Agent Palmer

Blonde, the much maligned fictionalized biopic of Marilyn Monroe from director Andrew Dominik and based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates, may just be the art film to end all art films.

It plays with color and sound, aspect ratio and focus, cameras and camera angles, light and darkness, and hard cuts and pans. Put simply, it’s all of the things you can do with a film all in one film.

Over the course of 16 months the world has learned a lot about Val Kilmer. If you ever wanted to get to know him as an actor, an artist, or the man behind all of that, you can through the April 21, 2020 release of his autobiography I’m Your Huckleberry, and the July 23, 2021 release of the documentary Val.

I’ve read and loved the autobiography, so I was curious at what awaited me in the documentary. It’s the same, but different.

Val Kilmer is one of those actors. How you know him is most often related to either the first movie you saw him in or your favorite film of his. Is he your top secret agent? Your Real Genius? Your Iceman? Your Madmartigan? Your Batman? Your Lizard King? Your Bank Robber? Your Saint? Or your Huckleberry?

Well, no matter what he is to you, he’s an artist and his memoir is a thing of poetry written in prose. There is much more to Val Kilmer than the roles he has played, but the stories that he writes about…