A Summery Sunshine Blogger Award

Sally Silverscreen of 18 Cinema Lane has awarded me with a Sunshine Blogger Award :-D  Thank you, Sally!

The rules of this award are pretty simple:  answer the 11 questions asked by the person who nominated you, then nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them 11 questions of your own.  Always good fun, because the questions can be new every time!

Here are Sally's questions for me:

1. Which actor or actress do you wish had starred in a historical fiction/historical period picture?  

Most of my favorite actors and actresses HAVE starred in period dramas.  But I do have a running list of actors I dearly wish would make a western.  And they are:

Chris Hemsworth

Luke Evans

David Boreanaz

Henry Cavill

Charlie Hunnam

Come on, guys, get yourselves some hats and horses and let's go!

(Not at all coincidentally, I have cast all of those guys in western books I've written).

2. What two shows would you pair for a crossover? 

I want a Perry Mason (1957-66) and Dragnet (1951-59) crossover!  I want Joe Friday (Jack Webb) and Paul Drake (William Hopper) working together to solve a crime involving someone Perry Mason (Raymond Burr) is defending.  Please, and thank you.

3. Which food-related movie promotion would you bring back? 

Back when Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) came out, they released a limited edition Snickers bar with coconut in it that I LOVED.  I wish they made those still.

4. You’ve been tasked with designing a popcorn bucket! What movie do you choose and what does its popcorn bucket look like? 

This year is the 70th anniversary of my favorite musical, Guys and Dolls (1955), and I would design a very cool bucket similar to this Dutch poster:

I want bright and cheery yellow streaks, little multi-colored stars, and the main characters in their vivid clothing all around the popcorn bucket.  

Actually, now I really want a coffee mug like that.  May have to go see if anyone has made one.

5. When was the last time you saw a made-for-TV movie? 

I watched The Shadow Riders (1982) with my husband a few weeks ago.  It's such a fun romp of a western -- I probably will review it for Legends of Western Cinema Week next month.  (Yes, that event is returning!  We will be announcing it pretty soon!)

6. What is your least favorite trend in movies? 

I am sick of the big Hollywood studios putting out movies that they think audiences should like instead of putting out movies audiences actually do like and want to watch.

7. Which movie would you like to see from a different character’s perspective? 

Hmm.  You know, I'd like to see what Dave (1993) would look like from the perspective of Ellen Mitchell (Sigourney Weaver).  

8. Is there a movie poster or trailer you wish you could fix? If so, which one? 

The trailers for The Lone Ranger (2013) made it look like it was going to be a straight-up western and failed to prepare people for its quirky, fantastical twists.  Likewise, The Man from UNCLE (2014) trailers were dark and serious and totally missed both the humor and the retro panache of the film.  As a result, both films failed to land their target audiences and kinda fizzled.  And that makes me very angry because I would happily be watching sequel after sequel for both of them.

9. What is your least favorite film from your favorite actor’s or actress’s filmography? 

My favorite actor is John Wayne.  I will probably never watch The Shootist (1976) again because it's too sad.  I also don't care much for Rio Lobo (1970) or Legend of the Lost (1957).

My favorite actress is Maureen O'Hara, and I honestly didn't care much for How Green was My Valley (1941).  I know it's widely admired, so I feel like I should give it another chance.  Maybe I will, some day.

10. What movie-related mystery would you like to see solved? 

Who killed the chauffeur in The Big Sleep (1946)?  Author Raymond Chandler, who wrote the original book, didn't know.  Nobody knows.  I suspect a couple different people, but it sure would be nice to know.

11. Is there a “lost” or “partially lost” film you wish was recovered? If so, which one?

Many!  We have lost so many of Rudolph Valentino's early films, and even some made after he became famous.  I dearly wish someone would find prints of A Sainted Devil (1924) and The Young Rajah (1922) squirreled away in someone's attic.  We did find Beyond the Rocks in 2003, after all!  Parts of The Young Rajah have been found, and a version has been cobbled together from that partial print plus publicity stills and what is know of the script, but still... the whole movie isn't with us anymore, and I'm bummed.

And now, it's my turn!

My Questions:

1. What classic movie have you seen most recently?

2. What modern movie have you seen most recently?

3. What's movie that was made in your birth year that you really enjoy?

4. What's a movie you wish you had seen much earlier than you did?

5. What movie are you hoping to watch soon?

6. What's a movie you have been wanting to see for years, but still haven't?

7. Have you ever watched the same movie more than once in the movie theater?

8. What movie needs a sequel but never got one?

9. How do you watch most movies?  (Streaming?  DVD?  Theater?  TV?)

10. Have you ever changed your mind and started liking an actor/actress you formerly disliked?

11. Have you ever visited a filming location?  (Share photos if you can!)

And I Tag:

Along the Brandywine

Any Merry Little Thought

The Flapper Dame

Holds Upon Happiness

I Am Charles Baker Harris (And I Can Read)

Maidens of Green Gables

Meanwhile, in Rivendell...

Musings of an Introvert

Sidewalk Crossings

Taking Up Room

VT Dorchester

Play if you want to!

Respect Me as a Human Being: Jackie Robinson

I spent a lot of years searching for my personal Civil Rights hero. History classes taught me the big names: Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, President John F. Kennedy. None of them connected with me. None had the mixture of goodness, integrity, and grit that makes someone my hero. 

And then, in my mid-twenties, I got Ken Burns’ documentary Baseball (1994) from the library. As I made my way through the series, I became fascinated by Jackie Robinson and how he used his athletic skills and personal courage to show the world that the color of a person’s skin had nothing to do with their worth and abilities. When I subsequently read Robinson’s autobiography, I Never Had it Made, I knew I’d found my Civil Rights hero at last. A kind, stubborn, dignified Christian, Robinson was everything I wanted in a hero. 

Born to Georgia sharecroppers, Jack Roosevelt Robinson grew up poor, but determined. His father left the family when Jack was still a baby, so his mother moved her five children all the way out to California, where she worked whatever jobs she could find and saved up enough money to buy a house in a nice neighborhood. They were the only non-white family on their street. 

Jack Robinson excelled at sports in high school and Pasadena Junior college, playing on various varsity teams. But he also gained a reputation for combativeness, standing up for other African-American students when he thought they were being unfairly treated due to their race. He nearly got suspended at least once over his resistance to inferior treatment. 

After junior college, Jack Robinson — nicknamed Jackie by newspaper reporters — went to UCLA, where he met his future wife, Rachel Isum. Although he did well athletically at UCLA, Robinson was restless. He quit school just a few months short of graduation. About that time, the US entered WWII, and Robinson applied for Officer Candidate School, graduating with a commission as a second lieutenant. He asked Rachel Isum to marry him, and they made plans for the future. 

But in the summer of 1944, Jack Robinson faced a court martial. The Army did not have segregated buses on the Texas base where he was stationed, but one day, a bus driver told Robinson to move to the back of the bus. Robinson refused and got arrested. His court martial acquitted him, but he missed out on seeing combat duty because the rest of his unit shipped overseas while he was awaiting his trial. Later that year, the Army gave him an honorable discharge. 

In 1945, the Kansas City Monarchs signed Jackie Robinson to play baseball in the Negro League. Baseball was entirely segregated — Major League Baseball had been white-only since the 1880s, though there were no formal, legal rules prohibiting athletes of other races from playing. Rather, there was a “gentleman’s agreement” among the team owners and managers that prohibited hiring non-white players. In the mid-1940s, Brooklyn Dodgers manager Branch Rickey set out to challenge that agreement. He scouted the Negro League for someone who not only played excellent baseball, but who could withstand the scrutiny and abuse that would crash down on the first black man to step onto major-league baseball diamonds. 

Robinson had a reputation for not only refusing to back down in the face of racial aggression, but asserting his equality. The incidents in the military and his school days pointed to his being someone who would not stand still and endure racial taunts, threats, and aggression. But Robinson promised not to fight back against whatever abuse came his way, and Rickey signed him to play with the Montreal Royals, the minor league team associated with the Brooklyn Dodgers. 

Jackie and Rachel Robinson got married at last. Robinson played in the minors until April 15, 1947, when he made his major league debut by taking the field with the rest of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was 28, old by baseball standards, but played so well he wound up being named Rookie of the Year. 

He endured the hatred of millions. Some of his own teammates didn’t want to play with him at first and threatened to sit out any game he played. People in the stands screamed racial slurs at him. One opposing player deliberately gashed Robinson’s leg with his spiked cleats. Others taunted him while on the field. Strangers sent death threats not just to Robinson, but to Rickey and others associated with the Dodgers. 

The American League also signed a black player, Larry Doby, just a few months after Robinson joined the National League. In 1948, both leagues accepted more black athletes, and the pressure on Robinson eased up somewhat. He played better than ever, and by 1949 he was voted Most Valuable Player in the league. A remarkable achievement, considering three years earlier, many in the league actively worked to keep Robinson and other black players out. 

Robinson retired from baseball in 1956, due to his age and ill health. He suffered from diabetes, and a life of constant athletic activity was catching up with him. After leaving baseball, he had a successful business and banking career. He was a devoted husband and father, and a regular churchgoer. And he was active in the emerging Civil Rights Movement, attending marches, giving speeches, and lending moral support to those engaged in sit-ins and freedom rides. He used his fame to gain attention for the movement and worked with leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and being active in the NAACP. 

Jack Robinson once said, “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me … all I ask is that you respect me as a human being.” I think that’s all any of us can ask from people around us — respect as a human being. Let my actions, my personality, or my words gain your like or dislike, but treat me with the respect you would give any other person because they are created in the image of God.

(This post originally appeared in Femnista magazine on February 15, 2018.)

The Back to 1985 Blogathon

If you feel a little tingly while reading this post and the ones it links to, I'm told that's a common side effect of time travel.

Welcome to the Back to 1985 Blogathon, hosted by myself and The Midnight Drive-in!  Check back throughout the weekend as more and more posts get added to the fun.

Participants, please drop a link to your entry in the comments on this post, or in the comments on Quiggy's post.  

Here we go!

Weird Science/Real Genius/My Science Project triple feature

at The Midnight Drive-In

The Bride

at 18 Cinema Lane

Private Resort

Angelman's Place

Clue

Hamlette's Soliloquy

Back to the Future

Any Merry Little Thought

Letter to Brezhnev

RealWeegieMidget Reviews

The Jewel of the Nile

Taking Up Room

White Nights

Sidewalk Crossings

The Breakfast Club

Movies Meet Their Match

Brewster's Millions

Dubsism

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

18 Cinema Lane

"Clue" (1985)

When I was a teen, I had three good friends.  We were all homeschooled and belonged to the same 4-H club, which is how we met.  Like most girls in the 1990s, we loved having sleepovers at each other's houses, which is how we usually celebrated our birthdays, plus any other event we could convince our parents to let us get together for.

And every time we had a sleepover at my friend L's house, we watched Clue (1985).  And we usually played the board game Clue after watching the movie.  Because, why not?  

To this day, watching Clue makes me think of sleeping bags on the floor, nail polish fumes, and the faintly squeaky ceiling fan above us that I once dreamed fell on top of me during the night, ala a certain chandelier in the movie.

This is one of the few movies my husband enjoys watching more than once.  That's very rare -- there are maybe a dozen movies he will gladly rewatch, so that puts this in fairly exalted company.  I think he mostly likes it for Tim Curry's appropriately zany performance, and for the very unique way the film ends.

Clue is based on the 1940s board game, which is reminiscent of "house party murder mysteries" like many written by Agatha Christie, where a lot of people are at a big house for a few days, someone dies, and a detective (usually an amateur) has to figure out who killed the victim, where, and how.  Was it Colonel Mustard in the study with the revolver?  Mrs. White in the lounge with the candlestick?  And so on. 

The movie updates the setting a bit, to the 1950s.  Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan), Mrs. White (Madeline Khan), Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd), Mr. Green (Michael McKean), Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull), and Miss Scarlet (Lesley Ann Warren) are all summoned by anonymous letters to a dinner party at a huge mansion in the middle of nowhere.  They arrive in the middle of a thunderstorm.  And each of them drives a car that corresponds to the color of their playing pieces in the board game, which tickles me.

The butler, Wadsworth (Tim Curry) welcomes them.  The house is thinly staffed, with only a cook (Kellye Nakahara) and a maid named Yvette (Colleen Camp) to assist him with the dinner party.  A certain sinister Mr. Boddy (Lee Ving) shows up partway through and reveals that he is the man who has been blackmailing all six of the guests for years.

The guests at first claim not to know each other, but that naturally turns out not to be true.  People die.  Bodies pile up.  Innocent (?) bystanders get shot.  Everyone runs around the house a lot.  Literally.

There are really two aspects of this film that elevate it from campy, cheesy, slapsticky, screwball-ish nonsense to something truly hilarious.  One of those is the cast.  Everyone clearly is aware that they are making something quite wacky, and they have no qualms about being goofy and funny.  I always have the feeling that they are inviting me to join the fun and not take anything at all seriously.  

And I'm going to spoil the other essential part of this movie in the next paragraphs.  Skip to the "Back to 1985" logo now if you haven't seen this movie and don't want to be spoiled about the ending, which is so great that I really, really, really don't want to mess up your first viewing.

For real.  Shoo.

Okay, if you're still with me, then you probably have seen this movie and know what I'm talking about.  This movie doesn't have an ending.  It has three endings.  Because every time you play the game Clue, you come out with a different combination of places, weapons, and murderers!  So, of course the movie should have options too!

But here's something you might not know:  They shot three endings, and on VHS and DVD, you get all three endings with little intertitle cards saying "That's how it could have happened" and so on.  But when this was shown at theaters, it was shown with only one of the endings.  Each of the endings were used, but they sent different versions to different theaters!  Can you imagine seeing this in the theater, then chatting with a friend who lived a couple towns over and discovering that they had seen a different ending?  How wild and wacky that must have been!  I was only five when this movie came out, so I first saw it on VHS at one of L's slumber parties when I was a teen.  But I can only imagine how much fun that must have been, when it was in theaters.  I've read that some theaters did advertise whether they had ending A, B, or C -- and if I'd been in my 20s back then, I suspect I would have driven around to different theaters to see all the endings.  But I like it best this way, as a sort of movie choose-your-own-adventure.

This has been my contribution to the Back to 1985 Blogathon hosted by myself and The Midnight Drive-In all weekend long.

Oh, is this movie family friendly?  Um, I'd say it's probably all right for most teens, but not kids.  It has quite a bit of innuendo in the dialog, Yvette's costume is extremely revealing (and she flashes her panties at the camera at one point, for no actual reason), there's discussion of a character being gay and characters have various reactions to that, and (obviously) there are multiple murders.  There's a smattering of bad language, too.  So, no, not really family friendly.

Two Summer Book Events That You Don't Want to Miss!

First of all, I'm participating in the Clean Fairytale Summer event again this year!  During all of June and July, the Clean Fairytales Group on Facebook is celebrating no-spice fairy tale retellings.  There are door prizes for anyone who joins right away and reads the introductory posts on June 1 and 2.  There will be giveaways, reading challenges, games and prizes, free downloads, and lots of chances to hang out with fairy tale retelling authors like me.

In fact, I'll be taking over the group on June 10 from 7 to 9 pm (EST) to chat about my books.  I'm working on some fun games for people to play, and there will be prizes!  If you don't want to miss all that fun, and you aren't a member yet of the Clean Fairytale Group, follow this link for more details.

But that's not the only bookish event I'm participating in this summer.  A group of my fellow Christian authors have gotten together to host a massive giveaway (I'm talking more than 90 books for the prizes).  

To enter the giveaway, you first need to check out this list of books written by participating authors.  You then request one or more of them from your local library.  Then, you enter the giveaway right here -- though the giveaway doesn't technically start until Monday.  But you can get a head start on reading over the list and figuring out how to request books from your local library today!  And then start entering the giveaway tomorrow.  

This promotion runs through June 29, and the person in charge of it (Brianna Lynn Campbell) will choose the winner and so on, on June 30.  The link to the list of books and the link to the giveaway both provide more info, if you have questions.

"The Princess Bride" (1987)

I was ten or eleven years old the first time I saw The Princess Bride.  We were spending our summer vacation in Iowa, visiting our relatives, as our family always did.  My aunt invited my mom and brother and I over for the afternoon to watch a movie with her, and with her youngest son, who was two years older than me and the cousin I always got along best with.  They had a good collection of movies on VHS for us to choose from, lots of things we had never seen before, and they usually let us borrow some to watch at my grandparents' house while staying there.  This was the first and only time we actually went over to their house to watch something with them -- I don't know if there was a special occasion I've forgotten, if it was just a rainy day and we were all bored, or what.

While trying to decide what to watch together, my aunt and cousin discovered we had never seen (or heard of) The Princess Bride, and they insisted we had to watch it.  I have such lovely memories of sitting on the floor in front of the TV with my brother and cousin (I can still remember their variegated brown carpet!), with my mom and aunt sitting on the couch behind us, all laughing and cheering through the whole movie.  It was my first experience with a live-action fantasy movie, and my first swashbuckler.  I was enchanted.  

On the drive back to my grandparents' house where we were staying, I heard the Supremes song "Stop in the Name of Love" on the radio for the very first time, and that song has been indelibly linked with The Princess Bride forever in my mind.

I had read just enough fairy tales and adventure stories to understand a lot of how this movie was spoofing and subverting them.  And I loved the framing device (though I didn't know that name for it) of the story being read to a little boy by his grandfather.  But, most of all, I loved Westley (Cary Elwes).  In fact, a year or two later, we named our new dog Westley after him.

The Princess Bride is based on a book by William Goldman, who also wrote the screenplay.  It's about a sick little boy (Fred Savage) whose grandfather (Peter Falk) visits to cheer him up by reading him a book, The Princess Bride.  The boy is skeptical about a book ever being fun, but grudgingly agrees to try not to fall asleep.  And then, of course, gets increasingly invested in the story of Buttercup (Robin Wright) and Westley (Cary Elwes), to the point where he doesn't even mind having to listen to the kissing parts.

I'm not sure if I should even try to summarize this movie.  It's so hard to do without ruining surprises and funny things!  Buttercup and Westley fall in love, but he's poor, so he goes to sea to earn some money for their future life together.  The Dread Pirate Roberts attacks his ship, and everyone knows the Dread Pirate Roberts never takes prisoners alive, so Buttercup is consumed with sorrow.  Eventually, Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon) sees her and decides she's the most beautiful girl in the kingdom, and that means she's the best, so he decides to marry her.  Buttercup doesn't care what happens to her now that she has lost Westley, so she agrees.

And then Buttercup gets kidnapped by a giant named Fezzik (Andre the Giant), a swordsman named Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin), and a wise guy named Vizzini (Wallace Shawn).  And then she gets kidnapped by the Dread Pirate Roberts.  And then she gets rescued by Prince Humperdinck.  And then she gets rescued by the Dread Pirate Roberts and Inigo and Fezzik.  It's a very busy time for Buttercup.

It's full of sword fights and Rodents of Unusual Size and torture Machines and battles of the wits and double crosses.  And I haven't even mentioned Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) and his wife (not witch) Valerie (Carol Kane), who are so funny that Mandy Patinkin reportedly cracked a rib during filming because he had to try so hard not to laugh during their scenes together.

If you have never seen this movie, you should.  If you have seen it before, you should probably watch it again.  It's a pure delight from beginning to end, unless you happen to be my BFF, who is the only person I know besides my dad who has seen it and not liked it.  So... you might not love it.  Or like it.  Or find it funny.  But it's such a cultural touchstone, you should see it at least once.

Is this movie family friendly?  It has two cuss words in it.  It has a non-gory torture scene, which we fast-forwarded through when my brother was little because it was too intense for him.  It has a couple of kisses.  It has a bit of swashbuckling violence, but again, nothing gory.  I'd say it's great for ages 10+, and for younger viewers with a parent to fast-forward if their kids are sensitive or squeamish.

This has been my contribution to the Adventure-a-Thon hosted by Cinematic Catharsis and Realweegiemidget Reviews!

A Realm Awards Finalist? Me?!?

I can barely believe I get to say this:  my book A Noble Companion is a finalist for this year's Realm Awards!!!  

::cue all the squees::

This little Ugly Duckling retelling was such a challenge to write.  First of all, it's the first time I have been part of a multi-author project.  Second, I really had never written fantasy before, and I struggled with that aspect of the book a lot.  Third, every book in this series focuses on a side character of the fairy tale being retold, not the usual main character, and... there aren't really any other named characters in The Ugly Duckling.  

I'm not a fantasy writer, I'm a historical fiction writer, so I did a lot of praying that God would help my imagination and writing skills grow and change to suit this new project.  And I did find ways to make it truly a fantasy book, but one resting solidly on a foundation of historical research for the setting.  But I never really expected that it could compete against more obvious fantasy books for the Realm Awards, which are for Christian fantasy and sci-fi.  The fact that it made the long list last month felt like a really amazing honor, and I really didn't even hope that it would go farther.  But it did!  It's a finalist now!  Wow.

If you want to see who all the finalists are, you can find the official list here.  If you want to know more about A Noble Companion, check out my page about it.

Announcing the Back to 1985 Blogathon

Sour Patch Kids.  Cherry Coke.  Microsoft Windows.  Pictionary.  Chex Mix.  The year 1985 was a whiz-bang year for launching new products... and new movies.  This summer, my friend and frequent co-conspirator co-host Jim/Quiggy of The Midnite Drive-in and I are celebrating the movies released in1985.  We invite you to join us!

The weekend of June 7 and 8, let's all get in our own imaginary time machines and revisit the cinemascape of forty years ago.  So many amazing and often iconic movies were released that year, and we want you to help us celebrate as many of them as we can.

We do have a few rules:

1. You can write about any movie, TV show, or specific TV episode that was released in the calendar year of 1985. We will make an exception to include films that came out in December of 1984, since they most likely would still be in theaters in 1985, but we draw the line at Dec. 1, 1984. And nothing that was released after Dec. 31, 1985, will be admissible.  Sign up by leaving a comment on this post, or on Quiggy's post.

2. Only new entries please. No fair reposting something you've already written.  Post your review sometime during the blogathon. 

3. Grab one of the banners here and use it in your post to promote the blogathon.  We'd also love it if you added one to your blog beforehand to spread the word!

4. Let one of us know when your post goes live, with a comment on one of our launch posts so we can include it in the official list. 

5. As always, have fun!  It's not necessarily a bad thing to be preoccupied with 1985, after all...

Sign-up List:

+ The Midnite Drive-In: Science Class 1985 (an overview of Weird Science, Real Genius and My Science Project)

+ Hamlette's Soliloquy: Clue and The Young Sherlock Holmes

+ Whimsically Classic: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer

+ Dubsism: Brewster's Millions

+ Taking up Room: Jewel of the Nile

+ RealWeegieMidget Reviews: Letter to Brezhnev

+ Thoughts All Sorts: The Goonies

+ Any Merry Little Thought: Back to the Future

+ Angelman's Place: Private Resort

+ 18 Cinema Lane: The Bride and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome

+ Movies Meet Their Match: The Breakfast Club

+ You!

My Ten Favorite Val Kilmer Movies

My heart is still heavy over Val Kilmer's death.  I've been rewatching some of my favorites of his movies, and today, I'm sharing the list of my top ten favorites with you.  

1. Tombstone (1993)

A free-wheeling recreation of that one time Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) and his friend Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell), plus Wyatt's brothers (Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton), had a showdown with Ike Clanton and his pals, and Tombstone, Arizona never got over it.  This movie is a wildly good time, particularly every scene Val Kilmer is in.  And the score by Bruce Broughton is one of my all-time favorites.

2. Willow (1988)

A small farmer (Warwick Davis) reluctantly teams up with a big braggart (Val Kilmer) to save a baby princess from a wicked queen (Jean Marsh).  Along the way, the braggart falls in love with the queen's daughter (Joanne Whalley) onscreen and off.  It was one of the first fantasy movies I ever saw, and it's still a dear favorite.

3. Spartan (2004)

When the daughter of an important American government official is kidnapped, an impressively capable agent (Val Kilmer) is sent to retrieve her before she's sold into slavery overseas.  It's a tense thriller that makes plain the all-too-real ease with which human trafficking occurs here in the U.S., and the difficulty in rescuing someone from it.  And it's cool seeing Clark Gregg work with Val Kilmer.

4. Real Genius (1985)

A teen genius (Gabe Jarrett) enters a school for the scientifically gifted, where he and his offbeat roommate (Val Kilmer) try to stay sane while also solving a mystery surrounding just what their scientific discoveries and creations are being used for.  My college roommates and I were obsessed with this movie for a while, and we used to wear these funny headbands around campus (even to classes) as a nod to Val Kilmer's character in this movie.

5. Batman Forever (1995)

Bruce Wayne/Batman (Val Kilmer) tries to stop Harvey Dent/Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and Edward Nygma/The Riddler (Jim Carrey) from taking over Gotham, while also mentoring an orphan (Chris O'Donnell) and romancing a psychiatrist (Nicole Kidman).  Is this movie a dayglo comic book extravaganza?  Yes.  Does it also have a compelling storyline and some really good character development?  Also, yes.  I just rewatched it this week for the first time in a while, and was excited to find I still really love it.

6. The Saint (1997)

Simon Templar (Val Kilmer) is a professional thief who gets involved with Russian spies and a beautiful scientist (Elizabeth Shue) while just trying to do his job: stealing some nuclear macguffin or other.  The real treat here is all the disguises Templar uses, which lets Kilmer transform himself again and again in ridiculously fun ways.

7. Thunderheart (1992)

An FBI agent (Val Kilmer) with Native American heritage is assigned to solve a murder on a Sioux reservation, despite the efforts of others to either cover up the truth or use the crime to pursue their own agendas.  The fact that Val Kilmer had Native heritage himself (he was 1/8 Cherokee) is a total bonus for how perfect he is in this role.  The story is based on true incidents.

8. The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

A professional hunter (Michael Douglas) teams up with a British engineer (Val Kilmer) to take down two man-killing lions that have been attacking workers trying to build a bridge in Africa.  It often feels like a throwback to the adventure movies of the '50s and '60s, but with more realistic violence.  Maybe that's because the screenplay is by William Goldman, who wrote The Princess Bride (book and screenplay both), as well as screenplays for movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and Maverick (1994).

9. Prince of Egypt (1998)

Animated take on the life of Moses (Val Kilmer), growing up in Pharaoh's household and being tasked by God with leading the Jewish nation out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land.  Excellent take on the historical account from the Bible, and the songs are really cool, too.

10. Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

An Air Force pilot (Tom Cruise) has to train the wild son (Miles Teller) of his fallen wingman for a dangerous mission.  Val Kilmer gets a small scene as Tom Cruise's former rival and current superior officer, and it's a moving one.

Please note that Tombstone, Spartan, Thunderheart, and The Ghost and the Darkness are all rated R, so you may want to investigate their content levels further before watching them if that is of concern to you.

Good Night, Sweet Prince

We have lost Val Kilmer.  I'm so broken up over this.

Val Kilmer was my first modern Hollywood crush, thanks to Batman Forever (1995).  I was fifteen when that came out, and I fell for him immediately, and then watched both it and Willow (1988) repeatedly throughout my teens, followed by a deep obsession with Tombstone (1993).  Over the years, I have loved so many of Val's movies.  I also really enjoyed his memoir, I'm Your Huckleberry.  

I'll be posting a list of my top ten favorites sometime soon.  For now, I'm just really sad.