Happy birthday, Val Kilmer

So, the other day I watched Tombstone for the first time since it’s release, and was blown away by Kilmer’s performance as the beleaguered dentist/gambler/gunfighter, Doc Holliday. In a cast of respected and accomplished actors, Kilmer’s standout performance becomes all the more impressive. While Tombstone would have been a great movie even without Kilmer’s, Doc Holliday, his supporting role pushes it to the next level. No less a critic than Roger Ebert declared Kilmer’s, Holliday, “the definitive saloon cowboy of our time” and declared that it was a performance that all other western gunfighters were to be measured against. The fact that Ebert did not get his customary advance screening of the movie might have been a bad omen for his review of the film, but as he stated , the word prior to his viewing was such that “… a strange thing started to happen. People started telling me they really liked Val Kilmer’s performance in Tombstone, and I heard this every where I went. When you hear this once or twice, it’s interesting, when you hear it a couple of dozen times, it’s a trend. And when you read that Bill Clinton loved the performance, you figured you better catch up with the movie.” .
As much as I enjoyed Tombstone, in my mind, Kilmer will always be the wise cracking, Chris Night, from Real Genius, or Nick Rivers, the pop idol turned friend of the German resistance, in the Zucker Brothers spoof of spy and Elvis movies, Top Secret!. To other people Kilmer may be known for his roles as Iceman, in Top Gun, Madmartigan, in Willow, or even Batman for his turn as the Caped Crusader in, Batman Forever. Whatever Kilmer character is your poison, give yourself a treat and watch one of his classics.



Hitting on Julie from Valley Girl!


A brilliant and legitimately creepy, re-cutting of Real Genius. This is actually better than any M Night Shyamalan movie.