Apex Mountain on The Rewatchables
54:44 – 57:32… the opening credit. Chris, did you just like put on a smoking jacket and have like a Marlboro Red as you watch this? Honestly, it might be my opening credits Apex Mountain. It's up there with like Goodfellas. It's like... What was your favorite thing about Philly in that scene? We were like, oh! You know what? I love it when the guy throws up the deuces. I love it when like the... Like I love the fact that it's not making it... Like the people are interacting with the camera. That people are waving to the camera. That people are like throwing up peace signs. And like I just love the fact that it almost feels …
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And with Philadelphia, the ice has been broken. Raj, not bad. All right. We got to get to the categories because we're way behind schedule. Most rewatchable scene. Springsteen in Philly for like four minutes with the opening credit. Chris, did you just like put on a smoking jacket and have like a Marlboro Red as you watch this? Honestly, it might be my opening credits Apex Mountain. It's up there with like Goodfellas. It's like... What was your favorite thing about Philly in that scene? We were like, oh! You know what? I love it when the guy throws up the deuces. I love it when like the... Like I love the fact that it's not making it... Like the people are interacting with the camera. That people are waving to the camera. That people are like throwing up peace signs. And like I just love the fact that it almost feels like a documentary for a second. Or a whole movie. Like I have a confession for you guys. Yeah. As you know, I'm a giant Springsteen fan. Although it's cooled off over the last few years just because he was in my life for basically my entire life. I think Streets of Philadelphia is one of his best songs. And I don't think that's a common... I think people always go, no, no. And then there's like the deeper you get into Springsteen, people are like, no, no. His best song ever is for you. You know, it goes psycho the way it does with everybody because they're just tired of like the usual song. But Streets of Philadelphia is just a really good song. I think it's one of the best 90s pop songs anyone made. And I don't think it gets credit for that. I would just say... I want to... Because I'm going to try to find a way to conjoin these ideas. Chris, I'm going to sing a song to you. And I'm going to see... This is what came to mind as I watched that opening title. I think Chris knows what I'm going to do. Move closer to your world, friend. Take a little bit of time. Anyway, that is the Action News Channel 6 Action News WPBI theme song. Played it every day. If you're from Philadelphia, you know inside and out what that song is doing. And the opening bit of that, every Action News broadcast, is this great montage of the city. And the opening of Philadelphia, to me... Is basically the Action News montage. Yeah. It's an extended version of the Action News opening credits montage. And I love it. Quickly, ripping through rewatchable scenes. You mentioned Hanks and Denzel facing off with the cameras on them. I really like the scene when Andy calls his mom just to check in. Yeah, that's really... She's in the kitchen and she's fighting off tears. But just, you know, I think she's amazing in this movie. It's also a great way to let us know how severe Andy's situation is without actually explicitly saying it. But also that he's out and she knows that he's sick. Right. It does a lot in 30 seconds. And then that goes right into him becoming a senior associate, which is like, it's coming to the office. Got this fancy, awesome office. We're all smoking cigars.
88:26 – 93:37… Demi wanted to do this movie because one of his close friends, an illustrator, had been diagnosed with AIDS, so that's what he cared about. And that's it. Apex Mountain. Oh, boy. Denzel, no. No. Hanks. Probably Forrest Gump. We're close. We're close. Forrest Gump, though, Chris? I don't... Sometimes I'm just... It's like the 92-95 is Apex Mountain. Are you saying it's just like the year that he is in or like the moment that he is in? I love that. We're 323 movies in and we still haven't figured Apex Mountain. When did he have the most juice ever in his career? I was going to say, he doesn't miss for three …
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there was the total ban on gays and lesbians serving the armed forces. Demi wanted to do this movie because one of his close friends, an illustrator, had been diagnosed with AIDS, so that's what he cared about. And that's it. Apex Mountain. Oh, boy. Denzel, no. No. Hanks. Probably Forrest Gump. We're close. We're close. Forrest Gump, though, Chris? I don't... Sometimes I'm just... It's like the 92-95 is Apex Mountain. Are you saying it's just like the year that he is in or like the moment that he is in? I love that. We're 323 movies in and we still haven't figured Apex Mountain. When did he have the most juice ever in his career? I was going to say, he doesn't miss for three straight years and it's just like... So the actual plateau of Apex Mountain is huge. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So it's almost like four mountains. He's just like... He's like ziplining on Apex Mountain to the next Apex Mountain. He's in a Rockies range of Apex Mountains right here. Demi, it's either Silence of the Lambs or this. I think it's this. Yeah. When Hanks gets up there and he says like, thanks to Jonathan Demi and like actors who are in his movies, like they are attached to Oscars. Like he basically is like this dude is like the Oscar whisperer. What do you have for Banderas? Probably not this. No. I mean, first of all, he was already at a different Apex when he left Almodovar to come do this stuff, right? Yeah. Like he was already a star in Spain. Anybody who went to an art house in the US... I think it's before this. It's probably like early 90s. Yeah. I mean... Delivering dialogue into a camera? Apex Mountain? I think they had on shots. Yeah. I think they had on shots in this. Springsteen, no. But Springsteen used in movies? Has it ever been better? Springsteen used in movies, sure. Yeah. Gay 90s movies? I don't know. No. We had a few good ones. Philadelphia movies? Probably not. Evil Robards? I don't think he's ever been more evil. No. This is definitely... He couldn't do better than this. Cartoon homophobia? Has it ever been done better? Oh. Oh, God. I mean, does Philip Seymour Hoffman in Talented Mr. Ripley count? Oh, that's pretty good. I mean, I feel like that really tripped a lot of censors for me. Tommy! Yeah. That's a peepin'. Chris, was this Apex Mountain for the Stallion Showcase Cinema on 21st Street or no? If only it existed, right? Okay. I mean, we've done so much good work on this podcast about the combat zone. Picking nets. Would 10 lawyers really run away from Andrew's case? That's what Larry... Seems like a great case. Larry Kramer was like, this is like a home run case. I wrote that down before Larry Kramer. Okay, you beat him to it. This just seems like the layup of layups, this case. The guy, you know, whether you could say like concealing AIDS is a good defense for the law firm, I'm going to say no. But I just feel like somebody would have taken that case and been like, you know what? This seems like a good case. We'll make some money on this one. And he ends up having to get Denzel. I had an issue with that. How would they know that Andrew went to the gay movie theater specifically? How does that... How do they research shit like that? Private investigator talks to his friends, talks to... I mean, I think that's... How's that going to come up? But that's like also a whole missing piece of this movie, right? Yeah. Wesley, have any nitpicks? I mean, the whole relationship between Andy and Miguel, right? Like, I just feel like the movie wants you to have sympathy for the idea of gay people, right? It doesn't want you to truly experience like the gay people as human, as defined by the gay people. It wants you to experience gay people as tolerated and tolerable, right? It's like... It's kind of... I mean, this movie to me is doing the same work that Green Book is doing, right? It's not as reprehensible as Green Book, but it is... Its aim is similar, right? Yeah. But it's... But the reason this movie is sort of... The reason I don't mind it as much is because it is a movie of its moment and it isn't nostalgic. It is really set in the present. And it is trying to do good contemporary political work without ever having to really be political. All I'm saying is that that relationship comes at the expense of the details of that relationship, basically. I mean, you just... You want more of what those people are like with each other. And the movie can kind of claim we're keeping their relationship private because it's the end of your... It's kind of like the family when he's just like
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