Tag Archives: Val Kilmer

News of the weird… in film

Opening today, October 20th, is the film The Snowman.  Here’s the movie’s trailer…

Looks ok, no?

Based on one of the several bestselling Harry Hole (don’t snicker… that’s the name given the detective protagonist) novels by Jo Nesbø, the film features a cast that’s quite literally to die for.  You’ve got Michael Fassbender in the role of primary role of Harry Hole, Rebecca Ferguson (the standout actress, IMHO, in the last Mission: Impossible film and, hopefully, the one to come), the always reliable J. K. Simmons, the also always reliable Chloe Sevigny, and one other big name actor who I will mention in a moment.

The film is directed by Tomas Alfredson, who gained very positive reviews for Let The Right One In as well as (though I didn’t particularly like it) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Unlike those last two films by Mr. Alfredson, The Snowman, carries all kinds of hints it might be a disaster.  To begin, the film is being released in a relatively dead period of time, movie-wise.  Trailers, though they certainly exist, are hardly being shown on TV.  Fans of the books, likewise, can be forgiven in that the film’s lackluster advertising barely makes mention of the movie being related to the Jo Nesbø book(s).  Was this done on purpose?  Is the author himself not terribly thrilled with the film?

Let’s cut to the proverbial chase: You don’t have to be a psychic or a tea reader to feel the studios know they have a stinker on their hands.  They are essentially dumping it into theaters in the hopes they recover some of the budget spent on it yet it is equally clear these same studios aren’t getting their hopes up.  They refuse to spend on advertising -the also proverbial spending good money after bad- a film with this pedigree might merit.

Finally, the very early reviews (those that beat the movie embargo) are almost all negative.

The reason for my posting about the film is not because of the film itself but rather based on the following fascinating article concerning the actor I didn’t mention above, Val Kilmer.  He’s in the film, though based on this article, by Sam Adams and on Slate.com, his work here is very weird…

Val Kilmer’s Hacked-Up, Redubbed Role in The Snowman is Incredibly Bizarre

I really hope you click on the link above because it is a fascinating article that gave me memories of the late Bela Lugosi in Plan 9 From Outer Space.  Without giving too much of the article away, it would appear Mr. Kilmer’s role in this film is something akin to Mr. Lugosi’s role.

If you find inside Hollywood stories as fascinating as I do, you’ll enjoy this article.