Val Kilmer (1959-2025)

[hearthesilence]

Val Kilmer

[TechnicolorAcid]

We knew he had throat cancer but this is just disheartening to hear, he was such a charismatic performer that brought his all to every role that he had. Rest in peace.

[flyonthewall2983]

I think about his last scene in Heat quite a bit. For some personal context to this Sunday would have been 30 years since my dad committed armed robbery. When he came home it was one of the first movies he bought on DVD. He’d seen the airline version during his stretch.

What at the time resonated was his own feeling of not wanting to go back, echoing McCauley’s sentiments about prison life. But really more recently I have surmised that he himself was entirely more like Chris Shiherlis but with the age.

That moment between him and Ashley Judd, silent but in such perfect understanding right through the moment she gives the hand signal, is maybe the one moment in the whole movie you can feel the world stopping around what’s happening between these two people.

Between Hackman dying and now this it is bringing to bear a lot of that history being my father’s son and the role movies played in making me feel comfortable being around him where maybe someone else wouldn’t.

He was also wickedly funny if given a chance. The one time he hosted SNL, in 2000, was a hoot. He even resurrected Jim Morrison again for a rather hilarious sketch about rock and roll heaven.


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[hearthesilence]

Aside from Heat, Top Secret! is probably the one I'd revisit.

[colinr0380]

Red Letter Media did a great profile of Top Secret! a few years back, as the great unappreciated ZAZ-comedy, with Kilmer in his debut doing a kind of take on the Elvis starring programmers role. Kilmer turns up in another ersatz Elvis role again as Christian Slater's mind's eye mentor figure in True Romance a decade later.

A couple of other interesting films: John Dahl's 1989 neo-noir thriller (somewhat overlooked when Dahl went on to the 1992's Nicolas Cage starring Red Rock West and 1994's The Last Seduction) with Kill Me Again with then-wife Joanne Whalley, just after they met on Willow. 1996 was the big turning point year, with apparently Kilmer's demands being (albeit just one) part of how The Island of Doctor Moreau went utterly off the rails, but the much better film released at the same time was Kilmer teaming up with Michael Douglas in The Ghost and The Darkness.

There's also the Native American crime thiller Thunderheart. And I really think that 2000's sci-fi film Red Planet is quite overlooked now - at the time it was in competition with, and completely overshadowed by, Brian De Palma's ludicrously overblown Mission to Mars, but whilst the De Palma film spun off into aliens, Red Planet is kind of a slightly more grounded proto-The Martian survival in an extreme environment film.

[beamish14]

I loved him in David Mamet’s massively underrated Spartan. From the clips shown in the documentary Val, his one-man Mark Twain show looked fascinating. Maybe not destined to be as iconic as Hal Holbrook’s, but certainly a worthy project

[brundlefly]

I loved him in David Mamet’s massively underrated Spartan. From the clips shown in the documentary Val, his one-man Mark Twain show looked fascinating. Maybe not destined to be as iconic as Hal Holbrook’s, but certainly a worthy project

And his DVD audio commentary is legend.

The one I've been longing to revisit is The Salton Sea.

[domino harvey]

I don't think I've seen him in anything more recent than Twixt, but he's perfect in it (don't watch the recut version though!)

[Buttery Jeb]

The one I've been longing to revisit is The Salton Sea.

I also thought about revisiting The Salton Sea. I remember seeing it in the theaters: a Soderbergh-esque neo-noir that got recut, or was massaged in production, to be more like an American Trainspotting. On top of an already stacked cast, Kilmer managed to hold that film together with his performance. As of right now, I don't think it's streaming anywhere that you don't have to rent/buy it, so not sure if I'll get around to it anytime soon.

[hearthesilence]

And I really think that 2000's sci-fi film Red Planet is quite overlooked now - at the time it was in competition with, and completely overshadowed by, Brian De Palma's ludicrously overblown Mission to Mars, but whilst the De Palma film spun off into aliens, Red Planet is kind of a slightly more grounded proto-The Martian survival in an extreme environment film.

An acquaintance of mine had a connection to one of the writers (the original writer?) through his film school, and it was one of those demoralizing lessons that discouraged him from pursuing screenwriting after he graduated. This was a while ago so I don't remember all the details, but two that I *think* I remember correctly is that 1) he originally threw in a lot of Beastie Boy references into the film (in the future, they become something like Beethoven or Bach in terms of their cultural stature) but I'm guessing someone didn't like the idea or they realized they wouldn't get the licensing, and 2) they completely rewrote the ending just to give it a complete happy one.

I'm pretty sure I haven't actually seen the movie - what I remember I likely caught while it was playing on television - but here's what Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote about it:

Contemporary taste seems to favor either superexpensive SF movies made today or supercheap camp items from the heyday of Hollywood. I don’t know the actual budget of this adventure yarn, about the first manned expedition to Mars, but it feels like a middle-range effort whose heart is with the bargain-basement offerings of yesteryear. The dialogue’s worthy of Destination Moon half a century ago, and though there isn’t a member of the spaceship’s kitchen staff named Cookie, Val Kilmer plays a “space janitor,” which is almost as good. The story here has the expedition’s commander, played by Carrie-Anne Moss, orbiting Mars while crew members who’ve crash-landed on the planet discover it isn’t uninhabited. Most of the enigmas in the plot are never adequately explained, but a couple of shots on the planet’s surface have some of the distilled poetry of Edgar Ulmer’s The Man From Planet X. Despite a multifaceted obeisance toward 2001 that extends even to calling the commander Bowman, the film’s aspirations toward low-tech triumph are the main source of its charm. I confess that before I picked up on this I fidgeted a lot.

The late Tom Sizemore actually talked a lot about it when he was promoting his book, for very sad reasons. It was kind of an apology tour and he admitted to being a prima donna when he was filming it in Australia, which especially grated on the crew because they didn't really know who he was in that part of the world. The film ended up destroying the friendship he had with Kilmer (though they later made up), and IIRC the breaking point was when Sizemore got angry because he felt like his needs weren't being met regarding some exercise equipment he used so he had it shipped to him (again, way out in Australia), and per his book/interviews via Wikipedia:

...Kilmer reportedly became enraged when he discovered that production had paid for Sizemore's elliptical exercise machine to be shipped to the set. Kilmer shouted, "I’m making ten million on this; you’re only making two", to which Sizemore responded by throwing a 50-pound (23 kg) weight at Kilmer. The two were soon refusing to speak to each other or even come onto the set if the other was present, necessitating the use of body doubles to shoot scenes involving both actors, and their relationship became so bad that one of the producers is said to have asked Sizemore not to hit Kilmer in the face when the big fight finally happened – so Sizemore cooperated by punching Kilmer in the chest, hard enough to knock him down. Sizemore has since described the film as one of his career regrets, but also stated that he and Kilmer have since reconciled.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

This was a while ago so I don't remember all the details, but two that I *think* I remember correctly is that 1) he originally threw in a lot of Beastie Boy references into the film (in the future, they become something like Beethoven or Bach in terms of their cultural stature) but I'm guessing someone didn't like the idea or they couldn't afford the licensing...

I expect it would've made the movie at least slightly more interesting, but Futurama beat it to the punch on this anyway.

[hearthesilence]

This was a while ago so I don't remember all the details, but two that I *think* I remember correctly is that 1) he originally threw in a lot of Beastie Boy references into the film (in the future, they become something like Beethoven or Bach in terms of their cultural stature) but I'm guessing someone didn't like the idea or they couldn't afford the licensing...

I expect this would've made the movie at least slightly more interesting, but Futurama beat it to the punch on this anyway.

I had to amend my comment - the Beastie Boys are very particular about who they license to and I don't think it would've been a guest-star situation like Futurama, so I imagine someone realized it would've been a non-starter.

[beamish14]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Collateral supposed to be a Tom Cruise/Kilmer reunion, but the latter couldn’t do it as a result of (the hilariously awful) Mindhunters?

[colinr0380]

Thanks for the added Red Planet context hearthesilence!

This was a while ago so I don't remember all the details, but two that I *think* I remember correctly is that 1) he originally threw in a lot of Beastie Boy references into the film (in the future, they become something like Beethoven or Bach in terms of their cultural stature) but I'm guessing someone didn't like the idea or they couldn't afford the licensing...

I expect this would've made the movie at least slightly more interesting, but Futurama beat it to the punch on this anyway.

I had to amend my comment - the Beastie Boys are very particular about who they license to and I don't think it would've been a guest-star situation like Futurama, so I imagine someone realized it would've been a non-starter.

They did get a moderned up version of a Police song for the de rigueur moment of one of the astronauts playing it on their portable radio before it quickly gets turned off in an early scene! So I presume that would have been the moment that would have gotten the Beastie Boys track, which we would have to wait for the opening of the 2009 Star Trek film to experience in a sci-fi context!