The Big Picture - The ‘Sinners’ Surge. Plus: The Val Kilmer Hall of Fame!

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Sean is joined by Chris Ryan to honor the late Val Kilmer by creating his Hall of Fame. Before creating the list, Chris shares his thoughts on why Ryan Coogler’s ‘Sinners’ worked so well, sort through the box office controversy, and consider what kind of award chances the film has (4:18). Then, they build the Val Kilmer Hall of Fame by selecting the 10 most essential performances of his career (34:13). Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Chris Ryan Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you hear the word Seattle SuperSonics, what comes to mind? Maybe it's Shawn Kemp, the Rain Man, or Gary Payton, the Glove, or maybe an image of a tall and skinny 19-year-old rookie, Kevin Duran. For fans in Seattle, it's something else. It's tragedy. It's theft. An iconic team with an incredible fan base that packed its bags and shipped off for Oklahoma City. From Spotify and The Ringer, I'm Jordan Ritter-Kahn.

And in my podcast, Sonic Boom, I talk to players, politicians, owners, and fans about how Seattle lost the Sonics. You can listen to it on the Book of Basketball feed, on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Air Canada. Ready for your next adventure? How about taking in views upon views in Athens, browsing mouthwatering night markets in Bangkok, or dancing to Carnival in the Caribbean?

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Maduri prioritizes quality and sustainability using only 14K gold, sterling silver, diamonds and gemstones. Shop up to 20% off everything in store, in app or online at maduri.com. or online at majoree.com. I'm Sean Fennessy and this is the Big Picture A Conversation Show about Val Kilmer. Chris Ryan is here today to join me.

We are going to honor the life and work of one of our favorite actors who passed away earlier this year by building his Hall of Fame. We're also going to talk about the movie Sinners. I've been eager to get Chris Ryan's take on Sinners. Before we dig into that, we were talking about The Odyssey R. Oh, yeah. And we've been on an odyssey of movie stories

these last few months. You watched the trailer this morning. I did, man. Thankfully, you know, your relationship with trailers is shifting every day. Yeah. Zach Kroeger has a new movie coming out, Weapons. I think I'm also on the record. Teasers are fine. Okay. Teaser, it's the three minute, it's the five minute final trailer. Here's all the footage that we finished before.

You know, I've seen Thunderbolts now. So I feel similarly. When I was in Las Vegas. They did in fact show a full trailer for weapons They did not show this teaser which has been released This is the follow-up to barbarian a movie that we've been looking forward to got bumped up to an August release date Has been described as magnolia, but horror I feel like we're gonna end up regretting that framework as something that I keep repeating on the show But what do you think of this teaser trailer? I can't wait. I'm so excited for this movie I am also really into the way that they are packaging and promoting it

So it's a 45 second teaser. This is a movie from Craig obviously starts Josh Berlin and Julia Garner among other people and What you can divine from the trailer is that there is obviously this small town where all these children go missing, apparently voluntarily in the middle of the night. You get some sort of security camera footage of kids running away with their arms outstretched. Kind of makes me feel like there's a Slenderman piece

in here. The teaser ends and you are given a URL to go to. I believe it's maybrookmissing.com, which takes you to a late 90s, early aught style GeoCities news site that is documenting this story. I looked at it a little bit, not too much. So Blair Witch is in the mix. This idea of creating a extra textual reality for this movie looks cool. I love hearing Brolin. That Timber just talking about those kids just ran out. They

weren't abducted. Brolin gets an incredible Brolin moment in the full trailer, which maybe you should avoid. But I'm also just so psyched to see him in doing work with a guy like Kreger. With a cool director in a big movie I totally agree that part. I believe was originally meant to be Pedro Pascal I think we are a little we're in Pedro Pascal over exposure mode right now So I'm kind of grateful that with the last of us going like to talk about the fantastic for the Mandalorian and Grogu coming

We've got a lot of Pedro actually like a Meme I think it was from, or maybe it was a cartoon from The New Yorker who could even tell anymore. And it was somebody who was getting an ultrasound of their baby and it was Pedro Pascal. And the caption's like, "'Man, he's in everything these days.'"

Yeah, he's a little overexposed. And so I'm grateful that Brolin's got the look in weapons. I'm pumped for weapons. It feels very similar to the The Long Legs playbook too of like how can we create a viral marketing sensation out of a movie that you know on the surface looks like a pure horror thriller which of course we love on the show. Speaking of pure horror thrillers. So Sinners.

Should I open a CR six pack? Do you have six? I have six takeaways five and a half. Okay. Yeah, so it's like I think about them I'd put him in I wanted to keep him from yeah, I have like a whole other doc here phenomenal I love it. I want to be surprised this is a new film from Ryan Coogler A box office sensation or has it yeah that stars Michael B Jordan. It's been covered quite aggressively here at the Ringer Podcast Network and frankly, in all of movie media because this is a movie

that people who love movies have been begging for for a long time. You yourself, there's one thing I wanna share with you, which may be in your notes, but I wanna cite it because I thought about this hard over the weekend knowing you were seeing it. When we did our Nosferatu pod, you said out on Dracula, in on vampires. One of the great takes.

Not one I agree with, but a great take. You also said recently, out on twin movies. Yeah, out on twin performances. Twin performances. Entirely, yeah. So the movie Twins you're in on, because not twin performances. I mean, that's fine if they would like to document that.

But like for the deuce, for people playing their own twins, I mean, even Tom Hardy and craze, like I it's just it's just not. It takes me out. The parent trap. You're out. No. Yeah. OK. OK. So this is this is a conundrum. I was I was confronted with a lot of myself in this in this theater, you know. But I came out fucking loving it. And Jordan, I thought was great.

I thought he was great as Smoke and Stack. It takes a little while to be like, and he does this and he does that, like, and kind of dividing the differences between the two, but the color coding for their outfits and then obviously their romantic affairs and everything about their personalities comes clear. I have a couple of things I want to throw at you. I listened to you and Van and Amanda, but I was trying to find new things to talk about or different things to talk about. Number one thing I loved about this movie, not only a great all in one day movie, but a great one crazy night movie. Taking out all of the horror of it. It's just like, let's open a nightclub

is an incredible like package to put a story in. And I think that I've been thinking about this a lot because of Andor and Last of Us are stretched out across years and years and years and films still can do compression better than any visual storytelling medium. It's really exciting to watch a filmmaker have to say everything he wants to say about a bunch of characters and a story, and give himself this, not only the runtime of the film, but especially like this, these borders of, this is how much time is gonna elapse.

And you know, it's, we're only with these guys. I saw people being like, I want the smoke and stack Chicago prequel. I'm like, no, this is the most important day of their lives. We got it. It's a great way of thinking about it. And we talked about that a little bit on the pod,

which is just that the conveyance of information in the movie is really well handled. Because there's a ton of exposition that has to happen about where these guys have been, what life was like 20 years ago when they lived there, why they need to open a juke joint, the history of these vampires. Like there's just so much data that he needs to fit in basically a two hour movie and it never feels like overweening.

It never feels overbearing. Yeah, I think because most of that exposition is happening for it's in the foreground and in the background, there's a nightclub scene going on or you're in a train station in Clarksdale in the thirties and you're like, this is you're in a train station in Clarksdale in the 30s and you're like, this is magical. I can't believe he's doing this. I really enjoyed the tempo and the tone of it. I also really loved Kugler's pride and affection

for the characters not getting in the way of effective storytelling about the characters. Probably for a movie of this scope and honestly for a movie of this genre, it's either a very rote adaptation of something like, you know, like Nosferatu, like retelling a vampire story, retelling even an Amrae story or whatever you wanna say.

Or, you know, when we think about like, Coogler's previous work in Black Panther and just the marvelification of a lot of storytelling, that there's just a lot of armor around characters because they might be needed elsewhere. We might be needed again for whatever reasons. And I'm sure you could find a workaround for this, but I just thought like this was old school. You love these people, but that doesn't mean that they're going to make it through the night.

And it doesn't mean that their sins aren't gonna come back to Haunt them. So I thought that that was great and I mean just felt liberated from intellectual property Yeah, it's if we don't want to spoil this for anyone who has not yet had the chance to see the movie It's hard to say specifically what you're saying, but this is a movie with stakes Both two times. Yeah, two times. Yeah for sure. Yeah. And that's really uncommon in big movies with movie stars that are genre. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I think that we probably grew up with more of an experience of like, oh, yeah, in an action movie, like sometimes the good guy might die or, you know.

But like this, this really felt like a throwback to that. And I know that he's been talking a lot about this is rooted in my experience of going to the theater in the 90s and the kinds of kinds of movies that he would see. So it's really cool. Just generally speaking. Watching this, I was like, to make a great movie, you kind of have to think your movie is going to be great. And he makes him makes this movie with the swagger and self belief that it's not

perfect, but it has the capacity for greatness because of how like, it's just like, Hey man, I'm doing the top button. There's music everywhere. There's going to be color. There's going to be spirit. There's going to be all this stuff. There's going to be moments where I'm going to try shit that might not work for everybody. But it felt, it's a really interesting counter to Black Bag, which is so buttoned

up and is like, this is the perfect double to left. And I've, you know, to me, even better than that, it's transcendent to me, but it is like playing within itself, whereas this is like there are no, there are no lines to color inside of. Yeah, I think they're both, both of those movies are interesting because I think for us those are probably the two best ones of the year. They're two great working filmmakers who work in different modes. Soderbergh is so contained and self-sufficient and is like shoots it himself, edits it himself,

conceives it himself, holds the camera. He feels like a one man factory. He's not. He has a writer, he has, you know, costume designers and location scouts and he's working with tons of people, but it feels like he's a one-man factory. He's not, he has a writer, he has costume designers and location scouts and he's working with tons of people but it feels like he's a one-man machine. Coogler goes out of his way to say, I've got this incredible team of department heads

and all the people that work for them. I've got this coterie of actors, some of whom I work with all the time, some of whom I'm working with for the first time. He has a real like family vibe and so because it feels more sprawling and it is it's just more daring. I think Black Bag feels commercially daring at a time like this. But Black Bag has like a nine minute dinner scene where you're just like, I can't believe

this is happening. This is incredible. Right. But there were times in movies when stuff like that happened. So yeah, I mean, they're sort of like, they're ill fitting comp points, but I think they're both just made by people who were just born to make movies. And so it feels exciting watching them do their thing. I, you guys talked about this a little bit, but I just wanted to reiterate how exciting

it is to watch a truly awesome filmmaker work within genre and use genre as basically the language of vocabulary to communicate his ideas. So this goes back to, I mean, it goes back to the beginning of storytelling. But for me personally, like I think I really truly started to feel this way when I was introduced to the movies of Godard and Sergio Leone, where they're taking quintessentially American genres, but looking at it in a much different way to say things about both America and film and archetypes that are just so invigorating and they re-energize the entire genre itself. So using vampire horror to communicate things about,

God, I mean, like there are so many interesting ideas in this movie, but I kept thinking about like what it means to feel safe, you know, because these people are trying to create a space that is protected from the outside world for one night. And at every single place, like, you know, there's this invasion happening. But that awesome vampire trope of you have to invite them in

is this... it's this, like... temptation, you know, throughout the film. Throughout the second half of the film that I thought was just fascinating to watch play out. Yeah, I think this is something I probably didn't do a good enough job talking about on Friday, but the entire framework of Remic, the Irish vampire played by Jack O'Connell, presenting empathy and politesse to make union with what he wants, to get what he wants, is just an incredible idea for a black filmmaker

to put on screen. And the awareness of that and thinking about that specifically and the way that he's not, even though he is a demon, he is not openly demonizing Remick as much as he would demonize, say, KKK members in a movie. But it's very clear that this is a quote unquote white ally who has like turned bad.

You know what I mean? Who has drawn someone into something, who is trying to draw somebody into something so that they can become part of a hive mind that he is in charge of. The collective consciousness of the vampires actually really jumped out at me because this idea that he is trying to appeal to them

by being like, okay, I can erase all the pain and we can live forever and we can live in true equality. But he's also like your memories and your, your emotions are now mine. Like there is a still like a possessive quality to the ownership. That's the whole thing. Collective ism of, of the vampires and just like the invoking different historical moments, different ideas from history to amplify commentary about probably our contemporary moment, which I think was handled incredibly well. Just like not too flashy, Al Capone gets mentioned briefly, you know, like Jim Crow gets mentioned almost as a phantom on the other side of the door, but it's not, it's not like you have like

a Ken Burns moment where they're like, here's a picture and we're gonna tell you all about it, you know, like, and love the idea of what do you do to find transcendence? Just whether it's through music, whether it's through religion, the occult, whether it's through sex, whether it's through, you know, whatever you find, like it's all about these characters. And the very, the grace note of the movie is about like, this awful blood soaked night was also the best day of multiple characters' lives.

And they were able to find like this emotional closure with everybody. But you know, I think the piercing the veil sequence is gonna be one that people talk about for a long time of multiple characters' lives, and they were able to find, like, this emotional closure with everybody. But, you know, I think the piercing the veil sequence is going to be one that people talk about for a long time, because it's going to work for, like, eight out of ten people are going to be like, that was incredible. And then two will be like, you lost me right there. Yeah.

I think some of the feedback we got on the conversation that we had about the show is that we weren't, like, identifying what was happening, which is I think all three of us when we were talking about it understood that in the preamble to the film, you know, the sort of intro and Coogler does this often in his movies where he kind of like sets up the thematic wavelength of the story by giving you this kind of mythological tent that you know the movie is going to live inside of the idea of the griot and that there is one who can kind of transcend their artistry and that that person is attractive and very valuable and powerful in the culture. To me, I think when we were having that discussion, we were trying to talk about kind of like the metaphorical power of that piercing the

veil senior talking about sort of like, what does it represent beyond what it means to the story? What does it mean beyond drawing Remick in? That's like the siren to Remick. He's like, I need him so that I can be back with the people that I've lost over the centuries or whatever long it's been. But to me, I mean, what's incredible about that is not how it fits in the story. It's about the abstraction that is happening inside of a mainstream movie that is just so rare to be able to forcibly pull you out of the grounded logic of a movie and show you something that is philosophical, emotional, musicologically historical, like all of that

stuff and forcing you to think about how these ideas matter to the movie is really hard to do. Well, I think it's a challenge to all the fake rules of genre movies. It's like you go in there and you're like, well, vampires technically are like, and then it's like, well, vampires respectfully don't exist. They're fake. So I think they can do whatever they want. Yeah.

He's playing by those rules. But what he's asking you is if you believe in vampires, do you really not believe that music can open a portal through time for some people? Even in this moment? I mean, like do drugs once like it happens. Absolutely. It's a great point. There's one other thing that is related to that that I wanted to talk about, which is. That was not a do drugs to our listeners, by the way. It was just like. Should they not do drugs once, like it happens. Absolutely. It's a great point. There's one other thing that is related to that that I wanted to talk about, which is I was not a do drugs to our listeners, by the way,

and it's just should they not do drugs? Yeah. You don't you don't think they should do drugs. Just want to be clear on that. Only do drugs when Amanda is on the fly. The other thing that is related to that in terms of the genre rule playing is while God and the church is a presence in this story because of Preacher Boy's father and the beginning and the ending of the genre rule playing is while God and the church is a presence in this story because of Preacher Boy's father and the beginning and the ending of the film, the Christ imagery doesn't matter to the vampires. There are no crosses, there's no holy water to

battle them. That's pickled garlic juice that she throws on him. That is a great scene when he gets splashed with that stuff. But removing that imagery from the vampire battle, I think actually puts it in a slightly different vampire framework. Like it not being reliant on the church, the Christian mythology is a fascinating, like a very pointed choice that I think, you know, you can read into it and say that Kugler is taking a slightly elevated kind of post-Judeo Christian idea of genre., you can read into it and say that Kugler is taking a slightly elevated kind of post-Judeo-Christian idea of genre. Or you can say that like, when you're in the real world, you were confronted by demons and you don't have just your faith to rely

on. Or you can have faith in lots of different things. You know, you can have faith in the things that Annie believes in, you can have faith in music, you can have faith in all sorts of stuff. And it's, I like the way that he makes the church scenes feel almost alien from the color palette and the feel of the rest of the movie, because for Sammy, like, that's the alien world. Like the place he feels home are these smoke filled bars playing music and that's his church.

So I really love that. And finally, you guys talked about this, but just a grown-up movie for grown-up audiences with like, conilingus and death and consequences, which is the big three for me. Sex, violence, power, sucking on ladies' necks. Yeah. Yeah, stuff you like. And just a big rousing round of applause when directed by Ryan Coogler came up in the oh, yeah

Yeah, that's cool. Where'd you see it? Just Glendale, but packed house on a Friday and You know like this movie is carrying a lot of weight probably Not not it has nothing to do with with like the intention of the film But has become this lodestar for Where are we going as as you know an art form in an industry with this stuff and? honestly like It's early days, but like it's been it's been really nice to just see a movie that you know Everybody is pretty much like it was either really fun, or I thought it was fantastic and mind-blowing

But there hasn't been the big, like, actually, it's not that good. Or, you know, it ends too many times. You know, and it does end too many times, and there's things wrong with it, but like, I don't know, I just thought, let's have it, let's enjoy this for five days, and not pocket watch so much.

Well, it's hard to do, you know? I know, but it had a good weekend. It did have a good week. I think it's hard to have that conversation. There's an episode of The Town that went up yesterday that was sort of like an analysis of the analysis. Yeah, I listened to that one. That's where we're in this zone where we need to have

an aggressive understanding of the clear profitability of a movie in a three-day period. The trades were writing about the movie in a very odd way. This is a very complex issue. I don't think that there's a right answer. I think celebrating the movie is the most important thing. The reason why I persistently talk about box office on this show, even though I think the quality of a movie is what matters to me the most, is that it does often dictate what and how movies are made in the future. This one's particularly notable because of

the ownership reversion that's been much talked about where Coogler gets copyright of the film after 25 years. The suspicion is that like there's plants by the studios to undermine the perceived success of this movie so that nobody goes asking for these things again. Or is it the studios that are rival studios that are planting this information? Or is it people who want Mike DeLuca's job, Pam Abdi's job, who are saying, don't get too ahead of yourselves, this movie actually is going to lose money? Or is it just some box office writers look at things in a very linear theatrical profitability mind frame and that's an old fashioned way to think about it? Or is it that we're willing to take the bait on what a production budget is and what a

marketing spend is and there's no way to verify those things publicly. The truth is, is that everything is kind of squishy in the middle. Like there's nobody's going to be like right about whether a movie is profitable or not, myself included, even though I can make bold claims about things. Yeah, I feel like, you know, it was funny. It was like, I was listening to Bill and Ryan talking Sunday night and they were talking about how many open threes the Timberwolves had on Saturday and Ryan was kind of going through well, it was this but if you if you take out the last two which were garbage time and then you Go back and watch them all it's like this and then you kind of like the number keeps shrinking Yeah, I think you could do that same kind of like and the longer Ryan talked

I was like he's right because I was at the game. I was like he's right. He's right He's right But I was also like you can feel the point losing its headline grabbing ability because it's now a much more nuanced conversation. Sinners, whether or not it's profitable or not, it just doesn't really matter to the whether we get up on Wednesday or not. But there's so many different ways that this movie is going to be spun out over the next couple of years whether it's

Getting met and licensed to Netflix its impact on max when it hits max whatever VOD It makes like people going to see it three times But like that not necessarily getting reported in a month when we're distracted by five other things. There's so many more output Opportunities people don't think about it's like movies are licensed to airlines, movies are licensed to hotel chains. Like the revenue streams for movies now are coming in so many different directions. And a movie like this, which basically has a strong word of mouth, as you could possibly have for a movie

that is not known IP, it is gonna be a flowing river of revenue over the next 10, 20, 30 years. And so- Well, up to 25 years. Well, then that revenue will pour directly into Ryan Coogler, which I think is wonderful. It's also funny that people are like hand wringing about Ryan Coogler getting the rights back.

It's like, do we really think there's going to be a Warner Brothers discovery in 25 years? Yeah. I mean, the thing that is interesting to me about that specifically is this has been attempted in various ways throughout the history of Hollywood So there's been a lot of comparisons to what Quentin Tarantino's once upon time Hollywood and people like a lot of comparisons of like literal Headlines against the success of those movies to me. They're like those are that's a real apples and oranges situation Quentin Tarantino Hugely established filmmaker literally a genius and making movies also working in on movie with Leo and Brad Pitt. So let's not compare these two movies. It's pointless. Secondarily, cooler seeking ownership

of the film, but staying inside the studio system to make it is interesting and different. Like, it's different than United Artists and actors banding together to build their own studio. It's different than Francis Ford Coppola and Zoetrope using the studio system to then like build up his wealth and springboard into his own system. It's not that different, it's a little different but not that different from George Lucas retaining ownership of Star Wars or Star Wars merchandising or Lucasfilm. That's the one to me that I feel like is a little bit misunderstood, misrepresented as a comp point. Yeah, because that is something that,

if you have the power to create characters that people love, and I think, don't get me wrong, Sinners is not gonna be Star Wars. But if you have fallen in love with Smoke or Stack, or Mary, or Breacher Boy, and you own that, you can continue to iterate on that forever. Or until you decide to sell it back to Disney or Warner Brothers or whomever. So I think one of the reasons why you get like that vulture piece that's like, could

this ruin the studio system as we know it, which has been working so damn well for the last 10 years, what would we do without the studio system? The challenge is, is that Kugler's doing something really interesting, which is he's having it both ways. He is using the tools of the studio system, deal making and financing for the movie. He's using the relationship with exhibitors. He's using the marketing and publicity teams

that are getting the movie in front of people. But at the end of the day, he will get to own it long term. To me, like, I don't wanna break the whole movie going apparatus, but I do actually think that this could and probably should continue to happen in different ways. There are different permutations of this, and like movies are defined by this in some ways.

So I don't, whatever anxiety, like people who work in the business have, I'm like, you're gonna be dead before it changes There's also that attitude that I feel like It's it's funny. It's like when a studio decides actually we're not gonna put your movie into theaters there's like a much more mild uproar about them going back on their word mm-hmm or cutting the legs out from a title by like taking it out of theaters 12

days later and putting it on streaming or they control the ways and means just I don't give a shit but like flushing that girl down the toilet after it was made. Yes. There's like oh you guys should have done that but this somehow has been like a three week news cycle of like the existential threat sinners, a not profitable film poses to Warner Brothers that you guys spend all your time. And I don't mean that, I just mean like the you guys of the world being like,

we spend all of our time second guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking Warner Brothers, someone makes like a different kind of deal with them and it's like, what's gonna happen to Warner Brothers? Yeah, like they'll be fine or they won't. Yeah there's two there's two related strains to that as well one of which is I believe this is data point is right which is that one studio has two films grossing over 40 million dollars in the same weekend for the first time since 2009 when Avatar and your favorite movie

of that year Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Squeak Queen. No, that was my Disney weekend. I loved it. I actually personally wrote a check to Rupert Murdoch thanking him. To all of Walt Disney's relatives. I think the fact that that is a true statement is amazing and all of the hand wringing that myself and many others were doing about the future of Warner Brothers and now we're confronted by basically, again, once again, the thing I said on the pod, I think is true. When the Minecraft movie came out, I was like, this is amazing that this movie is doing well so that we can get more one battle after another.

Or sinners. Like there's meant to be this correlative relationship between big movies for everybody that make kids happy, that make parents happy, that are four quadrant. Those things should always exist. There's nothing wrong with that, whether you like it or not, so that you can take a chance

on an unusual Ryan Coogler original film. So the fact that they're both working is cause for celebration, not undermining. I also, I have not and will not see Minecraft if I can help myself what if you love it but like seriously what if you love it first of all Jack Black was at that Lakers game months on Saturday and got like a fucking larger applause then then like Rui Hachimora so we're doing 35 over 35 movie stars next

month uh-huh he top five he is making an incredibly strong bit right now I did not really fully understand his power until I saw the success. Yeah, like is he more successful than Brad Pitt? There is a strong case like a very strong kit. Anyway continue The thing that's cool about both Minecraft and Sinners being in the theater right now is that even though Minecraft is an adaptation of a piece of video game IP, it hadn't been made before. And Sinners is an original story. I think people can be like, you know what, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, just like leave Tomb

Raider in the past. Make something new. I just hope that this is a signal that we are like breaking free of the like, well, we have this stuff in our library, so let's see if anybody has an original take on X piece of shit. Even if it's like Michael Bay making OutRun with Sydney Sweeney, that to me feels like 400 blows compared to like what we've had in the last five years.

You know, I agree with you. I've been banging this drum since the Barbenheimer Super Mario Brothers year. Michael Bay is making OutRun, the video game Out Run. With Sydney Sweeney? Apparently. Michael Bay and Sydney Sweeney are making a movie together? Yes. Do you understand how hot she's going to look in that movie?

Just between you, me and the cameras going out to the internet. Yeah. Well, what about her performance? What kind of a performance will she get? I think she's going to be like, it's going to be like Sophie's Choice. She's definitely getting nominated for an Oscar in her performance like what kind of performance will she I think she's gonna be like it's gonna be like Sophie's Choice Definitely getting nominated for an Oscar and her performance in Outrun and I'm really happy for her. Should I start playing Outrun? You ever played Outrun? No. The card game? No. Awesome. She's like spy hunter a little bit. It's a car racing movie. Yeah Cindy sweetie is gonna be a race car driver. Look

Okay, I gotta give the people what they want. This is populism. I'm very happy with the success of Sinners. I don't know if it's going to make $250 million at the box office. It kind of doesn't matter. You know, it's really, it's really just not a big deal. The movie's great. There has not been a lot of awards conversation about it because I think everyone's a little afraid to be like a vampire movie it's really bloody a lot of sex in it I it feels like kind of a layup I feel into best picture so that's what I wanted to ask you is this possibly because it's an April release the everything ever all at once of this year or more likely the dune part 2 which is to say big studio movie genre you guys liked it well Avatar is this year?

Avatar is yes, December. I have no doubts about Avatar 3. I wonder academy wise if it will be as praised as 2 was because it just happened a few years ago. But like, okay, you could make the case for in a world post get out, post the substance where movies like that get nominated for major awards and win major awards you could strongly make the case

for a picture director original screenplay actor cinematography best casting which will be a new category starting next year starting 2026 costumes hair and makeup production design original score and original song yeah like those are all on the be a ten-nob movie it really really could be costumes, hair and makeup, production design, original score, and original song. Yeah. Like those are all on the table. It could be a 10-nom movie. It really, really could be. They definitely also could re-release this at Christmas, or Halloween, and scare the shit out of yourself.

So Halloween is a great idea. That's a really, really great idea. Only in IMAX for two weeks, Sinners, how like, that's an easy thing to do. I agree. I agree. And I think it would work. And Coogler has made films that have been nominated for Best Picture. I mean, Black Panther was nominated for Best Picture. This is not out of the question. And I just haven't seen much conversation about it. Maybe this is the place where you should be having the conversation on this particular podcast. But um... Podcast about Ruiz and awards.

Yeah. And I do know that I'm not saying like, this has to be nominated for best picture because who knows what the year will hold, but it's pretty clearly the most exciting movie thing that has happened in almost four months. Yeah, I'll be, if, I think it's always great. The first half of the year can be a little bit ups and downs because you get Dumpuary, which is now March, and you know, all these things. When you get to May and June and you get a movie like this and you get

a movie like Black Bag and you're like, it's gonna be pretty exciting if there's like 10 movies better than that. Right. Right. And that is how I think about it. I'm constantly like, okay, we're I always think about that with TV. Like, you know, I'll see your industry and I'll be like, man, if TV is better than that this year, my job is going to be easy. I'm not sure a lot of stuff is going to get ahead of centers. And just in terms of like the pure, especially the second time I saw it, I was like, this is really fork at times.

Like there are aspects of this that are getting right to the top of how excited I get about movies. So like the moment I keep coming back to is just a very simple one, but the movie flashes back on it because it knows how powerful it is, which is just stack is driving with just preacher boy and he tells him he starts playing guitar. His face when he starts playing. His reaction and we're gonna make some money now. And just the timbre of Miles Cain's voice in that scene where I was like, this is fucking, that's how I felt when, uh, Berlin is performing and is doing the stomping.

Yes. And it's cutting around to all the different things that are happening in that point in the film, but they're using the rhythm of her performance as like the editing intercutting. Yes. With a, with a dude getting stomped out in the other room. It's such a smart move. That's the song I would probably put up,

Pale Pale Moon, which is written by Brittany Howard from Alabama Shakes. Oh cool. And she sings a version of it on the soundtrack. You could see, I could see that being performed at the Academy Awards. Yes. You know, okay.

Any other sinners thoughts? Thank you for going down the slide with me once more. No, I saw your syllabus and I agreed. Oh, yeah. Yeah, thanks. Also just awesome to have a big Hollywood blockbuster that's making people think about tons of other movies. Let's make a transition to Val Kilmer. Yeah. So you mentioned this idea of the imperfect with the ecstatic with sinners and I would say that Val

had that as an actor. A kind of fascinatingly erratic rise, pushed through the mainstream, top of the poster, star system, guy who runs Hollywood for a period of time. Sure. Has a fairly precipitous slide down in terms of his stature, but the things that he did when he was at the top are forever performances are like things that you just you cannot be more excited to be watching an actor doing his thing. What is your what is your what is your lasting memory

of him as a performer? Well, there's a Paul Newman line in Color of Money, where he calls Tom Cruise an incredible flake. He calls his character that. I think about that for Kilmer. Just an incredible flake. And what I mean by that is has all the tools of a quintessential movie star, the looks, the presence, the charisma, humor, romance, action, can do everything. And he's just a fucking weirdo. Yep. And he's just a real weirdo.

And in some ways, like we can talk about him for 30 minutes here. I would really recommend people if they can find any films that he has done director's commentary on. He is one of the most engaging, hilarious people to listen, talk about films that he's been in. Kind of like Affleck just has like a great sense of humor about making movies, but also his own performance,

he is not too precious about them. You know, obviously like an incredibly tumultuous career, but magnetic. When he is on screen, no matter who he is sharing the screen with, even if it's Pacino or De Niro, you're like, what is he doing? I'm always watching Val Kilmer.

And so yeah, really tragic loss. Yeah, he passed away at 65. He was diagnosed with cancer about 10 years ago. Always some controversy in some of these conversations because he was a Christian scientist and his relationship to treatment and medicine. There's an absolutely wonderful piece about him that our friend Chuck Klosterman wrote 20 years ago for Esquire when he went out and visited him at his ranch

and spent some time with him. And I think that weirdness Chuck got a real handle on, that sense of humor, that sense of mythologizing that he was very good at, the sort of the casual name dropping that he's doing with people like Bob Dillon and kind of associating himself with these legendary figures, but also being self-deprecating at the same time. This wonderful portrayal of his relationship to his kids. It's a very affecting,

but also just like very humorous and fun piece if people have not read that. I highly recommend they check it out. I did the audio when that was collected. I did the Val Kilmer's voice for the audiobook Did you I know that did that piece he got Val Kilmer to leave me a voicemail message? But it's like lost to a no way. I've never heard that flip phone back in what did that say? He was like it was basically I think he said like is this Chris Ryan welcome to the West It was something like really weird, but it was really cool. That's so special, I love that. But it's like you don't know when you're like,

I have this dumb phone that I have like a T-Mobile plan. How do I save this? That is amazing. Yeah. He, I think, you know, part of it I'm sure is the fact that for us specifically, generationally, you know, he's kind of in the firmament very quickly in terms of movies because in the early part of his career

he makes these like very silly movies that are very fun when you're a kid. And then he kind of transitions into this icon of cool as Doc Holliday, Jim Morrison, Chris Sheherless. Like he takes on a handful of parts where you're just like, God damn it, has anybody been better at commanding the screen and yet as an actor No Oscar nominations. No Golden Globe nominations. No major

nominations of any kind in his entire career Do you think that's because he's usually the best thing in a movie that is like pretty genre II or is it? More about like his kind of relationship to the town and complicated? I'm sure it's a combination of both. I think he was probably best known for stuff that we would describe as genre. I think he... The reputational stuff cuts both ways because for as many people as you say, this was the most incorrigible, difficult, complicated and annoying person I've ever worked with. If you want to read about it, look at what John Frankenheimer had to say about him publicly about working with him on the island of dr. Moreau

It's extremely unkind on the other hand if you ask True Barrymore Kurt Russell what it's like to work with him. Yeah, they have nothing but praise if he has mirror sorvino They say he was an angel. Yeah, so I think he was a complicated guy and I think on some productions He was he was tough to work with and on others. He was great I get the impression he was better complicated guy. And I think on some productions, he was tough to work with, and on others, he was great. I get the impression he was better to actors than to directors. Sure.

David Thulis, Yeah. You know, spoke after he passed away about his experience working with Val on Dr. Moreau. Dr. Moreau, it's like, that's an all time tough production. Yes. Brando and like four directors and everything that happens, so.

There's a remarkable documentary about that movie called lost soul That is mostly told through the lens of Richard Stanley the original director of that movie that I highly recommend that people check out But I was trying to think about who are the actors that are not recognized in their time You know from roughly the last 50 years there are people like Edward G Robinson and Donald Sutherland who were never nominated who you're like, that's insane. They're just in 12 all-time classics. And then there's also your amazing character actors, like you're Alan Rickman, you're Steve Buscemi, you're John Turturro. You'd think they would have one Oscar nomination, but they don't. To me, he reminds me the most of Bruce Willis and Richard Gere. Where you're like,

these were locked and loaded movie stars, underrated great actors. But if you talk to other actors, they would be like, this guy had it. And for whatever reason, because of whatever movies they were in, whatever associations they had, they never got that recognition. And now we look back on Val's career and I'm like, to not get nominated for Tombstone is just weird. It's kind of weird to not get nominated for the doors. I mean... Fully agree. You know, Tombstone is an interesting one just because I think that movie became... I remember that film coming out... Was that in the aftermath of Wired Earp or before Wired Earp?

But there was these competing Wired Earp films. I think they were being made about the same time. And Wired Earp is a huge Costner film that Lawrence Kasdan was making. It was sort of supposed to be this American epic. And Tombstone was kind of like the B movie shoot them up. At least that's the way it was presented. Yeah. And Dennis Quaid is really good as Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. But Val Kilmer is on like a completely speaking of sinners,

he's piercing the veil as Doc Holliday. Like he's talking to everybody. And that's my favorite performance of his. He's piercing the veil as Doc Holiday. He's talking to everybody. That's my favorite performance of his, but I think it's been now properly rated. I think it's now like, people have gone back and been like, I'm your Huckleberry, and this way of being this consumptive, charming cat of a killer, he nailed it.

Yeah, and it has become kind of a cliche. It has been regurgitated in style in the past. I think Maybe his beauty worked against him a little bit in this respect for sure I think that's something that works against gear and then the gear doesn't get recognized in the same way But he was chameleonic. I mean he really would he would gain weight. He would grow his hair out He would put on stupid beards. He would change his voice Yeah, and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't. He tries out an Irish accent in Ghost in the Darkness

that does not work. He took chances that didn't work. But a fascinating career. So you wanna go through the films? Sure, man. I have a tremendous amount of affection for real genius still to this day. Well, Top secret comes first.

Yeah. Oh, you want to go through like, yeah, let's go through that chronologically. Here's the problem. I think we can go from 1984 through 2005 and I've seen just about every movie. Most of these. I know. I would say maybe one or two I'm missing. And then the second half up to Maverick.

I haven't seen almost every movie he's made since 2005. Yeah, it's mostly with a handful of exceptions. Red box and independent stuff. Yes. So I don't, we don't need to belabor the discussion of every movie made in the final 30 years, but I think a little bit of time for these, these early ones is important. Top Secret, part of the Zucker Abrams trilogy of greatness with alongside Airplane and the Naked Gun recently reissued on 4k along with Top Secret. One of my wife Eileen's favorite movies of all time a kind of rock and roll spy movie spoof that I'm gonna yellow in this

conversation because I think it's really important and I think always the original film is really meaningful and we'll come back to it okay real genius is green real genius is green and this is, oh, if this guy wanted to be, he could have been Bill Murray. Or like, Tom Cruise? Yeah. I mean, I just meant comic timing and the way he would like walk into a dorm room and make six jokes that were all like asides and you'd be like, I'm now I'm going to say that for the rest of the eighties.

Yeah. I just, it's a moral imperative sequence when he's talking to the lead, which is so memorable to me and is just like, this movie is a total cable classic. He's very convincing. And it's interesting to think of him operating at the same time of this about that class of 80s actors like Cruz. He was supposed to be in the Outsiders and he passed to do a play quite famously. What part in the Outsiders?

I don't know who he was going to be, but he was at the time doing a play with Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn Wow, and so neither of them are in that movie and He He was in that cohort of guys. Oh, yes in that Cruz Penn Michael J Fox Kevin Bacon Dylan Dylan Patrick Swayze that whole crew of people he was a true contemporary of 1986 real genius or a weird science guy. Oh real genius by a mile weird science. I think is I'll tell you something crazy. I actually prefer the TV show weird science, which I run the USA Network and I quite enjoyed Kelly LeBrock's not in that one. No, but Vanessa angel is in the TV series

I'll leave that with you 1986 Top Gun. Yeah, what can you say? Iceman. Yeah. Going in. And if you take it out of the context of what happens to Tom Cruise in this movie, like and what happens to him going forward and how this catapults him to an almost singular contemporary level stardom, he kind of goes toe-to-toe with him. He does. Until they kind of, you know, hamstring him in the last act. But he's like not giving an inch in the locker room scenes and like what you know in the volleyball scenes and stuff. He's like it's my movie. Yes, there was a very touching moment at CinemaCon when Tom Cruise came out and was like let's have a moment of silence

for Val and everything he gave us. And it's interesting to think of those guys as being neck and neck for a long time in terms of stardom and then, you know, things coming all the way back around with Maverick. 1988 Willow, he played Mad Martigan. Willow movie that was super important to me. I saw it in a movie theater when I was six years old. This is Ron Howard's absurd fantasy movie. Yeah, nice partner movie with Princess Bride. Very much. What are your thoughts on Willow?

Let's yellow it. Okay. Because I think we're going to get through a bunch of... I think the thing that's cool about Willow is this is another one of his... He is the movie star, but the whole point of Mad Martigan is that he's this goofball trapped inside of King Arthur's body Yeah, there's a little Han Solo in the character a little bit of the like who me but also on the man I

Really love it as I was watching it again last night I was like I see what critics meant when they weren't kind to this movie when it came out But when I saw it as a kid, it was a classic, like this is my shit. Kill Me Again. This is him and Joanne. Joanne Wally, this is where he, he met Joanne Wally on Willow. They were opposite each other.

That's right. And they fell in love, and then they made another movie together called Kill Me Again. I had never seen this movie until this week. John Dahl. Like a comedy thriller? Not very funny.

Okay. An extremely violent, depraved neo-noir about a dame who comes into a guy's office and says, hey, I'm on the run from my boyfriend who I stole money from and I want you to kill me or at least make it seem as though I've been killed so that he leaves me alone. The old Fletch thing, yeah. And John Dahl is on a run here of this movie, Red Rock West, The Last Seduction, and Rounders. That is unfuckwithable. This is my least favorite of those four films. Still pretty good.

I remember this as a trailer at the beginning of a lot of VHS movies, but I don't remember seeing this. I think because of the trailer, I thought it was kind of supposed to be a little daffier. Yeah. It presages reservoir dogs in terms of films where Michael Madsen tortures the guy's face while tied up. Does he do that in this movie? He does that in this movie.

He actually does it to John Grease of The White Lotus fame. Good movie. I just wrote down, this is not going in but I didn't realize that Gore Vidal wrote a version of the Billy the Kid story which was produced for TNT, a four-hour movie where Val Kilmer plays Billy the Kid in 1989. TNT and TBS actually reliably hammered out some like pretty decent Westerns in the 80s. They did Broken Trail very notably, right? Some Louis Lamour stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

1981 The Doors. Kind of has to go in. Yeah. I mean, he literally- Becomes Jim Morrison. Becomes Jim Morrison. Yeah. The members of the band are like,

that's Jim Morrison. So, I think Robbie Krieger was like, that sounds better than Jim Morrison when he would listen to the recordings. An absolutely ridiculous, but amazing movie, but a performance for the ages. I think a but amazing movie, but a performance for the ages. I think a wildly flawed movie, but when Val is locked in,

especially during the band performance scenes, it's quite eerie. There's also like, I don't know if I actually thought this before he did it, but you know, when somebody gets cast in a iconic, historically significant role like this, and you're like, oh yeah, nobody else could have ever played this. That's how I feel about Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison's like how I kind of feel about Daniel

Day-Lewis as Lincoln where I'm like oh Lincoln's a rap now like don't try and do Lincoln again. Has there been a Lincoln since Lincoln? Yeah in Manhunt the Apple TV series. It's a TV show. Hamish Linklater plays him. Hamish Linklater? He's a pretty good Lincoln casting I think. He's a string bean, he's quite tall, brown hair. How was his Now Now Now? He didn't do Now Now Now. Thunderheart. I actually kind of dig this movie. So it's very good. Michael Abted. Yeah. Kind of a grungy FBI Western. I'm not sure what the source of it is. It's about a part Sioux FBI agent who goes to investigate the murder of a man on a reservation and there's a conflict between the local people of the town and the reservation

and there's a kind of Chinatown-esque scheme going on behind the scenes. Sam Shepard plays Val Kilmer's partner, Val is the lead FBI agent. Shepard's really good in this. Phenomenal in this film, as is Graham Greene. This is one of the best Graham Greene performances. The character that Graham Greene plays,

I think appears in other novels. And there was like a big desire for like more. A Thunderheart expanded universe. Yeah, exactly. He plays the reservation cop. And he's so cool and so smart in this movie. It's a very good film. Michael Apton didn't make a lot of movies like this, you know, best known for like the 7-Up documentaries.

But he had made a documentary about Leonard Peltier, right? He did. Yes, about that murder on the reservation some years ago. I think the doc came out like a year before Thunderheart 2. So he was the Uglala Nation, like, and he's kind of proximate to all of that at the time of this movie really Deacon shot it Did he yeah? Yeah, that explains why it looks so fucking good I like it. I'll yellow it. I don't think it's going in Val is good. Yeah, it's it's it's an encouraging performance for him and

This is kind of where you're like, okay, like you're gonna be the lead of like this is kind of where you're like, okay, like you're gonna be the lead of like Really good movies for like the right and then you know you know what I mean, like I think he's probably looking at this as a step down from the doors in terms of How it's featuring him or how it's elevating or platforming him But well it has something in common with the doors, which is that he has a kind of like a Native American like Fantasia moment in consecutive films, which is very unusual. I think the thing it does is it like cements him

as guy with a gun. Like he can do guy with a gun and a leading man on the poster. The Real McCoy, I'll tell you what, I've never seen it. Me neither. This sounds on paper like it would be good. Russell Mulcahy of Highlander fame directing a bank robbing dramedy starring Kim Basinger

as a recently paroled bank robber. And I think that Val Kilmer plays her parole officer. Terrence Stamp plays her former employer who wants her to do one last job. And there's some friction in the planning. The movie was kind of plan based. You should have just been an actor in the 50s because these are all 1950s movies. So yeah, he does have a classical approach

and a classical look for sure. Real McCoy is not going in 1983. Tombstone, we've already talked about it. That's green. This is a great, great film. How much screen time does he have in Tombstone? Not a lot. Yeah, not a lot.

I think scenes there was one recent time where I rewatched it. I was like, oh my God, man. I think he's only on screen for like five scenes, you know? Yeah, I think there's some incredibly memorable ones. There's some unforgettable ones. Obviously the final confrontation with Johnny Ringo is some of the best acting I've ever seen in your life,

but I'm more partial to the gun flipping showdown. Yeah, Frederick fucking Chopin. Okay, true romance, small but crucial role as Elvis Presley. Unseen, you don't see his face. You don't see his face, you do hear his voice. He inspires Clarence at a moment in which Clarence played by Christian Slater needs inspiration. It would be odd to put a film like this in the Hall of Fame and yet it may be, maybe it's the second best movie

he ever appeared in. Oh yeah, I mean. It's like it's Heat and then is it this movie? Yeah, it's top four probably, at least. I don't think it's gonna go in given the work that we have to do but I'd like to yellow it. Okay Batman Forever? I think there is a case. Now I'm not a big Batman Forever fan. I remember being disappointed in theaters and getting that first feeling of like am I too old for this movie and I was 13 when I saw

it. He's not a bad Batman and it is it is in the first line of his obituary. Yes, it literally is. He played Batman. And Jim Morrison. Yes. There's seven guys who played Batman in a movie. And he's on that short list. So I don't know.

What do you think? This is his Hall of Fame, remember? not his Hall of Fame of great performances. I think you have to put it in there. I think so too. I think I think it I mean I don't even know if I think I'm sure listeners are like why are you guys even deliberating this. I agree. I agree.

I think it would be kind of interesting to go back maybe next time Batman is in a movie or we actually do it for Superman, but you basically go back through and all the people who have played Batman and Superman over their careers and what it did to their careers for better or for worse. Batman effect. Because I was thinking about this with Superman just coming up and, you know, Corn Sweat is like a really cool actor, but like this is a lot very early to be happening. It's a big jump.

It's a big jump. Yeah. You're more likely to cast an unknown and into Superman rather than Batman needs to be that man You need some power, but also you have a mask Superman. It's his face It's an ironic aspect of it usually want a notable person in a Superman role because you see his face But it's kind of like how the NFL is dominant, you know, they got helmets on 1995 heat have you seen Heat? Can I just say when we saw it at Coolidge, one of the greatest movies ever. It was incredible.

And awesome to watch it with a full theater. He's just vibrating on the screen. Like he is in some ways taking the film the most seriously of anyone in the movie. And he's acting with Pacino and De Niro who legendarily or you know monkish kind of Dedication to their performance. Chris seems possessed. Yeah, he seems possessed in the film. I think possibly that's because it's a largely He doesn't have a lot of dialogue and so so much of Neil and Vincent's dialogue has now become like memes for me

has now become like memes for me. But Chris's face when Charlene gives him the no go sign at the end and like him being like, I just got shot again in his face and getting in the car and driving off. Where can I get some bread? It's a hotly debated topic on lunch at three o'clock in the morning. And it's sad because it's like there's another version of this world where like he had gotten to participate in heat too if it had gotten off the ground I mean obviously his character is a huge part of heat too so I don't know if he would have obviously

like Val Kilmer at the end of his life would not have been able to do that Val Kilmer in 2002 probably would have been able to do that if he had wanted to make that. Adam Backer He definitely could have. Jason Kuznicki But if people want to like continue with that character, it's the best part of Heat 2 is the Chris Sherrill stuff. Adam Backer Heat is the deepest and darkest green that we've ever had. We are in the forest of green for Heat. The Island of Dr. Moreau. ever had. We are in the forest of green for heat. The Island of Dr. Muro. This is a bad movie. It's a movie that you can very clearly tell has been hacked up and reconstituted

and reshot. Marlon Brando is doing deeply bizarre things in the film. Val Kilmer's performance, he got word that he was being served divorce papers by Joanne Walley during the making of this movie and it reportedly spun him out. And his performance is not bad. It's quite strange. Should I serve you with divorce papers from Eileen when we're doing one battle after another and see if it spins you out? I'm really working very hard to avoid that.

That comes from Dr. Moreau. We have to reshoot the pot five times. My entire life is just looking forward to one battle after another and not getting divorced. And you all of a sudden have an Irish accent. Island of Dr. Moreau, the performance is not bad and also he dies halfway through it. It's just like the movie is considered a legendary disaster. So it's red. Yeah, I'm not going to go with Dr. Moreau.

I mean, it's fine to have this as, is probably if you look at the films that come after it He basically needs to wait for Shane Black and Oliver Stone to save his career. Yeah, he's he's officially on the backside Yeah, the ghost in the darkness is the next movie. This is a movie. Here's my take on this movie if you made this movie movie. This is a movie. Here's my take on this movie. If you made this movie 99 more times it would have been better all 99 times. I rewatched about an hour of it last night. This is a film written by William Goldman based on true life events about a man who goes to Africa to build a bridge and during that bridge building, two lions start attacking the construction of the bridge. So they gotta get the hunter.

The hunter in this film was played by Michael Douglas. The movie's produced by Michael Douglas. Michael Douglas was not meant to be the star of the movie. I think Sean Connery and Anthony Hopkins turned down the role that Michael Douglas went on to play. In Goldman's conception, it was a Burt Lancaster type. And then Michael Douglas dick-chainied it. He came in.

Turns out I am the best one for the job. He dick-chain eat it he came in I am the best one And he also rewrote the character and I think significantly weakened the movie this Movie and the Rob Reiner film North were the most excited I was ever for movies that disappointed me in the 90s because of premiere magazine. That's another great episode We should do that. We should hold that and we'll redo that in a quiet week Goes in the darkness directed by Stephen Hopkins. I wish it was better. It's not it's it's red and again He's doing a very poor Irish accent. Yeah, 1996 dead girl have not seen the film. It didn't ever didn't know existed I know he plays dr. Dark. Okay

It's red 1997 the saint recently recently featured on the rewatchable. This is a movie. I like is it green. Well recently featured on the rewatchables. This is a movie I like. Is it green? Well, it's certainly... It's a good use of Al Kilmer. Yeah, and it's a great example of him being... He's having fun. I can still be a movie star if everything clicks together. It's not a film that I like revisit,

but I think it can be yellow. We have six greens right now. We'll yellow it for now. Okay. Now, you haven't seen The Prince of Egypt. I haven't. There are a great many people who have, and who would say this was a DreamWorks animation feature, one of the early DreamWorks films and was a very big movie. And Val Kilmer had a dual voice role as both Moses and God. Those are two great roles. Those are important roles in

this world. And you more of a Moses or God would you say I Thought Moses really got after it, you know, like definitely just early in the morning. Yeah, one of the great early writers. Yes Absolutely. He was banging it out. Yeah, and now God could claim authorship of the commandments but you know to me that's like a more of like a Bill Simmons kind of Zach Lowe kind of relationship, you know, that's like a more of like a Bill Simmons kind of Zach low kind of relationship, you know, it's like, I'm gonna let that sit right there. The Prince of Egypt. There is a pocket of the community that would say this is an automatic green.

Sure. I'm not going to do that. I've now decided to start respecting communities because you guys got Minecraft to $700 million. It's a good point. You know, it's a really good point. Lots of people out there. Can I get to a Billy? They're like different stuff.

Did you see that Sinners made $7.8 million on Easter Monday? Yeah, because apparently nobody went to work on Monday. That's sick. I know we did, like assholes. We both recorded podcasts. I saw it in my calendar where it was like Easter Monday. And I was like, did we have Easter Monday off at school?

Christ has risen, bro. Oh yeah. You forgot about that, didn't you? Thinking about Moses, you forgot about Christ. Moving on, the Prince of Egypt is gonna be...red. Okay. At first sight. I saw this on a first date in high school. Yeah. Was really excited to be dating this girl. This is pre-Illene. Ooh. Yeah. And she liked it and I didn't do you didn't work out still know what this girl's up to do you does she know what she? Missed out on tell you what she knows what I'm up to yeah, that's all that matters does she follow you on on platforms I honestly have no idea. Okay. I have no idea where she is

She also has a very anonymous sounding name, so there would be not even in a way to like look her up Her name is Jim Johnson. No, I don't know. I don't know what that gal's up to. I hope she's happy. At first sight, if I remember correctly, kind of came at the end of a wave of films where really hot guys had debilitating illnesses in movies. In this case, he's blind. Yeah, not debilitating. You know what I mean? Like Baboon heart, where Christian Slater has the heart.

Untamed heart is the movie you're talking about. Oh, it was originally called baboon heart. Yeah, because he does have a baboon heart. Yeah, that's a beautiful movie. Is Marissa Tomei in that one? She is. I have actually recently spoken about this film on the podcast as a movie that I quite liked.

I feel like there's another one. I need a third for a trend. Well, another Christian Slater movie, Pump Up the Volume, where he is racked with an erection through the entire film, Harry Hardon. Persistent bone arthritis. Talk to your doctor. At First Sight's a funny one.

It's directed by Irwin Winkler, who's the legendary producer of movies like Rocky and Goodfellas. He has directed some movies in his career. And Alto Nights. Not very good, and Alto Nights. At First Sight is based on an Oliver Sacks story things awakenings this the great science writer

It's not a good movie. It's read Joe the King is Frank Whaley's Directorial debut about his experiences as a young boy and Val Kilmer plays his father I have seen this film though. Not very many have and It's not very good. I remember it coming out. I don't think I ever saw it. Okay. 2000 Pollock, he plays Willem de Kooning in Ed Harris's biopic of Jackson Pollock's life, which I did kind of cruise through last night, and he's in one scene, and he's got

four lines of dialogue. Okay. So probably not a green. It's a red. 2000 Red Planet, this is the other of the dueling Mars movies from 2000 along with mission to Mars This is Carrie and Moss and Tom Sizemore It's a union with Sizemore sounds like he did not enjoy his experience with Val Kilmer on the set of this film I they did not like each other much prefer the diploma movie mission to Mars is interesting. Yeah, this movie is not very good

It's red the Salton Sea. There's red the Sultan see there's a hive here There's a hive for it. Can I cook? Can I cook my meth? This is a great late Tarantino ripoff and DJ Caruso directed it. It's about Val Kilmer police kind of two roles Danny Parker and Tom Van Allen one is a meth head gangster not gangster basically crook. And the other is a like jazz saxophonist who has like a totally normie Hollywood life. It is so convoluted, it's got like triple crosses with multiple law enforcement agencies involved,

but has a great cast and absolutely obscenely stupid Vincent D'Onofrio performance where he plays a drug dealer whose nose is falling off from overdoing coke or meth. Fantastic, Sarsgaard, maybe one of his first film roles. And Val Kilmer is a great, you know, like classic William Holden, I'm in a noir and I am your narrator guy. So I really like this movie, but this is also my kind of movie. Like I will watch the most dog shit version of a guy playing multiple cops against each other while doing drugs and performing robberies and playing saxophone. I might be able to give you this one.

We don't have a ton left. So why don't you put it in yellow and we. And we can come back to it. Okay. The Salton Sea is yellow. I agree. It's very good. This feels like a movie that is based on a book. And it's not. It was a spec script that I guess Tony Gayton wrote.

And DJ Caruso is like pretty decent. He like he makes pretty good movies. I would say after this movie, I thought things were going to be very exciting. And then he goes. He did suburbia, right? Disturbia. Disturbia. Taking lives with Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke, which I don't think is very good. Two for the money, which you love and isn't good.

Disturbia, which is pretty cool. Yeah. Eagle Eye. I think we saw Eagle Eye together. I think you're right. Is Monahan in that? Yeah, it's Shia and Monahan. How about our Monahan stock? I mean, just wow. This is, we're gonna come back to Monahan in that? Yeah, it's Shia and Monahan. How about our Monahan stock? I mean, just wow. We're gonna come back to Monahan. Munger and Buffett do. We invest in quality. I feel like my offshore accounts are exploding

with Monahan. In episode 6 or whatever, I was like, who is this lady? She's 50? This is insane. Anyway, Caruso has made, not some not great movies, Chris. He made The Disappointments Room. He made Triple X Return of Xander Cage,

which I know is your favorite Triple X film. Have you seen 2024's Mary, which he directed? It was a Netflix film, I think, about Christ's mother. No. Stars Noah Cohen. And all- As Christ? No, Noah is a girl. Oh, okay. She's Mary, the titular character. You haven't seen that one? I haven't. Okay, Anthony Hopkins in that movie as well. You have any thoughts on international immobiliaries role coming up? You got the conclave? I got my guy is, I've already chosen my. Your guy? Yeah.

Is it Pietro? No, he's like kind of. He's the conservative. Yeah. Yeah. My guy's, I've already chosen my. Your guy? Is it Pietro? No, he's like kind of. He's the conservative. Yeah. My guy's gonna do fine. No worries. But you're not gonna say who your guy is. Why would I reveal that information? Just like your high school girlfriend.

Ha ha ha ha. Do I have to say this girl's name? Don't worry about it. Yeah. 2002 Hard Cash, a film I've not seen. Me neither. We're getting into tricky territory here. Feel free to add us at Hard Cash

if Hard Cash is a classic that we don't know about. 2003 Wonderland. Pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good. Now this is the film in which he plays- There's two guys talking about a John Holmes movie waiting for the other one to be like it's pretty good.

Is it okay for me to say I like this movie about John Holmes being coked out of his mind yeah this is and robbing garbage Boogie Nights it is it comes you know some five six years after Boogie Nights to retelling at least one section of Boogie Nights in particular the Wonderland murders which transpired in 1981 who directed the James Cox he also co-wrote the screenplay not a Not an illustrious career as a filmmaker. The movie, it has the Rashomon approach, where it has a number of different perspectives in terms of telling the events of the night that I think works pretty well.

Crazy cast. Harry Fisher, Lisa Kudrow, Josh Lucas, Christina Applegate, Tim Blake Nelson, Jeanine Garofalo, Kate Bosworth. Kate Bosworth is the lead, right? She's the lead, yeah. Yellow? Yeah, I don't think it's going to make it, but it's better than Hard Cash, which I haven't seen.

Definitely. He has a pretty small role in the Missing, the Ron Howard film. This is a reunion after Willow. That's going to be red. That'sate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones 2003 is blind horizon I don't know what that is you think he's blind to get in that movie I hope not okay would be a little soon after at first sight 2003 he has a very small role in masked and anonymous as an animal wrangler this is the film written by Bob Dylan and directed by Larry Charles. They're all friends with Bobby D. That's how

we got it. It's red 2004 Spartan. Green. Wow. Oh, come on, Sean. Speak. David Mamet's film about a Marine Gunnery Sergeant who in the beginning of the film, we are introduced to him. He's training Rangers. He's training like special ops guys, and he is then put on a winding long mission to find the disappeared president's daughter, played by Kristen Bell. Derek Luke is also in this film. And Kilmer does Mammoth up there, I wouldn't say up there, past Mantegna, but he is singing his own song with Mamet and it is awesome. This is the truly like one of the great late period Kilmer performances or mid period Kilmer performances to me. The way he like sings the repetitive, like

hit these words over and over again, where's the girl? Where's the girl? And then even the stuff that he has a facility with mammots picked up, like, you know, at one point he says to Derek Luke, he's like, you're going to have to go at half speed baby, you know, like, or I need you to set that motherfucker to receive, you know, like, just like those great mammot punches to this chest. He nails every one of them. So I'm on board with you here. I think I'm a little bit poisoned by the fact that I know Val Kilmer hated working with David Mamet. And so it's a little bit hard to reconcile that with the movie,

and I've gotten it in my head. When the movie came out, I think we were just becoming friends when the movie came out. And I don't think we saw it together, but I think we were like, yo, did you see this? I started a Facebook group about this movie. Did you? Just for myself, yeah.

Incredible amount of lore in this episode, where it's like the Val voicemail, what the fuck, man? Great job on the press box. I thought that was very touching to hear you talk that way, by the way. I really like Spartan. I don't think I realized at the time that it was the beginning of the end for Mammoth.

He literally only directed two movies since this movie. It's been 20 years. The second of the two movies comes out like next week on his website on HenryJohnson.com it's a prison drama starring Shia LaBeouf about a murderer and despite all of the very difficult complications of being a fan of David Mamet's writing and directing in 2025, I think we're both excited to see it. I mean, it's just he's one of the singular dramatic writers of my lifetime. I'm just so fascinated by, you know, and obviously like disappointed by where it's kind of career led him, but this is a great example of him taking, essentially like an espionage story, but is more or less like a Parker novel, like the way it is kind of like one man

against a massive conspiracy in a mission. So yeah, I'm not sure. Obviously, if you had tension with David Mamet, that's fascinating. I don't remember that story for some reason. His director's commentary on the DVD is amazing It's very funny. And maybe it was that tension That's what makes the performance so powerful is because he's trying to pull away from Mamet's, you know

Orthodoxy. Hmm. So green for Spartan for me. I'm with you. Okay, you're you're doing this journey with me 2004 stateside haven't seen a film. Don't know it. We're in the zone of what is this? I'd like to think of myself as a fairly completist Ball knower it's tough with some of these guys that then make seven movies a year Yes for the last 20 years of their life feel like in 2006 he has Six movies on the board 2004 he also in addition to Spartan, makes Alexander a reunion with Oliver Stone,

another filmmaker who he clashed with on The Doors, but Stone has said he had a great experience with him in a much smaller role as King Philip of Macedon. He plays Colin Farrell's, the titular character's father. It's like he's giving his inheritance of being in a crazy Oliver Stone movie to Colin Farrell. Yeah, and of being a swagged out weirdo like Colin Farrell is as well. They have a lot in common I think as stars where they sort of they zag when you expect them to zig.

Alexander's not going in, it's too small of a part, but it's a cool handoff. I think Baton Pass as you put it. 2005's Mind Hunters, I'm not a big fan of this movie. More of like a, it's like a horror thriller, like a psychological thriller. I don't know that I've seen it. Okay. It's red. 2005's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Green with a bullet. It is green. It's a tricky one because it is RDJ's movie. And it is RDJ's, the beginning of his revival. Val's great in it. And very similar to Mammoth, I think he's got a real affinity for the Shane Black tone. Absolutely.

And it really makes you wish that they had more together. I wish he was in Other Guys. Nice guys I mean. Nice guys yeah. He would have been great in that. Just an incredibly fun kind of redefinition of the detective movie shot through the prism of the Shane Black There's a kid there's Christmas. There's a hot gal all the stuff that he has his great way of viewing LA is this cesspool That is also paradise. Yes

Val's character is gay in this movie. Yeah, it might be the funniest performance of his career or at least in his late career I think he I mean he's it's written as hard comedy but not there's one other one that I think is much funnier but I don't know if you've seen that movie, we'll get to it. We're getting a lot of stacking up greens here. Okay, so where are we at now? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. So we have eight and we've got one, two, three, four,

five, six, seven yellows, so this is gonna be interesting This is a great career that he's had 2006 summer love haven't seen it red 2006 Moscow zero, which is your other podcast red Though not Russian red, right? Who can say much like your high school girlfriend? There are things about Moscow Zero

that are only for Patreon. 2006, 10th and Wolf, Red. How about you tell me the next movie you did see? 2006, Deja Vu, directed by Tony Scott. Yes. Played from 2006 as Red. 2006, this is his reunion with Tony Scott as well after 20 plus years after Top Gun. It's a supporting role. He's, is he Denzel's,

is he the agent investigating the story in Denzel's? Dejavu is a very good movie that I haven't watched in a very long time, but I remember enjoying it quite a bit. Is that on 4k? It's not. Most of the Tony Scott films are not on 4k. Because they already look too fucking good? I wouldn't want to clean up the mess, you know? I would want some of the dinginess that comes along with a great hard-cutting Tony Scott action movie. This is red, although I do think Deja Vu was a cool movie.

Have dreams, will travel, no conspiracy, no felon, no, although some people seem to like felon. You know about felon? He plays someone named John Smith. Yeah. Oh, is this, this is kind of like shot call, right? It's Rick Romanoise, I think it's his first film. Yeah.

And he's wearing a similar beard to the one that Nicolai Castor- Waldo has in that film and he plays a guy who's in prison with Stephen Dorff and Harold Pirineu. Kind of a starter kit for Rick Romanois. Okay. Who's talented? I like this guy. Red.

Delgo from 2008. I don't know what this is. I don't know what all these movies are. 222. One of the crazy things about the amount of shit He's doing here is that there wasn't a streaming? Ecosystem so this is like straight to video they were all straight to video He's made a many many straight to video movies now

It's hard to tell why that was happening is it because he needed money is it because his star was falling is it because he? Just like to work. You know it's hard to say 2008 Columbus Day read 2008 the love guru, which you love Michael Myers is failed attempts to relaunch another franchise He plays himself. Mm-hmm. It's it's red. Okay 2009 is the chaos experiment. I've seen the chaos experiment This is a wild career that he's had. This motherfucker was in Top Gun and he's also in the Chaos Experiment. Oh, this is, I didn't see this, but I think this is a great log line.

In order to make people realize about the adverse effects of global warming, a scientist conducts an experiment on six volunteers in a turn of events. The volunteers are now his hostages. Incredible cast in this movie.ages incredible like Earth Day Saw Kregger call me this is hot IP yeah I really this will really work in 2025 Armando Santa Eric Roberts Patrick Muldoon in Chaos experiment yeah that is the VOD kill team yeah those guys okay moving on 2009 streets of blood haven't seen these movies seem fake yeah how American

Cowslip 2009 the fall literally what are these movies is amazing he worked though he worked his ass off in 09 he made two four six seven feature American Cowslip is about an agoraphobic drug addict wishes to grow a perfect flower while his brother attempts to save his soul and his landlord schemes to have him evicted. Sounds kind of interesting. Looks like he has a small part in this film. What's up with that?

So did you what do you want to do about Battle Lieutenant? I like him. You know, he's he's Nick Cage's character's partner in the movie. This is Port of Call New Orleans, this sort of like- I haven't seen this in a while. False sequel to the Abel Ferrara movie. This movie was directed by Werner Herzog.

It's a cool, I think it's a cool movie. It's in my sort of second half of my Werner Herzog movies that I enjoy. Sure. It's very different from most of his movies. It's best known, I think, for that famous scene where he sort of like thinks of my Werner Herzog movies that I enjoy. It's very different for most of his movies. It's best known I think for that famous scene where he sort of like thinks he's seeing lizards in the in the office. Is it lizards or alligators? I can't remember. It might be alligators. Like I said, it's been a minute. Really fun cage performance that is very out there, but I don't think it's in the

Val Hall of Fame. 2009 Hardwired, no. 2009 Double Identity, no. 2010 The Traveler, no. 2011 Bloodworth, no. 2011 MacGruber. Yeah. So I think this is the one I was saying for comedy. He plays Dieter von Künth. First of all, MacGruber is so fucking funny. Yeah. I watched all of the Val scenes last night. Will Forte, I think we're maybe not making enough of how good Will Forte is at being Will Forte. Will Forte also after Val passed away, talked about what was the reality show that those guys, Amazing Race?

Did they go on Amazing Race together? No, so while they were making MacGruber, Will Forte was obsessed with Amazing Race, and I guess Val Kilmer was like, why are you watching this shit? And he was like, you should check it out. And Val Kilmer like watched it and was like, now I am obsessed with Amazing Race. And they actually made steps towards the two of them doing Amazing Race together. But like their management teams

put the kibosh on it. That's incredible. Can you imagine if we had had that? You know, Mike White's done it. Like we had Forte and Kilmer as an amazing race. Just talking to each other would be magical to me. MacGruber is very funny. You know, Kilmer's not in it a ton. This is basically right at the end of when he starts working regularly. And it's probably the last studio movie he makes besides Top Gun Maverick. No, that's not true. He made a couple of others, but.

I think he's really funny. Let's yellow it for now I think I'm open to it being green He's he's great in this movie 2011's Kill the Irishman which Was it was in Michael Shannon, I think it's a Michael Shannon movie which some people seem to enjoy I Don't really have a strong memory of it. Jonathan Hensley directed it. I feel like I've seen this, but I don't remember it. Oh, I remember this poster.

Yeah, this is this is good garbage crime. 2011 Twixt. I only just recently rewatched this because of Megalopolis and Coppola. I think this is a cool Val performance. He plays an author who is trying to get to the bottom of something mysterious in his town that is maybe more ethereal than he realizes. It's a good performance. It's not great.

Coppola apparently had been friends with Val for many, many years, and they'd wanted to work together. He tried to cast him in The Outsiders in 1983, and he passed. So it's a very interesting movie in the late arc of Coppola, but I don't think in the Hall of Fame for Val. I've never seen Wyatt Earp's Revenge. I've never seen Riddle.

I've never seen Standing Up. I have seen Paolo Alto. As have I. And his son is in Paolo Alto. Jack Kilmer is in it, which is why I think he's in it. This is Gia Coppola's directorial debut, which is an adaptation, I think, of James Franco short story collection. Yeah, Emma Roberts is in it.

It's amazing what ideas I have in my head. How do I know about James Franco's short story collection being adapted by Francis Ford Coppola's granddaughter? Anyway. In 2013. I saw it in a screening room. Yeah. I remember liking it. Val was got a small part was this You were in LA for this. I was yeah, it was a grand thing I think it's red. Uh, yes

2014 Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn I never saw but am I mistaken in remembering that he was doing a lot of Mark Twain Stuff. Yes. He wrote a Mark Twain one-man show that he performed for some time around America and toured with it a little bit. And I watched some of it on YouTube last night and people seemed to really enjoy it. It was sort of this like, aphoristic collection of monologues that featured a lot of the Twainisms. But that's the other thing is that Kilmer went to Juilliard, trained theater actor, wrote poetry, you know, very sophisticated guy. We were using the word weird, I think with a lot of affection, but a real like artist soul, even though he was in all these VOD movies.

I think one of the things that we often, well, we wish contemporary actors showed more sides of themselves. It often feels like these guys get kind of anointed and then shaped from a relatively young age and don't have a lot of the life Experiences that inform the performances of some of the actors we grew up watching agreed That may not be the case But in you know, it's like Timothy Chalamet is one of the few people where I'm like Oh, it seems like you have like a story like, you know You came from this building in New York and you like this kind of music and you've been always wanting to do this

And a lot of these guys are like I'm from nowhere and I have no beliefs. You know, like, yes, he has personality. Yeah. Val Kilmer kind of to me is like, just, just got his obsessions and his passions and his interests. Agreed. I think Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn is, is red, but I think the work he did as Mark Wayne is quite interesting.

2017 song to song, he has a small performance as Dwayne and Terrence Malick's live music, Fantasia. I can't say much for Val's performance in the role which is pretty small. I can say much for his YouTube video of him introducing the black lips at South By back when this film was being made in which he's kind of channeling Jim Morrison and also continues to introduce Rooney Mara as a member of the band while they are getting ready to perform. Black Lips fan? I was a big fan at the time. I feel like they're, have they been canceled? Did something happen with Black Lips?

I don't, they are also, they could have also put out like 15 albums in the last three years. In 2011 I was like this is one of my favorite bands but I feel like there's I feel like there's I think they were actually. Okay. Yeah, did you cancel them? No, okay. No, did that come up on the watch on moscow zero quite frequently Song to song is red, but it's cool that malik that kilmer got a chance to work with malik Uh the snowman you remember this one of the great turkeys. Yeah harry hole Yeah, as portrayed by michaelassbender. This was a Alfredson Nordic mystery that was one of the famous bomb. I

Don't remember really remembered valid it. He played a character named Walter. Was he the villain? Uh, I honestly I saw this like I saw half of this one. So it was like this is this is a disaster Once again Val plays himself in J and Silent Bob reboot, which is yet another. Should we address whether, what's the state of our askew verse pod? Cause here's my, here's my pitch to you. Pretty soon there are going to be too many,

let's just say that, awesome movies. You know what I mean? Maybe coming out later this year. Like I, no, I just mean in the askew verse, you know what I mean? Because like if you go up to a certain point with Kevin Smith, it's like these are just so cool classics. And now it's like he's he's been making a lot of other askew verse movies like. Yeah. Doesn't he have he's done Clark's two and three and three.

I don't reboot is about what happens in reboot. It's kind of a It's kind of a hard sequel to Jay and Silent Bob strike back, which is I love it's great The first like set all the way up to Jersey girl. I like all of those movies a lot, okay When we get to Jersey girl, then I have I think things take a turn. Yeah You're saying are there too many good Kevin Smith movies to have a pod? No, my point is we need to do the Askewverse pod so that we don't have like this situation where we're like and then from 2000 after Jersey Girl on we have to talk about 12 movies that aren't that good

to me it's not a Kevin Smith pod it's the View Askew universe pod okay so the View Askew universe includes those first five movies but it also includes movies like J and Son Bob reboot okay if J and Son Bob are in the movie if Dante from Clorox is in the movie I'm glad you thought this through if Matt and Ben from the way they're portrayed in strike back for example are in the movie athletic you the bomb and phantoms all. What about as the Archangels in Dogma? In Dogma is a definitively skewniverse movie. So Dogma 4K coming later this year.

I know, that's maybe, maybe that's the peg. That's the peg, that's the peg. The Kevin Smith thing is tough. Here's the thing. I worshiped Kevin Smith as all guys like me did. It's not an understatement to say that there, like there's, we are not doing anything resembling what we do with our lives without Kevin He invented potting in so many ways. I

Think he's just a great figure in the world of movies since he hit the scene I've been pretty tough on him in print a few times So I wouldn't be surprised if he was like you guys could fuck right off. Oh, I wasn't like yeah But I would be I would happily sing his praises on a four hour podcast with him. And so we will do it. Moscow Zero. What if I look at the dog before can and I'm like, this looks like shit.

He Cameron'd it. Why is this all green? What's with the tinting? What's with the AI corrections? I haven't had a bad experience yet with tinting. I know you warned me off some of the Camerons. I know that- Did you feel any issue with the Miller's crossing? No.

That's one that there's some, some angst about. I think it was crossing criterion. My experience of Miller's crossing is either on streaming or honestly probably VHS. So seeing it in that version and getting to see like the wood grain was pretty incredible. I, I, I pre-ordered my kingdom of heaven directors cut. Yeah. 4K Steelbook. And that was $387? It wasn't cheap.

And yeah, I was thinking about getting Tombstone on the same format. Yeah. Let's have a Steelbook conversation down the road. I gotta get Tim Simons back in here too, so you being able to sit with me and Tim while we do this, I think would be a fun conversation. To have translated into English. Who's doing the translating at this point? J.N. Son of Bob Reboot is out.

A Soldier's Revenge, I haven't seen it. Pay Dirt, I haven't seen it. I mean, these films were made after he was using the voice box because of the surgeries and the radiation that he had. I think he had two tracheotomies and he was still acting in films and then very memorably acting in his final role in Top Gun Maverick where he came back as Iceman and he shares one scene with Tom Cruise which is mostly wordless from Kilmer and yet tremendously emotionally affecting. Might be the last time I felt anything in my life.

Hard to not weep during this sequence and I think it has to be green because it's the capstone. Yeah. So if you feel like we're running out of room I think you could make the argument that Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick could occupy one slot since it's the same I'm hearing Amanda's voice in my ear right now, which is what and it's saying if you don't put Maverick on this list I will assassinate you. But why can't we have Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick in one slot? That's not how the Hall of Fame works. All right. So Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick take up two

slots on a top ten. Let's go through. See we gotta put real genius in there. Right? Real genius is staying. Let's just well let's just count what we have. We've got real genius is green, Top Gun is green, the doors is green, Tombstone is green, Batman Forever is green, Heat is green, Spartan is green, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is green, Top Gun Maverick is green. That's only nine. So, let's put MacGruber in. Let me read the yellows just for posterity. Top Secret is breakthrough performance.

Willow, Thunderheart, True Romance, The Saint, The Salton Sea, Wonderland, and MacGruber. Now does MacGruber belong in over, and these are the key ones to me, Top Secret, Willow, and The Saint? If you had to choose. I think for a lot of people who are younger than us, MacGruber will be much more important than real genius. You know what I mean? Like I think that I think we have to kind of understand a little bit about the

passage of time here. And for many people, this is like, honestly, like the last great their introduction to Kilmer maybe it's the last great Kilmer performance. It's, you know, the most significant. Now I, I, I think probably I can't do this pod and I have Spartan on it, but I understand that Spartan is going to be a divisive out there pick for some people. I think if we're doing the objective list, Willow is on it. I think Willow is a huge movie for him in his career. If you want to, I'm granting you the power to put Spartan on it. I would appreciate it and I and I take that power I don't take my right to vote for granted and

I'm voting for Spartan do you so what of the yellows do you choose or should I choose no I think I got to I got to push through Spartan so you choose the yellow choose the last yellow I prefer Willow to the saint I'm just gonna say it. I think that's fine. So I think I think the saint is cool So I'm a gruber not no and no McGroober. Okay Because we have real genius and just to remind everybody isn't I referendum on the films themselves and it's not necessarily even like How good was Kilmer because you know Batman forever has to be on this because he played Batman. Correct. He was at the center of the movie making world.

Thank you for clarifying this enterprise. You're always a great partner in these endeavors. So then I'm gonna put Willow in green. So the final list is going to be real genius, Top Gun, Willow, the doors, Batman Forever, Heat, Spartan, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Top Gun Maverick, wait a minute. You didn't say Tombstone. And Tombstone. Thank you.

That's pretty good. Yeah. Apologies to some of these other movies. If you only have time for three Val Kilmer films and you haven't seen Tombstone, Heat or what's the third? What's the third essential one? Doors? I's the third essential one? Doors? I think the doors.

Yeah, doors, Tombstone, Heat. You'll get a picture of the man. I loved Val. He was great. Yeah. It was great to see him in movies. He's one of the five defining dudes of the 90s, I think. Yes.

Right? Yeah. Very sad that he's gone. Yeah, it's like, I think it's been, Yes. Right? Yeah. Very sad that he's gone. Yeah. It's like, I think it's been, and it's also just like a sad, it's like I thought about Bruce Willis a bunch, you know, with in relationship to Val Kilmer and- At the stage of his life. Yeah.

And just like, you know, not only like feeling terribly for their families, but also like, oh, it's a shame that like the last 20 years or so of your life was kind of like spent making these kind of disposable films when we obviously would have gotten so much more. Maybe I should go back and look back at some of those VOD movies, because some of those movies could be good. So I don't mean to denigrate them.

I just haven't seen so many of them. Well, Chris, thanks for joining me. Of course, man. Thanks for having me. Thanks. We can hear you on Moscow Zero. Yeah. Which is a daily pod.

So daily six hour pod simulcast on RT. I'm also going to start doing some of those Jubilee videos. You know what that is? Yes, you do. You don't know that. No, it's like usually it's like I take on 20 conservatives and it's like the guy sitting at the table. I God we really need to parody one of those. I saw an extremely stern one this morning on social media that was

Kyrie can do everything better than John Stockton can do anything old guy versus 20 LeBron stands No, that was skip versus 20 LeBron stands now. there's an old guy versus a bunch of guys who are like you know Cade cutting him is better than Magic Johnson This is me with Val Kilmer and Austin Butler where I'm like, I really like Austin Butler and I'm happy for him But sit down Watch tombstone again Austin. All right, you want to get into the temple of weird beautiful man You need to go through these pillars. Yeah

Thanks to Jack Sanders. We'll be back on Friday. We're gonna preview the summer movie slate and I had I had David Cronenberg in studio yesterday. How did that feel? Well, he was just very kind and he's made some of the most fucked up movies ever and he was great I have one last question for you that I forgot to ask. Okay Who is the director you wish Val Kilmer would have worked with? Oh. While you're thinking? David Lynch?

Well, you know, famously he wanted him for a part in Blue Velvet, but we don't know which part. And I don't think it was Kyle McLaughlin because the whole thing with Blue Velvet was we did Dune together. But what was the part that Val was meant to play in that movie? Right. It's kind of... I don't know. It's not Hopper, right? I doubt it.

He was so young. But Lynch, he would have been marvelous with Lynch. That's a great shout. I mean, there's the obvious like, you know, the guys, the Coens, the Scorsese's that we love who I think he would have done great with the Coens because he had that. Aaron Ross Powell It would have been a cool Cronenberg actor. Jason Kuznicki He would have been a very good Cronenberg actor, a very physical performer.

I don't know. I mean, the fact that he could work comfortably with David Mamet and Martha Coolidge and Real Genius and you know, Michael Mann. I mean, these are very different kinds of directors. And he was a real one. RIP to Val Kilmer. Shrouds is good. Very good. Very good.

In terms of late style, there's nobody doing it like Cronenberg. He's a one of one. So I hope you'll listen to that conversation later this week. Thanks, Yarr. Sure. Thanks for watching!