Tombstone (1993)
Directors: George P. Cosmotos and Kevin Jarre
Had I seen this before: No
Listen, Mr. Kansas Law Dog--I have returned from our family sojourn in the American Southwest with some weird tan lines and a summer blog theme, so grab a sarsaparilla because things are about to get hot and dusty.
To begin with, I'm not quite sure how I made it almost thirty years without seeing this movie, which seems to be a favorite of people my age and is certainly a favorite of the Tombstone, AZ tourism board. My best explanation is that my family, for reasons unknown, chose to see Wyatt Earp in the theater at the time rather than Tombstone, and I just quickly accepted that as my O.K. Corral-revisiting-fate. I was the one middle-schooler who had seen Wyatt Earp instead of Tombstone. My understanding for three decades has been that I had seen the long, plodding one and missed the good one.
Now, I doubt many movies could live up to thirty years of being considered the good one, but I was still pretty surprised by how silly and sometimes outright terrible this movie is! Y'all really had me going on this one! That is not to say that I was not entertained by it, because it is inarguably an entertaining movie, and I probably should have factored in that all the testimony to its stellar quality I remembered hearing was from a bunch of 13-year-olds thirty years ago. I should also add some context for my viewing experience, which was on Dan's phone, propped up on a motel room pillow, surrounded by Roy Rogers paraphernalia, the evening before our own visit to Tombstone, Arizona. Is that the ideal way to watch a film? I mean...this particular film? Maybe!
Allow me to recreate for you Dan's aural experience of watching this movie (not for the first time) sitting beside me: "Is that Powers Booth?" "Is that Michael Rooker?" "Is that..." (squints extra hard) "Billy Bob Thornton??" "Is that Val Kilmer's accent the whole time?" "Is that Billy Zane?" "Did you know Bill Paxton was my birthday twin?" "Is that John Corbett?" "Is that Thomas Haden Church?" "Is that Terry O'Quinn?" "Is that Paula Malcomson? Do you think David Milch saw her and Powers Booth in this and that's why he cast them in Deadwood?" "JASON PRIESTLY IS IN THIS MOVIE?" (Later, looking at IMDB) "That was Charlton Heston??" Let me also recreate for you you Dan's response, which was to silently ignore 100% of my questions, which, to be fair, were mostly rhetorical.
A lot of things in this movie are very effective, Kilmer obviously being the one that most people remember. Very strong "when Doc Holliday isn't on screen, all the other characters should be asking 'where's Doc Holliday?'" energy. One thing I was looking forward to in finally seeing this was getting some context for the "I'm your huckleberry" bit, which I have never understood, so I experienced some mild consternation when I watched him say it and still didn't understand what he meant. But I guess I'm not alone? (Literal trigger warning, that article ends with an entire paragraph eagerly promoting something called guns dot com, sigh.) Anyway, I liked all the Doc Holliday scenes and I liked to hate Johnny Ringo and I liked that Kurt Russell's version of Wyatt Earp felt more ambiguous than "upstanding law man." I liked that when a scene needed to be very dramatic they would just put in roaring thunder every 1.5 seconds. I liked how shiny Dana Delaney's silver outfit was. I like that I am able to clock a laudanum addiction from fifty paces.
I did not like any of the dialogue involving women and seriously doubt a single woman was within 100 miles of this script at any point. I did not like being put in the position of having to root for dudes who were like "guess what I'm a cop now" before hunting down and murdering people. Cops gunning people down with impunity is super duper not something I enjoy and I genuinely think the Earps won the battle of history in part because they had the superior outfits by far (and because Holliday's got jokes). Walking dramatically down the street in those dusters is the reason they are iconic, not their actual "cause" which was pretty iffy. I thought the ending of this movie was tonally insane, like I genuinely cannot remember the last time I was more flabbergasted by a screenwriting decision. I am neutral about the fact that the ladies all had thin 90s eyebrows, it is just a thing I always notice in period pieces of the time.
Line I repeated quietly to myself: "And so she walked out of our lives forever."
Is it under two hours: Not quite
In conclusion: I wish I had seen this in 1993 so that it could live amongst my many problematic faves, where it rightfully belongs.
Huckleberry Buckle from Saveur
Listen, this movie took some liberties with history and in that same spirit I took some liberties with this recipe, by which I mean I used blueberries because obtaining huckleberries where I live is prohibitively expensive. And, whatever, drawling "I'm your blueberry" makes just as much sense anyway.
Up next: Support for my belief that every road trip has the potential to become a cross-country crime spree
