Not so surprised in this case. It's a sad and timely joke though.
@ C2W, I agree about Val Kilmer, but in a different way. I don't watch many films (just read about them) and to me Kurt Russell was just the loveable buffoon from Big Trouble In Little China. Even Val Kilmer (despite his apparent rep as an artiste and diva) was just Madmartigen from "Willow" - in which he was very good, imo.
I had no high expectations of either of them. So when I first saw Tombstone, for all it's many, many faults as a film, it was like watching two likeable dorks that I'd been briefly accquainted with suddenly transform into something else entirely, and watching them chew up the screen from both sides with equal intensity until they met in the middle and narrowly avoided kissing.
Kurt Russell got robbed, right there on screen, true enough, but he wasn't ruined by any means. He stood his ground firmly - it's just he had a duller part, when all is said and done. And Kilmer, for all his assholenish, did sword fights in Willow after having a metal prop cage dropped on his foot, splittingit in two. He is a dick, by all accounts - but he does the actual job with no complaints. From interviews, it appears to me that he is constantly drunk or stoned all the time, but not a deliberate arsehole. I mean, I think he might be a bit like Gary Busey - he is, himself, kind of bemused by how totally wasted he is.
Tombstone, though. Loved it, still love it. It's a Bromance film, really, about the deep, enduring love between Doc and Wyatt, and the obstacles which that love encounters along the way. The rest is just for show. Even the rest of Wyatt's family are kind of throw away. It's the My Own Private Idaho of revisionist Westerns. But played totally straight. And it is straight too. The love story is not about sex, just loyalty - but that's more than most love stories are about nowadays, so it hits home.
"The universe is 40 billion light years across and every inch of it would kill you if you went there. That is the position of the universe with regard to human life."
by Jeff » Sun Apr 11, 2010 10:53 am 
- in which he was very good, imo. 
