Hundreds of fun educational games and activities for kids to play online. Topics include math, geography, animals, and more. MORE INFO. Ryan Adams is an American singer-songwriter, musician, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and poet. He is best known for his solo career, during which. Local and national news. Includes online classifieds, searchable archives, subscription information. The latest news articles from Billboard Magazine, including reviews, business, pop, hip-hop, rock, dance, country and more.

Get the latest Rolling Stone new music news, song and album reviews, free music downloads, artist videos & pictures, playlists and more. Current members area status: 551 exclusive videos are online. (Click here for full list).

Full Metal Jacket - Wikipedia. Full Metal Jacket is a 1. British- American war film directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick.

The screenplay by Kubrick, Michael Herr, and Gustav Hasford was based on Hasford's novel The Short- Timers (1. Its storyline follows a platoon of U. S. Marines through their training, primarily focusing on two privates, Joker and Pyle, who struggle to get through camp under their foul- mouthed drill instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, and the experiences of two of the platoon's Marines in the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The film's title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by soldiers. The film was released in the United States on June 2.

Full Metal Jacket received critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for Kubrick, Herr, and Hasford.[4] In 2. American Film Institute placed it at No. AFI's 1. 00 Years.. Thrills" poll.[5]During the Vietnam War, a group of new U. S. Marine Corps recruits arrive at Parris Island, South Carolina, for basic training. After having their heads shaved, they meet Senior Drill Instructor. Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, who employs forceful methods to turn the recruits into combat- ready Marines.

Among the recruits are Privates "Joker", "Cowboy", and the overweight, bumbling Leonard Lawrence, who earns the nickname "Gomer Pyle" after incurring Hartman's wrath. Unresponsive to Hartman's harsh discipline, Pyle is eventually assigned to Joker's squad.

Pyle improves with Joker's help, but his progress halts when Hartman discovers a contraband jelly doughnut in Pyle's foot locker. Believing the recruits have failed to improve Pyle, Hartman adopts a collective punishment policy: every mistake Pyle makes will earn punishment for the rest of the platoon, with Pyle being spared. In retaliation for Pyle's failures, the platoon hazes him with a blanket party, restraining him in his bunk while beating him with bars of soap wrapped in towels and used like blackjacks. After this incident, Pyle reinvents himself as a model Marine. This impresses Hartman but worries Joker, who recognizes signs of mental breakdown in Pyle, such as him talking to his M1.

Following their graduation, the recruits receive their Military Occupational Specialty assignments; Joker is assigned to Basic Military Journalism, while most of the others (including Cowboy and Pyle) are assigned to Infantry. Sas Are You Tough Enough Series 1. During the platoon's final night on Parris Island, Joker discovers Pyle, who is suffering from severe mental breakdown, in the bathroom, loading his rifle with live ammunition. Joker attempts to calm Pyle, who executes drill commands and loudly recites the Rifleman's Creed.

The noise awakens the platoon as well as Hartman, who angrily confronts Pyle and orders him to surrender the rifle. Pyle shoots Hartman dead and then kills himself. In January 1. 96. Joker, now a sergeant, is a war correspondent in South Vietnam for Stars and Stripes with Private First Class Rafterman, a combat photographer.

Rafterman wants to go into combat, as Joker claims he has done. At the Marine base, Joker is mocked for his lack of the thousand- yard stare, indicating his lack of war experience. They are interrupted by the start of the Tet Offensive as the North Vietnamese Army unsuccessfully attempts to overrun the base.

The following day, the journalism staff is briefed about enemy attacks throughout South Vietnam. Joker is sent to Phu Bai, accompanied by Rafterman. They meet the Lusthog Squad, where Cowboy is now a sergeant. Joker accompanies the squad during the Battle of Huế, where platoon commander "Touchdown" is killed by the enemy.

After the Marines declare the area secure, a team of American news journalists and reporters enters Huế and interviews various Marines about their experiences in Vietnam and their opinions about the war. While patrolling Huế, Crazy Earl, the squad leader, is killed by a booby trap, leaving Cowboy in command. The squad becomes lost and Cowboy orders Eightball to scout the area.

A Viet Cong sniper wounds Eightball and the squad medic, Doc Jay, is also wounded while attempting to save him against orders. Cowboy learns that tank support is unavailable and orders the team to prepare for withdrawal. The squad's machine gunner, Animal Mother, disobeys Cowboy and attempts to save his comrades. He discovers there is only one sniper, but Doc Jay and Eightball are killed when Doc Jay attempts to indicate the sniper's location. While maneuvering toward the sniper, Cowboy is shot and killed.

Animal Mother assumes command of the squad and leads an attack on the sniper. Joker discovers the sniper, a teenaged girl, and attempts to shoot her, but his rifle jams and alerts her to his presence. Rafterman shoots the sniper, mortally wounding her. As the squad converges, the sniper begs for death, prompting an argument about whether or not to kill her.

Animal Mother decides to allow a mercy killing only if Joker performs it. After some hesitation, Joker shoots her. The Marines congratulate him on his kill as Joker stares into the distance, displaying the thousand- yard stare.

The Marines march toward their camp, singing the "Mickey Mouse March". Joker states that despite being "in a world of shit", he is glad to be alive and no longer afraid.

Production[edit]Development[edit]Kubrick contacted Michael Herr, author of the Vietnam War memoir Dispatches (1. Holocaust, but he eventually discarded that in favor of a film about the Vietnam War.[9] They met in England, and the director told Herr that he wanted to do a war film but had yet to find a story to adapt.[1. Kubrick discovered Gustav Hasford's novel The Short- Timers (1. Virginia Kirkus Review.[1. Herr received it in bound galleys and thought that it was a masterpiece.[1.

In 1. 98. 2, Kubrick read the novel twice, concluding that it "was a unique, absolutely wonderful book", and decided, along with Herr,[9] to adapt it for his next film.[1. According to Kubrick, he was drawn to the book's dialogue, finding it "almost poetic in its carved- out, stark quality".[1. In 1. 98. 3, Kubrick began conducting research for the film, watching past footage and documentaries, reading Vietnamese newspapers on microfilm from the Library of Congress, and studying hundreds of photographs from the era.[1.

Initially, Herr was not interested in revisiting his Vietnam War experiences, and Kubrick spent three years persuading him to participate in what the author describes as "a single phone call lasting three years, with interruptions."[9]In 1. Kubrick contacted Hasford to work on the screenplay with him and Herr,[1. Hasford on the phone three to four times a week, for hours at a time. Kubrick had already written a detailed treatment,[1. Kubrick and Herr got together at Kubrick's home every day, breaking down the treatment into scenes. From that, Herr wrote the first draft.[1. The filmmaker worried that the book's title might be misread by audiences as referring to people who only did half a day's work and changed it to Full Metal Jacket after discovering the phrase while going through a gun catalogue.[1.

After the first draft was completed, Kubrick phoned in his orders, and Hasford and Herr mailed their submissions to him.[1. Kubrick read and edited them, and then the team repeated the process. Neither Hasford nor Herr knew how much he had contributed to the screenplay, which led to a dispute over the final credits.[1. Hasford remembers, "We were like guys on an assembly line in the car factory. I was putting on one widget and Michael was putting on another widget and Stanley was the only one who knew that this was going to end up being a car."[1.

Herr says the director was not interested in making an anti- war film, but "he wanted to show what war is like."[9]At some point, Kubrick wanted to meet Hasford in person, but Herr advised against this, describing The Short- Timers author as a "scary man" and believing he and Kubrick would not "get on".[9] Nonetheless, Kubrick insisted, and they all met at Kubrick's house in England for dinner.

Watch Record- Setting NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson Return to Earth Tonight. NASA astronaut and biochemist Peggy Whitson will return to Earth as the planet’s new record holder for longest time cumulatively spent on space by an American or a woman this weekend, touching down in a Russian Soyuz capsule in Kazakhstan at 7: 2. Eastern). Whitson has spent the last nine and a half months in Earth orbit on the International Space Station, per the Washington Post, and counting her previous flights, will have logged 6. During her current mission, she also set the world record for oldest woman in space at 5. As the Post noted, she is also the only female astronaut to have commanded the ISS twice. According to the Post, one of the colleagues returning with her has spent even longer in the aether: Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, who has cumulatively spent eight more days aloft than Whitson at 6. The current world record holder, cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, spent some 8.

Russians have long dominated both cumulative and single- flight durations in space; the single longest spaceflight record holder is Valeri Polyakov, who spent just short of 4. As Tech. Crunch noted, Whitson was scheduled to return in June but “happily accepted” an invitation to stay on the ISS longer when Russian space agency Roscosmos canceled a joint mission to the station earlier in 2. Also accompanying Whitson and Yurchikhin on their way home is US astronaut Jack Fischer, who will have spent 1. Whitson wrote she will “hugely miss the freedom of floating and moving with the lightest of touch, especially those first few days after my return when gravity will especially SUCK,” the Post reported.

She will also miss “the enchantingly peaceful limb of our Earth,” adding, “Until the end of my days, my eyes will search the horizon to see that curve.” Watch Whitson, Yurchikhin and Fischer’s return in real time via NASA’s live feed below.[Tech.