], the movie for which he finally scored on Oscar night). And in his inimitable way he provides pointed comic relief not only over the microphone but also, and always with a unique ear for the situation's mood, whenever the script would otherwise threaten to veer off into melodrama; such as after his discovery that his Vietnamese friend Tuan is actually a Viet Cong fighter named Phan Duc To ("It's unbelievable. Five months in Saigon, and my best friend turns out to be a V.C. This will not look good on a resume!!"); and in scenes that would otherwise be burdened with a bit too much cliche and/or deliberately funny writing, such as the conference after Cronauer's first broadcast, where Bruno Kirby (Lieutenant Hauk) gets to deliver such gems as "Don't say that the weather is the same all the time here, because it's not; in fact, it's two degrees cooler today than yesterday" and "I hate the fact that you people never salute me - I'm a lieutenant, and I would like salutes occasionally. That's what being a higher rank is all about." Even if Kirby himself gets to make up for these a little later in the same scene with the comment "We are not going to escalate [Vietnam into] a whole war so we can get a big name comedian" (Bob Hope who, as the men have informed him, does not "play police actions"), it takes Williams's/Cronauer's final weaving of the lieutenant's preferred abbreviations into a single sentence to truly put the finishing touch on the scene. Although "Good Morning Vietnam" is clearly first and foremost a star vehicle for Robin Williams, he is joined by an outstanding supporting cast, including inter alia, besides Bruno Kirby, Forest Whitaker as Cronauer's good-natured sidekick PFC Montesque Garlick, the ever-reliable J.T. Walsh as his second great nemesis, Sergeant Major Dickerson (whose stock character of a straight-laced white middle class guy would probably not have come off convincingly as a villain vis-a-vis anybody *but* Robin Williams) and, in particular, Tung Thanh Tran as Tuan and Chintara Sukapatana as his sister Trinh: Her plea with Cronauer not (even) to seek her friendship, let alone more, because for her such an association with a man (particularly a foreigner) is culturally unacceptable, is one of the movie's most quietly powerful scenes. Exceptional is further Peter Sova's cinematography, which convincingly captures the daily realities of a city and a country on the brink of an all-out war, and is brilliantly complimented by the editing, which in turn also uses the soundtrack - more or less a mid-1960s "greatest hits" compilation - to maximum effect; be it in framing daily military routine, the soldiers' enjoyment of Cronauer's style of broadcasting or combat action: Indeed, hardly any image could make a more powerful statement on the cruel absurdity of war than seeing a village blown up to the tune of Louis Armstrong's "It's a Wonderful World." Thus, "Good Morning Vietnam" is in its own way as poignant a wakeup call as any other movie about Vietnam - or about World War II, or any other war for that matter. It deservedly netted the Political Film Society's 1989 Peace Award, in addition to Robin Williams's Oscar nomination and his Golden Globe and American Comedy awards, as well as the movie's ASCAP soundtrack award. And it certainly bears revisiting - for its overall quality, for Robin Williams's performance, and also for lessons learned and deserving never to be forgotten.
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Summary: Good Morning, Vietnam is a good movie.
Review: A serious and funny performance by Robin Williams. A must see for any movie fan.
Rating:
Summary: Good Morning, Vietnam is a good movie.
Review: A serious and funny performance by Robin Williams. A must see for any movie fan.
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Summary: All good things rolled-up into one movie
Review: A tear jerker, a laugh, and very realistic interpretation. Very, Very wonderful.
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Summary: Funny but still tells the real story
Review: Excellent movie - still break into hysterical laughter after I've watched it several times. However, has a serious side, and even if it's not totally accurate, at least gives a glimspe into what the Vietnam war really entailed.
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Summary: this is not a test, this is rock and roll!
Review: I love this movie. The first day a watched it, I watched it over and over. PLAY, REWIND, PLAY, REWIND... Excellent movie and excellent songs of the 60's. if you liked the movie, get the soundtrack!
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Summary: Frenetic Williams
Review: I really like GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM. Robin Williams as Adrian Cronauer is just terrific. His performance is both extremely funny and unsettlingly moving. J.T. Walsh as Sergeant Major Dickerson is outstanding as Williams' adversary. GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM contained one of composer Alex North's last scores, which was quite effective in the film's dramatic latter segment. Williams' frenetic pace is at times non-stop. Thus film grows more interesting with each viewing catching a little piece here or there that you didn't notice the time before.
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Summary: Best War Movie Ever
Review: i think this is the best war movie ever because it combines humor (Robin Williams - a hillarious radio broadcster) and fighting. Umm, there really isnt much more to say, u have to see the movie for yourself.
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Summary: An 80's Classic!
Review: If you haven't seen the movie by now, go and see it. It's a classic. Robin Williams is Adrian Cronauer, a DJ sent from Greece to Saigon. He meets the people he'll be working with and befriends his assistant named Garlick (played by cute Forest Whitaker). He also befriends a Vietanamese boy trying to woo the boy's sister. The best scenes are when he's at the mike doing his improv and like his stand-up, it's brillant and hilariuos. Then things go wrong in Adrian's life. He witnesses a bombing but isn't allowed to say it on the air but does anyway and is kicked off. I think Williams does best when after going through something difficult, he tries to be funny and happy but can't. Then more things start to happen and it isn't just a conincidence. Adrian also teaches English to impress the girl and it's hilarious when he tries to communicate with the people. The movie is everything from war to comedy to stand-up to drama to political issues to relentless entertainment. Don't miss out on this one!
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