Apex Mountain on The Rewatchables
85:28 – 94:21… to know what happened to Q. And basically they make it seem like Q has his mixtape played and he's on his way to becoming a professional DJ. So there you go. Apex Mountain. Tupac, no. Ernest Dickerson. This is an interesting one. I don't really know the correct answer because he was the cinematographer on basically all of Spike's most important movies of the first 10 years of Spike's career. It's hard for me to think that's not. So maybe it's the fact that Malcolm X was coming out as Juice, same year Juice is coming out. This has to be the Apex Mountain for him. So. The combo of that. So this is what I would …
The whole segment, as transcribed
And then the DJ announcement at the end of the movie during the end credits came about during the test screenings because the audience want to know what happened to Q. And basically they make it seem like Q has his mixtape played and he's on his way to becoming a professional DJ. So there you go. Apex Mountain. Tupac, no. Ernest Dickerson. This is an interesting one. I don't really know the correct answer because he was the cinematographer on basically all of Spike's most important movies of the first 10 years of Spike's career. It's hard for me to think that's not. So maybe it's the fact that Malcolm X was coming out as Juice, same year Juice is coming out. This has to be the Apex Mountain for him. So. The combo of that. So this is what I would say. This is the deal. This is going to, people are going to be mad at me when I say this. Juice is my second favorite Ernest Dickerson movie. I am on, I am attached at the hip to one of the worst movies ever made. And the movie is called Tales from the Crypt, Demon Knight. Oh my God. I'll be honest with you guys. I love, literally, one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time. The best Billy Zane performance. I've tried to make Kalika watch this movie so many times. She hates it. She doesn't understand why I love it so much. Tales from the Crypt, Demon Knight. I know that's not his Apex Mountain. This would have to be his Apex Mountain. But also remember that he was very, very instrumental in, as part of the creative team of The Wire as well. Yep. So, so, you know, I don't know how you would do it. It's tough if you ask people what Ernest Dickerson was known for, or the biggest thing that he did is probably Juice. But then if you brought up The Wire, they would probably say that The Wire, I mean, he can't take credit for that, but he's had a long career. So probably, it's probably Juice, but he's got some things that you can argue about. Yeah. Juice with Malcolm X, same year, I think has to be it. We put out an excerpt from that Tupac book on The Ringer back in June, and I was reading it, and it functions as a bit of an oral history. And the casting director was talking about the two producers on the film, like those cats would go on to produce shit like the Fast and the Furious franchise and other crazy blockbusters. And that didn't, that type of thing didn't happen coming out of this for Ernest Dickerson. And I think the point that she was trying to make, like this might've been his career peak, like, you know what I'm saying? Like the critical acclaim that this got, it was a modest commercial success for sure. So that might've been his career peak. And Khalil Kane, Raheem, definitely the peak of his career. And Jermaine Hopkins too. Yeah. I had Neil Moritz on the BS podcast four years ago when one of the Fast and Furious movies were coming out. And he told a whole story about how his version of how Tupac was cast in this thing. He does not get Apex Mountain for juice because he goes on to be one of the producers for the most successful action movie franchise maybe ever. I mean, there's been nine Fast and Furious movies at this point. Oh, this is the original film guy? Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to them over there. I got something to do with those guys. Apex Mountain, Cindy Herron, abso-fucking-lutely between this and En Vogue at the same time. Great job by her. Yeah, for sure. I looked her up. She got married. She had four kids. She's basically out of the business. But late 90s started having kids got domesticated. She was done. It was over for En Vogue probably around 97 or 98. Yeah. Yeah. They became a legacy group. And that's another thing about, especially black music back in those days, if you had a five-year career, you were considered a veteran. Whereas like- Like, it's just a given. If you have like a big hit or two now in music, like you have so many fans and you're able to pinpoint them in such an exact way so that like your touring apparatus can sustain itself afterwards. Like the idea of a five-year career and then just flaming out when you have number ones on the R&B or hip-hop or dance or whatever charts. Like that doesn't exist now. If you achieve that level of success, your career is going to kind of sustain itself for a decent amount of time. Back then, man, if you was a rapper who was out for five years, I'm telling you, you were like a big deal. You know? And then, of course, like people like Ice Cube and LL, like they had prolonged careers in the spotlight. But, you know, we mentioned Kane and Rakim. Their peaks were like two or three years. Yeah. And then they were just like to the back burner. We started calling them, quote unquote, old school rappers. And that used to be the case for these R&B groups as well. So she was smart for getting out of Dodge. Well, you also had a couple of the mainstream gigantic artists sucked up a lot of oxygen too. Yeah. That was the other thing. As always is the case. Yeah. Especially when Pac and Big start doing their thing. Yeah. That seems swallow up. And then Snoop Dogg is in. I mean, Jesus Christ. Snoop was the biggest rapper in the world. What an era. Yeah. Omar Epps, this was not his Apex Mountain. But I do have a question. Is this the Apex Mountain for Omar Epps characters named Quincy? Because he's done two. He did Juice and he did Love and Basketball. How does he play two guys named Quincy? I'm going to say Love and Basketball. It's Quincy, yeah. Was this the Apex Mountain for the Mixmaster Master? I think it was. Yeah. Never to be heard from again. All right. Here's a great one. Apex Mountain for the Omar Epps. I'm so fucking mad at you. I'm crawling out of my skin face. That he's made in a bunch of movies, right? Oh, I got to go with Higher Learning. I think Higher Learning is the answer, right? Because Remy, man, when he's looking at Remy, I got to go with Higher Learning. He did that weird thing. He bulged his eyes and his face would kind of shake. In Higher Learning, he just couldn't be. Yeah, he does that a lot of movies. It's like his move. It's like his... He does that a lot of movies, but... Signature move. Yeah, but it's got to be Higher Learning for that one, though. Apex Mountain for scratching. In a film? I feel like... I was just saying the whole era. Nah. We're talking 91, 92 range. Nah, nah, nah, nah. We still... Like, basically, the scratching thing is a super huge deal until the introduction of Serato, which I think is around, like... That had to be, like, 2002, 2003. Yeah, that's later. Around that time, where, like, now, you don't even bring records to your gig. It's, like, all in your shit. It's all digital. So, yeah. How about Harlem? Harlem as a movie location. Ah, good question. So, before this, you had... Because, hold on. Let's think real quick. So, you had a rage in Harlem. You had... The hoodlum takes place in Harlem. This is a good movie. New Jack City is Harlem. Is it not? I think it's supposed to be Harlem. Yeah. I don't know that they say, necessarily, that it's Harlem, but I think you're meant to think that it's Harlem. Um... I... I... That's... I'd have to think about that. Harlem... I'm gonna give you a... Harlem Nights. You got Harlem Nights. Harlem Nights, to me, would be... That's the most identifiable movie with Harlem, to me. Like, I'd say, but... As a New Yorker, I would say that it's paid in full. Like, New Yorkers would be tight if you don't mention paid in full as, like, straight up... Harlem is a character. Exactly. Exactly. I'm gonna give you, according to Wikipedia, who knows if this is true, but some other movies shot in Harlem. Uh-huh. Shaft. Ooh. Superfly. Okay. It's about to get dicey. King of New York, which we've done on the rewatchables. New Jack City, Jungle Fever, Juice, all back to back to back. Die Hard with a Vengeance. Not a Harlem movie, but maybe some of the scenes got... Okay. I'm just saying what's on here. Royal Tannenbaums is on here for some reason. Paid in full, you mentioned. There's some 25th Hour. And then American Gangster, which I don't consider necessarily... Well, it would have to be, because that's where his... I get it, but... Yeah, that's where his... It's about Frank Lucas. But we're going backwards in it. So, to me, it would... It's probably Shaft. It would be... I mean, Harlem's got a lot... Harlem Nights, Shaft. This is a good question. If you ever... Harlem Nights, Shaft, or painful...
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