Full Metal Jackass

Well, no doubt most of you are familiar with this poor bastard, who's now either regretting his 20-year old self's immortalized hubris or reveling in the attention since this camcorder'd nugget showed up on YouTube.

Back in the early 80s, when the late Stanley Kubrick was planning his Vietnam drama "Full Metal Jacket" as his followup to his horror hit "The Shining" (it would take seven years to produce), he placed an ad in Variety for an open casting call, in which young men in their 20s were invited to submit an audition tape for consideration for roles in the film (Vincent D'Onfrio was one of the "discoveries").

Brian Atene was one of them, and while no one really knows what happened to the other tapes, his survived time and tide has spawned something of a mashup sensation--making him this year's 20-something version of "the Star Wars kid".

Although on the tape he's pompous and a dreadful actor (his "cutting" from "The Outsiders" is like liquid agony injected into the frontal lobe), I'll give the guy some slack because at the time of this recording he's twenty, when you're allowed parade around campus with an inflated ego and delusions of grandeur. You think Kubrick would've hired a wallflower? Have you seen the clip of him berating Shelly Duvall on the Overlook set?

Here's Brian's original submission...

Parodies have already started to surface, with more on the way you can bet. The best features "Brian", today, at aged 43 and still the consumate hambone (as of this writing, the real Atene has yet to surface. Hey, if William Hung can have a career...). Check it out here.

You know, I think Stanley should've hired Atene to replace Harvey Keitel in "Eyes Wide Shut". Pollack's line readings were worse...