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RIP Val Kilmer: Real Genius .. the Film Nerd Culture Deserves (2015)
- dudefeliciano 2y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43553573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43553573 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43554329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43554329 there are already a couple of posts on val kilmers death
- aqme28 2y agothis post is more about the movie Real Genius
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoTop Secret was his best movie, IMNSHO... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoT28BPzVcI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoT28BPzVcI
- mseidl 2y agoI love that movie and I have massive crush on that girl. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001534/?ref_=ttfc_cst_29 https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001534/?ref_=ttfc_cst_29
- JKCalhoun 2y agoIf anyone has done a better "nerdy girl" I haven't seen that film.
- voxadam 2y ago"I never sleep, I don't know why. I had a roommate and I drove her nuts, I mean really nuts, they had to take her away in an ambulance and everything. But she's okay now, but she had to transfer to an easier school, but I don't know if that had anything to do with being my fault. But listen, if you ever need to talk or you need help studying just let me know, 'cause I'm just a couple doors down from you guys and I never sleep, okay?"
- swalberg 2y agoMy first celebrity crush as a kid. She's also in _Revenge of the Nerds_. Those two movies made young-me think that being a geek could be cool.
- mseidl 2y agoYou're a man of culture.
- rbanffy 2y agoI will rewatch Top Secret with my daughter this weekend.
- damnitbuilds 2y agoMe too! I will get Deja Vu.
- linsomniac 2y agoHave we not met before?
- rbanffy 2y agoThat's a good one!
- mobilio 2y agoAnd me too!
- dole 2y ago9 year old me was fascinated about what the Anal Intruder was.
- MrMcCall 2y agoThe greatest practical joke I ever played was on my parents, and completely innocently, meaning NOT on purpose: I recommended them to see "Top Secret" when I was in 9th Grade. My Catholic parents! They came home and my mother said, "We are never listening to a movie recommendation from you ever again."
- rbanffy 2y agoYou should have gone with The Life of Brian.
- MrMcCall 2y agoThat's a great film, but I have to disagree, simply because of the scene with the bad guy in the back of the cow suit. God knew what those Catholic priests had been up to. And now that my parents are in love with that orange demagogue, I see God's humor and justice. My parents used to be good people, but I'm not sad, it's their choice, and we each reap what we sow, for good or ill, in perfect harmony with our choices. My phone is open to them, but they don't call, because -- evidently -- it's hard for a person to dial a phone with their head up their arse. One can only help the willing. They have taught me that how one is in the beginning is not nearly as important as how one evolves and whereto. Once I stopped pitying myself, I stopped pitying others, and instead embraced empathy, compasson, and generosity.
- gcanyon 2y agoFrom memory, having last seen it in the '80s: "Why do you wear that toy on your head?" "Because if I wear it anywhere else, it...chafes" "What's that?" "A laser beam, bozo!" "What are we supposed to do?" "Follow it!" "Your stutter has improved" "I've been giving myself shock treatment" "...Up the voltage" "You're laborers, you're supposed to be laboring. That's what you get for not having an education!" "It's a coherent beam of light" "So that means it talks?" Of course, the non-quote where one of the kids at the study table stands up, screams repeatedly, and leaves, and with no reaction one of the kids at the periphery of the room moves to sit in his place. And of course: "If there's ever anything I can do for you, or, more to the point, to you..." "Can you hammer a six inch spike through a board with your penis?" "Well, not right now..." Real Genius had a significant impact on me...
- danesparza 2y ago"It's a moral imperative". :-)
- loudmax 2y ago"A girl's got to have her standards." (Also from 80's memory)
- bandrami 2y agoLiterally every line from that movie is so quotable. "Would you classify that as a launch problem, or a design problem?" "They're beauticians?!" "Not yet" "These military types are so untrusting"
- bluedino 2y agoI never watched Real Genius, so when I read Andre Lamothe's game programming books I didn't get any of the jokes.
- timr 2y ago"I think I'm getting brain fry!" "OK Mitch, I'm gonna make it up to you. Let's just pause...take a step back. No, I was wrong, I'm sorry: take a step forward. Now, take a step back...and now we're cha cha-ing!" I still use this when pair debugging.
- pixelpoet 2y agoI super randomly mentioned this movie last night (as being unwatchably cringe, even as a fan of the genre), so it was pretty eerie to see this news today. I'll be watching Heat instead of this :)
- JKCalhoun 2y agoIf you're cringing it's because it is accurate (and you and I were like that — or nearly so). If anything I wish it had not been a comedy but rather a more serious film with the same cast. They only touched on but could have done more with the psychology of these young, awkward, hormone-fueled "geniuses" falling in among some of the most awkward and smartest other young people in the world. Those who have always been the smartest in school now finding themselves ranking maybe somewhere in the middle among their new cohorts. And of course all the heightened awkwardness of being away from your parents for the first time in co-ed living arrangements....
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- ldjkfkdsjnv 2y agoHeat is one of the best action movies of all time
- RALaBarge 2y agoI thought he was awesome in The Saint and that it was an awesome movie, complete with a fantastic soundtrack from that era: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajLjmtyx0_o&list=PL0r_mFZtkXGF0djEIhR4VANXiFVfNFX2r&index=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajLjmtyx0_o&list=PL0r_mFZtkX...
- MPSimmons 2y agoThe Saint did have an awesome soundtrack, and I forgot all about that! Thanks!
- roger_ 2y agoRIP. Still waiting for someone to complete the final exam from Real Genius: https://imgur.com/a/real-genius-exam-questions-SjBhm https://imgur.com/a/real-genius-exam-questions-SjBhm
- alistairSH 2y agoJust in case anybody else was confused by the title… The article is from 2015, but Kilmer died yesterday (April 1, 2025).
- lucasoshiro 2y agoI completely misinterpreted the title. I thought "Real Genius" and "Film Nerd" was referring to "Val Kilmer", like it was saying "RIP Val Kilmer, a real genius and film nerd that culture deserves" instead of "RIP Val Kilmer, who worked at Real Genius, the film that nerd culture deserves". I must say that I never heard about this movie and I'm happy that this is a recommendation of a 80s movie
- distances 2y agoIndeed, I hadn't heard of the movie either, but just added it on my watchlist in case it pops up on one of the streaming services.
- meerita 2y agoI liked Val Kilmer in most films, but specially on Heat (1995). I think it was his best acting ever.
- MrMcCall 2y agoI think he was always great, but found him especially hilarious in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang".
- linsomniac 2y agoI love _Heat_, EXCEPT for the ending. (Spoilers) It just feels too forced as "the good guy has to win". So, I always stop it when the good guy cop says "He's gone!". It's much more in character with the bad guy; basically his entire career up to that point was being conservative and playing the long time, and I just didn't see the motivation for him to go after the cop and reverse his core policies. IMHO, it's a much better movie that way.
- louthy 2y agoHis performance as Doc Holliday in Tombstone is a work of art. RIP Val Kilmer
- ojo-rojo 2y ago"I'll be your huckleberry" – a great line in a tense scene.
- kayge 2y agoI can always count on an eye-roll from my wife when I have the rare chance to drop the "I've not yet begun to defile myself" line, haha... ah great now I need to go re-watch Tombstone
- louthy 2y agoThat whole scene is amazing: “I will not be pawed at. Thank you very much” “I know, how about a spelling contest?!” It’s been a while since I’ve seen Tombstone (I think I’ll watch this evening in tribute), but even with that I have the exact tonality of all the quotes listed here replaying perfectly in my head. Genius performance.
- linsomniac 2y agoI'm a huge fan of Real Genius. This comes at a real oddly coincidental time... Back when I was probably 16, so '86, I came across Robert Woodhead, probably on Usenet, probably with some mention that he worked on the movie. So I sent him an e-mail and told him how much I loved the movie. He wrote back and told me a little about the computer graphics that he did for the movie. So every time I see some of the graphics scenes, I think of him. A few days ago I was watching a Youtube video "10 things you didn't know about Real Genius", and it showed those computer graphics. And I thought "I wonder what he's up to." Turns out he's done some kind of interesting things, has a github, etc. So, I fired off another e-mail to him ("I'm sure you don't remember, but back in '86 you graciously replied to an e-mail I sent you and I've often thought of that kindness.") He happens to live where I visit typically a couple times a year, so we've set up going out to coffee. 2 e-mails, 40 years apart, and then this. Coincidences, man.
- kbmr 2y agoWhen are you and him grabbing coffee
- linsomniac 2y agoProbably around the holidays, I'm not sure we'll be making our usual summer trip because of a wedding.
- weeeee2 2y agoAre you sure it was '86? I was using IBM's BITNET in 88 from UMASS before Al Gore invented the Internet lol. Email took 2 days to go from Boston to London, passing thru a node in California before routing to the UK. I got on Usenet in 88 or 89, and had fun chats with professors at Caltech and elsewhere using the finger command and talk (with tee pipe to dev/tty and a file, so I can play back the whole session.) I am vague in my memory about how and when I went from being n BITNET to ARPANet/Internet, but I do remember Gore was busy promoting the Information Superhighway around that time, and it was the time the first iteration of excitement around neural networks was cooling off... Memories! Real Genius was a fun movie to watch and an inspiration for getting into lasers. UPDATE according to ChatGPT: ARPANET itself began in 1969 at a handful of research universities, so some US universities had access as early as the early 1970s. However, many institutions that didn’t have a direct ARPANET connection joined BITNET in 1981—a store‐and‐forward network that was easier and less expensive to join but often led to long email delays (sometimes on the order of a day or two, especially on international links). By the mid‑to‑late 1980s, with the emergence of NSFNET (which provided a TCP/IP backbone) and the broader adoption of Internet protocols, many universities transitioned from BITNET to the more immediate, real‑time connectivity of the Internet. In other words, while ARPANET was available to some US universities from the early 1970s, widespread academic use via the modern Internet (with NSFNET and TCP/IP) really picked up in the mid‑1980s. The long delays you remember (such as a two‑day email from Boston to London) were more typical of BITNET’s store‑and‑forward mechanism rather than ARPANET’s near‑real‑time communications.
- dmd 2y agoSo, you'll hammer later.
- yardie 2y agoReal Genius made college look like a lot of fun. And to a very young kid Mitch, Chris, and Jordan was my motivation. I was a first gen college bound student who had a vague notion of what university would be like. And it wasn’t that far off the mark. I did work with lasers. I had a weird roommate. I streaked on the quad after a snow storm. College was challenging a lot of the time and also fun some of the time. I still watch this movie and encourage my son to watch it with me. Thank you and rest in peace, Mr. Kilmer.
- lapcat 2y agoI first saw this film when I was a kid, and it made a lasting impression on me. Unfortunately, it feels like the lesson of the film has not been learned: too many "geniuses" over the past 40 years have failed to consider the negative social consequences of the technology that they create. These naive geniuses are all too happy to solve technical problems and cash paychecks given to them by powers that turn out to be malevolent (despite draping themselves in a costume of benevolence). Question authority, and question your own role in the power structure. It's a moral imperative.
- alabastervlog 2y agoLots of authority-questioning… From the perspective of conspiratorial thinking, fringe “I’m special because I see the surprising, simple real key to everything” economic schools, and anti-enlightenment politics :-(
- api 2y agoTrying to make oneself into the unquestionable authority isn't questioning authority.
- softwaredoug 2y agoAlso a lot of lessons for the average tech employee - working long hours for some goal and then at the end realize it’s going to be used for evil and you’re all about to get laid off anyway.
- MrMcCall 2y agoYou're absolutely right, and, while it's good for life-karma, it's not so good for HN-karma. No one bullies harder than the nerds around here. Such a hateful bunch of ignorant fools. Of course, that doesn't apply to everyone here, for sure -- some people are absolutely lovely, like DonHopkins -- but perhaps 90%. But that's always the problem with majorities, they follow the lead of their leader, and damn their conscience and other points of view, wielding their power like a cudgel. They tend to bully minorities of every kind, especially ideological minorities. "There is nothing more important than compassion, and only the truth is its equal."
- palad1n 2y agoOh, good God, Val Kilmer is dead. The Real Genius Knight, jaw-snap Iceman, Jim Morrison v 2, oh good God, a big piece of me. Gone.
- bandrami 2y agoI had a ticket to see his one-man show a few years ago in DC but he had to cancel for health reasons; whatever actually took him down had been going for a while now. I'm sorry we didn't get to see more of him.
- ourmandave 2y agoFavorite scene from Real Genius, the group shot of a bunch of them studying for finals in the student lounge. One guy gets up and starts screaming in frustration at the book and then the room and finally runs out. Everyone looks up briefly like nothing happened and then somebody gets up and takes his seat, like "oh look, a more comfortable study chair."
- alecco 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNFMPhKIZXg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNFMPhKIZXg
- arc_of_descent 2y agoRIP. Great acting in The Island of Dr. Moreau
- gasgiant 2y ago"Mitch finds her sanding her dorm room floor late one night and she uses the beautician party as an excuse to test a rebreather she designed herself." Student beauticians
- eadmund 2y agoReal Genius is a great film in many ways, marred only by the assumption that a military laser is a bad thing to be working on — I always thought that it would be neat to do. But the characters are great, a ton of the plot is great. It’s worth watching! In a lot of ways the later film PCU (also fun) ripped off a ton of the same plot points. Now, where can one find the review the film deserves? This is definitely not it.
- ryandrake 2y ago> Real Genius is a great film in many ways, marred only by the assumption that a military laser is a bad thing to be working on I wouldn't call it "marred" like it was a small detail in an otherwise good movie. It's pretty much the central lesson of the movie. The whole third act was about the ethics of working on weapons, particularly how engineers, if they're not careful, will focus on the "cool technology" aspect and fail to account for the real application(s) of their work. If you really think working on weapons would be neat, I'm not sure what there is left for you to get out of Real Genius.
- piokoch 2y agoEvery time I watch timeless "Top Secret!" I can spot a gag I haven't noticed before, combined geniuses of Zucker bros, Jim Abrahams, Val Kilmer and the rest of the cast.
- aqme28 2y agoI love this movie. I have a masters in Physics and somewhat blame this movie for it. It's also the most accurate depiction of physicists that I've seen in media. We're not the nerds from Big Bang Theory-- we're just normal, if typically very idiosyncratic people
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- bandrami 2y agoKilmer, Jarret, Meyrink, and Gries all rendered performances of scientists and engineers that are honestly more realistic and more human than anything I've seen since except possibly McKinnon's in the 2016 "Ghostbusters". Also Atherton's performance was top-notch as the villain. This remains my favorite movie and the inspiration for me to go into STEM when I saw it as a 10-year-old. Kilmer was a rare, if difficult, talent, and I'm so sorry we lost him so early.
- myvoiceismypass 2y agoI will wear) my “I <3 Toxic Waste” shirt today in memory.
- astral_drama 2y agoVal Kilmer's playfulness shines as he departs on April Fool's day - a real genius move. Thanks for the good times Val!
- riddley 2y agoI have a Guild Wars 2 character named Wanda Trossler. To this day no one has gotten the reference.
- RajT88 2y agoNobody has mentioned the less geeky but still excellent remake of The Saint. A film that started a life long love affair of phones with keyboards (hacking scenes with one of the original Nokia 9000 phones, which I have owned the 9290 and e90). It featured some of the same smirking jokey presence that Kilmer was known for, but with more action and political intrigue.
- gbuk2013 2y agoIt’s my very minor claim to fame that I am part of the voice-over in a couple of the singing scenes (the rat race club gypsies and the choir when he’s running for the embassy IIRC - haven’t seen the movie for a couple of decades). Made some sweet cash as a teenager doing it! :)
- PaulHoule 2y ago"Nerds vs Jocks" is a trope that bugs me to no end because my experience in school and afterwards is that jocks are better than average. I never got bullied by a jock, in fact, when people tried to ambush me at my dorm I ducked into the room of the captain of the rugby team and that was the last time anybody tried to ambush me at my dorm.
- MrMcCall 2y agoWith my C64 arriving in 9th grade, and my being a pretty good wrestler, I was both. My sophomore year, when getting a ride from my state champion teammate, I don't know what I said, but he just turned to me and said, "McCall, you're a neeeerrrrrd." It wasn't bullying, because I've never been bullied, but I was -- and am -- a nerd. And, yeah, "Real Genius" got a lot of play on HBO back then. I especially loved the Lazlo storyline, and "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is such a GREAT song.
- PaulHoule 2y agoI remember my dad bringing it home on VHS tape from the rental shop.
- dkarl 2y agoI have to mostly agree with you, in the sense that the jocks were no less nice than anybody else, maybe even more so. That's a pretty low bar for teenagers, though. Furthermore, the jocks by and large didn't really understand the misery of bullying, so they treated it lightly, and they did more than their share. In my typology of bullies, there's the archetypal "unhappy at home" kind of bully who is troubled and traumatized and takes it out on other people. After-school specials will teach you that all bullies are like that, but in my experience, they were relatively rare in real life. The more common type, who accounted for almost all of the bullying, were the "protecting community standards" bullies, who were happy and popular and bullied people as a public service, sometimes even for the good of the victim. When people did something disruptive or destructive to the community, like being gay, thinking they were as good as people that they weren't as good as, or talking to a jock's girlfriend, the community needed to be repaired, and the violator needed to be put on a more healthy path in life. As budding community leaders, the jocks naturally stepped into that role, especially when physical work was required. I managed to escape bullying in high school by being incredibly bland and repressing any inappropriate social ambitions (i.e., any at all) but I could see from cases around me that if there had been anything socially disturbing about me, a strong effort would have been made to correct the situation.
- bariswheel 2y agoTurkey Creek Jack Johnson: Why do you do it? Doc Holliday: Wyatt is my friend. Turkey Creek Jack Johnson: Friend? Hell, I got lots of friends. Doc Holliday: I don’t. Goodbye Doc Holliday.
- Vaslo 2y agoReal Genius and Wargames made me want to do science for a living.
- milesvp 2y agoWar games was incredibly unusual too. The script writers, this was their first screenplay, they had no idea thay no one in hollywood cared about technical accuracy in scripts and spent a whole lot of time trying to get the tech details correct. Also, not sure if you missed it, but Manhattan Project was part of the trifecta for me from that era that fed my desire to grow up to do intellectually difficult things.
- fer 2y agoctrl+f the doors Looks like I'm the first. Panned by the critics, but excellent movie about the craze of the 60s leaving a purely countercultural vision slightly aside (already thoroughly documented) but showing how it damaged one of its major stars.
- ubermonkey 2y agoThat movie was such a foundational document for me, and (obviously) for many other nerdy GenX kids. I found this site years (decades!) ago, and was happy to discover it's still there: https://monkeybagel.com/culture/movies.html https://monkeybagel.com/culture/movies.html The blurb there for _Real Genius_: "The most accurate portrayal of geeks in the wild I've ever seen. The geeks in Real Genius LOOK, ACT and TALK like geeks. And Jordan gave me hope that I'd someday -- just maybe -- kiss a girl on the lips." I remember a discussion of this film on a long-running private listserv back in the late 90s or early 00s about possible real-world antecedents for some of the characters, including and especially Jordan. A proto-web site existed for this person where she elaborated on her connection to the writers of the film, and more or less confirmed that she was "Jordan", or at least the inspo for it, but of course I can find no trace of this now. Anyway, between TOP SECRET, REAL GENIUS, WILLOW, TOMBSTONE, HEAT, and TOP GUN, he's about as inconic as an actor can get. For a dose of maybe less blockbustery work, seek out 2002's THE SALTON SEA where Kilmer is joined by Adam Goldberg, Luis Guzman, Anthony LaPaglia, Peter Sarsgaarad, BD Wong, R. Lee Ermey (!) and in a spectacular turn Vincent D'Onofrio.
- srvmshr 2y agoI have seen and enjoyed quite a few Val Kilmer movies, but his special appearance in 'Top Gun:Maverick' was heartwarming (the scene where he jovially asks Maverick, "who was the better pilot between the two of us"). Tombstone and Saint were such nice movies too. Underrated, with a distinct comedic touch. A talent gone before his time.
- rodolphoarruda 2y agoFor a period of time, I couldn't tell if Val Kilmer was Jim Morrison or it was the other way around. Will be missed.
- hk1337 2y agoRIP inventor of skeet surfing, Nick Rivers!
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- DamnInteresting 2y agoMany years ago Val Kilmer and his mini entourage sat at a table adjacent to me at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. He was very gracious with the handful of passers-by who recognized him. At one point we made eye contact, and exchanged a friendly nod. He was in some great films. What a legend.
- karmakaze 2y agoReal Genius was my actual favorite movie growing up. I used to watch it every few years, then slowed down so I wouldn't wear it out. Loved all the nerdy high-tech hijinks and the characters! My path into engineering was already assumed but this set it in stone. I went to the university that had a tour closest to the movie I could picture.
- wahnfrieden 2y agoUnderrated works: - The Lotus Community Workshop by Harmony Korine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31WEBwFpULg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31WEBwFpULg - Oneohtrix Point Never - Animals by Rick Alverson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UztCDH2xuQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UztCDH2xuQ - Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans by Werner Herzog: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OblPKObX6Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OblPKObX6Q - Twixt by Francis Ford Coppola
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