Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Welcome to five Minute Film Finder, brought.
[00:00:09] Speaker A: To you by Pioneer Library System.
[00:00:14] Speaker C: Hello, and welcome to five Minute Film Finder, a Pioneer Library System podcast. We are going to be talking about a couple of 90s movies today. I'm joined here by my good friend Ben, and my name is Darren. And once again, this is Five Minute Film Finder.
So tell me what you think about Val Kilmer. We're gonna be talking about a couple of Val Kilmer movies today. Rest in peace, of course. He just, he just passed recently.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: Yeah. I've always had, like, a, like, reverence for Val Kilmer, like, and, like, I don't know that I've gone super deep on his filmography, but, like, just everything I've seen, I've just been like, he's instantly charming, like, capable of, like, a wide range of comedic and serious acting and kind of lives in the, like, 90s 2000s action and thriller and drama that I really enjoy. How about you?
[00:01:16] Speaker C: Well, one of my formative movies is Willow.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:01:21] Speaker C: Which stars Val Kilmer as Mad Marigan. And so, like, even as a very little kid, like, there was something about he. He. He was one of those guys that just kind of struck me as somebody I wanted to watch.
[00:01:32] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and his discog. Or his filmography is deep. Like, just like. Do you have any favorite films? I mean, I love Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang.
[00:01:45] Speaker C: That is. He's so good in that movie. He's so good in that movie.
[00:01:49] Speaker A: What could have been like, a very forgettable movie is, like, held up by him and Robert Downey.
[00:01:54] Speaker C: Yeah. Like, their interplay. And I think that's something that he does really well, is play off of other people. Like, when he's got somebody good to interact with.
I say, I didn't like him as Batman.
We'll go that. I didn't care for his Batman.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: I'm a few years younger than you, so I was fooled by the being a child, so I, I loved him as Batman, but then later was like, oh, no, this is. Yeah, a horrible movie, but I think.
[00:02:26] Speaker C: We'Ve talked about the Salton Sea before. That's one of my favorite movies.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Yeah, we did that on the podcast. Yeah.
[00:02:30] Speaker C: And. And he's great in that. I. I said I don't really have any movies of his that I. Oh, you know, hate that. You know, there's some that I haven't seen.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:02:38] Speaker C: Some weird ones, small ones, but yeah, yeah, he's. He's pretty great.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Love, love him in Tombstone. Like, I think that's a lot of people's like, first for sure as Doc Holloway.
[00:02:48] Speaker C: Probably his biggest meme thing. Like, if anybody's gonna talk about one of his things, that's. It pops up.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: I'm your huckleberry.
[00:02:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah. It's so good.
[00:02:57] Speaker C: So, yeah, today we're gonna talk about two movies from the 90s. 96. 97. We have the Ghost in the Darkness and the Saint.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So do you want to kick us off?
[00:03:06] Speaker C: Yeah, let's. Let's get Wilhelm set up, and we'll. We're gonna start off with the Ghost in the Darkness.
Okay. So the Ghost in the Darkness, this movie came out in 1996, stars Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas. It's about some man eating lions.
[00:03:22] Speaker A: Yep. Ostensibly.
[00:03:25] Speaker C: What do you think? What was your. You'd never seen the movie?
[00:03:27] Speaker A: Never seen it, never heard of it.
I thought it was fantastic. Like, if it felt like a kind of movie that doesn't get made anymore, like, it felt like it was.
It's shot where it was.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: Yeah. Being on location, those. The. The African music that was used in the movie, a lot of those things really kind of had an effect on the overall.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: And, like, huge, huge background cast that were clearly. It's just like. Yeah. They just got people from around there. Yeah.
[00:03:56] Speaker C: Huge pile of extras.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: Like. Yeah.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: And like that. That kind of stuff is so effective and just like putting you in a place and like, especially when there's nothing else there.
[00:04:04] Speaker C: Like, it's just the landscape and these people. And it very much made you feel like you were there in. In the early 1900s when they were trying to build a railroad in Tsavo, Africa, where these maneless lions, they were portrayed in the movie as having manes, but they're actually maneless because it's so hot and arid and gross there.
They were killing people.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:26] Speaker C: In the movie, they killed a lot.
And this happened in real life. The character played by Val Kilmer.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I was wondering if all that voiceover stuff was true.
[00:04:35] Speaker C: He wrote a book based on his experiences that was a sensationalized book. It wasn't the 100 plus, whatever people that were killed, but, like, 30 people got killed by these lions while they were building this railroad. So.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: And I believe at the end they said that you can see the lions at the Field Museum of Chicago.
[00:04:53] Speaker C: I have actually seen these lions.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Oh, that's so cool.
[00:04:55] Speaker C: It's very cool. I've seen them and then went and watched this movie immediately after I'd seen them. Sure, yeah. But, yeah, real cool story. The Wikipedia for the Tsavo man eating lions is ridiculously long. They're still studying these animals today.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: It's a weird movie because you think, okay, we're doing a period piece that's going to have some thriller y elements, but it's like a horror movie.
[00:05:21] Speaker C: Yeah. Like, very set up like a horror movie. You get these little flashes of the lions hunting these guys and then suddenly they're in the camp.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's very effective and upsetting.
[00:05:33] Speaker C: Like a Jaws movie on land with lions kind of thing.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah.
What do we want to say about Val Kilmer in this movie?
[00:05:44] Speaker C: Well, I think he's great. He's sweaty the whole time. It looks like he's, he's having a good time in Africa, like as the character and that really kind of comes through. Like he's really excited to be there in the start of the movie and.
[00:05:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I think he's great. And like in the story it's like sold as like he's kind of just like a fan of Africa who's never gotten to go there. And just through the happenstance of being assigned through the army.
He's an army engineer. Yes.
[00:06:12] Speaker C: I think that's where he, he built, he built bridges for the army and then he's hired by a industrialist guy to finish this railroad because they're trying to exploit Africa.
[00:06:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And they're building a bridge to bring trains into Africa.
So. But like, you see like how, what an affection he has and like how he's not like, it's not a typical film like this where it's just like the English guy is going down to be racist. Yeah. Right.
[00:06:37] Speaker C: Like, he's not at all. He's very much on their level, wants to help. He's. They, they, they like him because he goes out and shoots a lion at the very start of the movie and saves, you know, so he, he's very much on their level in this, in this process. And then things go bad. Lions start killing people and they got to bring in the, the great white hunter. Michael Douglas comes in.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:56] Speaker C: Who's a made up guy.
[00:06:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:58] Speaker C: Through the story. He didn't actually exist in real life, but he kind of fits that real hunter role which, you know, the real guy, John Patterson actually shot the lions. But you know, they're like I said, Val Camel is good when he's got somebody to play against. They play against each other real well.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: And like, and it's a fun, like, oh, you just got here. You still got the shine of like, oh, this is exciting on you. And like, and it's funny, like, how he's like, I hate this place, but also there's no better place.
[00:07:34] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Like, I really enjoyed Michael Douglas in this movie and, like, he can hit me wrong sometimes, but, like, I feel like his energy was well placed against Val Kilmer.
I also loved all of the other supporting cast in this.
[00:07:50] Speaker C: Yeah, the guy who played Samuel was great. The assistant guy who was kind of a missionary who. Who died. He was pretty good too, up until that point.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:01] Speaker C: Yeah. Like I said, I liked everybody. It's nothing really bad about the movie if you like the, you know, that kind of actiony thing.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:08:08] Speaker C: Thriller, like I said, kind of a Jaws online.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's about our time. So I think that's probably the best way to sum it up. If you like Jaws or if you like that kind of like nature versus man horror element, it's. It's a great watch for that. It also just feels like that time and big movie making, like it had some weight to it and gravitas that I feel like doesn't make it into a lot of movies these days. Just like the scale of everything was really nice.
[00:08:42] Speaker C: It did win a sound editing Oscar, I believe. So, like, the sound was great. Like, it's a really good movie for that kind of thing. If you're into the. The music and really kind of feeling the Africa.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Absolutely.
All right, so we'll take a quick break and then we'll be right back.
[00:09:07] Speaker C: All right, welcome back. And now we're going to talk about 1997's the Saint Again, another Val Kilmer movie. We'll get the Wilhelm set up and I think Ben's gonna take the lead on this one.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: All right, so as you said, 1997 the Saint, directed by Philip Noyce. I will lead us off by reading the IMDb description. Simon the Saint Templar. Val Kilmer is a thief for hire whose latest job to steal the secret process for cold fusion puts him at odds with a traitor bent on toppling the Russian government as well as the woman who holds it secret. That's a pretty long IMDb summary because it is that all of that is important information. So they were actually kind of had it well covered there. So this just feels like a. Like The Cold War, early 90s, late 80s movies that like. Like the James Bonds, but very, very.
[00:10:07] Speaker C: Feel James Bond feeling.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah, but like, I think had a lighter to and like had a little more fun than some of the James Bonds.
[00:10:15] Speaker C: So the bad guys, the villains. And we talked about this. The villains in this movie do Some villainous stuff, but it's more like mustache twirly villain stuff than actual like showing them do bad things to people.
[00:10:29] Speaker A: Yes. So as the description said, we have a Russian oligarch who is trying to purchase and then steal and then finish complicated schemes. Yeah. It keeps getting like, subverted and then like re. Rejiggered over the course of the whole thing. But he's trying to get the cold fusion so that he can control energy and then overthrow.
[00:10:56] Speaker C: Become the leader of the Russian government.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
So Val Kilmer is a orphan.
[00:11:04] Speaker C: Yeah. The beginning of the movie is shown he's in an orphanage and it kind of shows his genesis.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: That was honestly like another thing of its time was opening a movie with like mild child abuse.
[00:11:15] Speaker C: Right. Like, one of the most upsetting things in the whole movie is the first five minutes.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: Because, like, there is violence throughout this movie, but it is like heightened, silly action violence. But like, that felt like, oh, this is like kind of a commentary on like. This is rough.
[00:11:30] Speaker C: This is awful for these kids.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And so that's where his origin. That he then becomes kind of a thief slash like super spy, like master of disguise, all. So I believe you did a count.
[00:11:48] Speaker C: I did go through. I fast forwarded through the whole movie and didn't count. He has 10 disguises so good that he uses. And he uses one of them twice.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Oh, the old man disguises.
[00:12:00] Speaker C: Yeah, he uses the old man at the beginning and at the end.
Maybe it's only nine. Anyway, lots of disguises.
Some of them are pretty quick and he's got a little voice for each one. Affectations that he does for these characters.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:12:15] Speaker C: And it's great.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's so fun. It's clear that they're just like, we need a vehicle for Val Kilmer where you can just flex how much fun he has doing characters and like, give him all the opportunities to do a lot of things. Almost like, how can we do Austin Powers before Austin Powers without it being a full time?
[00:12:34] Speaker C: Kind of like that where it's. It's not him, you know, doing it for laughs.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:38] Speaker C: It really feels like it's part of the plot.
[00:12:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And it doesn't feel like it's. It approaches the line of like, this is absurd. Nobody believes you can see the line.
[00:12:47] Speaker C: Yeah, right. Like it's there, but he doesn't. He doesn't push over at all. Yeah, it's great.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
One of my favorite actors who has portrayed many Russians and Eastern Europeans. I believe you told me he's from Ukraine.
[00:13:04] Speaker C: Don't Remember now. Rade Serzia is Serbian. Croatian. He's Croatian.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: He plays our Russian oligarch. But I have loved him in so many movies from the 90s and early 2000s. Most notably, Boris the Russian in Snatch is one of my favorite characters that he's portrayed. But, like, as you said, a very classic villain in this movie of just, like, he has henchmen, he has the plot, he has a lot of posturing and, like, go kicking all the time.
[00:13:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's just a lot of fun in that way.
When I was watching this, I was thinking a lot about the new movie Hitman and, like, it's just a fun. Like, it manages to take itself seriously, but also, like, be very funny and.
[00:14:00] Speaker C: Light touch seriously enough. There's. It really walks that line really well.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:14:05] Speaker C: I think Elizabeth Shue is a big part of that. She is just a bright light throughout this whole movie.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Floats through the movie.
[00:14:13] Speaker C: She's got that breathless, like, heart thing at the beginning, but, like, her.
[00:14:17] Speaker A: That's her time. But I'll keep going. Yeah.
[00:14:19] Speaker C: Her whole thing is just. She just kind of brings the movie up in every scene she's in.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. She is so effortless. Like, do you know much about her filmography? I just know, like, I know her.
[00:14:30] Speaker C: From Adventures in Babysitting when I was a kid.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. I also realized I didn't know this director very well, but he has a huge filmography.
[00:14:40] Speaker C: Bunch of 80s and 90s action movies and stuff like that.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, kind of. I mean, I don't think it would be overstaying it to say that, like, kind of royalty for that era.
He did Clear and present danger. He did.
[00:14:58] Speaker C: I love Blind Fury.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Blind Fury, Yeah.
[00:15:00] Speaker C: You're talking about even some later. The movie Salt with Angelina Jolie.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:15:08] Speaker C: The Bone Collector, also with Angelina Jolie and Patriot Games. Yeah. So a bunch of good stuff. Yeah. Good action director.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Absolutely.
So Philip. Philip Noyce. Yeah. We.
We just want to say we love Val Kilmer.
[00:15:25] Speaker C: Go watch some Val Kilmer movies.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Go. Yeah. There's so much in his filmography to enjoy for, like, any type of enjoyer of films. So go out. And there's a lot on Hoopla and Canopy. Both of these movies were on Hoopla, I believe.
[00:15:44] Speaker C: Yes, I believe Hoopla. You can find both of them. Search Val Kilmer on both platforms. You'll find a bunch of movies to watch.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
Otherwise, thanks for joining us.
[00:15:53] Speaker C: Thanks a lot.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Bye.
[00:15:54] Speaker C: See you next time.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: 5 Minute Film Finder is a digital program brought to you by Pioneer Library System. In Oklahoma. All opinions expressed in this episode are those of the host and not those of the organization. Five Minute Film Finder is produced, recorded and mixed by Ben Cuba. Theme music by Ben C. If you have any questions, concerns or comments, please email podcast at pioneerlibrarysystem.
[00:16:21] Speaker C: Org.
[00:16:21] Speaker B: Remember to like, review and subscribe. Thanks for listening.
