This movie is set in the old timey US frontier. Cate Blanchett plays a single mother homesteader who has a sort of flirtatious working relationship with Aaron Eckhart. Out of nowhere her estranged father who had run off to live with some manner of Pueblo Native American tribe shows up and is all like, "Hey, long time no see, I'm mystically aware of the natural world now and would like to reconnect with you and my grandkids." Cate Blanchett's pissed. She tells him to bounce and like a sad ol' dispossessed Native American, down the trail he goes.
Then, out of nowhere, her girls get snatched up by an Apache gang that's going to sell them to the owner of a Mexican whorehouse across the border. They kill Aaron Eckhart and Cate Blanchett is forced to call on crafty ol' Tommy Lee Jones to hunt them down and get them back.
Val Kilmer shows up only briefly as a semi corrupt US Cavalry officer who is ineffectively chasing down the Apaches. Apparently he agreed to appear in it as part of his role on the New Mexico Film Board, which tries to get movies to film in New Mexico (seriously).
This movie features one Batman (VK) and two Twofaces (Eckhart and T.L.Jones) but no x-men. I kind of love Tommy Lee Jones.
Showing posts with label Action. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Action. Show all posts
January 5, 2010
August 12, 2009
Red Planet (2000)
Here's the thing about "Red Planet:" once you get over the fact that it's an impossibly absurd and insane premise, even by sci-fi standards, it's not that bad of a movie. Like all good sci-fi, the lesson is not really about the future, it's about the present. Specifically, it's a pleas for environmental sustainability. In "Red Planet," the Earth of the future has been overpopulated and polluted to the point that the human race is in danger of wiping itself out. So, since the entire world had known about this for quite a while but never bothered to actually institute any social policies that could save the planet, it was decided by the world's governments (ha! the UN?) to start blasting big clumps of algae at Mars in the hopes that it would turn into an atmosphere capable of supporting life. The small cast of "Red Planet" is some specialty crew sent on a mission to make sure everything's in good blooming order up there.
There are eight crew members, led by the hardass captain,Trinity err... Carrie Ann Moss? Our hero, Val Kilmer, plays Gallagher, not the one you're thinking of though:
He's basically the ship's mechanic. Like all strong women commanding officers in sci-fi, Carrie Ann Moss sleeps with Kilmer's character with little prompting. When an inconvenient solar flare fucks up the mothership, everybody but Trinity bails in their little launch ship to go down to the hopefully now partially habitable Mars surface. Trinity manages not to die, but just about everyone else will (spoiler alert). So the old philosopher with no real purpose on the space mission gets fucked up in the landing and croaks soon after. Everyone else is freaking out because they've got to get to this distant base but they're running out of air. Also, all that algae that was supposed to be making a new atmosphere is missing. Stuck on Mars with little hope of breathing for long. That's trouble. For some unexplained reason, two of the crew members hate each other and one of them pushes the other, I forget which, off a cliff. Now they get to the base, but whaaaa? It's all shredded. Like some big paranormal event came through and ripped it pieces. All the air's gone. All the food's gone. They're in some deep shit. Their air is no critically low and they start suffocating in their suits. Then, in the biggest leap of plot I've seen in a long time, Kilmer takes his mask off and he can breathe despite the lack of algae or other materials that might give them air.
Okay, stop to consider that. They can breathe but it's still a lifeless 'red planet.' So now they've got to figure out how to get back. They decide that they're going to use this old soviet rocket that's stuck there a couple miles away. They start making their way there and almost freeze to death at night. Some big storm rolls through. Also, Kilmer's pet robot goes berserk and is skillfully hunting and trying to kill them. It gets the bad guy. Ugh... There's so much to tell!
So we're down to two of the astronauts trying to get to the cosmonautical rocket. Kilmer and fate's enemy Tom Sizemore, when all of a sudden, we see the algae (hooray!) being devoured by a swarm of space roaches that obviously at their base and end up eating Tom Sizemore (booo!). This is a strange interpretation of Martians. They're like bugs that apparently love to eat everything that's not the inorganic surface of Mars. But they're flammable. Oh, and they somehow excrete oxygen which is why the cast can breathe without space suits. There's a showdown between the robot, Kilmer and the bugs. Kilmer blasts off. Earth is far from saved.
This actually was not that good of a movie now that I've written this all out.
There are eight crew members, led by the hardass captain,
He's basically the ship's mechanic. Like all strong women commanding officers in sci-fi, Carrie Ann Moss sleeps with Kilmer's character with little prompting. When an inconvenient solar flare fucks up the mothership, everybody but Trinity bails in their little launch ship to go down to the hopefully now partially habitable Mars surface. Trinity manages not to die, but just about everyone else will (spoiler alert). So the old philosopher with no real purpose on the space mission gets fucked up in the landing and croaks soon after. Everyone else is freaking out because they've got to get to this distant base but they're running out of air. Also, all that algae that was supposed to be making a new atmosphere is missing. Stuck on Mars with little hope of breathing for long. That's trouble. For some unexplained reason, two of the crew members hate each other and one of them pushes the other, I forget which, off a cliff. Now they get to the base, but whaaaa? It's all shredded. Like some big paranormal event came through and ripped it pieces. All the air's gone. All the food's gone. They're in some deep shit. Their air is no critically low and they start suffocating in their suits. Then, in the biggest leap of plot I've seen in a long time, Kilmer takes his mask off and he can breathe despite the lack of algae or other materials that might give them air.Okay, stop to consider that. They can breathe but it's still a lifeless 'red planet.' So now they've got to figure out how to get back. They decide that they're going to use this old soviet rocket that's stuck there a couple miles away. They start making their way there and almost freeze to death at night. Some big storm rolls through. Also, Kilmer's pet robot goes berserk and is skillfully hunting and trying to kill them. It gets the bad guy. Ugh... There's so much to tell!
So we're down to two of the astronauts trying to get to the cosmonautical rocket. Kilmer and fate's enemy Tom Sizemore, when all of a sudden, we see the algae (hooray!) being devoured by a swarm of space roaches that obviously at their base and end up eating Tom Sizemore (booo!). This is a strange interpretation of Martians. They're like bugs that apparently love to eat everything that's not the inorganic surface of Mars. But they're flammable. Oh, and they somehow excrete oxygen which is why the cast can breathe without space suits. There's a showdown between the robot, Kilmer and the bugs. Kilmer blasts off. Earth is far from saved.
This actually was not that good of a movie now that I've written this all out.
May 31, 2009
The Saint (1997)
Sorry for the delays in updating. Blogging is hard. To get pack on track I'm going to give some abbreviated posts for the past couple flicks.
The Saint is the story of an orphan kid who grew up in a really rough orphanage. The strict ass nuns force them to take the names of Catholic saints, so our future hero gets named Simon. His first girlfriend accidentally gets tossed off a balcony to her death while he was showing off his lockpicking skills. This obviously sours his experiences with Catholocism and maybe even morality when he grows up and turns into Val Kilmer. Dude turns criminal. Straight up master theft criminal. Straight up master of disguise criminal. Straight up vocal stylist criminal. You get the idea.
The story has quickly jumped to his adult years where he's ripping off the Russian mob. Read that sentence again. Yes, he's trying to be a cat-burglar to the most dangerous criminal organization around. Smart. So master thief Simon Templar (as in the Teutonic order!) blows this robbery.
There's a high stakes target he needs to rob from that the Russians are also after. It's Elizabeth Shue. She's developed cold fusion and apparently it's quite lucrative. She's got the formula written on notes that she keeps in her bra. Our hero, of course, gets her out of that with a bad costume as a professor of some sort that reminds her of her ex. Unfortunately, our professional thief makes the predictable mistake of falling in love with her.
Kilmer is downright terrible with some of these accents. I can't understand why they wouldn't spend a little extra on a decent speech coach.
The Russians are after them, they're in love, he's a master of disguise and a hugely successful con artist. This is how my parents met too. They get away, happy ever after the end. Boom!
Alright, blog. Just a couple more to go until I'm caught up!
The Saint is the story of an orphan kid who grew up in a really rough orphanage. The strict ass nuns force them to take the names of Catholic saints, so our future hero gets named Simon. His first girlfriend accidentally gets tossed off a balcony to her death while he was showing off his lockpicking skills. This obviously sours his experiences with Catholocism and maybe even morality when he grows up and turns into Val Kilmer. Dude turns criminal. Straight up master theft criminal. Straight up master of disguise criminal. Straight up vocal stylist criminal. You get the idea.
The story has quickly jumped to his adult years where he's ripping off the Russian mob. Read that sentence again. Yes, he's trying to be a cat-burglar to the most dangerous criminal organization around. Smart. So master thief Simon Templar (as in the Teutonic order!) blows this robbery.
There's a high stakes target he needs to rob from that the Russians are also after. It's Elizabeth Shue. She's developed cold fusion and apparently it's quite lucrative. She's got the formula written on notes that she keeps in her bra. Our hero, of course, gets her out of that with a bad costume as a professor of some sort that reminds her of her ex. Unfortunately, our professional thief makes the predictable mistake of falling in love with her.
Kilmer is downright terrible with some of these accents. I can't understand why they wouldn't spend a little extra on a decent speech coach.
The Russians are after them, they're in love, he's a master of disguise and a hugely successful con artist. This is how my parents met too. They get away, happy ever after the end. Boom!
Alright, blog. Just a couple more to go until I'm caught up!
May 13, 2009
The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
Hey do you remember that one Val Kilmer movie... with the lions... in Africa? Yes. Yes I do.
The rambling thriller/period drama/horror/true story(?)/white-man's-burden colonial tale is set in Tsavo, Uganda during the height of the British Empire. Val Kilmer plays John Henry Patterson, a colonel in Imperial Britain's version of the Army Corp of Engineers. He's sent by an inexplicably mean boss to Uganda to oversee the construction of a railroad bridge. Once there, he finds out that the local (or imported from India) construction crews working on the bridge are totally freaked out about some lion attacks that have snatching people up in the night. He immediately kills a lion. Just, blap, one shot, down. I worried for a moment that I had completely misjudged what this movie was about and was going to have to settle in for a long construction journal.
But no. There's more than one lion terrorising this labor camp. In fact, there's two more. The Ghost and The Darkness. That's what the laborers are calling them. Anyway, these lions just start cold killing anything that looks like a man in the middle of the night. They sneak up when people are sleeping and drag them screaming off into the shrubbery to kill them for no purpose other than to momentarily satiate the lions' endless bloodlust. The workers are pissed and blame this ill fortune on the white demon that recently showed up named Val Kilmer. No matter what he tries, these lions just keep boldly attacking the workers. Daylight, nightime, sunshine, rain, snow (er... not so much snow, it being Africa and all). These lion attacks just get absurdly brazen though. I mean I know their lions but come on humans! Strength in numbers!
Then out of nowhere Michael Douglass roles through with a pack of Masaii warriors looking like he would never somehow convince Catherine Zeta Jones to get with him. He plays Remington, a former Confederate soldier who has a southern accent for about 10% of his lines (which is still somehow a better showing than whatever the fuck Kilmer was going for with his Anglo-Irish character's accent!). Anyway, the two white guys try to save the day by heroically hunting down these man killing beasts which cleverly outsmart their bullets until the war of attrition is finally one by our heroic Kilmer. Triumphing over nature by building the bridge over a river and triumphing over nature by putting bullets into a bunch of lions, the world is man's now.
The story is based on a true (though likely highly embellished) story and the real lions were donated to the Chicago Field museum in the 1930s. But um... Michael Douglass's weird ass character is totally invented just so things don't go too "Heart of Darkness." This movie is definitely worth watching if only for this one weird dream Kilmer has where his wife and baby son are singled out and attacked by a lion in a crowd of people.
The rambling thriller/period drama/horror/true story(?)/white-man's-burden colonial tale is set in Tsavo, Uganda during the height of the British Empire. Val Kilmer plays John Henry Patterson, a colonel in Imperial Britain's version of the Army Corp of Engineers. He's sent by an inexplicably mean boss to Uganda to oversee the construction of a railroad bridge. Once there, he finds out that the local (or imported from India) construction crews working on the bridge are totally freaked out about some lion attacks that have snatching people up in the night. He immediately kills a lion. Just, blap, one shot, down. I worried for a moment that I had completely misjudged what this movie was about and was going to have to settle in for a long construction journal.
But no. There's more than one lion terrorising this labor camp. In fact, there's two more. The Ghost and The Darkness. That's what the laborers are calling them. Anyway, these lions just start cold killing anything that looks like a man in the middle of the night. They sneak up when people are sleeping and drag them screaming off into the shrubbery to kill them for no purpose other than to momentarily satiate the lions' endless bloodlust. The workers are pissed and blame this ill fortune on the white demon that recently showed up named Val Kilmer. No matter what he tries, these lions just keep boldly attacking the workers. Daylight, nightime, sunshine, rain, snow (er... not so much snow, it being Africa and all). These lion attacks just get absurdly brazen though. I mean I know their lions but come on humans! Strength in numbers!
Then out of nowhere Michael Douglass roles through with a pack of Masaii warriors looking like he would never somehow convince Catherine Zeta Jones to get with him. He plays Remington, a former Confederate soldier who has a southern accent for about 10% of his lines (which is still somehow a better showing than whatever the fuck Kilmer was going for with his Anglo-Irish character's accent!). Anyway, the two white guys try to save the day by heroically hunting down these man killing beasts which cleverly outsmart their bullets until the war of attrition is finally one by our heroic Kilmer. Triumphing over nature by building the bridge over a river and triumphing over nature by putting bullets into a bunch of lions, the world is man's now.
The story is based on a true (though likely highly embellished) story and the real lions were donated to the Chicago Field museum in the 1930s. But um... Michael Douglass's weird ass character is totally invented just so things don't go too "Heart of Darkness." This movie is definitely worth watching if only for this one weird dream Kilmer has where his wife and baby son are singled out and attacked by a lion in a crowd of people.
May 3, 2009
The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996)
Based on an H.G. Wells story, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" is generally not remembered fondly. In fact, my Netflix account thought that a viewer like me would give it a damning 1.7 star (out of 5.0) review. In truth, I enjoyed the movie immensely. It's dark and admiittedly kind of ridiculous, but it approaches some really interesting themes regarding bio-ethics and human nature.
The story begins with David Thewlis's (who is in Harry Potter but is not Snape!) character stranded in the ocean after having killed his two fellow survivors in a desperate act of self preservation. His raft is rescued by an Indonesian ship aboard which, for unknown reasons, Val Kilmer's character Montgomery is traveling. Kilmer persuades Thewlis to come visit the island where he works. Dr. Moreau (Marlon Brando at the height of his meltdown - overweight, barely audible, and strange strange strange) is the mad scientist who owns the island. It takes Thewlis's character all of one night to find out that there's really fucked up tests being performed which mix animal and human DNA with grotesque results. All manner of deformed freaky animal-human hybrids, or manimals if you will, are living a primative but separate life on the island... and strangely vegetarian? Some of these manimals are Brando's own "children" including the especially human looking Fairuza Balk (of American History X and Waterboy fame). Thewlis for some reason wants to run afoul of God's design by having some weird feelings of attraction for this feline human cross breed. The island's manimal population is kept in check by a high pitched buzzer that Brando's character has implanted in all of the manimals. For better or worse, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" gave the world the inspiration for the Austin Powers character mini-me by featuring a piano playing tiny version of Marlon Brando played by this guy:
Things quickly melt down when one of the manimals rips out his implant. There's kind of a manimal revolution and almost everyone dies. The end. Oh yeah, Val Kilmer says "when I die I want to go to dog heaven" and he does an actually pretty decent Marlon Brando impression which seems like a bit of overkill even a movie as over the top as this one.
If nothing else, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" served as a one-two punch with "Batman Forever" to knock Val Kilmer right out of Hollywood super-stardom. Although Kilmer has a huge filmography extending well beyond Dr. Moreau, he has never managed to regain the same starpower that he possessed in the mid 1990s. These two critical failures in a row coincided with Kilmer's divorce from Joanne Whaley (which he learned of from a news broadcast during the filming of Dr. Moreau!).
The story begins with David Thewlis's (who is in Harry Potter but is not Snape!) character stranded in the ocean after having killed his two fellow survivors in a desperate act of self preservation. His raft is rescued by an Indonesian ship aboard which, for unknown reasons, Val Kilmer's character Montgomery is traveling. Kilmer persuades Thewlis to come visit the island where he works. Dr. Moreau (Marlon Brando at the height of his meltdown - overweight, barely audible, and strange strange strange) is the mad scientist who owns the island. It takes Thewlis's character all of one night to find out that there's really fucked up tests being performed which mix animal and human DNA with grotesque results. All manner of deformed freaky animal-human hybrids, or manimals if you will, are living a primative but separate life on the island... and strangely vegetarian? Some of these manimals are Brando's own "children" including the especially human looking Fairuza Balk (of American History X and Waterboy fame). Thewlis for some reason wants to run afoul of God's design by having some weird feelings of attraction for this feline human cross breed. The island's manimal population is kept in check by a high pitched buzzer that Brando's character has implanted in all of the manimals. For better or worse, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" gave the world the inspiration for the Austin Powers character mini-me by featuring a piano playing tiny version of Marlon Brando played by this guy:
Things quickly melt down when one of the manimals rips out his implant. There's kind of a manimal revolution and almost everyone dies. The end. Oh yeah, Val Kilmer says "when I die I want to go to dog heaven" and he does an actually pretty decent Marlon Brando impression which seems like a bit of overkill even a movie as over the top as this one.
If nothing else, "The Island of Dr. Moreau" served as a one-two punch with "Batman Forever" to knock Val Kilmer right out of Hollywood super-stardom. Although Kilmer has a huge filmography extending well beyond Dr. Moreau, he has never managed to regain the same starpower that he possessed in the mid 1990s. These two critical failures in a row coincided with Kilmer's divorce from Joanne Whaley (which he learned of from a news broadcast during the filming of Dr. Moreau!).
April 4, 2009
Tombstone (1993)
Tombstone represents another major uptick in Kilmer's popular success. He plays the wild west legend and dentist known as Doc Holliday. While most of the actual facts of Doc Holiday's life have been accentuated by old West legend, it is established that he was a drunk, a gambler, suffered from consumption (that's tuberculosis for the uninitiated) and took part in a massive revenge killing spree initiated by the Earp family.
The movie Tombstone tells the tale of the former old West lawmen of the Earp family (Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan) settling down with their wives in Tombstone, Arizona. The Earps plan on striking it rich by basically extorting a healthy share of the profits out of a local casino by using their reputations for western machismo to provide protection. Doc Holiday (Kilmer) rides into town with his prostitute looking girlfriend and proceeds to be sweaty and pale all the time and say mildly rude things to the gang of toughs known as "The Cowboys." He's basically a fading Southern dandy. This forces Holiday's old friend Wyatt Earp to take his back and puts everyone into confrontation with The Cowboys... who are known for wearing fancy red sashes around their waste like some sort of gringo matadors. Seriously, Kilmer has never looked paler or sweatier:
I had originally seen Tombstone quite a while ago and seemed to remember it as a story of pure good guys (The Earps) faced against pure evil (the Cowboys). It's really a very morally gray movie. The Earps are siphoning off their money from an casino/bar that they just ran into and demanded a share of the profits. Their vigilantism, allbeit well intentioned, essentially sets of reciprical violence between the two groups. And when one of the Earps gets killed... oops... spoiler alert- the murder spree that they conduct is just brutal. They set about hunting down these Cowboys in what is basically a "The Most Dangerous Game" type killing spree. Can nothing satiate Kirk Russell's mad bloodlust?!
The leader of the Cowboys, Curly Bill, is played by Powers Boothe (stage name? probably), who went on to play Cy Tolliver in the awesome Deadwood series on HBO:
Tombstone was a mega-hit that capped off a glut of mid 90s wild west movies. This was a huge win for Kilmer who continued his string of vigilante heroes soon after this with his most memorable (and possibly worst) role... Batman. As memorably said by Doc Holiday, "I have not yet begun to defile myself."
The movie Tombstone tells the tale of the former old West lawmen of the Earp family (Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan) settling down with their wives in Tombstone, Arizona. The Earps plan on striking it rich by basically extorting a healthy share of the profits out of a local casino by using their reputations for western machismo to provide protection. Doc Holiday (Kilmer) rides into town with his prostitute looking girlfriend and proceeds to be sweaty and pale all the time and say mildly rude things to the gang of toughs known as "The Cowboys." He's basically a fading Southern dandy. This forces Holiday's old friend Wyatt Earp to take his back and puts everyone into confrontation with The Cowboys... who are known for wearing fancy red sashes around their waste like some sort of gringo matadors. Seriously, Kilmer has never looked paler or sweatier:
I had originally seen Tombstone quite a while ago and seemed to remember it as a story of pure good guys (The Earps) faced against pure evil (the Cowboys). It's really a very morally gray movie. The Earps are siphoning off their money from an casino/bar that they just ran into and demanded a share of the profits. Their vigilantism, allbeit well intentioned, essentially sets of reciprical violence between the two groups. And when one of the Earps gets killed... oops... spoiler alert- the murder spree that they conduct is just brutal. They set about hunting down these Cowboys in what is basically a "The Most Dangerous Game" type killing spree. Can nothing satiate Kirk Russell's mad bloodlust?!
The leader of the Cowboys, Curly Bill, is played by Powers Boothe (stage name? probably), who went on to play Cy Tolliver in the awesome Deadwood series on HBO:
Tombstone was a mega-hit that capped off a glut of mid 90s wild west movies. This was a huge win for Kilmer who continued his string of vigilante heroes soon after this with his most memorable (and possibly worst) role... Batman. As memorably said by Doc Holiday, "I have not yet begun to defile myself."
February 15, 2009
Willow (1988)
I'm going to tell you a story. It's a fantasy tale about a mystical land in which a village of half-sized humans encounter a foreign object sought by an evil foreign power that will burn the world down to get to this potentially game-changing object. The half-sized critter cursed enough to find themselves tasked with the burden of carrying this object is encouraged by a wizard to take it on a great and perilous journey in order to preserve goodness in the face of the spreading forces of evil. Thankfully, the helpless and moderately annoying half-sized guy meets a mighty human swordsman of mysterious origins who helps them to fight off the armies of evildoers. The swordsman finds himself in the midst of a complicated romance with a princess of sorts. Also, an evil sorcerer and a benevolent wizard fight it out by magically flinging each other through the air of the evil wizard's tower. The half sized guy survives all this and returns heroically to his boring little village.
Obviously, you'd think I was talking about the "Lord Of the Rings" trilogy, but you'd be wrong. It's "Willow." "But they ripped off LOTR" you will protest. Alas, you're mistaken, I will assure you, for Lord of the Rings was not released until 2001, a full 14 years after "Willow" got its nerd on in theaters. Directed by Ron Howard and 'written' by George Lucas, I'm amazed that I hadn't really ever heard of it before. Dear readers, I must inform you that if that comparison to Lord of the Rings is allowed, Val Kilmer, as Madartigan, is the Aragorn of this shit.
I could spend the whole post going through point by point how the script (written by George Lucas, so you know it'll nuke the fridge!) is um... inspired by (read: directly ripped off from) the J.R.R. Tolkein Lord of the Rings Trilogy. But that would be boring and reveal the depths of my own nerdiness in a way that I'm just not comfortable with right now. So let me take it in a more general direction.
Willow is the name of the hobbit-like main character. He's played by a real-life tiny guy named Warwick Davis whose filmography reads like a fantasy based bookstore gone bad. At this time he would have been fresh off his success at playing Wickett the Ewok in "Return of the Jedi." He rescues a baby, Moses-style, from a riverbed without knowing an evil queen is looking for it. The hobbits are called "Pecks" by humans but I think we're suppossed to assume it's mildly derogatory, I'm not really sure. So Willow and some other Pecks take the baby over the hills to deliver it to the first human they see, who happens to be Val Kilmer in a cage. Kilmer is a swordsman named Madmartigan who is a soldier for no real country and kind of a total badass. Kilmer ends up helping Willow try to keep this baby from falling into the hands of the evil queen Bavmorda's forces. These names... seriously George Lucas, what were you thinking? So Queen Bavmorda sends her general and warrior daughter after this baby which has been prophesized as a threat to her empire. Why does that sound so familiar? Oh yeah, that's almost what happened with Jesus. So let's expand the source material of Willow to include the New Testament.
Most of the movie consists of a threat chasing after Willow and Madmortigan and Willow shouting in an annoying manner something along the lines of "Madmortigan, hurry! They're coming, Madmortigan!" Val Kilmer slices a bunch of evildoers down and is ruggedly charming. He seduces the evil queen's daughter. The evil but easily seduced princess is played by Joanne Whaley who would soon thereafter marry Kilmer for twelve years and mother two of his children (in real life).
There's so much more going on in this movie but it all kind of requires a big explanation (the good wizard is stuck in an animal's body but can talk... ?) so I'm going to summarize it by saying that because George Lucas touched this, good triumphs over evil and they all live happily ever after. Also, of the Kilmer movies I've seen so far, I enjoyed this one the most.
Obviously, you'd think I was talking about the "Lord Of the Rings" trilogy, but you'd be wrong. It's "Willow." "But they ripped off LOTR" you will protest. Alas, you're mistaken, I will assure you, for Lord of the Rings was not released until 2001, a full 14 years after "Willow" got its nerd on in theaters. Directed by Ron Howard and 'written' by George Lucas, I'm amazed that I hadn't really ever heard of it before. Dear readers, I must inform you that if that comparison to Lord of the Rings is allowed, Val Kilmer, as Madartigan, is the Aragorn of this shit.
I could spend the whole post going through point by point how the script (written by George Lucas, so you know it'll nuke the fridge!) is um... inspired by (read: directly ripped off from) the J.R.R. Tolkein Lord of the Rings Trilogy. But that would be boring and reveal the depths of my own nerdiness in a way that I'm just not comfortable with right now. So let me take it in a more general direction.
Willow is the name of the hobbit-like main character. He's played by a real-life tiny guy named Warwick Davis whose filmography reads like a fantasy based bookstore gone bad. At this time he would have been fresh off his success at playing Wickett the Ewok in "Return of the Jedi." He rescues a baby, Moses-style, from a riverbed without knowing an evil queen is looking for it. The hobbits are called "Pecks" by humans but I think we're suppossed to assume it's mildly derogatory, I'm not really sure. So Willow and some other Pecks take the baby over the hills to deliver it to the first human they see, who happens to be Val Kilmer in a cage. Kilmer is a swordsman named Madmartigan who is a soldier for no real country and kind of a total badass. Kilmer ends up helping Willow try to keep this baby from falling into the hands of the evil queen Bavmorda's forces. These names... seriously George Lucas, what were you thinking? So Queen Bavmorda sends her general and warrior daughter after this baby which has been prophesized as a threat to her empire. Why does that sound so familiar? Oh yeah, that's almost what happened with Jesus. So let's expand the source material of Willow to include the New Testament.
Most of the movie consists of a threat chasing after Willow and Madmortigan and Willow shouting in an annoying manner something along the lines of "Madmortigan, hurry! They're coming, Madmortigan!" Val Kilmer slices a bunch of evildoers down and is ruggedly charming. He seduces the evil queen's daughter. The evil but easily seduced princess is played by Joanne Whaley who would soon thereafter marry Kilmer for twelve years and mother two of his children (in real life).
There's so much more going on in this movie but it all kind of requires a big explanation (the good wizard is stuck in an animal's body but can talk... ?) so I'm going to summarize it by saying that because George Lucas touched this, good triumphs over evil and they all live happily ever after. Also, of the Kilmer movies I've seen so far, I enjoyed this one the most.
February 10, 2009
Top Gun (1986)
If your like me, you probably had fond memories of "Top Gun" from your childhood. Tom Cruise was, in my young mind, the barometer of late Cold War manliness with his motorcycle and jet fighting. Having just watched it again for TKP, I was puzzled by how terrible of a movie it really is. At the end of the day "Top Gun" is just a complicated hot-for-teacher story about an irresponsible naval aviator with severe daddy issues. Not only that, this movie, released in the later part of Ronald Reagan's second term is so myopic about the implications of the Cold War that it's unbelievable. Let me explain:
Of all the movies that have ever starred Val Kilmer, this one probably needs the least introduction (other than "Batman Forever"). Just about everyone saw "Top Gun" when they were growing up. It was a mega-hit and propelled Tom Cruise from a doofus dancing around a living room in his underwear to a doofus of an action movie star. Kilmer's supporting role as Tom "Iceman" Kazanski propelled him to bigger and better things and so this movie is almost definitely responsible for the blog you're now reading.
The story is about the Navy's advanced training camp for its top pilots. Tom Cruise plays Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a hot shot pilot who is the son of another hot shot pilot who went inexplicably missing and whose whereabouts are 'classified.' Maverick's partner is Anthony Edwards, aka "Goose,"
(aka Dr. Mark Greene on E.R. - seriously, he aged terribly)
Anyway they manage to get nominated to the Top Gun school through sheer ballsiness... and by default since the other guy quit. The pilots compete in training exercises and are awarded points. The winner gets his name on a plaque and can be a flight instructor in the Top Gun program (whoo hoo!).
Val Kilmer is the favorite to win the contest because he's... what's the word, competent. I always remembered Iceman as being this huge villain, but after having just watched it again, I'm pretty convinced that he's got a point. Basically, his beef with Maverick is that Maverick (as his McCain-inspiring nickname ought to foreshadow) is reckless and his mistakes will end up getting people in killed. This seems like a fairly straightforward critique. Maverick is kind of a jackass who doesn't care to follow military discipline and the more straight laced soldier doesn't respect him because of it.
And you'll never believe what happens! Maverick's aggressive flying leads to his plane stalling in midair and Dr. Goose dying. Also, Iceman actually wins the Top Gun contest! Did anyone else not remember this? I guess I was always under the impression that Maverick was the Top Gun, but he's not. Your led to believe that somehow Maverick's the hero because... well I don't know really, he sleeps with his teacher? He's aggressive? He's sad about being personally responsible for making his best friend's wife a widow? He recklessly endangers the lives of the crew members in the control tower for his own selfish amusement by flying perilously close to it at a high speed? When you think about it, Iceman is totally right to not respect Maverick. Iceman is a paragon of accountability. He's a reliable and skilled pilot who doesn't seem to have an F-14 Tomcat's worth of personal issues to deal with. Kilmer plays the sort of pilot our country should hope for in its service members. Cruise plays a guy who will probably get shook up after combat and end up a burnt out bum with a sign pleading for help for a vet.
That said "Top Gun" does set up an interestingly confrontational dynamic between Tom "Mr. Scientology" Cruise and Val Kilmer, a Christian Scientist (not to be confused with the aforementioned L. Ron Hubbard nonsense). One thing's for certain: not a lot of pharmaceuticals around the set with these two as the leads. Also, I'm pretty sure this is the only movie that they were in together.
I'm aware this has gotten long but I do want to touch briefly on one other point. The battle scene near the end of the movie is so preposterous. When during the later point of the cold war did Migs (as in the fighter jets of the Soviet Union) and US aircraft actually ever come even remotely close to engaging in combat? The movie's plot has a downed communication ship about to be blown up by a Mig fighters. Why? Don't worry about it? They're the evil empire? Fine. But why would the Migs willing engage the US fighters and risk World War III? It's nonsensical. It's just a convenient plot device that allows this expensive military hardware to be actually be used. Imagine how boring of a movie it would be if they just did the engage, retreat without firing a shot thing that happens at the beginning of the movie (and most likely did happen whenever either side encroached on the other's airspace). Why is the navy in the Indian Ocean in the first place? It's unexplainable militarism like this that makes people like me unable to enjoy brainless action movies.
In conclusion, that volleyball scene does not connect to any other part of the story at all, whatsoever. It's five minutes of absolutely shameless filler... but look at those bods.
Of all the movies that have ever starred Val Kilmer, this one probably needs the least introduction (other than "Batman Forever"). Just about everyone saw "Top Gun" when they were growing up. It was a mega-hit and propelled Tom Cruise from a doofus dancing around a living room in his underwear to a doofus of an action movie star. Kilmer's supporting role as Tom "Iceman" Kazanski propelled him to bigger and better things and so this movie is almost definitely responsible for the blog you're now reading.
The story is about the Navy's advanced training camp for its top pilots. Tom Cruise plays Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, a hot shot pilot who is the son of another hot shot pilot who went inexplicably missing and whose whereabouts are 'classified.' Maverick's partner is Anthony Edwards, aka "Goose,"
(aka Dr. Mark Greene on E.R. - seriously, he aged terribly)Anyway they manage to get nominated to the Top Gun school through sheer ballsiness... and by default since the other guy quit. The pilots compete in training exercises and are awarded points. The winner gets his name on a plaque and can be a flight instructor in the Top Gun program (whoo hoo!).
Val Kilmer is the favorite to win the contest because he's... what's the word, competent. I always remembered Iceman as being this huge villain, but after having just watched it again, I'm pretty convinced that he's got a point. Basically, his beef with Maverick is that Maverick (as his McCain-inspiring nickname ought to foreshadow) is reckless and his mistakes will end up getting people in killed. This seems like a fairly straightforward critique. Maverick is kind of a jackass who doesn't care to follow military discipline and the more straight laced soldier doesn't respect him because of it.
And you'll never believe what happens! Maverick's aggressive flying leads to his plane stalling in midair and Dr. Goose dying. Also, Iceman actually wins the Top Gun contest! Did anyone else not remember this? I guess I was always under the impression that Maverick was the Top Gun, but he's not. Your led to believe that somehow Maverick's the hero because... well I don't know really, he sleeps with his teacher? He's aggressive? He's sad about being personally responsible for making his best friend's wife a widow? He recklessly endangers the lives of the crew members in the control tower for his own selfish amusement by flying perilously close to it at a high speed? When you think about it, Iceman is totally right to not respect Maverick. Iceman is a paragon of accountability. He's a reliable and skilled pilot who doesn't seem to have an F-14 Tomcat's worth of personal issues to deal with. Kilmer plays the sort of pilot our country should hope for in its service members. Cruise plays a guy who will probably get shook up after combat and end up a burnt out bum with a sign pleading for help for a vet.
That said "Top Gun" does set up an interestingly confrontational dynamic between Tom "Mr. Scientology" Cruise and Val Kilmer, a Christian Scientist (not to be confused with the aforementioned L. Ron Hubbard nonsense). One thing's for certain: not a lot of pharmaceuticals around the set with these two as the leads. Also, I'm pretty sure this is the only movie that they were in together.
I'm aware this has gotten long but I do want to touch briefly on one other point. The battle scene near the end of the movie is so preposterous. When during the later point of the cold war did Migs (as in the fighter jets of the Soviet Union) and US aircraft actually ever come even remotely close to engaging in combat? The movie's plot has a downed communication ship about to be blown up by a Mig fighters. Why? Don't worry about it? They're the evil empire? Fine. But why would the Migs willing engage the US fighters and risk World War III? It's nonsensical. It's just a convenient plot device that allows this expensive military hardware to be actually be used. Imagine how boring of a movie it would be if they just did the engage, retreat without firing a shot thing that happens at the beginning of the movie (and most likely did happen whenever either side encroached on the other's airspace). Why is the navy in the Indian Ocean in the first place? It's unexplainable militarism like this that makes people like me unable to enjoy brainless action movies.
In conclusion, that volleyball scene does not connect to any other part of the story at all, whatsoever. It's five minutes of absolutely shameless filler... but look at those bods.
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