The Big Picture: 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time?

Published 2023-08-25; 1:13:21 by the feed.

As extracted (engineer-sonnet-2026-10-13)

The extraction calls the show “The Big Picture (The Ringer)” and the episode “8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time?”.

Hosts: Brian Raftery. Guests: Ron Kovic, Oliver Stone, Naomi Foner, Joe Ruzek, Dale Dye, Nancy Savoca, Le Ly Hayslip, Lorenz Tate, David Marine, Kieu Chinh.

Subject films: Born on the Fourth of July (1989), Running on Empty (1988), Dogfight, Heaven & Earth (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Dead Presidents (1995), Saving Private Ryan (1998).

On the transcript: Single narrator; interview clips are unlabeled so guest attributions are inferred from the narration. A 21:27 clip attributed to Oliver Stone is actually a Risky Business line.

Added from the extractor's memory, not said

Films that came up

compared (8)

Sands of Iwo Jima · The Green Berets · Coming Home · The Deer Hunter · Platoon · Top Gun · Apocalypse Now · Full Metal Jacket

subject (7)

Born on the Fourth of July · Running on Empty · Dogfight · Heaven & Earth · Forrest Gump · Dead Presidents · Saving Private Ryan

passing (27)

The Exorcist · The French Connection · 12 Angry Men · Dog Day Afternoon · Midnight Express · Salvador · Wall Street · The Exterminator · The Park Is Mine · For the Boys · The War · Flight of the Intruder · Missing in Action · Menace II Society · The Fog of War · Tropic Thunder · Da 5 Bloods · The Longest Day · The Thin Red Line · Windtalkers · Hart's War · Pearl Harbor · Band of Brothers (HBO miniseries) · The Hurt Locker · American Sniper · Lone Survivor · Zero Dark Thirty

anecdote (2)

Risky Business · The Best Years of Our Lives

dismissed (2)

Rambo series · The Doors

Claims (50)

  1. lineage (lineage): Sands of Iwo Jima → Ron Kovic. John Wayne WWII films shaped Kovic's love of the military and country, the belief the book and film later unwind.
    “War movies like Sans of Iwo Jima would inspire Kovic's love for the military and for his country.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:01:50 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  2. contrast (contrast): The Green Berets → Born on the Fourth of July. Kovic found the Green Berets false about a war he had fought in, the opposite of what Born would later show.
    “But the Green Berets was about a war Kovic had actually fought in, and he wasn't buying it.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:03:44 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  3. what-if (what-if): Al Pacino → Born on the Fourth of July. Pacino agreed to play Kovic in 1978; the film died when he shaved his mustache.
    “By 1978, Pacino had agreed to play COVID.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:08:12 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  4. what-if (what-if): William Friedkin → Born on the Fourth of July. Friedkin was to direct the first version, which collapsed when Pacino shaved his mustache.
    “So the job of directing Born on the 4th of July went to William Friedkin”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:09:51 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  5. people (people): Naomi Foner → Running on Empty. Foner's screenwriting breakthrough drew on her activist past and a friend in the Weather Underground.
    “her breakthrough would have a direct connection to her activist past.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:12:15 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  6. career (career): Sidney Lumet → Running on Empty. Lumet, director of 12 Angry Men and Dog Day Afternoon, got the script in 1987.
    “In 1987, phoner script found its way to Sydney Lament, the director of such classics as 12 Angry Men and Dog Day Afternoon.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:14:15 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  7. theme (theme): Running on Empty → The 1960s. The 80s as a political and emotional referendum on the 60s, with the film as the example.
    “If any movie demonstrates the degree to which the 80s became a political and emotional referendum on the 60s, it's running on empty.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:14:41 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  8. contrast (contrast): Running on Empty → Coming Home. Running on Empty was reconciliation, not a reminder of the war's tragedies like Coming Home or The Deer Hunter.
    “It wasn't a reminder of the war's many tragedies, like coming home or the Deer Hunter.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:16:23 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  9. contrast (contrast): Running on Empty → Platoon. It was not a reckoning with combat horrors like Platoon.
    “Nor was it a reckoning with the horrors of combat, like Platoon.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:16:28 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  10. contrast (contrast): Born on the Fourth of July → Vietnam-vet cliche films (The Exterminator, The Park Is Mine). Born was meant as a rebuttal to the ticking-time-bomb vet movies of the 80s.
    “The film would almost be a rebuttal to all those Vietnam vet cliches.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:20:05 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  11. career (career): Risky Business → Top Gun. Cruise broke out in Risky Business; Top Gun made him a go-to star, setting up the casting of Born.
    “But the film that made Cruz, the go-to wingman for millions of movie fans was Top Gun.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:21:03 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  12. contrast (contrast): Top Gun → Born on the Fourth of July. Stone worried Cruise, coming off jingoistic Top Gun, was wrong for Kovic.
    “I was worried because, one, he was a movie star and he was coming off Top Gun, which was the opposite kind of jingoistic message.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:21:31 · Oliver Stone (0.90 sure it was them)
  13. career (career): Tom Cruise → Born on the Fourth of July. Cruise took a pay cut and passed on Top Gun sequels-style easy money to play Kovic.
    “Instead, Cruz took a pay cut to play Kovic.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:22:27 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  14. people (people): Dale Dye → Born on the Fourth of July. Dye was advisor and played a small role; his reason for the film was the VA hospitals.
    “He was an advisor on board of the 4th of July, and played a small on screen role.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:25:32 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  15. verdict (verdict): Born on the Fourth of July → Platoon. Born did not reach Platoon's cultural heights but was still a hit and won Stone a second directing Oscar.
    “Even though it didn't reach the cultural heights of platoon, it was a hit in its own right”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:26:08 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  16. people (people): River Phoenix → Dogfight. Phoenix plays Birdlace in Dogfight; he was also the son in Running on Empty.
    “it stars River Phoenix's Birdlace, a young marine who's about to be shipped off to Southeast Asia.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:29:50 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  17. industry (industry): Dogfight → 1990s indie films. Though a Warner Bros. release, Dogfight has an indie feel: one night, talk-heavy, little combat.
    “Dogfight has that great '90s indie vibe.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:30:43 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  18. what-if (what-if): Nancy Savoca → Dogfight. Savoca edited Dogfight during Desert Storm and feared history repeating itself.
    “And as Savoka watched Operation Desert Storm begin, she worried history was repeating itself.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:32:11 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  19. theme (theme): Vietnam movies → Persian Gulf homecomings. Dye says the earlier Vietnam films and veterans' suffering shaped the warm 1991 welcome.
    “Of course it was.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:34:47 · Dale Dye (0.85 sure it was them)
  20. industry (industry): Persian Gulf War → Vietnam movies. After Desert Storm, moviegoers lost interest in Vietnam and pricey Vietnam dramas flopped.
    “several pricey Vietnam dramas for the boys, the war, flight of the intruder, either underperformed or downright bombed.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:36:15 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  21. programming (programming): 1990s Hollywood → Coming Home. The 90s culture was returning to the mid-70s, when films like Coming Home struggled to get made.
    “When movies like Coming Home were struggling to get made.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:36:33 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  22. contrast (contrast): Heaven & Earth → Platoon. Hayslip handed out flyers outside Platoon asking about the Vietnamese dead.
    “Flyers that posed a tough question to the Americans heading in and out of platoon.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:39:54 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  23. contrast (contrast): Heaven & Earth → The Doors. Hayslip made Stone promise Heaven & Earth would not be like The Doors, which she felt had too much sex.
    “He had to promise that heaven and earth would be nothing like his recent rock biopic the doors, which Hayslip felt had way too much sex.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:40:14 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  24. contrast (contrast): Heaven & Earth → Rambo series. Hayslip also required it be nothing like the Rambo series, which she found demeaning to the Vietnamese.
    “Stone also had to pledge that his film would be nothing like the Rambo series, which Hayslip felt was demeaning to Vietnamese people.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:40:21 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  25. industry (industry): Heaven & Earth → Platoon. Heaven & Earth got more than three times Platoon's budget because of Stone's clout.
    “More than 3 times what he had for Platoon.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:41:13 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  26. lineage (lineage): Forrest Gump → earlier Vietnam films. Gump's Vietnam section riffs on the earlier Vietnam films: music, combat, drill instructor.
    “A journey that riffs on all the Vietnam films that came before.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:44:07 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  27. craft (craft): Lieutenant Dan (Forrest Gump) → Born on the Fourth of July. Dan's angry wheelchair stretch evokes Kovic.
    “Behavior that no doubt reminded many of COVID and born in the 4th of July.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:46:36 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  28. contrast (contrast): Dogfight → Born on the Fourth of July. Gump's happy ending is set against the unhappier ones in Born and Dogfight.
    “This is a much happier ending than the one offered up in Born of the Fourth of July.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:47:06 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  29. theme (theme): Forrest Gump → The 1960s. Raftery's old take: Gump as a happy reboot letting boomers wave away the 60s.
    “Forrest Gump sometimes feels like a happy reboot of the Vietnam era”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:47:14 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  30. contrast (contrast): Forrest Gump → Dead Presidents. Audiences wanting Vietnam to go down easy by the mid 90s makes Dead Presidents a challenge.
    “suggests that by the mid 90s, audiences wanted their Vietnam films to go down easy.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:47:39 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  31. lineage (lineage): Dead Presidents → Bloods (book). Dead Presidents was inspired by Wallace Terry's oral history of Black Vietnam veterans.
    “It was inspired by a book called Bloods, an oral history of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:48:28 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  32. people (people): Dead Presidents → Menace II Society. The Hughes brothers' debut was Menace II Society; Lorenz Tate was in both.
    “That's actor Lorenz Tate, who first worked with the Hughes Brothers and Menace to Society”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:49:17 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  33. craft (craft): Dead Presidents → Apocalypse Now. The Hughes brothers kept an Apocalypse Now poster; the film borrows its helicopter shots.
    “The directors were big time movie obsessives, who kept an apocalypse now poster on the wall of their Hollywood studio.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:50:27 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  34. lineage (lineage): Dead Presidents → Full Metal Jacket. Allen Hughes made a VHS of Vietnam scenes; Tate was assigned Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Platoon.
    “So I watched Full Metal Jacket.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:50:43 · Lorenz Tate (0.80 sure it was them)
  35. craft (craft): Dead Presidents → The Deer Hunter. The film carries the Deer Hunter's post-war isolation, Platoon's combat, Apocalypse Now's helicopters.
    “The post-war isolation of the Deer Hunter, the bloody combat, a platoon, even the majestic helicopter shots from Apocalypse Now.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:50:57 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  36. lineage (lineage): Dead Presidents → Blaxploitation films. It also drew on Blaxploitation films and gangster sagas, scored with 70s soul.
    “But so were Black'sploitation films and gangster sagas.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:51:07 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  37. people (people): Dale Dye → Dead Presidents. Dye trained the Dead Presidents cast as he had Platoon's.
    “Dale Dye, the man who'd put Oliver Stone's platoon actors through fake hell and back.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:51:19 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  38. people (people): Dead Presidents → Platoon. Keith David appears in both: Kirby in Dead Presidents is played by Platoon's Keith David.
    “Kirby, a Korean war vet played by platoons Keith David”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:52:27 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  39. people (people): Dead Presidents → Apocalypse Now. Martin Sheen, of Apocalypse Now, plays the sentencing judge.
    “played by Apocalypse Now Star Martin Sheen.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:53:09 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  40. craft (craft): Dead Presidents → 90s cinema. The Hughes brothers ran the older Vietnam films through a hyperviolent, referential 90s lens.
    “they were jamming those older movies through the hyperviolent, ultra referential lens of 90s cinema.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:57:16 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  41. contrast (contrast): Dead Presidents → The Green Berets. Dead Presidents was as far from The Green Berets as a movie could get, closing the boom.
    “Stylistically and culturally, dead presidents was about as far from the Green Berets as a movie could get”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:57:23 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  42. contrast (contrast): Saving Private Ryan → The Longest Day. Ryan was far more intense than the WWII classics, one viewer had been an extra in The Longest Day.
    “But Saving Private Ryan was way more intense than the World War II classics of the past.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:58:34 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  43. people (people): Tom Hanks → Saving Private Ryan. Hanks was Forrest Gump and the captain in Ryan.
    “it stars Tom Hanks as a middle-aged army captain, sent to find a young paratrooper behind enemy lines.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:58:39 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  44. industry (industry): Saving Private Ryan → The Thin Red Line. Ryan spearheaded a WWII revival that included The Thin Red Line and others.
    “It also spearheaded Hollywood's World War II revival.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:59:33 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  45. contrast (contrast): World War II films → Vietnam films. WWII is a victory, unlike Vietnam, which made it the safer subject for studios.
    “these films would be reminders of a conflict that, unlike Vietnam, ended an American victory.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 1:00:09 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  46. lineage (lineage): Saving Private Ryan → Apocalypse Now. Two decades of Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Born made Ryan's grit necessary.
    “By the time Saving Private Ryan was released, moviegoers have spent two decades being confronted by the likes of Apocalypse Now in Platoon and born in the Fourth of July.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 1:00:36 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  47. what-if (what-if): Saving Private Ryan → Vietnam. Raftery can't imagine a studio greenlighting a Vietnam Saving Private Ryan.
    “I can't imagine a studio exec green lighting of Vietnam version of Saving Private Ryan.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 1:02:13 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  48. industry (industry): Iraq and Afghanistan war films → Vietnam films. The post-9/11 hits drew less interest than Vietnam films; wars are on cable and the internet.
    “those wars did inspire some hit films, the Hurt Locker, American Sniper, Lone Survivor, Zero Dark 30”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 1:02:33 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  49. theme (theme): Born on the Fourth of July → Heaven & Earth. Raftery closes: personal stories in Born, Heaven & Earth and Running on Empty change how you see the war.
    “It's impossible to watch born on the 4th of July without feeling, not just for Ron Kovic”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 1:05:32 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  50. theme (theme): The Best Years of Our Lives → Vietnam. For Kieu Chinh the film about WWII homecomings understood her own loneliness from war.
    “said 1000s of miles away in America, that understood the pain and loneliness the war had brought to Chin's life”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 1:07:38 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)

Fun items (22)

  1. fun, about Ron Kovic: Cried at the Marine hymn from John Wayne's death scene in Sands of Iwo Jima.
    “For years afterward, every time Kovic heard that music, he tear up, thinking about Wayne's death scene.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:01:43 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  2. fun, about Ron Kovic: Typed the memoir on a $42 Sears typewriter.
    “Using a typewriter, he bought for 42 bucks at a local Sears.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:07:27 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  3. fun, about Ron Kovic: Ate room-service hamburgers while hanging with Pacino.
    “I ate $45 hamburgers from room service. It was the opposite of the rat infested VA hospital.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:08:33 · Ron Kovic (0.70 sure it was them)
  4. fun, about Al Pacino: The first Born movie died when Pacino shaved his mustache.
    “Pacino had shaved off his mustache.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:10:12 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  5. fun, about Running on Empty: Restaurant scene where Annie meets her father (Steven Hill).
    “The most remarkable moment in running on empty takes place in an upscale restaurant.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:15:08 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  6. fun, about Running on Empty: Final scene: Arthur lets Danny go on a roadside near the Jersey Turnpike.
    “It takes place on a leafy roadside near the Jersey Turnpike.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:16:52 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  7. fun, about Tom Cruise: Raftery's defense of Risky Business.
    “I love risky business.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:20:56 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  8. fun, about Tom Cruise: Cruise met Kovic when Kovic's friend saw him wrestling a wheelchair out of a car.
    “a friend called him and said there was somebody outside, trying to get a wheelchair out of a car.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:23:02 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  9. fun, about Tom Cruise: Spent months in a wheelchair; Stone considered injecting him with a paralytic, insurers said no.
    “On the director's commentary track for born in the 4th of July, Stone says he actually considered injecting cruise with a substance that would briefly paralyze the actor from the waist down.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:23:38 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  10. fun, about Dogfight: Bar scene: older men buy Birdlace a drink but cannot look him in the eye.
    “But the men can barely look him in the eye.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:31:36 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  11. fun, about Heaven & Earth: Hayslip's flyers outside Platoon asked about Vietnamese deaths.
    “How about 3000000 to 50000 Vietnamese?”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:40:04 · Le Ly Hayslip (0.80 sure it was them)
  12. fun, about Heaven & Earth: Stone says critics slaughtered it though he calls it beautiful.
    “I got slaughtered.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:42:31 · Oliver Stone (0.85 sure it was them)
  13. fun, about Forrest Gump: Gump is goofier and darker than you remember.
    “trust me when I say that Gump is a bit goofier than you remember.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:43:46 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  14. fun, about Forrest Gump: Raftery on pretending to be too cool for it.
    “pretending you're too cool for Forrest Gump is its own form of generational smugness.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:47:31 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  15. fun, about Dead Presidents: Allen Hughes compiled favorite Vietnam scenes on a VHS tape played in his trailer.
    “Alan Hughes even compiled his favorite Vietnam movie scenes onto a VHS tape, which he played in his trailer for inspiration.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:50:32 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  16. fun, about Dead Presidents: Dale Dye's boot camp: actors dug toilet holes and lived off rations in Florida.
    “the dead president's actors lived off rations, dug holes for toilets, and listened to Di's war stories.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:51:29 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  17. fun, about Dead Presidents: Vietnam vet David Marine saw it and thought he was losing his grip; he came from the Bronx, nickname Skip.
    “When I was a kid, my nickname was Skip.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:54:54 · David Marine (0.80 sure it was them)
  18. fun, about Dead Presidents: Cult following on home video despite no box-office hit.
    “it found a cult following on home video.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 0:56:31 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  19. fun, about Saving Private Ryan: Raftery watched it with two D-Day vets who said young people should see it so they never want to go to war.
    “If they see that, one of the vets said, they ain't never gonna want to go to war.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 1:01:28 · WWII veteran (0.70 sure it was them)
  20. fun, about Brian Raftery: Watched about 50 Vietnam films, some at 5 a.m.
    “I watched probably 50 Hollywood films about Vietnam for this show.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 1:04:50 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  21. fun, about Risky Business: Correction: Raftery notes he owns it on Blu-ray.
    “In fact, it came out in 1983, which I should note because I had that on Blu-ray.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 1:09:34 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)
  22. fun, about Top Gun: Episode correction: Cruise was a Navy pilot, not Air Force, and Risky Business was 1983.
    “In that film, he was a Navy pilot.”
    The Big Picture · 8. I Love America | Do We Get to Win This Time? · 1:09:43 · Brian Raftery (0.90 sure it was them)

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