Apex Mountain on The Rewatchables
60:50 – 65:46… song any other half-assed internet research you wanted to point out no I'm so shamed by like trying to connect with you guys and you're dunking on me sorry Apex Mountain M. Night Shyamalan by like yes the top of the Himalayas yeah I mean this is you would know better than I isn't this one of the most profitable movies of all time definitely I mean yeah this is his absolute pinnacle and set the template for the rest of his career the only movie that I can really I feel comfortable comparing it to from a cultural impact perspective from an award season perspective and from a profitability perspective and …
The whole segment, as transcribed
doesn't write Darth Vader as Luke's father right that's not a song that's my favorite song any other half-assed internet research you wanted to point out no I'm so shamed by like trying to connect with you guys and you're dunking on me sorry Apex Mountain M. Night Shyamalan by like yes the top of the Himalayas yeah I mean this is you would know better than I isn't this one of the most profitable movies of all time definitely I mean yeah this is his absolute pinnacle and set the template for the rest of his career the only movie that I can really I feel comfortable comparing it to from a cultural impact perspective from an award season perspective and from a profitability perspective and essentially the launching of a filmmaker is Get Out Get Out is really one of the only examples I can think of a person who instantaneously transformed their life and career with one movie that had a great idea and Get Out similarly is premised on a great idea and so is The Sixth Sense and that can happen for a filmmaker Bruce Willis Apex Mountain no absolutely not no Haley Joel Osment yes but I would like to ask whether or not this represents a shorter peak of Willis I'm trying to like break it down here because where is Sixth Sense 99 you know I mean he was still doing he was on a pretty good run here in the late 90s I guess with Armageddon and the siege so no obviously Die Hard is his Apex Mountain this is like one of the this 98 is absolutely bizarre write it down Mercury Rising quietly but interesting early on I think it's kind of is there a kid performance in that one too there's a kid performance he sees the code that is like about assassinations right right right Armageddon which I'm on record as you know it's the most entertaining right wing movie of all time the siege which has become prescient now Ally McBeal whoa well sorry that was no that's over so the siege and then the siege so the siege that is just wild and he he plays like a militant army general yeah he's the reluctant he's the guy who's like don't make me do this and the president is like you have to and then he goes in and he's like he's a fucking asshole yeah so it is Haley Joel's Apex Mountain we agree yeah Tony Collette no any other nominees Tak Fujimoto Trevor Morgan we're getting to Trevor Morgan Tommy T I mean Donnie Wahlberg no it's probably it's Band of Brothers yeah the Joey Pants Award I've got Glenn Fitzgerald as Sean are you familiar with Sean Olivia Williams' would-be paramour I am very tough he's a real that guy yeah I've also got Bruce Norris as Stanley Cunningham stuttering Stanley the teacher you guys know Bruce Norris is one of the most celebrated playwrights of his generation did not know that he's a long time member of the Steppenwolf group oh and has written some award winning plays so him and Cole make up after he flips out at him I guess so because at the end he's like ready ready to go out there stable guy you know I guess they do any other Joey Pants nominees no I'm gonna go Norris though you're going Norris yeah it's a good one check out Bruce Norris's playwriting apparently it's quite good I haven't read it Saul Rubenick Award for overacting M. Night as Dr. Hill pretty understated performance just a lot to cast yourself in that role yes quite a bit okay I disagree Bruce Norris Stanley Cunningham and Trevor Morgan yeah as Tommy Tomasino he's doing a lot with his face he gets more backstory than almost any other character he gets a tremendous amount of backstory and we get to see the commercial he gets to see his commercial he talks about improv he's a bully he gets a whole arc really yeah it's like when I say this movie is unencumbered by B-plot it's because Tomasino is taking up the entire B-plot we get that comeuppance of him as the bit character in the play village idiot village idiot and it's like yeah and we get that tight two shot with his face where we can read the disappointment of not being cast as King Arthur and it is satisfying it's just so weird when he's like did you like how I put my arm around you freak yeah that's called improv what that is wild M. Night meet one child no one talks like that I feel like it's actually a subtle commentary on what most child actors are like and how much they suck and how good Haley Joel Osmond is Trevor's performance just that whole character that you need a great child actor in this movie to make it work and you've cast a shithead child actor
71:17 – 74:04… think that there's no question that the best quote is I see dead people, right? Yeah. It has to be I see dead people. It's kind of like, it's sort of like the apex mountain. It became a meme before we knew what that was. Yeah. I see dead people. Could this work as a 10 episode Netflix show in 2019? God, no. It could work as a five episode Netflix show. First of all, I'll tell you why. Somebody would watch it the first night and be like, holy shit, the twist at the end of The Sixth Sense, a show that came out last night that you haven't had 10 hours to watch yet. That's a good point. So that wouldn't work. And I …
The whole segment, as transcribed
Yeah. I stopped on that one as well. Is that a thing that people say in Philly? Constantly. Really? All the time. Cheese dick? No. I've never heard it before. I do think that there's no question that the best quote is I see dead people, right? Yeah. It has to be I see dead people. It's kind of like, it's sort of like the apex mountain. It became a meme before we knew what that was. Yeah. I see dead people. Could this work as a 10 episode Netflix show in 2019? God, no. It could work as a five episode Netflix show. First of all, I'll tell you why. Somebody would watch it the first night and be like, holy shit, the twist at the end of The Sixth Sense, a show that came out last night that you haven't had 10 hours to watch yet. That's a good point. So that wouldn't work. And I just think that unless you're going to really, really delve into Tom Simo, what do you spend time, what do you spend those 10 hours doing? And also like the more you show him interacting with Olivia Williams, the more Willis interacts with, the more, I think, skeptical people we get. It's like, okay, she still has not talked to him. This movie is exactly the right running time. I agree with you guys. Unanswerable questions. Philly classic? That's an answerable one, yeah. Totally. Totally classic. It's on the Rushmore. Nice. Okay. This is, I think, the key unanswerable question, but we can have opinions about it. Sure. Is this a good movie if you already know the ending going in? So this was the first time I re-watched this movie in at least a decade. And I would say that I was entertained, but not like emotionally involved. Okay. So I think the answer is somewhat for me. What do you think, Jason? I'm going to say yes, both from a structural standpoint. It's just really interesting to see how right in front of you the tells are, and then to analyze, why didn't I see this stuff? Mm-hmm. And then, you know, from an emotional standpoint, the car conversation at the end still bangs for me. That really absolutely hits. It crushes. Like, I got emotional watching it again. So many of the movies we talk about on re-watchables are re-watchable for a line of dialogue or a particularly poignant moment or a particularly funny moment, or you start to notice, like, oh, the details in the Pacino performance that you never saw before. This is not that. I don't think, I think the performances are, like, they're on purpose flat. But the dialogue is very generic in a lot of ways. Like, a lot of, like, the stories they tell are just kind of like, what the hell are you talking about? So I don't think it has a lot of the same resonance that a lot of re-watchable movies do have. But I think from just appreciating the mechanics of it, like you're saying, it's still a remarkable movie.
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