Spartan (2004)

Hey folks, just a little intro before we actually start the episode today. I just wanted to let folks know what's going on with me. This is your host, Mike White. If you are on my socials, you might have seen that I got fired back in August of 2026. Don't worry, I'm okay.

I'm doing all right. It's probably the best thing that has happened to me in a long time. The job was... not good. And I got fired for the dumbest of all reasons. I liked a post on LinkedIn that was critical of the company I was working for.

The company whose stock price had gone from nearly $ 7 all the way down to less than $ 2 and had stopped giving any sort of dividends and is in some sort of receivership type stuff. It's not good there. And I liked that post and the CTO saw it and said that I should get fired. And then I was fired. So once I found out that and how stupid it was, I was really okay with things.

This is also giving me a whole lot more time to work on other things, work more on the podcast, work more on some writing projects. Of course, having a nine to five, is good insofar as having a steady paycheck, but everything else is going pretty good. I don't want to come on the air and ask for people to reach deep in their pockets as if this was some sort of a fundraiser for NPR, but I will say that there has never been a better time to join the Projection Booth Patreon, which is at patreon.com slash projectionbooth. Of course, if you can't afford to give, totally understand. I know how it goes.

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Hold your ears, folks. It's showtime. People pay good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in the projection booth. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.

Turn it off. Turn it off! Where's the girl? Sir, we believe she was abducted. That she was taken to a bordello.

Here in Boston? She may have been delivered for sale and sent down the pipeline and overseas to get. To her father. What do they do when they realize who they took? They kill her.

I've got two days before the press wakes up. I need a man, a man who can unquestionably follow orders. I am here to get the girl back, sir. And there is nothing I will not do. What's this?

She signs all of her letters with that. She sees things cockeyed like Picasso. They took her. Who is they? I don't want to get in trouble.

She was here. Where is she? You're going to leave your life or you're going to leave the information in this room? There's a slave trade going on of American women. Her father was in town.

They took the secret service detail off her to take him tomcatting. She was snatched while he was cheating on his wife. It comes out, they lose the election. I did my part. What part was that?

They gotta get her back. There is no they. They'll let her die. They told him she was dead. She's alive.

Sir, I saw the sign. Let it go. Stop looking for her. It goes beyond that. We would have let her come home, but you had to put on your thinking cap.

What if we had to go off the meter? I need. To ask you to do something. Do you know what we've had to do all these years? Who are you?

Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike Boyd. Joining me once again is Mr. Andrew Nettie. If I want camaraderie, I'll join the Marines.

You're just a mission. Also back in the booth is Mr. Jedediah Ayers. You gotta set your motherfucker to receive. We're wrapping up Valhalla with David Mamet's 2004 film, Spartan, where Val Kilmer plays a character possibly named Robert Scott.

He's military and he knows how to get things done, including, hopefully, finding the president's daughter. So why Spartan? Is that a reference to a knife? The citizenry? The ethos?

The dialogue? We'll be talking about that and a lot more as we spoil this film. You know the drill. If you don't want anything ruined, turn this off. Come back after you've seen the film.

We will still be here. So Jedediah, when was the first time you saw Spartan and what did you think? Oh, I saw it in the theater. I was excited for it. Heist had come out two years before, I think.

And I mean, I was already a mammoth fan, but Heist was like, I was so very high on him at the time. And so I went to see Spartan with a buddy and, you know, we left the theater already quoting lines back and forth to each other. It's no, I, I still quote Heist a lot. more than I quote Spartan, but they're both just fantastic in that I love crime films, and they're great crime films, and some espionage kind of stuff going on here. I came out of it thinking, the comment I remember making to my buddy was, this feels like the backstory of, say, you know, a series character, you know, this is what happened before he went out on his own and started, you know, wandering the earth, like Kanan come through or, you know, the born movies were in, uh, in production at the time.

And I remember we, my same buddy and I had gone to see born movies as they were coming out together. And, so, you know, we were like, Oh, this, this feels very much like that kind of, uh, that kind of thing. We were very high on it. I continue to be very high on it, even though it seems to be the kind of clear postmark of, you know, mammoths slide into right wing thinking and, and ideologies, uh, his sort of fascination with the warrior code and things like that, which I guess goes back even further to Ronan. This definitely feels kind of like Ronan too, which I also love.

But yeah, I like this movie a lot. I was big on Mamet, but I was super excited to see Val Kilmer in a movie that I was like, holy crap, a good movie. Like Val Kilmer's doing... A movie I really like all the way through. Yeah, I was excited for it and been a fan from day one.

And Andrew, how about yourself? Yeah, I would have seen it last decade sometime, I think. I mean, or maybe in the sort of late first decade of the 2000s. I can't remember exactly. I'm like Jed, I was a big Mammoth fan for all the reasons that, you know, all white men are. big Mammoth fans.

No, I was a big Mammoth fan. But as I watched this film again, I thought of something, Mike, that you said in a recent podcast when we did Dark of the Sun about how sometimes the more you watch a film, the less you like it. And I must admit, I thought it was good. I didn't think it was Mammoth's best film. I remember thinking that very clearly when I saw it.

And I can't remember what what order of the mammoth films that came in that I saw. I think I saw Heist after Spartan. But the more I watched it this time, the kind of less, some of the less I liked it, but the more it didn't quite hold together for me in some respects as a film. And the more things about it kind of jarred with me a little bit. I mean, so I do like it.

I think it's a good film. I think it's a really interesting film of performance, as you say. I have to say, and I'm going to do my damnedest to really lose you some subscribers and listeners on this podcast, because you can't look at this film, you can't watch this film set in the early 2000s and now think just how quaint it feels now. I throw back to the time when the political class, the worst thing that the political class in the u.s could fret about was that the president might be getting some on the side you know i mean that's it's just it it feels so quaint now it feels in some respects given given what we've seen over the last you know two or three terms i mean Honestly, what I would not give were it not for that to be the extent of the current president's problems.

That would be quite relaxing. And of course, with the Epstein files and the network of powerful people abusing young women, I couldn't help but sort of fact that in when I watched it this time. And it did sort of, it's something that really resonated with me when I watched it this time. So I like it. I don't think it's my best film.

I think it's a really interesting film. And there's certainly a lot to talk about. I don't remember when I saw this the first time. I think it was on DVD as a rental. And I had the weirdest false memory about this film.

I think it was all of the military lingo. I just kept focusing on that. And I almost felt like this movie was written in a different language. Now, I'm pretty familiar with a lot of the military lingo just from watching TV and movies and things. But For whatever reason, I thought, oh, this is all military lingo.

So when I went back and I watched it again for this show, I was like, oh, wait, no, this is pretty much English, like throughout all of this. I thought it was like kind of this interesting experiment. Mamet loves language so much and does such a great job with language. And I was like, oh, wow, he's using a different language in this one. But no, no, it's English.

And yeah, like you're saying, this does feel that I was reminded of a lot of things while I was watching this the second time. Things like the general's daughter, the one with John Travolta, or he brought up the whole walk the earth kind of thing, the idea of this being before Jack Ryan goes out on his own, before he quits whatever military he's in and he has to go around and help people, be that the short Jack Ryan or the tall Jack Ryan, either Jack Ryan. It just has this feel to it as far as this guy's at the end of his tether and We talked a few episodes ago, Jedediah, as far as not the real McCoy, what was the other one? The Saint. And this whole idea of how Kilmer loves to play these other characters.

And it's very similar to that insofar as he can turn on a dime. And that's the thing that I like about him is There's not a lot of explanation. He just kind of goes with the flow and will make things up. So, like, he becomes a cop in one scene. He goes in and pretends that he was another guard who was supposed to be on duty at the same time as this other guy.

There are all these, like, little roles that he plays through the whole thing. Even at the end of the film, spoilers, when you see him and he's got the beard on at the end, I'm like, has time passed or is that a fake beard? I'm not exactly sure. So.... Because it doesn't seem like that much time passes between the time he leaves Kristen Bell and the time that he sees her on television, but yet he's got a full beard.

But yeah, I think I really still like this film. I like the twists and turns. I like that there are a few moments where they try to wrong-foot you in here. But I totally agree with you, Andrew, as far as we're pushing all of this stuff onto other people, right? Oh, this is all in Dubai, and here's this guy who's I don't know, Lebanese or whatever, all of these foreign national type of characters.

And it's, no, no, this is taking place on an island off the coast of the U.S., and this is all white people doing this stuff. It's not all othering of things. I mean, it's not as bad as the xenophobia of something like Black Hawk Down, but it's getting close. But it's very typical for an action film at this time, or any time, to just push people the sins of yourself onto other races. It's interesting you say that, I mean, because I thought that, I agree with you about that.

One of the great tropes of mid-century pop fiction is, of course, Arab slavery. You know, so Arabs basically kidnapping our white women and sending them to harems. Harems were a We're an absolute obsession of mid-century pulp and men's magazines, you know, both in a comedic way and in a more sort of serious way. And so, yes, a few years, so it's 2004, is that correct? This film is 2004?

Well, that's, it's, you know, we're not long after 9-11. We're America, and I might add also Australia. was in Afghanistan and Iraq. So it's a post-9-11 film, and not only are they bombing the Twin Towers, they're also kidnapping our white women, which is, you know, and sending them off to a mysterious harem in Dubai. But, I mean, I think the whole film, it's essentially, I can't help but think, I was reading all the notes for this film and a whole lot of the material, and I can't help but think, as I say, I really like Mehmet, and I love his writing, but there's an enormous amount of psychobabble. It seems to be about Mehmet and about what Mehmet does and what he thinks, writing and the signifiers and all this kind of stuff.

I mean, really, this film has the feel of an elevated men's adventure novel. I mean, it's not many steps away from Dom Pendleton's The Executioner or Lionel Derrick's The Penetrator or any of those 60s, 70s, 80s men's adventure fiction series, which I'm not bagging them. They are what they are and they were hugely popular. But these men's adventure fiction series where they're fighting the mafia or they're fighting Arabs or they're fighting weird scientists or they're just fighting, killing people who are basically trying to bring down the American dream or, you know, pushing smack onto our kids or, in this case, kidnapping our white women and taking them to Dubai. So, I mean, the tone of it, the feel of it, it's like an elevated pop novel.

And I didn't have a chance to go back and watch all the other Mehmet films I wanted to watch. I did watch Heist, which I love. It felt like an elevated pulp novel too. So, I mean, I think in retrospect, watching these Mehmet films maybe five, six, seven years after I've gone through a whole stage of watching these Mehmet films, I suppose my dominant impression is now, yeah, this guy could have written a really good pulp men's adventure series in the 60s, 70s or 80s. That's essentially what they are.

Well, that's, I think, what I was... essentially the impression i was this feels like the backstory to a character like that you know who has a long-running series of being out on his own and i think you're right that and again i would not use men's adventure as a pejorative the way i'm sure some people listening would hear it i do think you know what elevates it is the writing and you know how spartan it is in you know, the, there's a lot left to infer here. And I think that's what I was just reading. Somebody posted a picture of Billy Wilder's rules for writers on a social media site the other day. And I just glanced at him. And one of them was let the audience add two plus two, they'll love you forever.

And I think, That's, that's a lot of what David Mamet does. You know, he, his characters don't even often talk in complete sentences. You know, they start a thought and just move on. You know, they, they, they'll string four or five half sentences in a row and, and the audience, you know, that might be completely frustrated with it, but people like me, I really respond to that. I'm like, Oh, I can add two plus two.

I'm so smart. really enjoy this it is kind of elevated that way mike which you were saying about uh you you brought it up uh don john ryan jack ryan jack ryan yeah the the tom clancy character and and it's funny a movie that i was thinking about now. I didn't even mean sorry i didn't even mean jack ryan i i think i was thinking of who's the guy that tom cruise played Jack Reacher. That's Jack Reacher. Reacher. So I had my J-R's mixed up, so I meant Jack Reacher.

That's why I said the tall and the small one, yes. I gotcha. Well, I was put in mind of Tom Clancy's Jack Clark, or John Clark character, who was made into, you know, I think my personal favorite of the Tom Clancy movies that have been made is... stefano salima's without remorse with that character as as the main character michael b jordan and the role and yeah this felt like oh yeah you could put spartan and without remorse side by side they'd make a pretty you know good double feature you and they're both you know backstories essentially to a character that is going to go on and have a long story getting into various adventures and scrapes and they are someone who's maybe started out in one place and been disillusioned and at a certain at a certain point but you know has enough of some kind of moral code or idea about honor or something like that maybe entice them in the first place to join an organization, you know, the military or something like that.

Eventually, that was stronger than their, you know, quote, unquote, patriotism or something like that. They broke with it. Yeah, I think I like stories like that. I think they're very romantic. I have not seen a lot of examples of that in the real world.

They are romantic, and I'm a romantic guy. Are they good date movies? Those are not the best date movies. I hear what you're saying as far as the let the audience add 2 plus 2, and it is funny talking about the Spartan nature of this because of the commentary and hearing kilmer talk about how even after they were done shooting mamet is still cutting stuff and just chopping things out and he's just like i wish to god that there are dvd extras on here to show some of the scenes that we shot but weren't in here now i went through the script and i didn't see a whole lot of stuff that wasn't in the movie that was in the script but there are definite differences between that earlier draft of the script which i think was written like 2002, so it took a little while between when the script was, at least the draft I had, was finished and when this happens.

Not too much. I don't know how long the post-production process is on a film like this. Obviously, they're not adding a lot of special effects to a movie like this. There are parts, though, that I am still kind of confused about as far as when does this mystery begin and who's involved in these things. Like, I mentioned the scene where he is pretending that he was on post and there's a guy who was supposed to be on post and he left early to go bang his girlfriend and thus left a window open for the president's daughter to be kidnapped.

Because at the heart of this, the whole thing is the president's daughter is missing. And to your point, Andrew, she was a redhead, but then she got a haircut and now she's got short blonde hair. And so, yeah, the Arabs want her, right? We have to turn her into a white slave now. We're going to grab her because she's a blonde.

And that's the premium thing. And that guy, the guy who was supposed to be on duty, kills himself. And I'm just like, how deep does this mystery go? Well, he doesn't kill himself. He doesn't kill himself.

He's obviously been killed by somebody else. But how deep does this conspiracy go, right? I mean, it's like, is it that? Or because it feels like it was a mistake at first that she got kidnapped. But then with him being killed, That seems to lend some credence to the idea that somebody set her up, but I don't believe that.

I'm more in the camp of she got kidnapped accidentally or taken accidentally because they don't even know who she is at first. See, I read the secret agent, a secret service agent, dying as a suicide, as a throwing himself on his sword for the president because the president, she got kidnapped because the president, took her security away for himself so he could go cheat on his wife. And so he was away from his post, but he was with the president, not, you know, not the daughter. And so his last, he's a secret service agent. His whole thing is I'm here to protect the president.

And that's his thing is I'm killing myself. I become the patsy and I, I protect the president. But what are your thoughts, Andrew? You look very skeptical of this take. No, no, no.

I just think– I thought– I mean, it's a conspiracy, obviously. I mean, and that's– it's very post-9-11, and it's also– it reminded me of films like Cesario, which is a film I really dislike politically. Because, I mean, there's always in these films and it's, what's it, William Macy's character, Stoddard, is that right? Stoddard at the very end where he, Val Kilmer, just jumping ahead, Val Kilmer manages to track the president's daughter down to the slaver's compound in Dubai and they rescue her and then there is in a, he's trying to spirit the girl away on a plane and then Stoddard basically spits one of those endless procession of people who are on screen for a few minutes before they get shot.

He does that huge thing about, don't you know we're at war? It's a war out there. It's World War III. We've got to do anything we can to protect this guy. I just read all that back, which as these guys have been basically illiberal, they tried to eliminate Scott.

They tried to basically eliminate, they eliminated that black Marine that Scott was with, whose name I can't remember. They Basically, the inference I got is that Stoddard would have killed the daughter if he'd got hold of her, if that pesky Scandinavian news crew hadn't just been getting in the way, those Europeans. They would do anything to basically protect the president and cover up his tomcatting, as they call it. So I got that they shot that Secret Service agent who wasn't at his post. They tried to shoot Scott.

They shot the black guy. They would have killed the daughter, which is... Again, getting back to that introductory comment of mine, which I found so fascinating, is that they're doing all of this just to protect the fact that the president is chasing, which is, I mean, we've had that since Kennedy. Given what we've had in the last three presidential, the last two Trump terms, it's nothing at all, really. I mean, God.

But it's funny, between Spartan and Wag the Dog, it's funny to me how Clinton coded mammoths. The presidents were, this was pretty much, oh, this is Clinton. We're basing this on, this is not, this is not the post 9-11 president. But he's, but he's, but he's, I mean, Mamet doesn't go, I mean, this doesn't, this is, I'm not going to go back and cancel all of Mamet's films because he's now drunk the Marga Kool-Aid, but Mamet didn't go Marga until about 2018. where he had that essay in the US magazine that was, Why I'm Not a Something Liberal Anymore. Why I'm Not a Braindead Liberal Anymore, which is when he started.

So he'd basically been a Democrat, more or less, my understanding is, up until that time. But there was a lot in this film I didn't understand, to be honest. I didn't quite understand what the professor had to do with it. I didn't quite get whether she was having an affair with the president or where she'd been snatched. And there was...

Yeah, this is... I'm interested for you guys, your opinions on this. This is, I think, Mamet's definitely his most sparse, cut-down, truncated film. So much so that there were parts of it. And I do, like you, Jed, I don't like to be told what to think in films.

I don't need two and two spelled out for me. I know how to add two and two. And that makes four. Oh, is that four? American education has let us down.

So, um, But there was quite a bit of this film I simply didn't get, but it moved so fast and it had such a propulsive narrative and I enjoyed the action so much that I just, I let that go good art. I let that flow over. Yeah. No, I think it's pretty, pretty explained, self-explained that professor is at first a lead, you know, is she having an affair with her professor and then is a good patsy. Like, okay, good.

We need to stop looking for her. We need to, you know, a tragedy will get this president reelected. So, you know, they kill the professor and some other young woman and, you know, claim, claim that they make a story there. And, uh, and there, and which is why William H. Macy is so, you know, is, is going to kill her if he gets his hands on her.

Uh, to keep the cover-up that they already put in place from blowing up. Yeah, that whole thing of... And that's what I find interesting is, okay, we've got the murder. It's happened, an accident or something happened. We found these two together, and it just makes her look bad rather than the president.

And yeah, we're just going to keep telling this lie until it becomes the truth. And so her being alive is what's going to blow this whole thing. So we can't allow that now. We have to murder her, keep this story going, and have this sympathetic portrait of this president. And yeah, you're right.

It is so quaint that he's out tomcatting. And that's the, oh my gosh, this guy's so awful. I mean, Clinton getting a blowjob in the White House is so quaint compared to everything that's going on over the last 12 years. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah, it's interesting to me that he is so reliant on these two cadets that we meet in the very beginning. There is the African-American gentleman, Curtis is his name. And at one point, I thought he died, but he comes back, which is also a little confusing for me. And then who is it? Jackie Black, I think, is the girl's name.

And for whatever reason, I thought she was going to double-cross Kilmer in this, the Robert Scott character. I'm just like, at the end, when she shows the box and it's got the earring and it's got that strip of photos of the basically it's like her nanny like the nanny raised her more than the president or the president's wife and that sequence is when he meets that nanny it's very odd for me i love mammoth's use of dialogue but every once in a while and we'll talk about this when it comes to heist as well every once in a while he gives you clunkers man her yelling at Kilmer saying, who will get her back? Who will get her back? I'm just like, who says who will get her back when you're heated? Like, you would say who, not who will.

And it just sounds so stilted and arch in that moment. I'm just like, what? It took me out of the movie so much when she was yelling at him because it's supposed to be this very big emotional moment. And then she has to say who will get her back. And I was like, I don't know, maybe I'm just putting way too much emphasis on it.

But I felt like That just ranks so false to me. We're 10 minutes from the bomb squad. If it's happy birthday, let's do it now. That kind of stuff I love. That I enjoy.

Yeah, there's a lot of really good lines in here, so the bad ones just really take me out of it. Yeah, it is a movie I quote, and a lot of it has become shorthand. Set your motherfucker to receive... is, you know, my kids were raised on that when they. Wouldn't listen to me. Or they.

Should. Did you also eat your apple with a combat knife that you'd taken off an East German agent that you'd murdered? Yeah, as I recall, he'd been a little reluctant to part with it. Yeah, that's right. I did think, talking about Kilmer for a second, I mean, he was good in this, and I don't have a huge amount of skin in the game with Kilmer, although I also love the Saint, I remember.

Seeing The Staint with my partner and I were travelling in Prague in 1997, I think, and we liked it so much we went back the next night and saw it again. And, again, another Kilmore film that is like a pulp novel. But he's great in this and it made me think he would have made a really good Parker. He's a really, you know, because he's good as a sort of off the, you know, sparse, mission-oriented, no bullshit, doesn't talk to anybody. to anyone, doesn't want to be involved with anyone, just wants to do the mission, is ruthless. Like Parker, he lives in a small town in the Buyong, when he's not pulling jobs.

All we know about him is that he's got scars on his back and an aversion to the desert. I love the reveal of why you don't want to go to the desert. Because the scent of American tobacco carries. You can't smoke. You can't smoke his cigarettes in the desert, and that's why you don't want to go to the desert.

Which was very apocalypse now. It's like, don't get off the boat. I thought that was, you know, don't get off the boat, don't go to the desert. I think there's two or three lines where he basically says that, don't go to the desert. You don't want to go anywhere near the desert.

And he has to end up going back to the desert. It's ironical. Los Angeles, but really, you know, standing in for Dubai. Well, and it is not a big budget film, clearly. But holy cow.

I mean, I don't care that they're doubling L.A. for Dubai. You know, this works. This works. And it is very, I love that. I remember seeing it.

And when he's in Dubai, the rescue with the other, the mercenary, he's been hooked up with there by the Chinaman. Yeah. And they're going through the job. They're talking it out, what they're going to do. This piece is going to go here.

And you're seeing it in your head. And I'm going, wow, they must have spent all their money on that sequence that's coming up. And they don't. They ditch the plan at the last minute when they see a possible opening that might work out better. And they just go do that.

And I thought, that's brilliant writing. We got the planning scene and we kind of saw this big operation taking place in our heads and then they didn't have the budget for it or whatever. And they just, they did something else, something much, much smaller and, and improvised. And I thought, ah, this is, this is beautiful. I, as both a writer and as you know, someone who was interested in making films.

I admire it. I admired that a lot on those levels. But there's some lazy stuff in it too, I think. I mean, I think uncharacteristically so for Mamet. I always found whatever criticisms I may have had of some of Mamet's past work, I mean, I think like Homicide and House of Games and even Heist to some degree, they were like a Swiss watch.

Whereas I found it really weird that really. Filmer's character, Scott, basically finds out what's really going on. We've had this film full of absolute diehard motherfucking straight A, two people in green, blah, Secret Service people. But we just happened to find the one Secret Service person who is the unofficial nanny to the president's daughter who just basically spills her guts and is incredibly unprofessional. I think that was a bit of a lazy plot point.

And I also did think At the very end, yeah, just the Swedish film crew just stumbling onto the scene and kind of saving him from being killed. Those kind of things were uncharacteristically for me with Mamet's work a little sloppy, I found. I can kind of see that. I mean, there are those moments and then there's really smart moments like foreshadowing the scarecrow that's sitting down on the porch in front of that beach house, you know. Yeah, yeah.

And it's like, okay, well, that's kind of smart. I mean, and yeah, having a beach house, I mean, that does feel very film noir. This reminded me a little bit of Kiss Me Deadly when it comes to that kind of stuff. And this girl being held at this beach house, and I think they're even watching, or they've got a Elizabeth Scott movie on the television. And just those little, like, I don't know, I love the little things, like the little hand signals that they're giving each other.

And it just feels like you're in this other world a lot of times, though. To your point, Andrew, I don't necessarily buy it every single time. But yeah, Kilmer for me just sells this movie so well. And I love when he's in a movie like this, where he is given this opportunity and takes this opportunity to really shine. Because for this whole series, I've been watching a ton of Kilmer films, good and bad.

And he's bad. He's not very good at all. But when he's given this opportunity, when he takes this opportunity, when he really decides this is a role I want to put everything into and not just be a jerk about it, he does a great job. And this movie just lives or dies by his performance. And I think it lives because of that performance, because I think he does such a tight job.

And I love things like going in that beach house and the guy comes out of the room and he just suddenly changes characters like, oh, it's OK. And he just like starts going into stuff. I love the reaction. It's not just him pushing the story forward. He's reacting to a lot of things that are going on.

And he is our surrogate, obviously, for finding out this mystery. So sometimes he's a little closed off because of the mammoth of it all, because they don't want to give us too much information. Obviously, he's not giving a lot of speeches and telling people long, winding diatribes as far as why you don't want to go into the desert to bring that back, Jedediah. Just a simple thing. Just tells it you don't want to go there, and then later on you find out.

It's really nice, very compact. Yeah, looking at his filmography in order, I do see that he had a nice little run there with Heat and 95 and the new And his commentary on Spartan, he talks about how much the experience of making heat helped him with Spartan. Understandable why he'd want to do something like that again. Love Salt and Sea, love Wonderland, you know, coming up right before Spartan. So it wasn't quite as bleak as I remember it being at the moment.

To Andrew's point, Yeah, I would love to see him as, say, a Parker or, you know, doing more stuff in this sort of range. And clearly, I think his attraction to it was Mamet and was the, you know, the pedigree there. But, jeez, I don't know if he... I don't know how much, how difficult it might have been for Mamet to get the performance done. that's in the film out of him because he does he does just kind of on principle grapple with directors and try to throw wrenches into the work constantly. And, and, you know, and he's a kind of a goofy guy and, you know, I'm sure, you know, there's none of that in, performance so I don't know how much stuff is on the cutting room floor or what kind of conversations or on set tensions there were but yeah kudos to both of them for getting this performance and this film but I understand I think I understand why there wasn't more in this kind of no nonsense vein in Kilmer's filmography.

A whole series of films where Scott basically just pulls missions. Would have worked. I would have loved them. That would have been great. Well, they kind of did that, right?

After this, Manet worked with the, was it the technical advisor? And they came up with the unit as a television show. I mean, that would have been great if Robert Scott had continued on in that type of vein, or like you said, like walk the earth. And then he could, this whole thing of him having this Jackie Black and Curtis character, even though Curtis spoilers dies, but those didn't, I think Jackie dies as well. That's right.

She does like him having these army connections back to these cadets. I mean, those could be his ends. You know, it's very, very like the television show of Reacher where it's, I've got this woman here and I've got this guy over here and I can always call on them to, you know, give me more information. They're kind of like his ends in the army kind of thing. I don't know what you're up to, Reacher, but there's a lot of trouble going on, and here's the only information I was able to find in the computer about so-and-so.

Like, that feels like Jackie Black version 2.0. So, yeah, I would love for there to have been a whole Scott series, TV or movies. Yeah, and also just, I mean, having been critical of the film, I mean, also, so there were parts of it I loved. I mean, I think the intro where he's assessing those two characters Marine Corps people to join Delta Force that then join him later in various aspects of his adventure. I loved that.

I thought that was great. And classic Mehmet, yeah, I just love him. Scott in a room full of testosterone-charged guys, basically with everyone doing wisecracks and basically abusing and insulting each other and doing those kind of one-two dialogue things that they do. you know, which is, is, is classic. I mean, I love that. And the interviews, like, I love the way, and Kilmer's very good in that too.

Kilmer, sorry, is very good in that too. As this ruthless guy that, like when they're interviewing the brothel, madam, masterclass, boom, just, but totally obliterates her, you know, within seconds and basically gets the information out of her and really, really love that stuff. Yeah. I love, yeah. Cut out his eye, that whole thing.

Holy shit. And the whole thing, where's the girl? Where's the girl? And I think that was in your notes, Mike. And I hadn't thought about it, but you were quite right, as you often are.

The way that, the different cadences that you heard that phrase, where's the girl? Where's the girl? Hey, where's the girl? You know, all that kind of stuff was really good. I love the whole scene when he's rescuing, quote unquote, Saeed Taghmati.

I don't know how you pronounce the gentleman's name, from Lahain. We talked about that. And then Mark Pellegrino and the way he takes out Pellegrino. But I love that whole thing when he goes into that building that's supposed to be the gas station convenience store kind of thing. And he shoots off the gun a couple of times.

Then you pan over and you see all of those guys just standing there. No one says a fucking word. To the point where Curtis holds up the blackboard that talks about the helo and stuff. I love that. And then I love just that cold-blooded when he has to murder Mark Pellegrino.

Just like, sorry, not enough room. This is a trip for one kind of thing. Holy shit. Those are the moments where I'm just like, this is cold-blooded. And I love that kind of shit.

This was also on... This came out at the same time that... the 24 was on the air and, you know, I think, I think that character that, uh, keeper Southern character was, you know, maybe we did get the, uh, I mean, obviously it wasn't mammoth, but maybe we did get the Scott TV show, uh, just without it being bell Kilmer. It was very, very similar. The thrills of that show were, you know, stuff like that. Cold-blooded murderer.

He's on death row. But I said something on a podcast a few weeks ago that kind of came out spontaneously, and I wished I could have taken it back immediately, but I keep thinking about it, and that scene that you're talking about at the gas station really seems to confirm the thing I said that it feels to me like almost every movie is about making movies and, you know, that scene where they're putting on a production for the, the two guys, you know, the two prisoners, it is like backstage at a play or, um, you know, the off camera operations, uh, you know, they're putting on a fiction, uh, They have to convince these guys what's going on. But I don't know. Every movie is about making movies. I'm not sure.

But this one certainly seems to have some parallels. I can definitely see that. And then it's all about who screws up when it comes to the production, right? Like, oh, this guy actually was standing in a doorway with his fucking badge on. And so the prisoner sees that badge and is just like, oh... these guys are cops.

He doesn't think that Kilmer's a cop because he just saw Kilmer kill all these people and massacre the folks. Or he thinks that there was a massacre inside the building and he definitely saw Pellegrino get it. But he definitely thinks Kilmer's one of his brethren. And when he sees this guy with the cop badge, he's just like, oh shit, this guy's undercover. Not Kilmer, but this other dude.

So it's like, that's where I thought Curtis bought it. So when he shows up again later on in the movie, I was like, oh, okay, I guess he's all right. I don't know sometimes how long time is passing when it comes to this film as far as, all right, we found these bodies in the river or the bay, and so it was the professor and the girl, you know, call off everything, and then him finding out from Curtis that whole, I saw the sign. And of course, he can't say more than, I saw the sign. He can't say, remember the girl's sign that was on that piece of paper? that drawing here, like, I saw that on the window at this place.

He won't give you that explanation. He just goes, I saw the sign. I saw the sign. I'm like, okay, who are you, Ace of Base? You are truly blessed.

The Kilmer's commentary track, he's funny, and he's taking the piss a lot track, and there's a few points where I'm not sure if he's making a joke or if he's He's relaying an actual anecdote from the film, but he says that first cop that Kilmer shoots in that scene, fake shoots, was Mamet's rabbi? Right, yeah. I've heard that several times, though. Well, I wanted it to be real, but there were so many points where he's obviously just kind of being a jackass about things in a very charming way but he's so deadpan in it that it's hard to tell sometimes. Definitely yeah yeah some of those stories are pretty hilarious and that's another one where i'm listening to the audio commentary and i'm just like did he walk away did he leave like is he still here and then every once in a while he would come back i'm like oh okay yeah he's still here all right good it's like sometimes i will try to take commentary tracks and just omit all the stuff other than the person that's talking, because I don't really need to hear the dialogue of the movie, especially it was very quiet in this one.

I'm like, oh, I should have condensed this, but I didn't. And so I heard most of the dialogue of the movie with occasional Val Kilmer, yeah, basically complaints. He didn't talk very fondly about Mamet, that's for sure. And again, yeah, I don't know if he's just taking the piss out of him. Did they not get along?

Never know. Kilmer was quite, had a reputation for being quite difficult, didn't he? Which I never understood why. Like, in his book, what's his book's name? I'm Your Huckleberry.

It's like he keeps talking about Marlon Brando and how much he loved Marlon Brando and he was trying to get Brando in the films and all this kind of stuff. I did not get that impression that he liked Brando at all when I heard the stories about Island of Dr. Moreau and how he would just imitate Brando all the time. And I was like, You're imitating, It sounded like he was making fun of Brando the entire time. But according to his book, he loved Brando and just, oh gosh, he would ask me these questions and I would not know the answer to these things.

And when I asked him if he liked Beckett, he said he had never heard of him or read him. Oh my gosh, how could he have not known Beckett and all this? I'm like, okay, that's great. But yeah, I never got the impression that he liked brando at. All i yeah i just i get from reading that book and from from watching the films and and hearing a couple of commentary tracks you know i just i get a idea of kilmer as someone who is fun as a character and maybe insufferable as a you know family member or co-worker and i Just sort of this, you can't tie me down personality.

You can't pin me down. I'm going to be contrary to whatever the authority is. Whatever way things are supposed to go or whatever, I'm going to counter that, fight against it. I'm going to change. I'm always going to upstage whoever's doing anything.

Andrew, I wanted to ask you, do you know this Australian guy that's in this movie? Because you all know each other, right? Oh, there's only seven people in Australia. That's right. We all know each other.

I have seen Kit Curry in various things. Excuse me. He did a lot of television. Yeah, of course. He plays a stereotyped Australian mercenary.

I mean, all he really needs to do is to be eating a Vegemite sandwich. while he's doing the briefing with Scott. And he gets killed, too. Because everyone's getting killed in this book. Yeah, look, I did. It's terrible.

I should have prepared some notes on Kik Curry. Kik Curry. Come on, where are you, Kik Curry? Kik Curry. Kik Curry.

Sorry, not Kik Curry. Well, you were thinking of Curry from Dark of the Sun. Don't cross swords with me, Curry. There's Edge of Tomorrow. Yeah, look.

God, I haven't actually seen a lot of what he's done. I think he was in Edge of Tomorrow. As soon as you said that, I could picture his face from that one because he's got very beautiful blue eyes. Yeah, he was also in The Thin Red Line. I don't remember that.

He was in Looking for Alibrandi, which is a very famous Australian film. He actually had a big role in that, Garage Days. That was quite a good Australian film too. Yeah, pro-yes. Yeah, and did a lot of TV.

Things to have not done so much recently. I'm sorry to put you on the spot about Kit Gurry. No, I appreciated that nod to just having the cliched Australian character. Can you guys give me one second? My cat has moved a bunch of my son's stuff in here, and the cat is coming on things she should not be and making a bunch of noise.

So I'm going to go remove her, and I'll be right back. PNR. Hello. How did the Dark of the Sun episode do? I don't know.

I need to look at the numbers. I just kind of put them out there. You don't, seriously, because I know your Conan episode. That's all I know is that the Conan episode did well. Conan the Barbarian.

Still one of your most popular episodes. Yeah, well, it's very much, you know, if you put out an episode about a popular film, you're going to get a lot of people listening to it, which is so, it's antithetical to why I do this show, because I'm more about talking about the, you know, the fun ones that you don't know about, like Dark of the Sun. Otherwise, this would just be another show about Marvel. Exactly, yeah. We'd be talking about how Kilmer was never in the MCU, you know.

All right, we'd be talking about Clark Gregg for the entire time and how, you know, this was the precursor to Coulson, you know. Yeah, there's that great scene in 30 Rock where Tracy George is talking about one of his favorite shows, sports shouting. It's just those people on the show, they're just shouting at each other. And the very few of those podcasts about Marvel I've ever listened to are kind of like the movie equivalent of sports shouting. You know, they're just basically people shouting at each other about various esoteric bits of the Red Witch's backstory.

Scarlet Witch. I didn't want to correct you. No, it's okay. We decided we're going to change tacks. for the next bit. We're just going to talk about anybody that was in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

So let's talk about Clark Gregg. A great scene. No. That's the thing, though, about this movie that I really enjoyed was the smaller parts. I mean, not even the Jackie Blacks and the Curtis characters, but I'm talking, of course, Ed O'Neill.

I'm seeing Clark Gregg in here in an early role. And then, yeah, William H. Macy. And that was funny, too, Jedediah. You brought up the whole commentary track, and just Kilmer talking about how when he met William H.

Macy, he's like, I love a lot of the movies that you've done. I love your work. Macy says, oh, I like your stuff too. And Kilmer's just like all butthurt still after all these years. He's like, I said love, Bill.

I didn't say like. Yeah, it's something I enjoy about the Mammoth films is seeing all the kind of house players Yeah, and they even, you know, I like it that they're in movies that he didn't direct, but he wrote, you know. That's fun. Speaking of. No, go for it, Dan Ted, sorry.

Well, speaking of, I just last night watched Henry Johnson. Have you seen that, his latest. Film? Whose latest film is that? Oh, sorry, David Mamet's latest film.

It's called Henry Johnson. I guess it was a stage play. Which, I mean, the film is very... It's basically three or four long scenes. And it's not a long movie.

It's under 90 minutes. The star of the film is an actor named Evan Zionikite. I'm not sure how to pronounce his name. I was not familiar with him, though it looks like he's been in small roles in a handful of movies I've seen. Yeah, he's David Mamet's son-in-law.

And in that context, the role he's playing, I thought, was kind of a laugh out loud. Things like, holy shit, what a nightmare to be in this role with your father-in-law directing you. Anyway, if you haven't seen it, then I won't go further. But I don't think many people have seen it. I don't think it's...

I haven't been able to find it on DVD yet. From the library, I had to just break down and rent it from Amazon last night. But anyway, I enjoyed Henry Johnson, and we'll see if the son-in-law becomes one of the company players. So presumably Rebecca Pigeon, Mehmet's wife, was too old to play the president's daughter in this. Well, I don't know.

That's just a supposition, but she's in everything else, and she's great. Yeah, we'll definitely talk about her in a few minutes here. Yeah, all right. Well, I'll wait for that. Yeah, I kept forgetting that this was Kristen Bell, even though they show her at the beginning.

And then when they show her finally again at the end, they show her in pictures anyway. And I probably should have recognized her when I watched this the first time. I think it was before I saw Veronica Mars, and it was definitely before I saw The Good Place. And seeing her show up in this, I was like, okay, this is cool. I don't know what's going on, though, with her. trying to seduce Robert Scott in that scene where she takes off her shirt.

It's just. Because she's been traumatized by the experience of being kidnapped by these slavers who, all jokes aside, have probably done terrible things to her. And there's a touch of the sort of... What do you call that? Where you begin to love your oppressor?

Yeah, or being a Republican. No, it's Stockholm Syndrome. And. You know, that's how I read that they've sort of, because they talk about that in that sort of very clipped, mamet way. They pass over that very quickly, the various Arab characters that are there, and it's good they pass over that quickly about how they break them down and build them up and send them back to basically put them on the market in Dubai, and I presume, or presumably, that's what they've done, but it's obvious, understandably fucked her up.

You're a stone-cold whoremaster. Yeah, yeah, and really the whole, you know, I mean, this whole movie is just Cherchez La Femme, right? Just trying to find this girl, get her back, put her on the plane, get her back home where she needs to be. Yeah, thank goodness those Europeans were there, because otherwise she would just get a bullet to the head. I do like the whole thing at the airplane hangar when Kilmer gets shot, and you have the whole trail of blood thing, and Macy getting it was pretty great.

And then that little denouement at the end with Everybody watching David Pamer on television. Well, everybody. Kilmer and this other dude who is just like, yeah, time to go home or something like that. And you get that nice little line from Kilmer at the end of the film to wrap everything up. But yeah, I would have loved to have had more of that.

I think that this could have been the start of a beautiful thing, though, yeah, who knows how well Mamet and Kilmer got along, because that's always the thing. He was so difficult to work with. Yeah, I don't know that... I'm trying to think of another Mamet film that I would have watched the sequel to or would have lent itself. I mean, Heist, clearly you could do prequels or something, but that's definitely the end of Gene Hackman's career in that one.

I could have easily seen Bobby Gold try and resurrect his. Yeah, but. As a PI in New York or something like that. Yeah, so great characters, but yeah, he was killed off. I don't know that...

Unless you count Ronan... as a David Mamet film. I don't know the origin of Ronan, but his mark is all over it. But he didn't direct it, so I don't know if that would have made a good. He could have done The Edge. He could have had Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin.

Oh, no, sorry, Alec Baldwin gets killed. You could have had them doing a sequence of basically getting lost in various places and then having to get out. Could have been in the desert. Don't go to the desert. The next one's a hippo.

All right, guys, let's go ahead and take a break, and we'll be back right after these brief messages. Hello, everyone. This is Malcolm McDowell. I just want to say that this is a request to listeners of the Projection Booth podcast. to become patrons of the show via patreon.com. P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com slash projection booth.

That's pretty simple. I think you can do that. It's a great show, and Mike, he provides hours of great entertainment. So now it's time to give back, my little droogies. Settle down and take a listen and have a sip of the old Molocco.

And then you'll be ready for a little of the old in-out, in-out real horror show. Bye-bye. All right, that's... Sorry. All right, we're back and we're talking about Spartan.

But yeah, let's talk about some other of Mammoth's films. I know for this one, Andrew, specifically, you wanted to talk about Heist. And I have to say, I had never seen Heist until I watched this. And I think I mostly enjoyed it. I was talking about that clunker of a line of who will save her.

And this one had a couple other ones. And I can see where some people would love some of the style. But for me, some of it just really hurt to hear. My motherfucker is so cool. When he goes to bed, sheep count him.

Love that stuff. I want you to be as quiet as an ant pissing on cotton. I want you to be as quiet as an ant not even thinking about pissing on cotton. I don't know why I love Ricky Jay, but the delivery of that so cool line just hurt my feelings. But that is one that's in my daily lexicon.

I use it a lot. That's fine. Like I said, I can see why some people would like it. It just hit me the wrong way. I do enjoy how many twists and turns there are in Heist, and I, my God, The cast is so amazing.

And this is the get shorty reunion. I never knew I needed. Yeah, I know everybody's on just, you can tell wants to be there and is, is doing their, their best thing. And, you know, we talked about Rebecca pigeon for just a second. She's not someone I'm convinced would turn my head in a, in a bar or something like that.

But my God, in Heist, I think she's just the sexiest thing ever, right? It's the combination, I think, of her physicality and the role and just the great lines she's delivering. She's incredible in that film. You sent me to him. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's pretty cold-blooded. I think it's good Heist. I rewatched it for this podcast. Maybe one or two false endings too many, I thought.

One or two double crosses too many, but it's true. I mean, how can you not like a heist film written by David Mamet with all those people? It's fantastic. It's not my favourite Mamet. I still was thinking about this while I was preparing for this podcast.

I still think I like his Zionist police procedural homicide as my favourite Mamet, I think, without doubt. I just think that's a terrific film. Yeah, I like that. Honestly, Heist is probably my favorite. It's just pound for pound, the quotables, it's the most quotable to me.

Mork, Mork, Mork, who said, who told you you could work, who told you you could podcast with men? They pack a gum, teach you how to chew it. You know, it's one really kind of grew on me more preparing for this was American Buffalo. Which I have. Not seen, and I would really like to see it.

I've not seen it. Yeah, I really, really enjoyed American Buffalo. And that one, actually, come to think of it, of Mammoth material that could use a sequel, I would like to see just a, I don't want to call it a sitcom, but like a half-hour weekly show with just, you know, hanging out in the pawn shop with Dennis Franz and Dustin Hoffman. That sounds great. I really enjoyed that.

I love Delroy Lindo, and it's so nice to see him have something good to work with, because I've seen him in a lot of not great movies, but he is fucking fantastic in here. I love the opening of this with all of them walking down the street and just all playing their own parts. setting up the diversion with the bomb and the garbage can. There are so many great set pieces in here, or the robbery of the whole thing with the airplane and the way that they set that up. All of that is great. And I love Sam Rockwell.

Just absolutely love that guy. And he's wonderful to not know if he's on Hackman's side or not. But of course, having Gene Hackman lead this, and it feels so well i mean it feels like what it is he was older than everybody else in this cast he felt a little isolated because of his age and this feels like he really wants to do and we've talked about this so many times whenever we talk about robbery films he wants to do the one last heist right wants to take that boat and head on out you know he wants to be tony leong in free from all the obligations, free from all the problems that he has, free from being burnt. I mean, how many times does he say that he's burnt in this film? Right from that first heist on, that when he has to tase that woman and he's right there just looking straight at the camera.

But then I'm wondering, was that true? Is this true? Because everything is a lie in this movie. And I really like that a lot, too. Just how many times, and you talked about maybe one or two too many double crosses or false endings.

I can see that. I can definitely see that when it comes to, you know, oh, who's got the gold? I mean, that's what this movie becomes. We talked about, you know, Cherchez La Femme in the last movie. This one is who's got the gold.

Yeah, right. Yeah. And the whole thing of like the washers instead of the gold kind of thing. And I'm just like, okay, I just talked about the wild bunch and that's what they get from the bank from the very first heist that we see in that movie. all right, you know, I don't know if that's a nod or not, but it sure did feel like it. And the whole, like, we're going to keep double crossing everybody.

Oh, the gold's over here. Oh, the gold is the rail on the boat. Oh, the gold's over here. I just love that kind of stuff. I just eat it up.

Sam Rockwell, someone I'm frankly surprised did not become a mammoth house player because he is, he's great in the role. And it, I, I remember reading a Mammoth book where he went on and on about his admiration of the movie Galaxy Quest, which Sam Rockwell was in. And I was curious whether that was his introduction to Sam Rockwell, and that might be why he cast him. But it seems to me he must have. I don't know much about Sam Rockwell.

Was he in some Mammoth stage productions? He made a movie with Joe Mantegna and William H. Macy a couple years before called Jerry and Tom. I mean, those guys must have been on each other's radar somehow before Heist. Yeah, it's surprising to me that he didn't ever appear in another Mammoth production I'm aware.

So just looking at Mammoth's filmography, I mean, in terms of directing, what happened to his directorial career? Because it kind of fell away a bit after. Well, I think it was TV, as Mike brought up. So he basically went into TV. Yeah, so he made a deliberate pivot into television.

Yeah. The unit and I don't know what I don't know how many episodes of the unit he directed and I don't remember how many seasons that show went on but it pretty much you know was his full time thing was doing that show for just say five years and came out of that into a sort of maybe a changed landscape as far what his his What his Hollywood cachet was, maybe, I don't know. Have you seen any of the unit? I saw the first season. Well, I...

So I was... I came to the unit pretty excited because it was not only David Mamet, but it was Sean Ryan who had done The Shield, which I really love. I really love The Shield. And I thought the first season was not great. It had some potential. didn't, it didn't compel me to watch the rest of it.

I've, I don't know. I might go back and, and watch the rest of it at some point, but it didn't leave like, but I'd say the shield, the first season of the shield is probably the weakest season of that show. But at the, the end of the shield, the first season really kind of hooked, you know, put its hooks in me and said, you've got to come back for season two in a way that the, the unit did not. I watched the first season and I even read that Inside Delta Force book, which is supposedly what, you know, really caught his fascination and, you know, inspired Barton and the unit and things like that. So I have not heard anybody really convincing me or trying to go back and watch the rest of it.

And it was about a sort of Navy SEAL type group of people who basically, a special unit that did black bag jobs for the American government. I mean, sorry, fought for freedom. We are liberating the oppressed and bringing democracy to the rest of the world. That's our whole mission statement. It's right up there on the wall.

I know that. I see that in Iran every day at the moment. Yeah. So that's what it's about. It's about a Navy, it's about a sort of Navy SEAL.

Yeah, Delta Force. Sorry, Delta Force, getting my American elite. It's pretty offensive. Pretty offensive, Andrew. Zoe, thank you for your service.

Thank you. So, I don't know if we have too much more to talk about Heist? I think we've pretty much alienated most of the listeners now, by now. I could spend the whole time just quoting lines from it, but that's not really this It's like that and Miller's Crossing. They're a little on and on.

I like Miller's Crossing as well. Yeah, good. It's good that there are people who like Miller's Crossing. So this is the. Are we going to have another falling out, Andrew?

I tell you. I tell you. No, I wouldn't say. I wouldn't go as far as that, though. It's not like Chicken Joe or whatever it's called.

Killer Joe or whatever that... terrible uh freaking film his last film is. We'll be able to talk about that next year on french french connection. Well that's when you when you when you when you basically shanghai the entire episode is just talking about killer joe. I'm just going to be holding a chicken wing up to the camera. And what was that was it a freaking film the hunted with benicio del toro no yeah Okay, I was getting vibes of that while I was watching Spartan.

It might have just been running through the woods. Yeah. Yeah, well, the Benicio Del Toro and the Tommy Lee Jones character could have been hanging out in the background of the opening scenes of Spartan training those soldiers. So, I would say you're not. Okay.

With us doing this for the last four weeks... I just wanted to talk a little bit more about Kilmer and some of the other things that we've enjoyed him or maybe not enjoyed him. And to wrap up this conversation, you know, obviously the gentleman did 103 roles that I know of, and we've talked about four this month in past seasons. We've talked about things like real genius, top secret, more of his early stuff. But yeah, I want to talk a little bit more about some of the other films that he did that we might enjoy.

And, I can't say that I've ever seen Batman Forever. Obviously, a lot of people love Heat. We did talk a little bit about the Island of Dr. Moreau when we interviewed the guy who actually made that great documentary about the making of Island of Dr. Moreau.

I mean, when he hits, when Kilmer's good, he's great. But he can be in some really bad things. Like, I still fucking hate Red Planet. Cannot stand that movie. And I think, I don't know if a lot of that falls on his feet, but some of it does.

But yeah, I tend to just enjoy the guy, even in bad movies. Like, I remember really kind of digging Mindhunters, the one with Johnny Lee Miller. Yes, the Rennie Highland film. Yeah, I don't remember that one very well. I wasn't on the last three episodes.

I don't know. You probably burnt out your other co-host on the Val Kilmer talk. Probably they just couldn't deal with it anymore. But you brought me on for number four. But we did, the three of us did a podcast on Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

Did. Which I must admit, I didn't like. And then when I looked at the film again for the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang podcast, I thought I had been, I was incorrect. It was actually very good. And Kilmer, very good.

I mean, I'm just looking at Kilmer's, filmography here he did a lot of crap i remember liking wonderland although i can't remember why i liked it i. Like wonderland yeah i liked that quite a bit. He was in quite an obscure little film which a lot of people it divides opinion a lot yeah apparently he's in that and you know it's quite good in that i. Believe He's one of his last, like, really strong performances. He's not the star of the film at all, but I've never heard anybody else bring up a film called Breathless from 2012 starring Gina Gershon, Kelly Giddish as...

Andrew, you're not going to like it because it's about white trash America and trailer parks and things like that, but it's a murder... It's a murder story of, yeah, women killing an abusive, you know, kind of scumbag. But Val Kilmer is in his kind of heavy stage and he's got long hair in it and he's just fucking going for it. He is, he's, he's really very, very funny in the movie. He's dispatched.

He's, he does not survive crime. to even the halfway point of the film, but watching him in a trailer, you know, heavy and long haired and tied to a chair with Gina Gershon, like whacking him in the face with a frying pan and him trying to flirt his way out of a murder is, is like, there's some real wattage, some real star wattage coming through this very inexpensive film. Ray Liotta is also in it. I have a real soft spot for that one that I don't think. It sounds better than Killer Joe, that's for sure. Thelon, the Rick Romanois film, has a pretty good performance from him.

I'm not a huge fan of the film. I think Rick Romanois' A Shot Caller, which came, I think, immediately after, was a better film. But Val Kilmer is a dangerous... prisoner in a maximum security prison and there steven dorf is the the kind of new fish tilmer gets to wear a goatee and be kind of badass and like deliver really hard-boiled lines on the you know the toilet right there in the cell and i appreciate that that was pretty good. He was good in The Doors, too. I mean, I liked all those overblown, overhyped Oliver Stone films.

They were good entertainment. It's funny. I really liked The Doors when I first saw it. Loved it. Saw it at the theater.

Really got into it. And then when I watched it on video, I was just like, man, clean up your fucking life and just quit drinking and quit doing drugs and just, you know, come on. Let's get it together here. You've got a lot of talent. Why are you wasting it?

There's a big market in Christian R & B. Come on. Move it on. You can do something different with yourself. Another small role, but a good movie and a decent role.

He's in Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant, Port of Colony, New Orleans. That's a good one. He's so good in that. Yeah, that movie is... I love it.

I love it so much. I always talk about the end of that film when everything is going right for... nicholas cage where it just feels like it's a total dream where it's like oh and the lottery numbers hit and this app it's so great. Yeah that's good stuff the uh francis coppola movie yeah we're. Gonna be talking about that next year i'm excited yeah yeah i've never seen it at all no i'm i'm those later coppola films like and i kind of got Because he did Twixt and he did another film that had a similar title, I want to say. He did Youth Without Youth and Twixt and Tetro.

Yeah, Tetro was the one I would mix it up with. And that's Vincent Gallo, I think, in that one, right? Yeah, I need more Vincent Gallo like I need a hole in the head. Tetro's pretty good. It's also got that one guy shit. who played Han Solo in the Solo movie, Aaron Alden, Aaron something, yeah, he's...

Yeah. Oh, MacGruber! Gotta love Dieter von Kunt in MacGruber. I watched last night, I put on MacGruber's commentary track, just hoping for some good Kilmer dirt, and it was a fun enough commentary track, it's a great movie, but but they didn't give me what I wanted on the Kilmer front. I think probably the last film I saw him in was The Snowman, because I still haven't seen Top Gun Maverick, because I was just never a big Top Gun fan.

But yeah, I don't remember him specifically from The Snowman. I just remember, sorry to pile on, but just how dumb that movie was. I don't remember that movie at all, though I did see it. Deja Vu. Tony Scott Deja Vu.

I like that a lot. Yeah. I mean, that's one of those just high concept sci-fi thrillers that Tony Scott had the, he could pull it off. It's funny how many times Kilmer worked with 50 Cent. I remember him talking about that in the autobiography and how he was kind of trading acting tips with 50 Cent and 50 Cent was teaching him a little bit about rap.

And I was like, oh, okay. I'm just glad that Kilmer never came out with a rap album. Thank God. It's good that he didn't have the same relationship with the rapper that he had to the special services guy. I mean, it is.

He was a hell of a singer, Kilmer. I mean, you talked about The Doors. Him doing all of his own vocals for The Doors was such a coup, and it sounded really good. And then, of course, him as Nick Rivers in Top Secret. He was great in that.

Whenever he had a chance to do musical stuff, he could pull it off. But I was glad he wasn't some sort of Don Johnson where he's trying to spin off a side career, Val Kilmer, the singer. Are you dissing Heartbeat? Or what was it? I thought I had the title there.

Was it Heartbeat? Heart something. And yes, I am. I am dissing it. I hope that's all right.

I saw John Carpenter's Elvis for the first time just a couple months ago. Had never seen it before and I don't know how many times I saw Top Secret as a kid. I just I loved that movie. I quoted that movie all the time. And I had no idea the Tutti Frutti scene from Top Secret is a barely exaggerated scene in Elvis, in John Carpenter's Elvis, where Elvis sings Tutti Frutti at a German beer hall.

And they, yeah, it's really remarkable how similar, how close they are. Yeah, anyway, FYI, you know, just a little detour there. I'm going to have to check that out. That's one of the few Carpenters I haven't seen. Yeah, I didn't love it, but my completest.

And I love Kurt Russell. Yeah, well, we talked about that last week with Tombstone. So, yeah. And that was the thing, too, that I think I brought up maybe even week one when we started this whole thing is Kilmer as star versus Kilmer as supporting cast. And that was, you know, you mentioned Deja Vu.

He's great. He comes in, he does his job. He really enables the Denzel character to be able to do what he needs to do when it comes to that whole time travel thing. I thought that was great. And yeah, I know how much he loved working with Tony Scott and just how reticent he was and how he didn't think that Tony Scott knew what the fuck he was doing when it came to working with him on Top Gun.

Until he saw the final product. And then after that, he's like, oh, I want to work with this guy more. And I just loved how he really fell on the other side of that whole thing where he's just like, oh, no, this guy's really good. And then come back for the little role as the mentor slash Elvis in True Romance. And then coming back for this and for Deja Vu.

So that was nice that he had that relationship. I like that. when a actor can get along enough with the director where they can actually make multiple films together, because I'm trying to think of, there weren't a lot of directors that he would work with time and again. And I think that was just that difficult personality he had. On the Doors commentary, Oliver Stone was talking about casting him, and not in a critical way, but it's not something I'd really want somebody saying about me, but he said, I had an arrogance about him that I thought was just right for the character. But it doesn't sound like he thought he was so bad to work with because he asked him to be in Alexander.

So he brought him back, wanted to do another project with him. And I haven't seen Alexander in forever. That's another one, isn't it, where you watch the director's cut rather than the regular cut? A Ridley Scott film. Because I know that I for sure have Troy and Alexander mixed up, and I don't remember who directed Troy.

That was Wolfgang Peterson. But I know we talked years ago about how if you have the opportunity to see a director's cut by Ridley Scott, you should take it because usually his stuff is pretty bad when it comes to the theatrical versions, which is a weird thing to do. Yeah, I've heard his... Director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven is great, but. I haven't seen that.

Maybe that's what I'm mixing up. Or no. I don't know. I'm just going to cut that whole thing. I sound like an idiot.

Anything else we want to talk about before we head out, gentlemen? I don't think so. All right. We're going to take another break. Yeah, you've watched a lot more Val Kilmer films than me, Jed, obviously.

When I was a young man, I used to try and keep up, but now it's like, nah. Hey, some people go spend a year and a half in Europe and other people just. Nothing better to do in the States than sit down and watch Tubi. Yeah, no, no, that's wrong. I can't get anything to do in Germany.

Yeah. How about that, those Germans? All right, guys, let's go ahead and take another break and play a preview for next week's show right after these brief messages. From the fantastic Jules Verne, creator of Around the World in 80 Days, comes now the most fabulous adventure on, over, or under the earth. The first motion.

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That's right, we'll be back next week as we kick off Checktember with Invention for Destruction. Until then, I want to thank this week's co-hosts, Jedediah and Andrew. So, Andrew, what is the latest with you, sir? I've got a few things cooking, but I won't go into those now. But if people want to follow my musings, they can follow my substack on andrewnetty.substack.com with lots of goodness there for people to get into.

And Jedediah, how about yourself? I've just got a couple... A couple of essays coming soon that I can't announce yet. Yeah, looking for more jobs like that. That's fun stuff.

Well, thank you again, guys, for being on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening. If you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some of the other shows that I work on. They are all available at waitingwaymedia.com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community.

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