Episode 814: Tombstone (1993)

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It off. It was a place where a man could start over, where a fortune could be made. They say every town has a story. Tombstone has a legend. Who is he?

That's White Earp. Better name for himself as a peace officer. I heard of you. I'm retired. You must be Doc Holliday.

Are you retired too? Not me. I'm in my prime. Hollywood Dictionary presents... The only real law around here is the cowboys.

The story of Wyatt Earp. The first time in our lives we got a chance to stop wandering and finally be a family. Now this is trouble we don't need. If we're gonna have a future in this town, it's gotta have some law and order. What do you want, Ringo?

I want your blood. I want your soul. I want them both right now. He shot your brother. Now the time has come for justice.

Guess maybe you better swear me in. And he has to live up to his reputation. You got a fight coming. I'll be there! I'll be there!

One last time. None of your problem, Doc. You don't have to mix up in this. That is a hell of a thing for you to say to me. In a battle.

The last charge of Wyatt Earp and his immortals. At the OK Corral. Oh, my God. The West would never forget. Kurt Russell.

Val Kilmer. Dana Delaney. Powers Booth. Michael Biehn. Bill Paxton.

Jason Priestley, Sam Elliott, and Charlton Heston. You tell them. I'm coming and hell's coming with me! Justice is coming to Tombstone. Welcome to the Projection Booth.

I'm your host, Mike White. Joining me once again is El Goro. I'm your hooker, Barry. Also joining me is Mr. Jedediah Ayers.

I have two guns, one for each of you. We are continuing our month talking about Val Kilmer films, which we are calling Valhalla. This week we are discussing one of the roles for which Kilmer may be best known, Tombstone. Released in 1993, the film stars Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp, lawman of the West, and his time in Tombstone, Arizona, squaring off against a group of outlaws known as the Cowboys, along with his brothers and Doc Holliday, played by Kilmer. It's a classic story and one that's been told many times.

We will be discussing some of those times and spoiling all of the films as much as we can. If you don't want anything ruined, turn off the podcast and come back after you've watched them. We will still be here. So Jed, when was the first time you saw Tombstone and what did you think? I saw it during its theatrical run.

I can't remember if it came out in the summer or I think it was maybe Christmas release because I was in Kansas visiting family and a bunch of us went to see this at the theater. And I'm going to lean toward Christmas. I came out of the theater really buzzing and definitely saying Christmas. Val Kilmer was going to win the Academy Award for this. And feeling very, I don't know, very cool that I could make a prediction like that.

It felt very grown up and a level of nerdy that I aspired to be able to say that. And he didn't win, but, or did he? He didn't win. He was nominated. I felt, I don't think anybody remembered that I said that.

But every time I saw my family afterwards, I'd bring it up. Yeah, this definitely was a Christmas release and you should have done the whole thing where you wrote it down and put the date on it. And then I really should have been that now. And Al Goro, how about yourself? I didn't see it on the theatrical release cause I was a little young for it, but I did see it pretty much as soon as it hit VHS after that, uh, at the time I was living in Arizona.

So this was a big release, you know, directly engaging with a notorious part of Arizona history shot and old Tucson. You know, I've been to tombstone. It's just something you do. So it was a film that all parts of the family were all about. And me seeing it as probably a nine-year-old absolutely fell in love with it.

It's gone on to be one of my favorite films. And I believe I told you before we started recording, absolutely my favorite Western. Yeah, I definitely missed this when it came out as well. I don't know why if I had just maybe gotten my fill of Westerns after Dances with Wolves, which was, what, 1990? And that seemed to kick off kind of a a resurgence of them.

I also got maybe a little confused when it came to there being the two Wyatt Earp stories. And I know that Wyatt Earp or Wyatt the Costner one came out well after this one, even though they were competing at the time. And I think Kevin Jarrett had actually offered the role of Wyatt Earp to Costner and he turned it down. He said, no, I'm making my own Wyatt Earp film. And in fact, you probably should stop doing yours.

I told them we already got one. But I'm glad they went ahead and did this one because of the two, spoilers for later on in our discussion, I think this is the superior one. But yeah, I saw this on VHS and absolutely fell in love with it. Really had a great time. And this is one of those movies.

Now, I really love Kurt Russell, but every single scene that Val Kilmer is in He might as well just get charged and sent to jail. I know he's not with us anymore, but he should have because he steals every fucking scene that he's in. Oh, absolutely. And it's interesting to read, you know, the contemporary criticism and just the prevailing legacy of this film. It's all wrapped up around Val Kilmer.

Even people that were negative on the project as a whole, they will still spend some time specifically calling out Val Kilmer's performance in this. And not to correct you too much, Jedediah, but the fact is that he wasn't actually nominated for Best Supporting Actor, which is a crime, in my opinion. What he was up against, there were a lot of really strong contenders. Tommy Lee Jones won it for The Fugitive, but you had Leonardo DiCaprio for Wet Seat and Gilbert Grave, Ray Fiennes for Schindler's List, John Malkovich for In the Line of Fire, Pete Postlethwaite for In the Name of the Fathers. So it was a pretty decent year for supporting actors, but I think history has gone on to be much kinder and more celebratory for Kilmer's contribution to this film.

Yeah, that's crazy. You know what, though? The John Malkovich, I also said he's going to get Best Supporting Actor when that came out. So there, I'll. Reclaim a little bit of Eric, but thank you for the correction.

That should be corrected. Yeah, he absolutely deserved to be nominated and, in my opinion, win. Yeah, that was Rogue's Gallery of Amazing performances. That really turned me on to... What's Eating Gilbert Grape turned me on to Leonardo DiCaprio, and I was just like, ooh, who is this kid?

I gotta watch him. I don't know whatever happened to him. He made that Don's Plum, and that was the last I ever heard of him. And you didn't see Critters 3 before that movie? No, I didn't.

I really fell off of the whole Critters train. I'm just the Critters 1. Ride or die. That's fair. But yeah, this movie is... lousy with character actors.

It is just every time you turn around, you've got an amazing actor in front of you. Powers Booth, Michael Biehn, Michael Rooker, Thomas Hayden Church. Stephen Lang. Stephen Lang, almost unrecognizable through a lot of this. And he's one of those guys who really does a great job of just hiding who he is.

It took me a long time before I made the connection between him and his role in the Avatar movies, and him in Manhunter. To look at those two people side by side, you would kind of not think they're the same person. Same with this. It took a while because I knew he was in the movie, but re-watching it last night, I was like, he's in this, right? And then I finally was like, oh, it's that guy.

That's Stephen Lang. Okay. Which is so funny because his later career, especially post-Avatar, he's redefined himself in a lot of these tough guy kind of roles. And it's a slot he fits very comfortably in. But yeah, you can. back to his earlier performances, and he would play the most cowardly kind of individuals, and Ike Clanton is absolutely of that type, and he's so good in it, too.

Yeah, I had a big moment of when I realized Stephen Lang was Ike Clanton, which was long after sometime in the 21st century when I knew the name Stephen Lang. It was for stuff like the tough guy stuff, like Public Enemies and Avatar and things like that. I remember going, oh wait, he's the guy in Manhunter, like you said, in Tombstone, in Last Exit to Brooklyn, things like that. I was like, holy crap, this guy's got serious range. I'd never seen Cosmodus' Shadow Conspiracy, and he's in that one too.

Totally, you'd never put his Ike Clanton and the character he plays in that one. You'd never see they were the same guy. What a great character actor. Again, it's just such a wonderful ensemble. Even seemingly this small, insignificant characters, they have a great actor behind them.

Hell, it almost enters into a Wayne's World 2 situation where, oh, okay, so we have a cameo from Charlton Heston. Why not? Yeah, Robert Mitchum doing your narration. Then once you get to town, you've got, of course, we can spend an hour talking about Frank Stallone here, right? But you've got like Terry O'Quinn and Jason Priestley showing up in a very small role, Billy Zane.

But then freaking Billy Bob Thornton. I, as soon as I heard his voice, I was like, oh wow, I forgot Billy Bob Thornton's in this movie. And this is back when he was still chunky Billy Bob Thornton. I remember when he lost all that weight. I think it was around the time he was getting together with Angelina Jolie to the point where people were like.

Is he sick? Is there something wrong with Billy Bob? Like he's kept, he took it off and kept it off for all of these years, more power to him. But it's so funny to see him. as like the tubby version of Billy Bob. And he is so great.

And I just love him and so many good lines. That's really the first time we see, one of the first times we see Wyatt Earp just being a real badass. Like when he comes off the train and there's the guy abusing the horse and he just smacks the guy with whatever he's smacking the horse with it. And he's like, hurts, doesn't it? All right, this guy is a total badass, and that he's there with Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton as his brothers?

Holy cow. You can't get much better than this, right? Sam Elliott, the consummate cowboy, and that frickin' voice, and all of these guys with their amazing mustaches. Which, by all accounts, were real mustaches. I think it was only John Tenney who had to wear a false mustache, but everybody else, they just grew out their real mustaches.

Tenney only had to do it because he had another role or something he was doing and he couldn't have a mustache on? That's what I read. It was interesting on that. And especially since there were various times with Kurt Russell, it's like, that's got to be a fake mustache. But apparently, no, that's just his facial hair.

Until I read the book about the making of this film. So this movie came and went completely under my radar. I really just. Remember it coming out, but I don't remember much else other than that. And I had no idea of how contentious this production was until I read that making of book because I just didn't know.

And to find out that this movie was, I don't want to say mostly shot, but very much shot by Kevin Jarre, the screenwriter of the film, and that this was, was this his directorial debut? And they gave him this. He was pivoting off of what he had done with Glory. And so that was so well received. It was like, okay, let's give him the opportunity to direct.

And then by all accounts, he just became overwhelmed with it and he couldn't keep up with the schedule. Well, it sounds like he was shooting a lot of master shots, but not a lot of closeups. And it sounds like there was at least the scuttlebutt is that a lot of the actors were looking at each other going, this isn't going to work. And I don't know how long it took for them to I don't want to say they had a coup, but it definitely sounds like Kurt Russell was very involved in maybe not the removal of Jare, but definitely the bringing in of Cosmatos, George Cosmatos as the director. According to that making of book, and I'm hoping we get to talk with the author later on in this episode, there's some stuff going on with him where he's been unavailable recently.

But according to that book, Kurt Russell called up his old friend, Sylvester Stallone and was saying basically hey you know that movie Cobra that this other guy directed but you actually directed and remember Rambo 2 that you directed but has this other guy's name on it can I get that guy can I get George Cosmatos to come in here and do this for us making sure like I can direct but George is going to put his name on the film kind of thing I don't know how much truth there is in that, and if anything, it sounds like George Cosmatos was a real piece of work. He almost terrorized Catherine Hardwicke, who is, what, the art director or the production designer on this film? It does not sound like he got along with very many people at all once he got onto this film.

Yeah, I've heard various accounts. I know that Michael Biehn had a very negative opinion of him, and it was all based upon how he essentially treated those he felt who were beneath him. that if you were an extra or a minor actor, he would treat you terribly. But if you had any sort of pull, he would be this very obsequious, fawning type guy, and that just rubbed Bean the wrong way. But I've read an interview with Russell that was in the pages of the magazine True West, which apparently is the source of where he first revealed that his involvement in the post-Jarre stuff. And he pretty much said in the interview that, yeah, when they brought him on, It was the studio that was pushing for him to take over as director, but he didn't want to step into that role for political reasons, that he didn't want to be the guy that took over for Jarre.

So you bring in Cosmatos, and according to Russell, he would essentially spend every evening laying out this shot list and then hand it to Cosmatos. In the morning. It's like, okay, this is what we're doing. He didn't go as far as directing the other actors. I know Michael Biehn said that he was never directed by Kurt Russell, but in terms of being the organizing force, rearranging the script, cutting a lot of stuff out, and basically getting it on track, the day-to-day stuff was handled by Cosmodos, but the overall stuff that a director does to keep a project moving forward, according to Russell, that was all him.

Yeah, the other thing that Jarrett was accused of quite a bit was And unfortunately, he's passed on, so we can't really ask him about this stuff. But according to this book, anyway, he would do a lot of line readings, which is exactly what actors don't want. And here we are talking about the caliber of actors that are in this movie. Every single role is being played by somebody who's pretty freaking great, even Frank Stallone. And you get him going in there saying, no, Michael Biehn or whoever, say it like this, and telling him, no.

You missed the emphasis on that one particular word, and that's the thing that you do not do with actors. And I guess he was really rubbing a lot of people the wrong way. It's a hell of a script, and the caliber of the cast, I think, is testament to it. All these guys, incredible guys. Of course, Billy Bob Thornton wasn't the Billy Bob Thornton yet.

I know Frank Stallone Jr. doesn't like to be. He's protective of his on-screen image, but these guys are lining up to get just pushed around and bitch-slapped. All over this movie. They're like, please let me be the guy that gets absolutely humiliated here, and please let me do this role. So, you know, hell of a script.

And I did... I watched. Either of. You see Kevin Jarry's The Tracker, or one of his other scripts is... It was an HBO original starring Chris Christopherson.

Anybody? Yeah, it was 1988. And some of the lines he's practicing for, I know, let's have a spelling contest, is in Tracker. And, oh, wow, yeah, this guy was, I think he was putting it all together for Tombstone. So, you know, yes, Val Kilmer delivers the line much better. it really lands.

I doubt that was a line reading by Jari, but he was working toward this one for a bit. On a certain level, I can understand the logic behind that. It's his first time as director. He may not, he hasn't developed the how to interact necessarily with actors and he's the writer. So he of course has a very definite sort of thing in his head of how he imagined the words going out.

But with some of the collaborative nature of film, you have to give room for the people to do their jobs. And I think that perhaps if he had maybe done a film before Tombstone, that perhaps he wouldn't have had this approach and gotten himself into trouble as he did. But there's a lot of really interesting what could have been with Tombstone. And I know, Mike, you shared with us the original script and just the sheer amount that was in there and what this film was originally intended to be. Versus what it ended up being.

Now, I still love what it ended up being, and I'm certainly not as down on it as, say, like Sam Elliott, who was not too terribly positive. He signed up based upon that Jare script, and they didn't exactly land that. But it still would have been interesting to see if they had managed to do exactly what Jare wanted, which was much more of an epic that was really narrowing in on all of these different characters coming together into this final confrontation. a lot more stuff with the Cowboys, a lot more stuff across the board. It would have been interesting to see if they had managed to bring that home. But man, the ambition of putting a first-time director behind a script like that, even though a proven script writer like Jari, because again, Laurie, but that seems a lot to put in a first-time director's lap.

I totally agree. And with something like that, you would think they would have given him something small to do first, just to let him have a A chance. And yeah, work with actors, figure out how that stuff goes before you jump into this amazingly complicated, like you said, epic kind of thing. And epic doesn't just mean long, Kevin Costner. It would have been on the scale of Wyatt Earp as far as the length and the breadth of it, I think.

This one really surprised me when I was rewatching it to see that the OK Corral stuff is almost smack dab in the middle of this movie. I watched a lot of OK Corral films for this, and we'll definitely talk about those later on. But usually, I mean, I'm used to My Darling Clementine, where the OK Corral is kind of the climax. Whereas this, OK Corral is right there in the middle, and then you actually get to see the consequences of the OK Corral and what goes down there and how that has reverberations. Which is fascinating, too.

When you read the story of what happened with Wyatt Earp in real life, And all of the things that fell out because of the O.K. Corral and how he was seen later on as being much more of a vigilante and going after all these guys that killed his brothers. You get a little bit of that here, but not nearly as much as I think it happened in real life. And this whole idea of how Jarret was really going for verisimilitude, you don't really get that too much in a lot of these Western films. The West is...

I think you were saying this before we even started to record Al Gore, it's that old Liberty Valance line, you know, print the legend kind of thing. It is about the legends of the West rather than what actually went down. Whereas this is really trying hard little things like the photograph that's being taken of Dana Delaney's character later in the film. It's like, oh, well, that's based off of a real photograph. And did it happen the day of the OK Corral?

No, it didn't. we're taking some liberties for storytelling purposes, but there's a lot of truth that's in this and really trying to build upon those stories. And I guess Jerry just did a tremendous amount of research before he even started typing this up. In the final film, it is a, an approximation of history. Shall we say a lot of elements to it that are, it's interesting. There's a lot of elements of it that are deliberately attempting to capture what it was and, And that even extends into the set dressing and the costume designing.

One of the things I love about Tombstone is unlike a lot of Westerns, even to this day, where they have a tendency to dress people in sepia, for lack of a better term, a lot of browns, a lot of earth tones. If you actually look what people wore in the Old West, they loved color. And they wore very colorful clothing. We get to see that in this film. Powers Booth in his bright red shirt the entire time.

But for all of those moments where they stay very close to history, they also take some liberties with it. But at the same time, as you mentioned, the positioning of the fight at the O.K. Corral and then furthering on to do the Earp Vendetta ride. which again was something that growing up you always just heard about. We would get a little bit more of the history and the expanded sort of scope of the legend of Wyatt Earp, while also dispelling some of the notions of him as this incredibly righteous character. He has a very mixed reputation historically.

He was not the hero. He was not Peter Fonda as in real life. But Tombstone, I think, very smartly decided to include all of that because it is a broad story. And to simply end it with the OK Corral, you could understand why there is that temptation. Because as we were talking about the sort of mythologizing of the West and the further mythologizing that emerged in cinematic terms, the gunfight at the OK Corral is is a period of history that is tailor-made for cinema.

Because even if films haven't quite captured just how quick and chaotic was, the build-up towards it, that you have the group of bad guys here, you got a group of good guys walking down the street to confront them, there's a tense standoff, and then boom! How many Westerns have we seen that have ended just like that? So it makes perfect sense that that would be the climax of any other Western. but Tombstone is of the period where it's interesting to me that it exists in, obviously in the post revisionist period where we've demythologized the Western, we've dragged it back down to earth. We've, we've gotten as gritty and dark and realistic as possible with it. And Tombstone has a foot in that whilst at the same time, still embracing the sweep and grandeur of the old mythology of the Westerns.

So, it manages to hit sort of both camps in both sorts of tones. And that's another thing that I very much admire about it. It occurred to me that it was kind of the untouchables of Westerns, just like another script that goes, prints the legend, even creates some extra legend. And, but it's such a sharp script. It's such a sharp, they just add a, pick a point of view and do it that way, regardless of some of the historical quibbling, but just two very handsome productions full of great performers and performances with incredible scripts, with strong direction and set design and all of that, that really, I wouldn't say revived, but they were both playing in long-ago genres that were way past their most popular iterations.

It was interesting watching, because I also was watching David Mamet movies recently, and so to watch Tombstone and to watch Untouchables, they really seem to be each other's equivalents. other genres. Yeah, and it really does feel like these are the products of people that were raised on the films from the classic genre, or the classic whether that be classic westerns or classic gangster films. So while they're still attempting to bring an element of modernity and closer to history, these are still made by people that were raised on the old fantasies of how these films go, and it bleeds through into the final product. When you think about the O.K. Corral scene, the whole walk up to the O.K.

Corral and then the massacre that takes place there, it so reminds me of the Wild Bunch and just that long walk of the bunch before they go to Mapeche's place and then they have the massacre there. Unfortunately, in that case, it's the Wild Bunch being massacred, but it's very reminiscent, especially with that long walk. And I think that, I don't know if that was in the script beforehand. I want to say Cosmatos definitely takes credit for that walk beforehand. I know for sure he takes credit for that burning house that's behind them, which I think is a great touch, or the business that's burning down.

And yeah, to your point, Al Gore, the whole idea of this, the colors of the outfits, but also that this is a city that is very lively, that there is always... something going on the streets that you can see things being built. This is a new town, young trees that are planted on the street. It doesn't look like your typical Western town where it's just dusty and barren. And you're lucky if you see somebody walking down the street here, it's just very full of life, which I really appreciate. Which makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Once again, the mythology of what the perception of what the West is versus the lived reality. It's one of those things that, why would a community of people live in a wasteland as often Western towns are portrayed? Now don't get me wrong, Tombstone is in the middle of nowhere, which makes the sheriff's contention that they're going to be as big as San Francisco in a few years hilarious, even though there is a silver mine nearby. It's not on a bay. There's limits to how big you can grow in the desert.

But yeah, it's allowing it to show the humanity of Of the town. And the expression of the people. Within that town. That's excellent in that. And yeah.

One other thing to really admire about the film. Very cosmopolitan. If Cosmaros. Made the call to set the house on fire. Then he deserves.

All the credit for directing this film. That really. Sells the whole thing. And I think. Accidentally makes it.

And a funny, almost meme-worthy 21st century thing of there's a bunch of cops walking down the street to start a fight, ignoring the burning house or business or whatever it is behind them. I do love the reaction shot where they were like, what the hell is going on? All right, whatever. We can't worry about this right now. I feel that the Bruce Broughton score, and I know that got some flack when this movie came out.

People were like, oh, the score is way too bombastic. But I felt that it really added to this. And if anything, it reminded me a little bit of Aaron Copland with How Down from the ballet rodeo that he did. It just has that feel to it. And I want to say, and I don't remember the exact date, but having Robert Mitchum as the narrator of the opening, and I love the way he says Los Angeles.

This is right around the time that they were using that Copland music and having him as the voiceover for the Beef, It's What's for Dinner commercials. And as soon as I hear him speaking at the beginning of this movie, I'm just like. You can have a great beef dinner in no time at all. Well, almost no time at all. Beef, it's what's for dinner.

It was interesting that you brought up Peckinpah and the Wild Bunch in this because in preparation for this, as we'll get into, I watched some of the other Wyatt Earp films and chief amongst them, My Darling Clementine. And then see, it's interesting to go back to those films and then realizing it's like, oh, this is point zero. So many things have done variations of this. You can see elements of how Ford staged that final walk in Tombstone. And hell, even the line that Fonda delivers before they get going is, let's go.

It's like, did Peckinpah pull that in order for The Wild Bunch? I wouldn't be surprised if he did. It's like all of these movies speak to each other in a different way. And then you add in the Italians, and that adds a whole other layer of discussion. When we're talking about The Wild Bunch, it's like, would The Wild Bunch have been The Wild Bunch without Sergio Leone and the Western directors, the Italian directors? would he have even pushed it in that direction would have been as violent as it was without all the violence that was coming out of Italy at that time.

I'm curious about that. And there's some great violence in this one as well. There's a lot of good headshots and just there's, this gets pretty bloody at times. Yeah. Mostly packed into that last 45 minutes or whatever, when it becomes a music video, just, an endless montage of slaughter, which I remember being, I was like what, 17 or so when this came out.

So I was, I was definitely there for that, but I remember getting a little lost in the, the final, the final part of the film and going, man, can we just, can we stop killing people and go back to the incredible line deliveries? And which is unusual. Not the, usually I would have been all for just getting to the violence, but I was kind of missing the first part of the film by that point. First part of the film is so damn cool. When Doc Holliday meets up with Wyatt Earp and his brothers, and they're out there in the middle of the street, shaking hands.

It was so great to see you. I heard you were up in Deadwood, yada, yada, yada. And then here comes Billy Bob with this shotgun, and he's just, I'm going to kill this guy who just humiliated me at this Pharaoh table. And they're just standing there and Billy Pop Thornton's loaded for bear. Just, and he's, oh shit, Doc Holliday's here.

And these guys are here and he's just standing there the entire time, just humiliated. And I just love how they are looking at each other, the wider and his brothers and holiday. And they're just like, yeah, look at this guy. what a piece of shit this guy is. And then when they are finally like, yeah, leave the shotgun. And he goes to hand it to him.

He's like, no, I said leave it. And it's just like. These power plays that they're doing. It's so great. Shortly after that, when Sheriff Behan comes up, John Tenney's character, and then Wyatt introduces Doc to him.

And it's that line delivery of piss on you, Wyatt. I still, occasionally when I'm irritated, I will find myself just saying piss on you, Wyatt. Doc Holliday's whole thing is about not using a gun for so much of this film and using his words and just humiliating people with how he can handle the English language. Also, it's interesting, Kilmer, one of the few people who's trying to employ an accent. And I think he does a great job with his accent, but I don't think anybody else in this movie really sounds Southern other than him.

And it makes a certain amount of sense. You know, the Wild West was a melting pot of people coming over. We had people from the north. You had people from the south. You had, of course, obviously the Mexican influence that was in there.

So you would have had a range of accents rolling through there. Then, of course, we had Bill Paxton with his native Texan going into there. which wasn't quite regionally appropriate for where the Earps were at, but we will allow it because it's Bill Paxton and he can do no wrong, in my opinion. I completely agree. I love Bill Paxton. And seeing a movie like this just reminds me of how much we've been robbed because of his unfortunate passing, because he just brought so much life to every single movie that he ever made.

And he was headed in that direction of being more of a director as well. And it's like, yeah, I would love to have seen more films directed by Bill. Paxton, too. And his presence in there also attributes to the weird thing I find about this movie, the curious amount of actors who would either previously had or go on to work with James Cameron. This movie is just lousy with James Cameron regulars, and I love it.

Yeah, and speaking of, Michael Biehn is so great as Johnny Ringo, and I just love that we've got this symmetry between the Cowboys and the Earp brothers, where you've got Curly Bill is kind of the Wyatt Earp. And then you got Ringo is the Doc Holliday. And then you've got just to have those on either side. And whenever Ringo and Holliday are in the same scene together and that whole thing with the gun. Oh, I freaking love that whole thing.

Just that Holliday turns it into a joke and uses his cup to do all those fancy tricks. And apparently they both worked at that so much together. Bean was really getting very good with his gun. And then Kilmer had to figure out how to do the exact same thing with that cup. And it's just, that is one of those scenes where I just cannot get over how good this movie is.

I remember there was an interview. Stephen Lang was talking about just how enraptured he was with the scene between Michael Bean and Val Kilmer that he apparently blew a line because he was just so invested with their delivery that it was like, oh, wait a minute, I gotta deliver a line. Okay. Bean is one of the only people who gets killed and has to get killed by the demands of the script, not just history, but he comes off pretty cool. He comes off psychopathic, but You can totally see why somebody would want to play that role.

I was disturbed watching it the last time. The scene where Bean gets killed and Val Kilmer, it's almost like a horror movie, the way he shoots him in the head and then he's just fascinated by the process of this guy dying when he's It's almost the way he's looking up at him as he's stumbling around with a bullet in his head. And he kind of tilts his head a little, kind of like the shape like Michael Myers in Halloween. And I thought, oh, this is a little gruesome. This is a little psychotic.

And I don't remember feeling that the first time. But a great death scene on top of a bunch of great lines and incredible screen eyes by Mr. Bean. And that seems interesting because it again speaks to how the filmmakers are trying to square elements of history with demands of narrative. Because narrative demands that Johnny Ringo must die in a confrontation, whether Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday or what have you.

It has to happen. Whereas historically, Johnny Ringo, by all accounts, committed suicide. He was found with a bullet hole in his head. His gun was in his hand. Having discharged the chamber, his horse had run away with his boots.

He committed suicide. But the film, you could not end his character that way. It would not have been narratively satisfying. So we just talked about The Postman a couple months ago. And that film has a confrontation between Will Patton and Kevin Costner where they are just quoting Shakespeare to each other.

It's this whole Shakespeare confrontation. This does it better by having a Latin-off between Bean's character and Holiday. I don't know. Reminds me of. Me.

No. I'm sure of it. I hate him. He's drunk. Come on, boys.

We don't want any trouble in here, not. In any language. That's Latin, doll. Evidently, Mr. Ringo's an educated man.

Now I really hate him. Johnny Ringo is no dummy. That he is very fluent in Latin. He seems like a very educated person, but it just seems like he loves to kill. He just seems like a mad dog.

And I love when Curly Bill keeps saying, Oh man, someday Johnny Ringo is going to take this gang over and you all better be careful. There's going to be hell to pay when Ringo's in charge. Good thing Ringo never did get into charge because I could see him becoming a little dictator of the old West. We see that in the, their side of the vendetta ride. Not all of that made it into the theatrical cuts, but there were at least were one or two scenes that were inserted in the director's cut that we got, at least on DVD.

And it suggests that element of psychopathy to him and what ultimately how it ends with Michael Rooker's character that essentially bring him in on a flag of peace and then just kill him. Yeah, like Rooker and the guy that plays his brother that they kind of switch sides or just like, hey, we cannot abide by what these cowboys are doing. The way that they killed your brother. No, we're sticking with you, Wyatt Earp. And that's a really nice swap in the middle there where it's like, All right, these former bad guys throw down their sashes and are just like, no, we're going to do the right thing now.

We are going to ride with you guys. Yeah, it wasn't the slaughter at the Mexican wedding that did it for him. It was shooting a white guy there. Come on. Come on, Jed.

Of course. Ignore the Mexican guy who probably terrible things happened to her in that church, but they went after some white women so that he couldn't abide that. And I'm glad the. Love story doesn't weigh this film down. This really could have easily gotten into the whole thing of Wyatt Earp's wife is high on Lawnum and he has eyes for Dana Delaney and this actress, this Jewish actress, which I found to be interesting.

And they don't talk about that at all in this one. I don't think that she's Jewish. And I love that she's playing the devil in that Faust drama that they have on stage. And I'm just like, oh yeah, she's the temptress. She's the one, but really she's the better woman for him.

She's not some sort of Jezebel. She really seems to want to respect that he's married and not get too close to a married man, but he just has eyes for her. And I'm glad again, that we don't go down this whole path and we get a lot more of that in why I do ERP, which I'm just like, okay, that's what this movie is. Tombstone doesn't really go there. And for God's sakes, Dana Delaney, ever since I've seen her on screen, she has just been such a heartthrob for me.

And no exception here. She just looks amazing. I love the stories of her that she has a fake leg whenever she is riding. So it looks like she's riding side saddle, but she's actually riding regularly. It took me years to figure out what the hell people meant when they talked about riding side saddle.

Just like, What's going on? And I guess what? Women couldn't have their legs on either side of the horse. They always had to be very demure and have both legs on one side. It was improper because they would have had to spread their legs in order to sit properly on the saddle.

And that just wasn't done. Yeah, I guess not. So, yeah, you got to sit sideways. But I love that she's got a fake leg to make it look like she's sitting sideways. Smoky Lady Satan.

And it would only be a few years after this that they would make an argument that women couldn't be on the in cars or trains because the speed in which they were going would liquefy their lady organs. I think what really helps with those scenes, because we do get these moments between Wyatt and Josephine, but it really does help that there is a natural kind of chemistry between Kurt Russell and Dana Delaney. These are just two very charismatic actors, so putting them together, it just works. And that really helps sell it throughout it. It's not something that becomes, as you mentioned, the focus.

But in terms of establishing the denouement and the ending for Wyatt, it felt earned at that point. Unlike some other Wyatt Earp films where we'll get there. We'll get there. I guess what the heart of this movie is, at least for me, and I don't know if you guys would agree, but it's the friendship between Earp and Holiday. And just that kind of protective nature that Earp has for Holiday, but Holiday can take care of himself.

But the way that they make up Val Kilmer and the way that he plays somebody with tuberculosis, there's the scene when I think Earp is dealing Pharaoh and Doc Holiday is standing there and Curly Bill and Ringo come up and they're having an exchange of words. The sweat and the paleness of Valcomer's face is just amazing. It looks like he's going to keel over right there. And it almost becomes frustrating at certain points because he's such a charismatic character and we instantly want to spend more time with him and see him succeed, even though he's a reprobate in many different ways, but we know that he's killing himself and you just want to grab and it's like, just stop that. But that's integral to his character. that he has, through the circumstances of his life, he has reached the point where degradation is the only driving force for him.

Now, he finds more to live for through his friendship with Wyatt, but at that point, defiling himself was exactly what he was all about. I guess that also ties into that whole Johnny Ringo thing, because Ringo just seems like he wants to go out in a blaze of glory. I think he might want to live, but I think he wants to take as many people as he can with him. As opposed to Doc Holliday, who I think is just single-mindedly, I want to off myself because I have this horrible disease that I've been living with for so many years. I liked his relationship with Kate, the way it was portrayed in this.

It was a good. We'll talk a little bit about my favorite Kate and Doc performances and portrait later, but yeah... Nice Joanna Pakula doesn't get a whole lot of screen time, but she really rounds out compliments and fleshes out some of Doc's character very nicely. It's a shame, I think, that there's not more room for some of the great actresses we got in this film. Don't really fault the film for it, but just as there's so many great small roles for men in here, There's a lot of great actresses walking around.

Paula Malcolmson, especially after Deadwood. I was a huge Paula Malcolmson fan. And going back to Tombstone, going, ah, she's here and she hardly gets to do anything. And that's too bad. But yeah, a lot of good female, if not great roles in this film, too.

Yeah, and it's one thing with Kate where you definitely feel a little bit more the paring back of the script. Because at a certain point, she just kind of disappears. Now, in the director's cut, there's at least a line acknowledging where she's gone. But the theatrical, which is by far the most readily available version of this film, at a certain point, she's just gone and they don't acknowledge it again. Yeah, I'm not sure which version I watched.

I watched one that was about two hours, ten minutes. And I wasn't sure if this was one of those where the theatrical version kind of disappeared afterwards or if that is the text that we're usually watching. To the best of my knowledge, the most readily available version of this film and actually the only version that's available in HD formats is the theatrical version. Now, the director's cuts I have with the on DVD. You remember the old Vista series DVDs, which were like these excellent package DVDs?

I still have my Tombstone one. And if unless I'm mistaken, that is the only time the director's cut has been made commercially available. That's why I still have the DVD. Now, they don't add a ton. I think they only add about five to six minutes to it, so... it's not integral stuff, but it does introduce certain things that close the circle.

It shows you what happens to Masterson, Michael, sorry, Rooker's character. It has the line talking about what happened to Kate. So it closes it in some narratively satisfying ways. but it's not one of those tremendously transformative director's cuts that says, oh, this is far and away should be the version that's widely available. And that may be why they never bothered to re-release it in subsequent versions. It would just be a nice option, though, if I could watch it.

Sure. Absolutely. I think I might have watched this for the first time on VHS, and I think I still had the VHS tape. My wife, when I first met her, she had just a pretty big VHS collection, and I kept wondering why she had her name on all of her VHS tapes. I'm like, what is going on?

She said, oh yeah, she used to work at a psych hospital, and they would take in movies for the patients to watch. And so anytime they brought in a movie, they had to make sure that the name was on it so they got the movie back. So there's a copy probably about 10 feet away from me that has her name on the front of this tombstone VHS still. So for whatever reason, I never got rid of it. I've got...

About 10 copies on VHS, so there you go. Is my wife's name on any of those VHS tapes? Not anymore. I scratch them out. And you're right about these women, especially the Earp wives.

One of them has a remark like, oh, we could be sisters, because they almost all look the same. They all are blonde, and other than Wyatt's wife and how she looks... worse than Doc Holliday a lot of times because she's so strung out on Laudanum. Other than her, I don't really recognize the women that much. And I guess, I don't know when this happened, but I guess that Dana Delaney was actually a recast that it was supposed to be Lisa Zane, Billy Zane's sister, was supposed to be playing that role. And eventually she left.

And I don't know if that was when Cosmodos came in. I think it was. I think she left as part of the whole Jare thing, and either she left on her own or there was a house cleaning afterwards, which is really remarkable if you think that Dana Delaney was a late ad. And I've never heard the whole thing of when Lord and Miller got removed from Solo, there's the whole thing of what footage of theirs still remains in the movie and a new director has to direct X percent in order to claim full directorship. on a movie, so Ron Howard had to do a lot of reshoots. I'm very curious how much of the movie that we still see, if any of that was Jaray's work or if they basically started from zero.

Yeah, I've heard certain sources credit him for the scenes with Charlton Heston. Again, one wonders if perhaps Cosmodos went and reshot some of those sequences or what have you. By accounts, that's what Jaray started with. But I don't know if those are the scenes we ended up getting in the final project. And I know they interviewed in that book, the making of book, they were talking with one guy who played Charlton Heston, like he was the same build, wore the same hairpiece, those kind of things.

And he was like, yeah, anytime Charlton Heston from the back, that's me. Because, yeah, they had a very limited amount of time that they could have Charlton Heston. And Tarleton Essin doesn't strike me as the guy that would do his co-workers a solid by being there for the two-shot or the reverse shot. I could see him maybe doing something like that, but yeah, I think once he was done and he was just out of there and he's not about to come back for when they start to do a whole bunch of reshoots unless they wanted to pay his fee again and there are already going months over schedule with this movie. It's remarkable that With all of the issues that emerged out of it, the losing of the original director, the necessary paring down of the script, the bringing on a director that rubbed some people the wrong way, the challenges they ran into with a competing production, and the issues that got forced upon them with that, tipping our hand a little bit for where we're going to go with Wyatt Earp, there were certain things that Kevin Costner, as the big name in Hollywood, he imposed some hardships on this production.

The idea of the costumes, that essentially he hoovered up all of the Western costumes in Hollywood and resulting in them having to import stuff from Europe. One of the things I was just talking to my partner with, and this was pulled from, again, from that True West article, the reason we get Val Kilmer in this film is partially to credit or blame Kevin Costner. that when he left the project, he had enough pull in Hollywood that, according to Kurt Russell, he effectively blocked most of the avenues for distribution. Most of the studios would not sign on to distribute this because they didn't want to piss off Kevin Costner. The only studio that they could go with was Buena Vista, which was Disney.

Originally, they were going to cast Willem Dafoe as Doc Holliday. But Disney refused to have Willem Dafoe into it due to the lingering controversy of The Last Temptation of Christ. So, effectively, by Kevin Costner blocking everybody else, forcing them to go with Disney, he is indirectly responsible for one of the most iconic characters in this movie. I'm sure Willem Dafoe would have done an amazing job as Doc Holliday. And part of me wants to see that movie.

But Val Kilmer, man. Amazing. But again, with all of that, with all of the things working against this production, the fact that it ended up as damned good as it is remarkable to me. And yes, you can lament that the movie that we could have had, and even Kurt Russell, again, in that article, he talks about that he apparently has, in his possession, a lot of cut footage that has not been made available, not even on subsequent re-releases as deleted scenes. He has that.

It's in his garage. In theory... a more definitive cut could be assembled. Part of me is interested, but I love this movie so much as it is that if it never happens, I will be content. Yeah, I would be curious to see it, but the way that this comes together, and I know, again, going back to that book, sorry, I keep harping on that, but there's a part in there where it's like, oh, you can see the continuity in this scene is wrong, and this person is moving over here when in the next shot, he's over there. And that's all because of how they had to call together a lot of this stuff.

And I was like, I don't care. I really, I don't really notice those things. It's if for somebody that has seen the movie probably 30, 40 times, they're probably noticing that those things. But for me, having seen this like a handful of times and just loving it, it's not one of those movies that I feel like I have to go back to it. I just remember really liking it.

And am I okay? Just, watching YouTube clips of Val Kilmer from this movie occasionally. Yeah, yeah, I absolutely am. But yeah, seeing it all together is fantastic as well. Yeah, I don't really need a longer version of this.

I feel that the cut that's out there is really damn good. And yeah, I love Willem Dafoe, and I love his look, but having that handsome Val Kilmer, 1993 Val Kilmer, you can't touch the guy. Even though he looks sick as a dog in here, When he doesn't, he looks fantastic. And I think that makes it even more effective because we get to see somebody who is so conventionally attractive degraded as he is. And it's by the time we reach, you know, his deathbed, we feel the full impact of this disease.

And it's one of those that, again, you grow up hearing stories about Doc Holliday. It wasn't until seeing this that you get a sense of what tuberculosis really does to a person. and how much that really defines who he was. Yeah. It appears we must redefine the nature of our relationship. Might be interesting.

Some of those outfits that he wears, like how he has that cloak and everything, he just looks amazing, the way that he has before they go to the O.K. Corral. He's just stumbling around, he's got that t-shirt on, but he's got that cloak hung over his shoulders and his walking stick. He just looks so great. I love how he swaps the walking stick for the shotgun and that great shot of Sam Neill when he's got the walking stick and he's holding it out like it's almost like a weapon of power or something.

And it's like, whoa, whoa, stop, guys. We don't want this violence. And I really like that touch, too. And apparently this is real life that the... Now, I'm going to be screwed up because there's the marshal who.

But then there's the, what is it, the sheriff? Or is it vice versa? The sheriff gets shot, but the marshal's there? The marshal got shot, and then it was the county sheriff. County sheriff, okay.

It reminds me a lot of a James Elroy thing, where it's the city cops versus the county cops kind of thing. The sheriff versus the policeman and the beat. And he's just like, oh, I already disarmed him. And they're walking into this thinking that these guys are disarmed. They're not disarmed.

You get that moment from Virgil. He's like, by you. Yeah, right. They know it's not. So, so good.

And yeah, I love when they go on that, like you were saying, the revenge montage. And when Wyatt Earp just starts going for freaking ape shit and crossing that stream. And I love how later on Doc Holliday is just like, oh, he's out there walking on water. We talk about, you know, the great lines that emerge out of this movie. And yeah, so many of them are coming from Val Kilmer, but Kurt Russell does get some wonderful moments.

And granted, some of them are very over the top, but yeah, I don't think there will ever come a time that I won't get a slight shiver with the line delivery of them. You tell them I'm coming and hell's coming with me. It's just. At the end of the day, no matter how old I get, a part of me will always remain a 12-year-old boy. And for a 12-year-old boy, that is an amazing line.

Who was my guy growing up? I... understood that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone were... Their movies were aimed at me, but I felt a little. I. Felt resistant to them.

I've come to love a lot of them as an adult, but as a kid, I was like, that's kind of... That hokey shit is what you think of me? I was very offended. But Kurt Russell... was my action hero. Him and Harrison Ford, I was like, those are the guys I can get behind.

And I was there to see Kurt Russell in pretty much anything. And he really could do that everyman thing very well. It was incredible watching Breakdown again. I hadn't seen that for a while, but watching Breakdown and watch him be this guy who's also... unlawful entry. You can totally see these guys being kind of just pushed around the whole movie, but he's also snake Plissken and he's also Wyatt Earp.

And God, he can do dark blue where he was just a really credible, bad cop, bad guy that you still were in his care in his corner for a lot of the stuff. I think he's an incredible screen presence, really undervalued actor, because I think most people think of him as a movie star, which he absolutely is, but he really does, I don't think, gets enough credit for how versatile he was in mostly leading man roles. Yeah, Kurt Russell brings an awful lot of star power to his line deliveries but he's also clearly especially if accounts are true that he had a lot to do with getting the movie on track and really put together incredibly generous to give so much of the best stuff to it had to be obvious to everyone that Val Kilmer was walking away with this or even Powers Booth gets to I have lots of great scenes where he's treading on Kurt Russell and great, really great talent, really great performer, movie star who clearly understood what his role was and how that served the film.

It's clear watching Tango and Cash now why Sylvester Stallone started relying on like Rob Schneider to be the buddy. In his movies because Kurt Russell just takes everything away from him in that film and is pretty much the reason that that movie's watchable now. And I say this as a fan of Stallone now, but yeah, it could just be absolute Mr. Charisma, but it could also serve this huge ensemble just perfectly. And I wonder if it is that kind of element of selflessness as well as the fact that, you know, he was making movies since he was a kid that grew up in the industry.

This was a job for him that maybe that's tarnishes the wrong word, but impacted the audience's view of him in the fact that Kurt Russell says yes to a lot. And as much as I admire him, he's definitely done films that I think are beneath his abilities. but it's just a job for him. And I think maybe that's why he perhaps doesn't get the respect that I think he's more than earned, because he has said yes to so much, because I believe for him, he just views it, yeah, it's a gig. I'll do that one, and I'll move on to the next one. I watched some commentary tracks of him and John Carpenter.

Always, I love their commentaries. And listening to those, especially on the escape from New York, talking about what a chance it was to put him in that role. The studio wanted Charles Bronson, but then they started going. Through his filmography. I think the recording was probably 2000, 2001, something like that.

But he was just, he was talking about how, yeah, he kept thinking, okay, that's it. I'm not making movies anymore. Nobody's going to cast me because, None of these movies are landing. Do you have any idea, if you've listened to the track or not, any idea what movie they both said, oh, but that's the one that made all the money and made you a movie star? Tequila Sunrise.

Okay. I was going to say Overboard. Overboard, I think, found its audience fairly quickly on home video, but I don't think it did box office what they were expecting it to. Best of Times, which was actually one of my favorite movies, When I was a kid, Robin Williams and him, but didn't make any money at the theater anyway. It was Tequila Sunrise that apparently, at that point anyway, he was crediting with keeping him in making movies.

Which is wild, because what is the cultural memory of Tequila Sunrise? How many times do people bring that film up? But to your point, it was tremendously successful. I'm looking at the box office, made $ 105 million in 88. That was an incredible box office return.

But again, where are the people talking about it? Where's the special edition? Where's the criterion release of Tequila Sunrise, you know? He's made so many movies that I just absolutely love, starting with Used Cars on Up, and I still go back to that movie, and it's just still as hilarious as it was the first time I saw it. And then I went through a phase last, I think it was last year or the year before, where I finally sat down and watched Overboard.

I finally watched Captain Ron. I re-watched Stargate. I love Soldier. I know not a lot of people love Soldier, but I really love Soldier. And then, yeah, you mentioned Breakdown.

Yeah, not everything hits with him, but so many things do. Things that you wouldn't think Should hit. I think also one of those guys who I want to say it was Roger Ebert was talking about Gene Hackman and said. He's in a lot of bad movies, but he's never bad in them. And you're never you know, you never feel like, oh, he should really be embarrassed by that.

I feel that way about about Kurt Russell. He may be. I don't remember ever being embarrassed by Kurt Russell. even in a bad film. He's pretty special as far as I'm concerned. There's always the possibility that the next one that you feel like, oh, there's going to be a great Kurt Russell movie coming out.

A lot of his more recent stuff, I think the great stuff has been largely his collaborations with Tarantino. I've loved his casting in Death Proof Forward. But then we also had stuff like Bone Tomahawk, where it As long as he's around, there's still a possibility of another great Kurt Russell film. Now he's got these Santa Claus movies that are just basically kind of hit makers for him. And he's just sitting on a bunch of Netflix money.

So more power to him. And those, I saw the first one. It's not bad. I enjoyed it. Okay, we're going to take a break and we'll be back with an interview.

I'm so happy about this one. An interview with Thorther O. Thorthersen. The assistant curator and manager at the Icelandic Phallological Museum in Reykjavik, where I happened to see a replica of Doc Holliday's cane. We'll hear all about that right after these brief messages.

Matt from Viva again. And Emily, looking for something superior to streaming? A place with more than 10 times the selection available on literally all of the streaming services combined? Check out Scarecrow Video's rent-by-mail service. Select from an unparalleled collection of over 155,000 films and get Blu-rays, 4Ks, and DVDs delivered directly to your door.

Get in on it now at scarecrowvideo.org and rediscover the world. All right, I have to tell you guys about something I found that completely changed my snacking game. You know how sometimes you want a fancy gourmet cookie, but you don't want. To actually go to a bakery? I found the perfect solution.

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It's not the kind of job you apply for. I actually married into it. My wife's grandfather is the original collector and founder of the museum. And yeah, that's kind of how I got mauled. My father-in-law took over from his father.

And when kind of the tourist industry took off here, suddenly the penis museum became extremely popular and he needed an extra hand and he offered better pay and, you know, shorter hours. When did the tourist industry take off? I believe, a 2010 or 2011 Eyjafjallajökull glacier eruption, which downed air traffic throughout Europe in 2010 or 2011. Our government kind of seized the opportunity to advertise us as a great tourist destination to experience, like, terrible nature. You know, when people were in the city, they needed something to do.

And so that's kind of people were interested in seeing this bizarre collection. I want to specifically ask you about the Doc Holliday display that you have. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? The cane itself, it's a supposed replica of a cane like Doc Holliday allegedly had. It's a website which sells these bull penis canes.

You can either buy them with, I believe, a brass handle or... I'm not sure about the other material, but they look fantastic. I'm not sure if they're intended for actual use, but Doc Holliday used to carry such a cane. And I don't really know much about Doc Holliday, though I did some research prior to coming here. You know, the infamous or famous gunslinger and dentist, I believe, you know, southern gentleman and very colorful figure.

We just found this great picture of the internet, and we had this information from the website, so we just decided to work from there. It's amazing to me that you can make a cane out of a phallus, that it's even just that long. Yeah, they are long and short. When dried up, it makes for a very durable material. They've been made into canes in the US, France, and even Spain.

Not only as canes, but a pizzle used here for directing sheep. Spain and Germany as a flogging instrument, even for self-defense. Nobody wants to get more of a deterrent kind of thing because you don't want to be hit with a penis. When they're twisted and dried, they're a very durable and effective material. And I believe even the Romans, you know, back in the day, you know, for their war machines to make like the Houston kind of like, you know, like you would use a rubber band, but like as a pulley because it's extremely elastic and durable.

Like when they made like scorpions and stuff to shoot spears and they would use the bull penises. And it was pistols that kind of started the museum, correct? Yes, that is correct. Our founder, he was a proponent of using everything from the animals. And in the 70s, he was lamenting with, you know, increased industrialization.

And I suddenly were like way behind everybody else. He lamented how not everything was utilized from the animal. He even as a young boy had had like a pizzle. Which was used here. His co-workers found that hilarious and decided to give him such a pizzle.

And some worked at a whaling station at the time. Others worked at a slaughterhouse. The penises from the whales and bulls was pretty much the only thing that wasn't used. So they began presenting him with the organs, and that's kind of how the collection began. And you have several, or at least one that I remember, whale penis on display, right?

Isn't it almost as tall as I am, I think? We had scores of whale penises, but only one from a full-sized adult sperm whale. Uh, usually, uh, larger whales like to, uh, remain in warmer waters. That is the, the adult, adult males like to keep in warmer waters. So this seems to be just, uh, old male with strayed and beached upon Icelandic waters.

When was the first time you heard about the museum and especially what was it like for you the first time you went to the museum? The first time that I heard about it was I believe in 1996, a year prior to opening. and I come from a, you know, quite conservative Christian family. And yeah, my mother was listening to the, to the news. And then there came this announcement and an interview with this very seemingly normal gentleman who was speaking about how he was opening the world's first and only penis museum. And yeah, she was, you know, her reaction was really like, why would anybody do that?

Now, you know, coming from conservative Christian family, it was, nobody was angry or wanted to do anything about it, but it was, you know, baffled that anybody wanted to do that. You know, there was disgust maybe for two minutes and, you know, people go with their lives and we did as well. I think I was 16 or 17 at the time. But when I met my wife, we had been dating and, you know, she brought it up that her grandfather was a founder of the medium and, you know, a couple of weeks later, she wanted to bring me to it and I admit that I was kind of timid, you know, the idea of going to a museum and seeing severed penises in jars. I wasn't too keen on it.

But then when you see it, it is, I think it's pretty tastefully done. That's what we try to do. And it's not as gruesome as you'd think, actually, when you do it. And, you know, it tries to be educational and it's supposed to be educational and fun. It's not supposed to be like a shocking thing.

So I went to the museum back in 2021, I believe it was. And yeah, I just found it to be delightful. It was just such a nice place and great exhibitions and very well put together. I like to claim that I have a part in that. Before I came in, it was more raw and we were more on a limited budget.

But I think I really tried to take the, you know, curation, you know, do it as professionally as we could when we came in. And When I came in, in a couple of years, we actually took the budget to do it like our father always wanted. Yeah, one thing about the first time I visited the museum, I walked through with him. And actually, the day before, my wife's grandfather had received the first human specimen. And it was from a 95-year-old bachelor.

And it came in a small jar and was filled with blood. And I remember him taking it out and asking, like, do you want to see my first human? I was like, not really. But he just took it out and he was, you know, kind of frantically looking for something, some instrument to grab it with. But he just, you know, okay, couldn't find it.

So he just stuck his hand in the formaldehyde jar, which is, I would not recommend. Took out the penis with his hand and placed cylinders. Okay, yep, that's it. Can anybody find me? I guess put your hand under the, ah, it's nothing.

And just, you know, grabbing the penis. Like it was like. The most normal thing ever. Now he was, uh, an extremely entertaining and funny man. And he kind of liked being the odd one out.

I don't know. You, you, you can find, uh, some interviews on him, uh, with, uh, with him online. And I recommend it. It's extremely entertaining now, but, He was kind of rough around the edges when it came to stuff like that. He didn't beat around the bush.

Do you have a favorite exhibition? I think my favorite one is a plaster cast that we have of Jimi Hendrix made by the late Cynthia Alperton. Cynthia Plastercaster, yeah. Yes, yeah. Since receiving that one, we got so much attention and I got to know some fantastic people from the U.S. which I stay in contact with.

They were actually the ones who, they were friends of Cynthia who we've been able to remain friends with here. They approached Cynthia about, you know, this could be a place where your legacy would, you know, would be enjoyed properly. And, yeah, so they kind of facilitated the donation by her. And since receiving Hendrix, we've had, you know, lesser rock stars. You know, we're only happy to have, you know, Jello Biafra of the Kennedys.

And also there are two members of the Rock and Roll fame. And so it's not a bad group. Jimi Hendrix is my favorite. And growing up as a teenager, I was listening to my brother's old records. And yeah, I was a Jimi Hendrix fan.

Do you get new items donated very often? Between five and 10 new penises each year. And probably about a score or a dozen or score presentable art pieces. course we get loads of stuff which isn't suitable for the exhibition but yeah more around a dozen presentable. Art pieces I'm glad the collection is growing oh. Yeah and it's mostly driven by visitors we've been so blessed by that when people visit us it's almost like they want to be part of it and we each donator or donor of a well a penis or a presentable art piece, we make them an honorary, we give them an honorary membership with a plaque and a badge and everything.

We by no means have the entire mammal fauna of the world that we were still missing a lot of species from the US, Asia, you know, Europe, Africa. And, you know, sometimes people bring us sometimes just a penis bone that they bring with them a Not everybody knows that carnivores generally have a bone in their penis, but stuff like that. I love that the museum is entertaining and educational all at the same time. That's what our founder wanted. He was a teacher, and he always wanted it to be educational.

He never wanted it to be an erotic museum. He wanted to stay away from that. He said that, I want it to be a place where families can come, and I think also, I mean, when you are in the way that we set it up, it's kind of like a museum of natural history, but you come here, you engage in comparative anatomy, but there's also biology and zoology as well. So that's kind of our approach, but of course you have to keep people engaged, so we try to be very short with our delivery, but there's loads of information, but It's always the thing. You have to keep people's attentions.

And we are always trying to improve on that. Find a way to keep the experience from becoming repetitive and find new stuff to do. Where's the best place for people to find out more about the museum? Well, I recommend our website, phallus.is. We have a YouTube channel, which isn't terribly active, but we put in some old interviews with our founder.

I think that's a good place to go. The Icelandic Phallological Museum. But the best way probably to find stuff there is search Penis TV Iceland. There you're going to find various episodes that we've put in there. Also, our Twitter account, or I believe it's called right now, at Phallus Museum.

You can see updates in new species and stuff that we're doing. We have some usually weekly or daily inputs there. But our website, phallus.is, is probably the best place. Thank you so much for your time today. Oh, thank you for having me.

I am quite a bit. Thank you. All right, we are back, and we were talking about Tombstone, but obviously I said that this was not the first time that the gunfight at the O.K. Corral has been put onto film. This goes back probably well before 1946, but I want to talk about 1946's My Darling Clementine, which, so I saw this film in a film class probably back in 1992, so right before Tombstone came out.

And I had no idea what I was walking into because it's a movie called My Darling Clementine. I thought it might've been about, I don't know, oranges or something. Had no idea, even when it started playing and I heard Wyatt Earp's name and started to meet these characters, I still had no idea. The whole Western mythos had not really coalesced in my head other than the Time Warner commercials about the Old West. The Old West, that guy.

Here's Clay Allison. Called himself a shootist. Air-triggered bat Masterson who wound up a New York sports writer. And what kind of lady was wanted for horse-dealing and bootlegging? That was no lady.

That was Belle Starr. Killed a man for snoring too loud. That set of commercials. I really wasn't into westerns growing up, and so didn't really know anything about the O.K. Corral and this kind of stuff.

So I was. really delighted when I saw My Darling Clementine the first time, though I think even then I was taken aback by seeing Walter Brennan as a bad guy. That just seemed so odd because he's always so nice and usually plays the comic relief in these John Ford movies like he is in Rio Bravo, but here as Old Man Clanton, the patriarch of the bad guys, I was really taken aback. Yeah, that was wild. Obviously, Walter Brennan is just one of those perennial character actors that throw a stick at a Western film, you're probably going to hit Walter Brennan. And just to see him play a villain in this.

And also what struck me was just how dark so much of this film was. Even the daylight scenes, the climactic fight at the OK Corral, Ford was playing with some deep shadows in that. And it just looked so incredibly stark in And even just the fact that how much of it was done without score, that I can absolutely see why this film is so highly regarded. This was a first time watch for me, watched in preparation for this episode. This is where I officially have to turn in my film fan badge, because I'm lamentably under-watched when it comes to John Ford movies.

Looking really quick, I think I've only seen five of his films now, and this was the fifth. So... I really owe it to myself to dig deeper into it because I've loved everything that I've seen. The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Grapes of Wrath, The Quiet Man, especially The Quiet Man. I was raised on The Quiet Man.

But now My Darling Clementine, an amazing film. And as I believe I mentioned before, it again feels like ground zero. So many tropes that would become associated with the Western genre and then direct evocations in later films. can really be traced back to my darling Clementine. I love my darling Clementine for being, for having Linda Darnell and it goes, she did not live long and only she made quite a few movies, but only a handful of that. I really like a lot, but God, what a screen presence she is.

I love seeing her pop up. That's, Unfortunately, probably my favorite thing about My Darling Clementine. I do like the movie, but I just think she's luminous. And I was also really struck by Victor Mature. And it was, again, the realization that I think this was the first and, at the time of this recording, only thing I have seen Victor Mature in.

But I know that he seemed to have done a run of noir that I might have to dig deeper into to see how well he performs in those films, like Cry of the City. You have to see Kiss of Death. Kiss of Death. I'll add it to the list. Violet Saturday, I Wake Up Screaming.

Yeah, those are the good ones. You're going to watch Kiss of Death, and you're going to see Richard Widmark steal that movie from Victor Mature, but it's worth it. It is so worth it. But Mature is really good in that as well. And for me, my favorite role of his is probably in Head, when we have the monkeys hanging out in his hair.

Yeah. I always hear what a son of a bitch Ward Bond was in real life, but he's great as Morgan Earp in here. And yeah, Henry Fonda, Henry Fonda is America, right? And just him playing Wyatt Earp is so good. And then you get those great parallels.

Like when he sees Clementine, not Josephine, but Clementine get off the stage and he's struck by her. And I don't think, I don't think we have the wife in this one. I think it's much more of a simple, story of why it sees Clementine and just makes a beeline for, and it's their whole courtship throughout the rest of the movie type of thing. But I love that. Then later in tombstone, you get when Dana Delaney gets off of the coach and you get that moment from the godfather.

Oh, you got hit by the thunderclap, right? And just that look on his face where he's just, oh, who is this? And then that they have to name the movie after her. Because, again, it's like, okay, yeah, My Daryl and Clementine I thought was about a guy who was working down in the mines and was singing about his girl when he's down there or something. So did not expect that to be here.

And then just the vistas, man. The use of Monument Valley in this movie was wonderful. And It makes me want to go out and go to Monument Valley. I've never been there, and I so want to visit that place just to see where Ford made so many of these amazing films. Oh, it is absolutely worth it.

It's beautiful enough that you can completely ignore the fact that it's on the completely opposite side of the state as where Tombstone is because it doesn't matter. This is the mythic West. It could be wherever. And yeah, it's so nice to see so many of these familiar faces. That was one thing about Ford that I appreciated is just how often he would work with the same actors time and again.

So you get to see a lot of his kind of stock company in this one. Yeah, it was nice revisiting this one. And I'm so glad, Al Goro, that you got to see another one of his films and see this for the first time. Yeah, and I absolutely loved it. It was finding out these sort of roots of the films that I enjoy.

And also, seeing an example of the development of filmic portrayals of Wyatt Earp. What's that funny thing? That Wyatt Earp lived long enough to see cinema. That there was a generation of actors and directors, I think John Ford even spoke of this, that knew Wyatt Earp. They spoke to him directly.

And the evolving cinematic portrayal of him and how this is very much still in the The Wyatt Earp has a paragon of justice, which was definitely far-fueled from the historic Wyatt Earp. Even Tombstone touches on his ambiguities of character, but Henry Fonda, there's no ambiguity to him. He is as righteous as they come. And I'm sure if I were to dig deeper, I believe there was one where Randolph Scott played Wyatt Earp. I think it was called Frontier Marshal or something.

I'm sure that was also as righteous as it got. I should note, I'm a big Randolph Scott fan, mostly because I did the dive into the renowned Westerns recently. I loved all of them. So I need to check out Frontier Marshall at a certain point. You do it for Randolph Scott.

Randolph Scott. Val Kilmer played Wyatt Earp in a movie a few years before he passed. I did not have a chance to see that, but I was like, oh, interesting. He gets to play Wyatt in this one rather than Doc. I saw that one.

It was not particularly worth seeing. And Alex Cox made a Tombstone Rashomon, which was not a great movie, but an interesting way to tell the story, where it had the characters speaking directly to the camera, telling their version of the events. Henry Fonda played the Wyatt Earp character. I mean, outside of My Darling Clementine, he played He wasn't named Wyatt Earp, but the movie, the Edward Demetric movie Warlock, based on the Oakley Hall novel of the same name, is very clearly a fictional retelling of the Tombstone, the O.K. Corral story.

And so, yeah, Henry Ford played him again in Warlock with Richard Widmark and Anthony Quinn. I mean. It's a worthwhile movie to see. But also, speaking of Wyatt Earp living to see cinema, Blake Edwards' movie Sunset. James Garner plays Wyatt Earp on the set, being a technical advisor to Tom Mix, played by Bruce Willis.

And of course, they get involved in a crime story. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's a comic adventure. It's a buddy cop comedy from Blake Edwards. in 1989 or so. But if you take into account that James Garner also played Wyatt Earp in Hour of the Gun, which focused much more on the trial of Wyatt Earp. Jason Robards played Doc Holliday in that movie, and Robert Ryan is in it as Ike Clanton.

A lot of great pairings historically of actors playing Earp and Holliday, but I like to think of Unfortunately, my favorite thing about Hour of the Gun is to treat it as if Sunset were its sequel with James Garner in the role. But even Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas as Earp and Holiday in Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, the John Sturgis film, they really... I don't think anybody... does it star power wattage-wise as good as Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer? It's a sin, maybe, to say that.

It sounds really heretical to say something like that with all the great pairs who've played those two. But Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer are absolutely giving the big movie star treatment away. Have either of you seen Doc, the Frank Perry film with Stacey Keech and Harris Ulan? I have not, but it's something I want to check out. I'm a big fan of Stacey Keech.

Yeah, so if Kilmer and Russell, the movie star, turn, I think Doc is really worth seeing for many reasons, but I love Harris Ulan as Wyatt Earp and Stacey Keech as Doc Holliday, Faye Dunaway as Kate in that movie, but... you know, they, I mean, talk about playing the, the ambiguities of, you know, who's a good guy. Who's a, who's a villain. It's really great. It is a, you know, seventies deconstruction of the Western sort of, uh, production, but, uh, man, just, you feel the weight of it, which is not to say it's a, just a super heavy movie, but, uh, Really love Stacey Keech in this film. Really love Harris Euland in general and lament that he didn't get many starring roles.

He's always my favorite supporting actor when he's in a film, but I very much recommend checking out Doc. Looping back onto Gunfight at the OK Corral, I'm with you that while the pairing of Lancaster and Douglas really can't touch the kind of chemistry that we found with Russell and Kilmer, I still didn't really like what they were respectively bringing to the roles. And it was apparently one of six collaborations those guys had working together. They just continually kept entering into each other's orbits, which is funny because there's a funny Burt Lancaster line where it's like Kirk Douglas. I'm going to paraphrase, but Kirk Douglas would be the first man to tell you he's a difficult guy to work with.

I'd be the second. That's another film. So that one was new for me. I had never seen Gunfight at the OK Corral and was excited to see Kirk Douglas playing Doc Holliday. But I was really taken aback by just how many, again, great character actors there are in that.

It's nice to see John Ireland show up again because he had a very small role in My Darling Clementine. He's in here. Lee Van Cleef is one of the first bad guys that you see. DeForest Kelly playing Morgan Earp in this one, Whit Bissell showing up, Dennis Hopper as Billy Clinton. It's just like person after person, you're like, oh, wait, is that the...

Oh, yeah, it is. It is. Like, when you see Lee Van Cleef, it's like he's very clean cut. This is still, what, six, seven years before he goes over to Italy and starts making westerns over there. And even Jack Elam is in this.

And again, one of my favorite faces and somebody... I think Elam and Van Cleef, they were in so many great movies throughout the years, but to see them in the big combo and just the small roles that they would play, but they would bring so much to them. Yeah, that was a lot of fun. Let's talk about The Elephant in the Room. Let's talk about Wyatt Earp from 94.

Here we go. I had never seen this one before. I was staying away from this, and... I just got into trouble. Somebody was yelling at me online because how dare I talk about The Postman when I'd never seen it before?

And I was just like, so can I not talk about movies that are new to me? So I guess maybe I'll get into trouble by talking about Wyatt Earp because it was new to me. Because it was a three-hour Kevin Costner Western. I like Larry Kasdan. Sometimes I love him, but I like Larry Kasdan.

I was just like, yeah, I'm really not interested in seeing this, so sitting down and watching this tombstone is two hours and ten minutes and it flies by wyatt erp is three hours and i feel almost every single minute of the three hours i didn't feel the first little bit when gene hackman was on screen That was a nice surprise. All of these characters, all of these actors that showed up in here were a surprise for me because I didn't know who was in this movie. I knew Costner. That was it. I think I liked Dennis Quaid's Doc Holliday, though really can't, I mean, he's up there.

He's pretty close to what Kilmer's doing, but I don't know. He can't quite make it, but I like him and I like big nose Kate and I like their relationship that they have in here. And I like that they go into that a little bit more, but. So it was also a first time watch for me and what it kept me away with it. And I like Kevin Costner and I like his indulgences sometimes, but it was always one of those.

I had tombstone. I knew eventually I was going to see wider, but again, it was, it's the lift of the three hours of it all. And it's just like, All right, I'll get to it one day. So I double featured these. I watched Wyatt Earp first and I watched Tombstone.

The biggest problem that I could relate it to, and this is coming from somebody who is such a Tombstone fan, is Kevin Costner certainly does surround himself with some very, very capable co-stars in this movie. But the focus is in the title. Tombstone is a true ensemble piece. Whereas Wyatt Earp is 100% focused upon Wyatt Earp. So even though he surrounded himself with a lot of really great actors, they are not afforded the same opportunities to put what they can bring to the table on display in the same way that Tombstone does.

And if we're talking about, because I also really appreciated Dennis Quaid's performance as Doc Holliday, but what grants Kilmer that edge is is he gets more opportunities to interact with other actors and play off of them in ways that Quaid is not afforded to in Wyatt Earp. And so we have this movie that just sprawls and it just keeps going and it lacks that same kind of energy because the people that are in it, they're not able to really light up the screen like they were in Tombstone because it is so focused upon Wyatt Earp. That's the biggest problem that I had with it. It's not necessarily length because, you know, it goes back to that Ebert quote that a great movie is never too long and a bad movie is never too short.

It just didn't really or it never really grabbed me in the same kind of way as Tombstone. So it did feel like a slog by the end of it, which is unfortunate because there are some in isolation, some really great moments in this movie. As a whole, it really cannot stand up to Tombstone. I saw this one theatrically as well. I was excited to see it, though obviously it was coming about six months after Tombstone.

It was trying to be a different film. It was all clearly going to suffer in such close comparison. And I don't think it succeeds in being what it wanted to be, which isn't to say I think it's particularly bad. Bad. I agree with you that there are a lot of good scenes.

There's a lot of good bits. They just don't seem to cohes into a particularly pleasing three-hour movie. But yeah, incredible cast. I would say that the women in Wyatt Earp probably fare better than the women in Tombstone. Mare Winningham and Joe Beth Williams, Allison Elliott.

Yeah, they really get to shine a little. I really like the Masterson brothers. Bill Pullman and Tom Sizemore are fun to watch. Bill Pullman especially. I mean, I love Tom Sizemore, but Bill Pullman is...

I can't think of another role where I get to see Bill Pullman like that, the way that he is in Wyatt Earp. So, Oh, and Isabella Rossellini, of course, you mentioned Mike. I really do remember thinking, oh shit, Dennis Quaid is giving Val Kilmer a run for Doc Lionization. He's very good in it, and I'd say probably the best part of the film. I'd say both Kilmer and Quaid are the sickest looking Doc Hollidays.

Not even Stacy Keach in the Grimy 70s deconstruction film doc looks sick the way those two do, especially Quaid. I remember just thinking, I don't know if he lost weight to play the role or if it was makeup and costuming. But I just remember when he came on going, oh, shit, he is gone and frail. But, you know, so fiery and so, yeah, defiant. And yeah.

Wonderful, wonderful turn. I do think that it's worth preserving for the cast and for some of the period details. I mean, it's a handsome looking film. And if they took all the Western costumes, I'd say they put them to pretty good use. So yeah, I would definitely keep it around.

I do pull it out every few years to try it again and go, you know what? Maybe this is the time I'm going to love it. And it hasn't happened. But I don't think... every few minutes, it's like, oh shit, I forgot Martin Cove is in this movie. Michael Madsen gets some scenes.

Jeff Fahey. I think Jeff Fahey is somebody who should have been bigger and more appreciated at the box office, but I always liked Jeff Fahey, so yeah. And Rex Lynn. Mike and I were talking about Rex Lynn the other day. He just pops up, and I'm always happy to see him pop up. in an ensemble.

He's great. Young turn for Jim Caviezel in this one too is Warner. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was really nice to see Michael Madsen.

So many familiar faces in here. And I, yeah, I loved Isabella Rossellini when she introduces herself as big nose, Kate. And she's like, no, it's not that big, but you get that name from other ways. The thing that cracked me up though, watching this movie and towards the end, Like right at the end scene is older Wyatt Earp and older Josephine. And I can't remember if she's called that in this movie or not.

Josie, maybe. Right. And they're on this boat and they're, I think they're what up in Alaska and they're looking at the coast of Alaska. They're doing the thing that, you know, people in their seventies like to do. They take the boat trip up to Alaska and they look at the icebergs and this guy walks up to him and he's just, oh yeah, you had this thing with my family.

And we go into a flashback and I'm like, well, what time is it? It's been three hours and you're going into a flashback right now. What's happening? It was like, did they just forget how to put this into the story or did it just not fit with the rest of the story? But it just felt like they wedge this flashback in at the last minute, basically to just tell you, like, don't forget Wyatt Earp is a really solid guy and then the movie ends like after the flashback they go back to them they're on the boat like oh thanks so much or whatever and this guy fucks off and then the movie ends and i'm like that was so weird why did this kid just come up and give us a flashback right at the very end it just that floored me i don't know why i wasn't offended but it just felt very out of place and it just felt I don't know, it felt like a victory lap.

It felt like Kevin Costner just patting himself on the back, like, look at what a great guy I am. Look at how great Wyatt Earp is. Part of me can understand what they were going for. It's directly engaging with the fact that as Earp has aged, his legacy has become his legend. And so they're talking about that.

And then these are the stories that are told. And he even talks, there's this, a brief line is like that. Was that how it actually was? What does it matter? So that's see what they're going for, but there's a difference between something that feels good as a bow and what narratively works in a film.

And really it just comes down to something that has often been thrown at Kevin Costner. And I don't think it's always fair, but in this case, it feels fair. It's indulgent. And that is the name of the game with a lot of Kevin Costner projects. He was able to, utilizing his position in Hollywood, take as long as he wanted to make these movies.

Wyatt Earp was originally intended to be like a cable miniseries. I think it's funny that eventually he seemed to find his niche with Yellowstone because then he could have hours upon hours to be in this cowboy thing. And then it still continues to this day with his attempt to make these Horizon films. He's managed to make two of these Horizon movies. Each of them are three hours long, and apparently he still wants to make two more.

Again. I have nothing but respect for him for getting it done and having that ambition. I'm not going to ever hold that against him. But as it relates to a watchable film, in the case of Wyatt Earp, I do think it started to collapse under just how much they were intending to put into it. Sometimes pairing things back is not an artistic compromise.

It actually makes the film stronger. I think that there is an excellent, maybe not excellent, but at least a stronger movie at around two hours and 40 minutes out of Wyatt Earp. But as it stands of over three hours, you feel the length and that's not a credit to the film. Kevin Costner, I just think Artistic indulgence is often the thing I'm really responding to in a lot of my favorite movies that were critical failures because of the indulgence, but they happen to be on my wavelength. So yeah, White Earp, not quite on my wavelength, but I'm all for some indulgence.

Overall, I didn't mind the movie. Like I said, I felt it. I definitely could feel the running length. I don't know other than that last flashback. And again, yeah, I see where you're coming from, Al Goro, as far as it's that whole print the legend kind of thing.

It's like, okay, now everybody has a Wyatt Earp story. Maybe he was there. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe it just gets passed down from generation to generation. Oh, son, Wyatt Earp did this for our family kind of thing and just gives you a little tie into history type of way.

I didn't dislike Wyatt Earp. As much as I disliked the postman, I didn't feel it was as strong as maybe dances with wolves, but dances with wolves is one I haven't gone back to since 1990. So it's not like I really, it's not like I go back to these films. I admire you Jedediah for going back to Wyatt Earp and giving it another shot. I might do that at some point in the future.

This wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be because I was just like, Oh gosh. three hours of this is going to be a lot. I found it very funny that at one point there's, you've got young Wyatt Earp who's played by a kid and then you've got older Wyatt Earp who's played by Kevin Costner. And then you've got middle Wyatt Earp who's played by Kevin Costner again, but it looks like he's being played by the Kevin Costner of Silverado, which I was just like, wow. Oh yeah. I forgot how he and Larry Kasdan had this relationship all the way back to Silverado.

And even before that, because he was the dead body in The Big Chill, they had been working together for years and years. So it was natural that they came together for something like this. But yeah, it was funny to see him and be like, oh yeah, I forgot how much I love Silverado. This movie made me want to go back and watch Silverado. And another film that is just filled with amazing actors just doing such a great job.

And that's One of those movies where I'm just like, fuck, why am I not seeing Kevin Kline on screen all the time anymore? Just makes me want to go back and go watch Fish Call Wander or any of these earlier movies that he was in where he just could own the screen. So it took me down a whole different path than Kevin Costner. I was just bemoaning the fact that I don't see Kevin Kline every day. Of my life.

It was funny as I was watching The White Earp with my partner who is A tremendous fan. Speaking of previous collaborations between Kevin Costner and Lawrence Kasdan, she's a tremendous fan of the bodyguard. It's a movie she could on at any time. And I was making the joke that I wonder if there is a preferred Kevin Costner cut of the bodyguard where it's three hours and we dig deep into his background and the previous jobs that he has as a bodyguard. And again, Joking about the indulgences, but doing so in a good-natured way.

I will never be somebody to actively disparage Kevin Costner. I think that he has more than earned his position. But that doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to respond as strongly to everything that he does. Well, I can watch Waterworld whenever. That's the movie of his that I go back to time and again.

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. Want to support physical media and get great movies in the mail? Head over to scarecrowvideo.org and try Scarecrow Video's incredible rent-by-mail service. Right, Matt? That's right, Emily.

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At the end of the road, I am in dire need of some cash. The real trip begins. A quarter of a million. We're going to boost it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. He thinks you might work for the police. One step and you're in. Way over your head.

It's a terrific twisty thriller. The Salton Sea. Look for it on video and DVD. That's right. We'll be back next week with some more Valhalla as we look at The Salton Sea.

Until then, I want to thank my co-hosts El Goro and Jedediah. So Jedediah, where are you up to lately, sir? You know, I watch some movies and I write about them sometimes, and sometimes that gets included in the Blu-ray special features, and other times nobody ever sees it. If you want to see any, you can follow me on Blue Sky, or occasionally I write something on Letterboxd, but I'm pretty active over there. And Al Goro, what's the latest with you?

I'm still going with the Talk Without Rhythm podcast, my weekly movie discussion show. At the time that this should be released, Looking at my schedule coming up, I will have just done a P.T. Anderson double feature of his collaborations with Daniel Day-Lewis. So there will be Blood and Phantom Thread. Thank you so much, 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 WadingWayMedia.com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit Patreon.com slash Projection Booth.

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