Apex Mountain on The Rewatchables
18:30 – 21:16… interesting. So Goodfellas came out that fall, which is an amazing one, two punch from Joe Pesci, by the way, to Two Goodfellas and then Home Alone. Big Apex Mountain question. Oh, we'll get there. But the range on that guy is incredible. I wonder whether or not, you know, a movie like this could ever happen again. I'm curious whether, I mean, we obviously live in a world where like, you know, the standard box office blockbuster right now is coming from Marvel or DC. It's a superhero film. It's usually based on some sort of previously existing intellectual property of the bestselling book or, you know, …
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that is this modest, that is so that doesn't really feature anyone famous could be the phenomenon of its time is, is just really interesting. So Goodfellas came out that fall, which is an amazing one, two punch from Joe Pesci, by the way, to Two Goodfellas and then Home Alone. Big Apex Mountain question. Oh, we'll get there. But the range on that guy is incredible. I wonder whether or not, you know, a movie like this could ever happen again. I'm curious whether, I mean, we obviously live in a world where like, you know, the standard box office blockbuster right now is coming from Marvel or DC. It's a superhero film. It's usually based on some sort of previously existing intellectual property of the bestselling book or, you know, something that people already have an attachment to. Do you guys think that we'll ever see anything like Home Alone again? Or am I not, am I misunderstanding something that we have that actually is that big of a phenomenon? Like is young Sheldon actually Home Alone? I don't, Mina, what do you think? I feel like it's not going to be in movies. Yeah. I don't think anything in any culture, any form of culture is that mainstream anymore. And certainly nothing that I think is a kid's movie. Like Nick, my husband and I were talking like, okay, this is clearly a kid's movie, but we remembered a lot of adults, teens, families watching it. I don't think that happens anymore. Like the age categories are much more discreet. Maybe aside from the Marvel movies, if kids are old enough to watch those, but something like this, that's literally like for everyone just doesn't seem to happen. To be able to appeal from ages eight to 68, 78 is like, it's pretty much a lost art. I think, I think there's a lot more films are made for much more like tight demographics now. And that is the thing that Rod, you know, Spielberg and Zemeckis and Columbus and these guys kind of did understand is that young, young kids want to feel a little bit older and older people want to feel young. And you can make movies like ET and back to the future and stand by me or whatever. And you can kind of, you kind of capture that, that energy if you do that. Now I think it's more like here's kids programming and here's adult programming. And then everything in the middle is sort of superhero movies. It's funny that you say that though, because, you know, while Spielberg and Columbus and Zemeckis as artists were pursuing, like reaching as many people as possible, movie studios were trying to reach all four quadrants. You know, they were trying to reach adults over 30, men over 30, women over 30, and then women under 30, men under 30. And the best way to do that, obviously, is to kind of fuse like family story, comedy, drama, like blend all these genres together. But we just did Toy Story on this podcast last week. And I think that Pixar movies are really, and I know, Chris, you're not an animated movies guy, but the Pixar movies to me really are the last kind of subgenre that a 55-year-old
61:00 – 72:25… character after Catherine O'Hara in this film. You don't really remember any of the other children. But Buzz. They're all kind of interchangeable. For Apex Mountain, Macaulay Culkin, obviously, right? Yeah. I guess so. I mean, would there, would you think of Party Monster? No, no. It's definitely his Apex Mountain. I mean, My Girl's a really good movie, I think, personally. I don't know. But, it's not, like, people don't associate it with him the same way. I think there's, there's one potential follow-up, which is between My Girl and Home Alone. He made a video with Michael Jackson called Black or …
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but I'll listen to John Candy. Do you guys have a, what do you guys think? I think it's Buzz. It's Buzz. Buzz is arguably the third most prominent character after Catherine O'Hara in this film. You don't really remember any of the other children. But Buzz. They're all kind of interchangeable. For Apex Mountain, Macaulay Culkin, obviously, right? Yeah. I guess so. I mean, would there, would you think of Party Monster? No, no. It's definitely his Apex Mountain. I mean, My Girl's a really good movie, I think, personally. I don't know. But, it's not, like, people don't associate it with him the same way. I think there's, there's one potential follow-up, which is between My Girl and Home Alone. He made a video with Michael Jackson called Black or White. Now, let's set aside all of the controversy around Michael Jackson. The premiere of the Black or White video was a, was an event. Yes. It was, it premiered on network television. I, it may not have been the Super Bowl, but it was around an event like that. And, the, honestly, the world was captivated by this, if I remember correctly. I was nine at the time, but for whatever reason, it held a very serious place in my mind. And, and Macaulay Culkin, and I think George Wendt, are the stars. You were just handing out stone-cold stunners and watching Michael Jackson commercials. I believe, I believe the Michael Jackson video predates the stunner. I think he might have been, uh, stunning Steve Austin in WCW at that time. But, that video was huge. And it was before My Girl. And he was like, he was an authentically famous guy. So, just a slight case for that. I like that. I like that. I mean, we can talk about some other Apex Mountains here. Would you guys say that this is Apex Mountain for Christmas movies? I don't really remember a huge wave of Christmas movies. I mean, Christmas movies are reliably, and I think now that they're, they're mostly like streaming movies. We've got a couple coming this year. But, I don't remember like a huge wave of them. The question is whether or not this is the peak of it. I think A Christmas Story probably has this, has it over Home Alone. I think Miracle on 34th Street. I mean, it kind of depends on what you value. I'm looking at the, the aforementioned, uh, vulture, offensive vulture list that has Home Alone at 40. oh, you know, the Grand True Stole Christmas, the cartoon. Yeah. Yeah. The original cartoon is amazing. Which he watches in the movie. Right. It's A Wonderful Life. Pangerine is on this list. Um. Some, some artistic choices. Yeah, I'd say Christmas Story. Elf, Bad Santa. Those are always going to to swallow for me. Yeah. Okay, Carol, dude. I don't know the, I'm sorry to this man, but this list is crashing. I mean, Sean and I are big list purveyors and we've, we are both known to throw, you got, you got to grab people's attention with your list. Yeah. That's that, that's a move to put a beloved Christmas movie at the bottom of your Christmas movies list just to, just to drive this conversation. So congrats to Keith, who is very smart and did a good job of getting us to look at his piece. Um, I'm happy for him. Home Alone is definitely a classic. It is in the top 10 Christmas movies. But it's probably not Apex Mountain for Christmas movies. Is this Apex Mountain for making international flights? Winnetka, with little traffic, I checked today and you have to imagine it was even easier back then just from, you know, like the usual industrial population that we have going on. Winnetka, with no traffic, is about 30 minutes from O'Hare. When they're leaving the house, they have 45 minutes to make the flight. Uncle Frank is like, we're never going to make it. But the Don, Peter McAllister, is like, have some optimism. You know, and he's just like, you're right, Don McAllister. I'm sorry for ever doubting you. They, even allowing time to arrive, check bags, check in, and get across and anybody who's ever been in O'Hare knows this is not easy. Get across O'Hare. This is a very impressive feat. I cannot remember any non-Hertz commercial running across the airport, like, catching a flight moment. Quite like. Is there any worse feeling than when you're at O'Hare and you realize you have to go on that underground lights thing? You know, where it has the lights show, which I assume was created after this film came out. But you know, you have five minutes and you go down the escalator and you see that. I think there's a lot of romantic comedies where people are rushing. That's true. Barely missing. That's true. I mean, I think that making flights is one thing. Making international flights, like, this is unheard of. Yeah, I would say we should account for the fact that the Don probably has a series of unionized workers throughout the airport who are on the payroll. Everybody is like, everybody, Don McAllister is coming. Don't look him in the eye. Turn off all the security cameras. Apex, so I guess we'll go Apex Mountain, Macaulay Culkin with Sean's caveat that the run continued. Joey Pants Award for that guy. We mentioned Kenneth Hudson Campbell as Santa. He played Max in Armageddon. He played the man in the hall in Groundhog Day. I feel like Billy Bird and Bill Irwin, the older couple who sell their plane ticket to Kate. Oh, yeah. You see them all the time. I think a lot of people in this movie have Seinfeld credits, which I guess was not that uncommon in 1990, but would go on to be in Seinfeld at various points. Fun fact here, Angela Goethels who plays Linny and also is in Jerry Maguire hung out with her one night at Vassar. My friend went to Vassar. Oh. We were hanging out one night and she was there. How'd that go? Did you guys click? What happened? No, no, no, no. It wasn't like that. It was just like I was visiting my buddy and we just all went to some bar at Vassar and she was there. She's a lovely person. She was the tennis prodigy in Jerry Maguire, right? Yeah, or figure skating where she tennis or skating. And she does like the crying and then she gets on the other line and then she's like, oh, it's still you and she starts crying again. Yeah, but that's who I had for Joey Pants. Anybody else? I mean, I think Larry Hankin who I mentioned and Dion Waiters as well. The cop is somebody who crops up all the time. I don't know. I mean, Devin Radray has gone on to a pretty good career. Really? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he was in what was the Mosaic? The Steven Soderbergh HBO series. Yeah. He was on that show, The Tick, the most recent adaptation of The Tick. He's been in a couple of movies. He was on Girls. He was on Girls? Yeah, he was in an episode of Girls. I'm not sure. He seems like he would have been friends with Adam Driver, you know, like working somewhere in Brooklyn at that time. Devin Radray. Does he look the same? I would say his look has improved just a little bit from the buzz days. It's like those articles on the internet where there's like an article bullet, like a bar of fake news articles and it's always like, you'll never guess how hot this child's talk got or whatever. I don't want to overpromise his looks right now. That might be a little strong. For the Linda Partridge They Knew Overacting Award, I have three nominees and it really gives us more of an opportunity to talk about two of these. I have Uncle Frank in there. I think just, you know, he really milks it. But let's have a conversation because we'd be remiss if we didn't. And I'm sure people are like, how did you get this far into this podcast without talking about how have we not talked about Stern and Pesci? Yeah. Who I think capture both, they're like, believable enough as like, villains. You know, you're scared of them, but have such an amazing physical comic sensibility that they almost feel like cartoon characters. What do you guys think about Pesci and Stern now? Like, what's always been your impression, Mina? Well, specifically to this movie, I think they're incredible in the movie because of what you mentioned, which is you're walking a very fine line. Like, this is a movie about a home invasion while a child is by himself. And that's not easy to portray in a non-terrifying fashion. So for Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern to be believably bumbling criminals, but not so bumbling as to where there's not a tiny element of fear and danger, I thought was very well done by both of them. Like, they do seem like criminals. They do seem to be amoral. Honestly, the most amoral thing they do is leaving the water running. Maybe just as a homeowner now, I was, like, twitching, watching that. But they're never too scary or too threatening. And I think that, to me, they both put forward really good performances. Yeah, I mean, Nina made the point about this moment in Pesci's career earlier in the pod just about where he was and, you know, he's three months away, two months away from winning an Oscar for Goodfellas when this movie comes out. So, could a person be more at the center of movie culture than being in Home Alone and Goodfellas? Yeah, I guess I skipped over him for Apex Mountain. Yeah, I mean, there's a case to be made because he then basically becomes a leading man after Home Alone. You know, he becomes, like, my cousin Vinny should come shortly thereafter. But Daniel Stern, too, I think we kind of forget, like, he was a very present person in movie culture at this time. So, in 1989, he's in Little Monsters. In 1990, he's in My Blue Heaven and Home Alone. And then in 1991, he's in City Slickers. And this whole time, he's the narrator on The Wonder Years. Yeah. And he was just, like, a very present person. And, you know, they're asked to do this, like, Three Stooges-esque brand of comedy that is hard. Yosemite Sam and, like, really, like, you know, screaming a lot throughout the end of the movies. That's why I put them in the Linda Partridge Overacting Award. But, yeah, I think that they're delightful in this movie. It's really hard to imagine, like, De Niro or Lovitz or anybody else playing these roles. And we'll get to it in Half-Ass Internet research, but there was a little, you know, if there was anything that was sort of, like, dramatic behind the scenes with Home Alone, it seemed to be working with these guys because I think they, because they were really accomplished actors and they were doing something so incredibly silly. So, I think for, I'll give Uncle Frank Jerry Bannon, I'll give him the, that they knew for just for Look What You Did, You Little Jerk, but it does bring us to Half-Ass Internet research. So, the director of photography, Julio McCatt, he remembered Pesci being more difficult to work with than Culkin. And that he basically argued about dialogue a lot, had a hard time not cursing, which was to keep the ratings in line, they needed them not to swear, and was incredibly cranky if the call time was too early and he hadn't gotten at least nine holes of golf in in the morning. Now, I don't know where Joe Pesci was golfing in what seems to at least visibly be the winter in Illinois, but apparently, like, that man will just get nine holes in no matter what. And, so that was difficult. And, yeah, like, I think, Chris, listen, we stan a king who refuses to go to work until he gets nine holes in. That is unbelievable. Yes, as long as he's not occupying public office. Yes, I honestly, if you were trying to make me love Joe Pesci more, mission accomplished. Yeah, it's phenomenal. I wonder, I mean, like, do you think a guy like Pesci drastically gets better at golf the more he plays, or do you think he's limited by, like, what his physical gifts are? Can Pesci go due to the Bryson DeChambeau? You know, could Pesci put on 40 pounds of muscle
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