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The Rewatchables ·

Tombstone

year 1993decade 90sdirector George P. Cosmatosgenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Sean Fennesseyhost Chris Ryan
All 14 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 21:03

The 'hell's coming with me' scene followed by the killing montage

The nominated choices open with Wyatt Earp confronting a heavier Billy Bob Thornton near the beginning, the 'skin that smoke wagon' exchange played as a clip; Earp completely emasculates him and then tells the bartender he is taking 25% of the house; Thornton's grumbling just before, about playing cards with his brother's kids, is also loved and called a good heat check.

More nominees: the first OK Corral shootout and Kurt Russell's 'hell's coming with me' speech, played as a clip and followed by a montage of them killing people; the creek shootout, Russell's version of Larry Bird walking on water in the 1987 playoffs; and Kilmer versus Michael Biehn, one-on-one at the end.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:04:13

"I never saw a rich man that didn't have a guilty conscience. I already have a guilty conscience. I might as well have the money too"

Nominated: 'I never saw a rich man that didn't have a guilty conscience. I already have a guilty conscience. I might as well have the money too'; the way Kurt Russell tells the sheriff he does not think he will let him arrest them today (the sheriff's name is garbled in the transcript); and 'Make no mistake. It's not revenge. she's after. It's the Reckoning' (as transcribed), which one host applied to a colleague after Grantland was blown away.

The film

Tombstone (1993)

Directed by George P. Cosmatos · Drama

130 minutes

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Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Kurt Russell Wyatt Earp
Val Kilmer Doc Holliday
Sam Elliott Virgil Earp
Bill Paxton Morgan Earp
Powers Boothe "Curly Bill" Brocius
Michael Biehn Johnny Ringo
Charlton Heston Henry Hooker
Jason Priestley Billy Breakenridge
Jon Tenney Sheriff Johnny Behan
Stephen Lang Ike Clanton
Thomas Haden Church Billy Clanton
Dana Delany Josephine Marcus
Paula Malcomson Allie Earp
Lisa Collins Louisa Earp
John Philbin Tom McLaury
Dana Wheeler-Nicholson Mattie Blaylock
Joanna Pacuła Big Nose Kate
Michael Rooker Sherman McMasters
Harry Carey Jr. Marshal Fred White
Billy Bob Thornton Johnny Tyler
Tomas Arana Frank Stilwell
Paul Ben-Victor Florentino "Indian Charlie" Cruz
Frank Stallone Ed Bailey
Robert John Burke Frank McLaury
Billy Zane Mr. Fabian
John Corbett Johnny Barnes
Buck Taylor John "Turkey Creek Jack" Johnson
Terry O'Quinn Mayor & Publisher of Tombstone Epitaph John Clum
Peter Sherayko John "Texas Jack" Vermillion
Wyatt Earp III [ b ] Billy Claiborne
Robert Mitchum Narrator

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

21:03

Most Rewatchable Scene

The 'hell's coming with me' scene followed by the killing montage; Wyatt Earp confronting Billy Bob Thornton at the c...

The 'hell's coming with me' scene followed by the killing montage; Wyatt Earp confronting Billy Bob Thornton at the card table; or the stretch from Wyatt Earp, on his horse after Bill Paxton's death, seeing Powers Booth through to the creek

In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 00:21:03Read transcript
  • The nominated choices open with Wyatt Earp confronting a heavier Billy Bob Thornton near the beginning, the 'skin that smoke wagon' exchange played as a clip; Earp completely emasculates him and then tells the bartender he is taking 25% of the house; Thornton's grumbling just before, about playing cards with his brother's kids, is also loved and called a good heat check.
  • More nominees: the first OK Corral shootout and Kurt Russell's 'hell's coming with me' speech, played as a clip and followed by a montage of them killing people; the creek shootout, Russell's version of Larry Bird walking on water in the 1987 playoffs; and Kilmer versus Michael Biehn, one-on-one at the end.
  • Also proposed, the 'turn your head into a canoe' scene: after the character the hosts call Ben Johnson is killed, Kurt Russell comes out and pistol-whips the shooter, Thomas Hayden Church and the others surround Russell, and Val Kilmer shows up with 'you music lover' and 'I got two guns, one for each of you'.
  • The first 'I'm your Huckleberry' is nominated with a clip: Michael Biehn is drunk, some of his buddies already killed, and is trying to challenge Earp when Doc comes from the shadows of the saloon and delivers the famous line; beyond Kilmer, Biehn is called really good, against type, a great villain and a great Johnny Ringo, the real-life figure.
  • Biehn is so good that one host went online to research why his career was not bigger: The Terminator, this, Aliens and The Abyss, where he plays one of the crazy Navy SEALs, and then not much, partly because he stopped working with James Cameron, who makes few movies; it is argued he and Michael Rooker have switched parts, since 99 times out of 100 Rooker would play Ringo and Biehn the good guy you are not sure you trust, Rooker playing a lunatic in every movie.
  • One favorite is the 'hell's coming with me' scene and the killing montage that follows.
  • Asked whether anything else belongs in the pool, the answer is no, those are the big five. — Sean Fennessey
  • Another host does add one: the scene at the very beginning when the brothers and their three women get off the train and look at each other in the mirror; nobody goes for the twelve-minute theater sequence, which they would have told George to cut.
  • From a channel-flipping standpoint, if the film is on after Bill Paxton dies, with Kurt Russell on his horse pretending to leave and then seeing Powers Booth, one host watches from that point on, knowing he is going to stay and kill everybody and end it in the creek; that is called that host's favorite part.
  • Another host's favorite is the Billy Bob scene, and Thornton reportedly improvised all his dialogue, as Kurt Russell told the hosts, though with Thornton that is hard to verify.
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26:32

What’s Aged the Worst?

The 135-minute runtime; the twelve-minute theater sequence; the picnic scene; Bill Paxton's slow-motion death scene; ...

The 135-minute runtime; the twelve-minute theater sequence; the picnic scene; Bill Paxton's slow-motion death scene; the unstructured violence of the final act; the fiercely independent portrayal of Dana Delaney's character

In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 00:26:32Read transcript
  • The 135-minute runtime: about twenty minutes would have been chopped, starting with the theater scene, which could have been 45 seconds; they do two plays that night, a reading from Henry V and Faustus.
  • A defense of the theater scene: it shows why Jason Priestley's character is loyal to men he probably should not befriend, the constitution of the town and who is in charge, and that Wyatt Earp is officially out of the game when the mayor introduces himself; twelve minutes is still probably unnecessary, but the Priestley point wins the objector over.
  • Priestley sitting beside Powers Booth is read as a stan, just a big fan; the movie opening with the cowboys executing a wedding party is liked as a way to set the tone for how bad somebody is, with the joke that it copies Three Amigos and that is why Kevin Jarrett (as transcribed) was fired.
  • Three stretches of intense, unstructured violence, especially the end where it is unclear what they are trying to accomplish and the heroes are just murdering people, are called the George Cosmatos effect, the film turning into Cobra or Rambo for five minutes; the opening sequence itself is fine and sets up a gnarly, bare-knuckled, masculine movie.
  • The theater was too long; the film is called weirdly woke about a woman's place in the old West, Dana Delaney playing a fiercely independent woman; another notes that Wyatt leaving Maddie for the actress is the real story and is also in Wyatt Earp, though doubt is cast on how independent she really was.
  • Their picnic scene sucked: nobody comes to Tombstone for picnics, and the late-80s, early-90s habit of establishing a romantic connection is unnecessary when we already get that they like each other.
  • Bill Paxton's slow-motion death scene is really bad and dated, one of several very long deaths that would be done differently in 2018.
  • Asked again later, the 135 minutes is still the answer: it is way too long.
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30:03

What’s Aged the Best?

The real mustaches; the loaded cast; Dana Delaney; the 1880s Wild West world-building; the closing credits; the Val K...

The real mustaches; the loaded cast; Dana Delaney; the 1880s Wild West world-building; the closing credits; the Val Kilmer era; what the film shows of tuberculosis; Joanna Pacula; Billy Bob Thornton

In the discussion (15)
Approx. transcript time · 00:30:03Read transcript
  • The mustaches, all real and magnificent: an hour and a half in, one host wonders why nobody wears hats and mustaches now and says producer Craig should have one right now; another cannot grow one, Kurt Russell can grow incredible facial hair, and a Christmas challenge is set to grow a Tombstone mustache or goatee for the fans.
  • Powers Booth and Val Kilmer actually have a soul patch with a mustache rather than goatees; the challenged host is in, even though a mustache makes him look like a dirtbag cop from 1974, which is when the challenger feels most like his friend, like being friends with Gene Hackman.
  • The crazy loaded cast, already discussed, and Dana Delaney, whose good career felt like it could have been better; a China Beach fan likens her to Carla Gugino, first said as 'Carlo Gugino' and mocked as a Fellini actor and the Godfather toll-booth gunman, as a why-aren't-you-a-bigger-star actress, asking why Demi Moore was so much bigger.
  • Delaney had a bigger career than Gugino, whom everyone loves, but should have been an A list star; this was the one time a big movie made her the female lead, Exit to Eden being the joke about where it went wrong, and she remains one host's second-favorite actress in the film.
  • The 1880s Wild Wild West world-building: liquor, brothels, gambling, hats and mustaches; the Godfather tone Russell talked about shows in Wyatt moving in, taking over the faro game (transcribed 'Pharaoh') at the Oriental and winning the deeds to mines, a man who stands for law and order screwing people out of things because fame left the Earps with nothing to show for it.
  • The film is called the bridge from John Ford Westerns to Deadwood, one of the first Westerns full of people cursing each other out and then shooting somebody in the head; the blood in the Bill Paxton scene and Sam Elliott being told he will never use his arm again were new and intense for a Western.
  • The closing credits, four solid minutes of the cast walking in their outfits for no reason like a Vanity Fair photo shoot, are unintentionally funny but cool, compared to a Countdown segment one host once shot with Jalen.
  • That era of Val Kilmer, all the way through Heat, is savored like old Fab Five tapes from Michigan: it did not totally work out, but if you could bottle this there was something special, and he really should have been a bigger star.
  • Why the film is special: you can watch the other actors recognize what Kilmer is doing and change their performances to elevate his, making themselves more buttoned-down and austere, solid American oak, while he is free jazz, a coughing, sweating, feverish, green Byron or Shelley figure; the Kansas Earps versus Georgia Doc contrast is credited, with colleague Amanda Dobbins invoked as the poetic Georgian, and tuberculosis explaining the rest.
  • Kurt Russell's Wyatt is looking for a wife who gets him and stokes his soul, but the real partner is Holliday, from the first 'how the hell are you' line; the friendship is the love story at the center of the movie, an amazing portrayal of it.
  • Revisiting the 1993 Best Supporting Actor field (Tommy Lee Jones, DiCaprio, Ralph Fiennes, Malkovich, Pete Postlewaite), it is amazing Kilmer was not nominated, though the category was stacked; Malkovich is good in In the Line of Fire but not as memorable, and with the wished-for five-year Oscar delay Kilmer gets nominated.
  • The film was a modest hit that took on a new life: one host is not sure he saw it in theaters despite seeing everything then, another definitely did over Christmas break when movies were the only thing to do, and another watched it maybe 25 times in a friend's basement because it was always on TV.
  • The tuberculosis vaccine has aged best, in the sense that the film shows how much having tuberculosis sucked: Doc turns green, coughs blood, is insulted as a 'lunger' by everyone, and keeps smoking and drinking whiskey around the clock until the doctor orders no more whiskey, cigarettes, sex or gambling.
  • Joanna Pacula, whose name nobody can pronounce, is the last pick: she was around for a while as a why-not-bigger actress and then just never made it, her credits being Marked for Death (transcribed 'Mark for Death') with Steven Seagal, Tombstone and My Giant; while her credits are looked up, Kilmer's 'I have not even begun to defile myself' is performed, his accent likened to Yosemite Sam reading Oscar Wilde, ridiculous but perfect.
  • Asked again later, Billy Bob Thornton is one host's answer; another sticks with the mustaches.
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42:10

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Stephen Lang

Stephen Lang

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:42:10Read transcript
  • Three candidates: Stephen Lang; Michael Biehn, who may not be in it enough and so might qualify; and Billy Bob Thornton, who gets the most out of about four scenes; Lang, reportedly hammered for the entire movie, is so out of control that every time you see him you think what a piece of work and want him shot, and a second host makes Lang his vote too.
  • Lang is in only a handful of scenes so he qualifies; the film was good at identifying people who would become famous, Lang being basically the star of Avatar.
  • If Biehn is in the category it is Biehn: rewatching, he is a great villain, and the scene where he and Val Kilmer trade Latin for thirty seconds, ending with him winning 500 bucks on one hand, is played as a clip; but Biehn is ruled not to qualify because he is in too much of the movie, so it is Stephen Lang.
  • Earlier asides: Val Kilmer is called the heat-check guy of every movie he is in, and Billy Bob Thornton's card-table grumbling is called a good heat check.
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45:34

Apex Mountain

Jason Priestley

Jason Priestley

In the discussion (13)
Approx. transcript time · 00:45:34Read transcript
  • Kurt Russell first, with the reminder that the question is the highest point of his career, not the favorite: one case is The Thing in 1982, after Escape from New York and with Silkwood, Swing Shift and Big Trouble in Little China coming; a no is cast because Escape from New York was only later a cult hit, raising whether apex is judged at the time or on reflection.
  • Reading about Tombstone makes it sound like Russell was able to finance the movie coming off Backdraft, a relatively big hit he starred in, likened to LeBron in the 2018 Finals; a controversial case is made for Tango and Cash, when after the well-liked Tequila Sunrise with Michelle Pfeiffer a hit with Stallone, an absolutely ridiculous movie only those two could pull off, left him looking like an A plus list star.
  • Tango and Cash was not a huge hit, costing $55 million and making $66 million, though $55 million in 1988 is like $160 million today, and it is not that good; the counter is that it opened up Backdraft and his ability to finance Tombstone; the actual answer may be that there was no apex at all, a range of rolling hills, which is what is cool about his career.
  • Russell was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Silkwood, which is why his Apex Mountain is around The Thing in 1982 or 1983, when Escape from New York was becoming a cult movie. — Sean Fennessey
  • Whether Russell was ever Oscar-nominated is disputed, Miracle floated and rejected, until the Silkwood nomination is recalled; the host who forgot it concedes, a 180 the others tease.
  • Russell could have had a different career as a serious dramatic actor rather than leaning into the masculine hero; he and Harrison Ford are cut from the same cloth, smart throwbacks to Paul Newman charisma, but Ford got two franchises while Russell alternates three good films and three bad; he is also just a good-looking dude, at his most handsome here, a man who should be on a poster.
  • Val Kilmer: a no, with Top Gun imagined as his apex, since coming out of it people saw him neck and neck with the star, though another calls that the star's movie and goes Heat, where as De Niro's wingman in the biggest mid-90s movie he is the next wave; his pre-Batman run is traced through True Romance, Tombstone, The Real McCoy, Thunderheart and The Doors.
  • 1987 right after Top Gun is floated, when Willow was hopefully going to be his Han Solo and did not work out; one host's personal apex for him is The Doors, where he was out of control, and a Doors rewatchable is wanted, though JFK would have to come first among the Oliver Stone movies.
  • Jason Priestley is a thousand-percent yes: 90210 was never bigger, he is in a movie with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer and has a couple of heat-check scenes, the steepest mountain of all time, very high with a precipitous drop on either side; a caution that a later show (transcribed 'Natuna') was big for three and a half years does not change the view that this literally was his Apex Mountain and his first dabbling in movies.
  • Dana Delaney's apex has to be China Beach, which was probably already gone by this point, so she is not a yes; nobody else is proposed except George Cosmatos as ghost director, already covered, with the joke of a Ringer video secretly directed by someone else.
  • The late Bill Paxton: this is not a Mount Rushmore Paxton performance next to Aliens, Near Dark, One False Move, Weird Science, True Lies and Twister, though it may be his sweetest spot while figuring out how to be Bill Paxton; in Aliens Sigourney Weaver is the hero but Paxton and Biehn would in any other world have been the stars, and One False Move is incredible though arguably Billy Bob's movie too.
  • Twister was Hollywood's first concerted effort to make Paxton a major star, marketed with Helen Hunt and Philip Seymour Hoffman as people who were going to be stars rather than actual stars; the shift from needing a movie star to needing a tornado, meteor or alien invasion is traced to Speed, where Keanu was the guy and Sandra Bullock turned out to be one of the biggest stars of the next twenty years.
  • Paxton is one of the all-time great number two or three guys: here he sets picks and makes a couple of corner threes, telling Wyatt he is the one, spits a lot, works the scorer's-table handshakes at the start, and gets the 'hey' when Doc responds to Wyatt's description of his new wife with 'pure as the driven snow'.
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55:03

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

Dana Wheeler Nicholson

Dana Wheeler Nicholson

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:55:03Read transcript
  • The Joey Pants Award goes to the 'hey, it's that person' actor, and this movie has a lot of them; Stephen Lang is considered, since most people still could not recognize him, especially here with the beard, hat and mud-covered face looking like a homeless man rather than his Avatar look.
  • Dana Wheeler Nicholson (also transcribed 'Dana Willard-Nickerson') is the answer: the girl from Fletch, 'can I borrow your towel, my car just hit a water buffalo', where everyone aged 30 to 50 has a massive crush on her as a platonic ideal; one theory for why she did not become a massive star is that Elizabeth Shumacher (as transcribed) took that same lane; her other credits recalled are Bye Bye Love with Paul Reiser, The X Files, Friday Night Lights as the mother of one of the main characters, and Nashville.
  • She is one host's Joey Pants winner because the film casually tells us at the end that she died of a drug overdose, a bad beat for a character who has to be on laudanum the whole time while everyone else balls out; the running joke of the same cough-syrup bottle, obviously not the same bottle, and the scene where Wyatt returns from Dana Delaney and tries to make her into Dana Delaney while she cries because she is so high.
  • Another host thought she was miscast and not subtle, drooling mucus and crying for her laudanum in her first shot, which draws a defense of 'Gail Stanwyck', as the hosts call her after her Fletch character, and leads into the overacting award.
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57:37

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

Dana Wheeler Nicholson

Dana Wheeler Nicholson

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:57:37Read transcript
  • The Saul Rubinick award (as transcribed) is given to Dana Wheeler Nicholson as well; one host refuses to accept that in a movie with Powers Booth, countering with Booth, and the pick is repeated as Dana Wheeler Nicholson; Booth is defended as good, if more Booth than needed, and Thomas Hayden Church (transcribed 'Daniel Church') is said to be closer to the award than he is.
  • The case against her: in bed after Wyatt gets back from the picnic, asked how she is feeling, she is so high she is laughing at her own misery, and that is not good acting.
  • The defender insists the other two are both wrong: calling her overacting in a film where Powers Booth wears a sash and sashays around town on opium shooting people in the chest, and in which Michael Biehn appears, makes no sense. — Chris Ryan
  • Further candidates: Billy Zane, who overacts in every movie and is not good, though in fairness that is literally the point of his character, an actor, and he played that same melodramatic man in his next nine movies, including as a serial killer on a boat; Sam Elliott overdoing the Western thing, rejected; and Robert Mitchum's completely unnecessary narrator, parked as a nitpick.
  • The dispute resumes during nitpicks: the hosts attacking her are told she is alive and reachable through her agent or Twitter, and that it is weird to be most bothered by a woman in three scenes while the men ham it up like boar's head; the defense is that the part is poorly written with no payoff since the narrator simply tells us she died; the attackers say the award is not a demerit and her laudanum-soaked scenes are just bad, with no emotional journey.
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1:12:15

Who Won the Movie?

Val Kilmer, with Kurt Russell credited for keeping it alive

Val Kilmer, with Kurt Russell credited for keeping it alive

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:12:15Read transcript
  • The first case is Kurt Russell: the star in one of his best movies, who in the aftermath gets to take ownership of making it so good; a respectful disagreement holds that Russell (transcribed 'Caruso') is the reason it got made and finished but Kilmer is the reason we remember it.
  • Both cases are called great and it is a tough one; those who did not win are George Cosmatos and Kevin Jarr (as transcribed), though Cosmatos's son Panos Cosmatos is called a great director for this year's Mandy with Nicolas Cage, which is wild.
  • The closing view: Kurt Russell wins it spiritually for keeping it alive, but Val Kilmer wins the movie as the best one in it; if you know the whole backstory Russell wins, if you are just watching the movie it is Kilmer, and that framing is agreed to.
Podcast choices
Speaker not identified
Kurt Russell
Speaker not identified
Val Kilmer
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