The first time Kurt Russell met Val Kilmer was when the Hollywood homegrown was hanging out with Cher on the set of Silkwood, a 1983 docudrama. Kilmer, a 22-year-old Juilliard graduate at the time who had yet to see the release of a string of Eighties hits such as Top …
Read More »Val Kilmer Was Born to Play Jim Morrison
Val Kilmer leaves such a vast legacy as the world mourns the news of his death at 65. There’s so much to be said about his charisma, his range, his smolder, his volleyball skills, his work ethic. But we need to honor what might be his most transformative performance, as …
Read More »Val Kilmer Gave Us the Best Gunfight of the Modern Western Era
Val Kilmer’s death on Tuesday, from pneumonia at 65, hit Western movie fans especially hard. In 1993’s Tombstone, Kilmer delivered one of the most indelible performances in the genre’s history as the tubercular dentist and gambler John Henry “Doc” Holliday. Beset by coughing fits, alcoholism, and a healthy dose of …
Read More »Val Kilmer Will Always Be Mr. Iceman to Us
It’s not hard to imagine a topsy-turvy, role-swapping alternate reality where Val Kilmer plays Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in 1986’s Top Gun and Tom Cruise is cast as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. Kilmer’s Maverick would be cocky but also raw, exposed. Good at what he does but a desperate wreck at everything …
Read More »How Do You Cast and Train a Giant Dog to Act in a Movie? Very Carefully
Near the beginning of 2020, filmmakers David Siegel and Scott McGehee traveled to Newton, Iowa, to meet a Great Dane named Bing. The pair needed a leading canine for their next movie The Friend, an adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel of the same name, and the black-spotted boy looked like …
Read More »'I Want to Live in a World Where There's More Magic': Inside the Making of 'Sea Lion Cow'
Ivan Cash knew it was a mad idea: Conceiving, planning, and shooting a music video in 24 hours, especially after the director and his crew had spent the last five days on a grueling commercial shoot in New York City. They’d gone into overtime every day, including the last, a …
Read More »John Oliver Hammers Trump Admin Over Signalgate and Deportations: 'Deeply Unserious People'
John Oliver opened Last Week Tonight on Sunday by assailing officials in the Trump administration for Signalgate and its handling of mass deportations, labeling them “ deeply unserious people doing deeply stupid things with massively serious consequences.” ”It’s true, they put a journalist in their group chat,” Oliver said, “something [Jeffrey] …
Read More »Ike Barinholtz Is Comedy's Unsung Hero. 'The Studio' Is About to Change That
A s Ike Barinholtz approaches the register at Farm Boy Produce, the cashier regards the 48-year-old comic-actor-writer-director with a gimlet-eyed skepticism, as if he’s a shoplifter or worse. “Are you famous?” For a moment, Barinholtz can only smile, revealing the trademark gap in his teeth. The live wire is at …
Read More »Is the Controversial 'White Lotus' Hookup the End of Queerbaiting Backlash?
Warning: Spoilers ahead for Episode Six of The White Lotus Season Three. It started from the very first episode. “Dude, long plane rides make me so fucking horny,” Saxon Ratliff (Patrick Schwarzenegger) declares, out of the blue, in the third-season premiere of The White Lotus. “It’s like, a lot of …
Read More »'We Were Unhinged': The Stars of 'Deli Boys' on Playing the Show's Lovable Screw-Ups
In a television landscape saturated with South Asian tropes — think: dutiful doctor, tech nerd, spiritual guru, bearded terrorist — Hulu’s Deli Boys arrives like a shot of spice-infused adrenaline. The Philadelphia-set series plunges viewers into the chaotic world of two pampered Pakistani American brothers who inherit their late father’s, …
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