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Apex Mountain on The Rewatchables

Fletch 1985

With Bill Simmons, Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan · 16 June 2020 · 23,139 feet

The claim

43:12 – 45:58

… this. You can hear the Thomas Dolby influence. Uh, so he has this and Beverly Hills cop right next to each other. And can I just say he'll be coming up in Apex Mountain later. Honorable mention for the song played during the Alfa Romeo chase. Get out of town. Get out of town. Get out of town. I think those were the only lyrics. Isn't bit by bit in this as well? Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that like the theme from Fletch? Pretty, pretty interesting music. If I bet Stephanie Mills, Stephanie Mills. Yeah. Siskel made a very obvious, but good point in that, in that clip that I was talking about where he's basically like, …

The whole segment, as transcribed

he puts in that second one. The layers. Thomas, Thomas Dolby. There's levels. Starts doing this. You can hear the Thomas Dolby influence. Uh, so he has this and Beverly Hills cop right next to each other. And can I just say he'll be coming up in Apex Mountain later. Honorable mention for the song played during the Alfa Romeo chase. Get out of town. Get out of town. Get out of town. I think those were the only lyrics. Isn't bit by bit in this as well? Yeah. Yeah. Isn't that like the theme from Fletch? Pretty, pretty interesting music. If I bet Stephanie Mills, Stephanie Mills. Yeah. Siskel made a very obvious, but good point in that, in that clip that I was talking about where he's basically like, what, as soon as Beverly Hills cop hit, this movie made a lot more sense because you could put two big action sequences in it and you could put the Harold Faltermeyer music in it and then all of a sudden what seems like a weird, wry comedy all of a sudden becomes an action comedy and it's easier to sell to audiences. You can make the trailer a lot more easy. You can give it a little bit more energy. I thought that was smart. A little ahead of its time there. Any other, what's it the best for you guys? Yeah, I want to give a special shout out to Fletch's apartment with the Magic Bird life-size poster and the pretty full basketball hoop on the wall. Yeah. It's the perfect bachelor pad. It's like the guy who still has the sensibility of like when he was in college and would just like randomly put sports shit up on the walls and call it decorating. But it's like, you know, divorcee, only cares about the writing for the paper and the Lakers and it looks like actually perfect for the character. And then, uh, I had one more what's age the best. I just really like his Lakers jersey in this, just that old school 80s. It's kind of a jersey and kind of like a, like it's more expensive than a t-shirt but less expensive than a jersey. Whatever was going on with that look in the 80s but it's a little faded. It's a good purple. That's a really fun Lakers year too because that was the year the Celtics beat them in the finals. I was just going to say I'm surprised that, uh, you like this movie given how much Lakers fandom is a prime part of it. Oh no, wait a second. They beat us in the finals. Ah, fuck this. I recant my statement. Yeah, this is 85. Should we cancel this pod? Yeah. Damn it. Well, I mean, Craig already threw a big bucket of water on it but we'll, we'll survive. Craig killed the energy. Craig's going to get what he'll get thanks to Twitter when this comes out and people are going to be very upset at Craig. Just telling you. Uh, what's age the worst wait, wait, can I do one more? What's age the best? Yeah. My guy, Michael Ritchie, one of the all-time greats. You love Michael Ritchie. Yeah, this one came out of nowhere too. We thought Michael Ritchie might have been done. He hadn't made a big movie in a long time and he comes in.

61:57 – 68:41

… 19 and 3. No, 88 was the horror. 88 was Hirschheiser. Yeah, wasn't it the Gibson year? Gibson, Oral Hirschheiser and like basically nobody else. All right, Apex Mountain. So Chevy Chase is an interesting one because I almost feel like he's a double. He has two different apexes, right? Saturday Night Live, clearly Apex. He's one of the biggest stars in the world, but then it kind of rounds back in shape somewhere around here. I'm not sure it's this movie, but it's somewhere in the vicinity of here. I would say it would be the new Apex Mountain, but you could even say it's a year later. It's somewhere 85, 86 …

The whole segment, as transcribed

No, that was like 87 or 88, right? 1985, he was 19 and 3. No, 88 was the horror. 88 was Hirschheiser. Yeah, wasn't it the Gibson year? Gibson, Oral Hirschheiser and like basically nobody else. All right, Apex Mountain. So Chevy Chase is an interesting one because I almost feel like he's a double. He has two different apexes, right? Saturday Night Live, clearly Apex. He's one of the biggest stars in the world, but then it kind of rounds back in shape somewhere around here. I'm not sure it's this movie, but it's somewhere in the vicinity of here. I would say it would be the new Apex Mountain, but you could even say it's a year later. It's somewhere 85, 86 when he reclaims his A-list movie stardom. He's, it makes sense he would host the Oscars. It makes sense he would have a Fox TV show at some point. I'm going to say yes. Danny Will or Nicholson. For Chris, her apex has been going for 35 years. It's just one long sustained apex. Yeah. I think others would say it's this movie. Harold Faltemeyer. So he's got Cop and then this movie. I think after this, the sky's the limit for Harold. Quite literally with Top Gun. Yeah. So I would say here, this leads to Top Gun. Okay. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Book of Basketball 3.0. Let's go. Break it down. Yeah. Yeah. Well, 1985 wins the title against the Celtics. Wins a deciding game six in the Boston Garden. Becomes the first Laker team to beat the Celtics and does it on their floor. Wins finals MVP in 85, 14 years after he won in 1971. He's just broken the scoring record so he's the greatest scorer of all time. He is now being discussed as the best player of all time. This is a year before Larry Bird starts getting best player of all time run, which then leads to Magic Johnson, the late 80s, then Michael Jordan, the early 90s, and then on and on where he just gets completely forgotten. I think he released Giant Steps, his autobiography, either a year before or this year. He's starting to become more humanized. He's in Fletch. I'm saying yes. I think you could say this or 1980 because in 1980... I think this year and this era is maybe his apex. I don't think being in Fletch is his apex. I was combining it with the 85 finals and some of the other stuff. Okay. But the correct answer, I think, is 1980 because the Lakers win the title that year with Magic and he's an airplane. An airplane's a giant movie and he's still at the peak of his powers. He's still the best player in the league. We're sure it's not 67, 68, 69 National College Player of the Year. They win the title all three years he plays in college. That's not the absolute apex of Kareem. No. Greatest college basketball player of all time in the conversation? Nah. He could go 71 bucks too when he's finals MVP that year. Kareem, a lot of apexes. Do you guys think that it's the apex mountain for Arnold J. Pants Esquire? Chick Hearn, I think it might have been though. Wow. Is that his apex? He's, at that point, a true legend. The Lakers win the 85 title and he has a really important scene in Fletch. When did it get better for Chick Hearn? When does he get the street named after him? Chickane Court? Chick Hearn Court? Does that happen without Fletch? No. Fletch pushed it over the top. I think you're right. The Fletch jersey becoming an actual thing that people wore like when I was in college and stuff. Not quite an apex yet but it is something that happened. I meant to fight that. Any other apex mountains for you? Venice? It's right before Venice really falls apart. Venice for me would probably be White Man Can't Jump. Exactly. That's what I was going to say. My only other apex mountain here is cans of Coors. Really, really great, great beer drinking by Chevy in this movie. How about newspapers? Newspapers? Yeah. Apex Mountain for investigative reporting? Yeah, maybe. Picking Nets. This one's bothered me 35 years. Why was Gail Stenwick so bad at tennis? Did she have some sort of muscle disorder? How could somebody not hit a tennis ball forward? It's the worst tennis anyone's ever played. It was like, I could have put my two-year-old kid out there and they would have connected with more forehands than Gail Stenwick did. Why'd they make her that bad? That was just DWN improvising that she can be bad at everything. She really wanted to show that she wasn't just bad at acting, that she was bad at all aspects of life. I don't think tennis was that widely practiced by people back then. That's my take. What? Yeah. I think tennis was like Terrible take. No, tennis was like you actually, you had to like be like a rich kid to play tennis. Now, she's a member of a tennis club. Yeah, she's in a tennis club. Maybe she likes swimming, hanging out in the Underhills, chopping it up about local politics. Also, also what tennis club had like cabanas like that? That cabana was like a $2 million house. The California Racquet Club. Not like that. That was really impressive. If that still exists, I'll step on the egg there, but I don't know. That was a really nice one. And then Mrs. Stanwyck seeming completely unfazed when Fletch told her everything. Any other pick and nets you guys have? No, it's mostly the Dodgers thing that anybody obsessed with the Lakers like that wouldn't be punching pictures of Tommy Lasorda, especially glass framed pictures. I could take some issues with Alan Stanwyck's plan. I wouldn't say it's exactly bulletproof. Even despite not having DNA evidence around burning Fletch's body. It's still a pretty extravagant story there. I'm not sure he's going to pull that one off. He seems like not a bright, bright guy. Yeah, he has a plane. He presumably could get to Brazil on his own. He doesn't need to go through this whole my dead body thing. Yes. I also want to know how somebody has a second marriage that's covered extensively in the LA Times with Big Photo and the cover in the mid-80s without somebody else kind of picking that one up. Like, why get married at all? No Google. It's a little weird. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? Please no. Probably unanswerable questions. This one is a real one that I actually struggled with over the years with my column. What is the correct spelling of John Cocktoestone? Cocktoestone. It's actually Cocktolstoy. Yes.

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What the board says

Their apex is elsewhere
Chevy Chase24,080 ftNational Lampoon's Vacation, 1983, by 4,034 feet.
Geena Davis25,020 ftThelma & Louise, 1991, by 6,832 feet.

A grade for each call is not built yet. The board's answer is shown; whether the pod landed on it is a separate judgement, and it is not made here.