Apex Mountain on The Rewatchables
41:06 – 43:54… He's on the roof. He's hopping. He's going through. He's in the lingerie store. He's stealing a bike. He's coming around. Uh-oh, there's a bus. This scene is Apex Mountain for running out of the back of stores. You never really think about this, but I guess all stores do have a back door, but they find every single one of them in this scene. So accessible in this movie. Yeah. It's really great. It's some good Jason Lee, but if this is on, I'm watching it. If it's like, I'm in for these seven minutes. What's weird is it's really the only rewatchable scene in the first, like, 50 minutes of this movie. This movie …
The whole segment, as transcribed
Columbian 18th request immediate visual support. Over. Running. Camera cuts. Barry Pepper just being evil. Things. He's on the roof. He's hopping. He's going through. He's in the lingerie store. He's stealing a bike. He's coming around. Uh-oh, there's a bus. This scene is Apex Mountain for running out of the back of stores. You never really think about this, but I guess all stores do have a back door, but they find every single one of them in this scene. So accessible in this movie. Yeah. It's really great. It's some good Jason Lee, but if this is on, I'm watching it. If it's like, I'm in for these seven minutes. What's weird is it's really the only rewatchable scene in the first, like, 50 minutes of this movie. This movie is really stacked for the second half. So I got that one. I have Hackman meeting Will Smith. In your phone was a GPS SAT tracker. Pulsed at 24 gigahertz. I don't know what that means. It's like a low jack, only two generations better than what the police have. And what does that mean? Do you speak English? Obviously not that well. You're kind of a jerk, aren't you? It means the NSA can read the time off your fucking wristwatch. All right, enough of this bullshit. Great Hackman introduction. He's immediately throwing 99 miles an hour. He's picking bugs off Will Smith's clothes and stuff. It reminds me how much I love things when things are bugged. The whole, it's a device that works in every movie. There's an incredible job by the Asian hotel couple with Will Smith going in there to hide. And they don't know what's going on, but they're kind of weirdly enjoying it. And then you got the Will Smith climbing from room to room, balcony to balcony. And Seth Green kind of narrating it like Jeff Probst. He's like, oh! And kind of, and laughing when he's like, he got down to the 15th floor. Like, I can't believe this. It's, it is a little Jeff Probst-ess. He's like, and Boston Rob jumping the balcony. Hey, guys! And then it ends with the insane hotel closet fire, which will come up later in Picky Nits. And then an ambulance escape. I have some questions about that. An ambulance escape. Hannibal Lecter-esque. It's a very satisfying seven minutes. Third scene. Smith going to the getaway lair. Hackman's getaway lair, I think if I could redo one thing about this movie, I would have wanted to spend at least 15 minutes in there and maybe cut two scenes from the first 45 minutes. There's so many questions I had. I just wanted to be there longer. It goes fast. But that's just a great action scene. The building blowing up. Another classic Tony Scott. They're going away. The fucking thing folds completely. They end up escaping on a train. There's punching. Fourth scene. I just like when somehow they end up going to breakfast after this. Hackman and Smith. It's kind of calmed down for a second. It's like, hey, want to get some eggs? Sure. At a bar that lets cats come in.
55:05 – 57:51… come off. But nice little run. He's knock around guys. He's really good in. The troika of Scott Kahn, Jake Busey, and Barry Pepper is really like, it might be Apex Mountain for white guy flat tops. Yeah. That's the hair. I have Scott Kahn's haircut coming up later. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the hair soon. Another What's Aged the Best, which will be my winner for this. The incredible supporting cast. This is like one of the best IMDB pages. If you could take 10 IMDB pages on a desert island, this would be one of the 10. There's like 25 people in this movie. It's ridiculous. You want to run it down? I mean, …
The whole segment, as transcribed
Battlefield Earth happens and the wheels kind of come off. But nice little run. He's knock around guys. He's really good in. The troika of Scott Kahn, Jake Busey, and Barry Pepper is really like, it might be Apex Mountain for white guy flat tops. Yeah. That's the hair. I have Scott Kahn's haircut coming up later. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the hair soon. Another What's Aged the Best, which will be my winner for this. The incredible supporting cast. This is like one of the best IMDB pages. If you could take 10 IMDB pages on a desert island, this would be one of the 10. There's like 25 people in this movie. It's ridiculous. You want to run it down? I mean, some of the highlights? Yeah. Jon Voight, Jason Lee, Regina King, Barry Pepper, Seth Green, Tom Sizemore, Gabriel Byrne, Jack Black, Lisa Bonet, the God, Lauren Dean, Jason Robards, Philip Baker Hall, Scott Kahn, Jamie Kennedy, and Chris's guy, James LaGrosse. How about also just like Anna Gunn, Skylar White, just showing up as Jon Voight's wife in there? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's sort of bizarre because there are some movies where you're like, oh, that's so incredible. Like, you know, Alec Baldwin did that scene in Glengarry. I totally get it. I don't know why Philip Baker Hall is in this movie. You know, it's like, there's actually no reason for Jason Robards to do one scene and get stabbed with a syringe, but they're all in it and it just makes it a better movie. I personally love when movies do this because I think you can do the half-assed version where like 40% of those people are in it and then you do 60% no names or younger actors, whatever. I like when they go, we're going all in. The first 20 parts of this movie are going to be people who are really good at their job. It's the 90s bro goon squad, man. Yeah. Yeah. You could have fielded a hockey team with the guys who were playing the NSA agents and the FBI military guys or the military guys. I mean, it's just, that's such an incredible crew. Bill, it's also like a real feat of good casting, not just because of the big names that are involved, but because most of the people that are in those vans and looking at the people, all the young actors just hadn't really done a lot. Like Seth Green, Jack Black, Jamie Kennedy, Jake Busey, Barry Pepper, all of those people were not famous. I mean, they were like kind of a little bit well-known to people, but those were smart choices to dot the movie with all these people who we knew were going to have bigger careers. Yeah, it's true. I have another What's Aged the Best, Hackman's, his sneaky tricks in this movie, like how he always looks down or straight ahead because the satellite is looking at him. I could have done another 10 minutes in this movie on all of Brill's little tricks
69:24 – 73:19… the first remote operation over a phone line of a computer machine. It's just weird. Three years later, 9-11 happens. That's all I got for research. Apex Mountain. Weirdly, like, nobody except for post-Cosby show Lisa Bonet. I don't really know what else you would put here for Apex Mountain. Do you guys have any candidates? Lisa Bonet's Apex Mountain is the day that Zoe Kravitz was born, just for the record. Would you give this Apex Mountain for Bodie Elfman? And Jake Busey? I feel like Jake Busey has a couple of... Isn't he in Predator 2? Starship Troopers is Jake Busey's Apex Mountain. Oh, that's …
The whole segment, as transcribed
which was when Bell Labs researcher George Stibitz demonstrated the first remote operation over a phone line of a computer machine. It's just weird. Three years later, 9-11 happens. That's all I got for research. Apex Mountain. Weirdly, like, nobody except for post-Cosby show Lisa Bonet. I don't really know what else you would put here for Apex Mountain. Do you guys have any candidates? Lisa Bonet's Apex Mountain is the day that Zoe Kravitz was born, just for the record. Would you give this Apex Mountain for Bodie Elfman? And Jake Busey? I feel like Jake Busey has a couple of... Isn't he in Predator 2? Starship Troopers is Jake Busey's Apex Mountain. Oh, that's right. Starship Troopers. That's what I was thinking of. Yeah. Are you guys cool with changing Apex Mountain to Lisa Bonet's Apex Mountain? Like, actually having her sponsor? Yeah, sure. Do you want to talk a little bit about how you feel about Lisa Bonet? I don't feel like you've had a chance to share your thoughts. This is my only chance ever on the rewatchable. She never made movies. Until we do Angel Heart. Yeah. Yeah, that's like season 12 of the rewatchable. So we're like Angel Heart. Lou Cypher. Louis Cypher. Get it? Other than that, I don't really know Apex Mountain. I don't feel like anybody's at the peak of their powers. Pick and nits. I think it might be Apex Mountain for the DMV on film with the exception of all the President's Men. It's one of the great D.C. Baltimore movies. All right. Pick and nits. I have a few. I'm just going to read this from Wikipedia. This is the premise of the movie, the first scene. NSA official John Voight meets with U.S. Congressman Jason Robards in a public park to discuss support for a new piece of counterterrorism legislation the U.S. Congress is pushing that dramatically expands the surveillance powers of intelligence agencies over individuals and groups. Robards believes it would destroy the privacy of U.S. citizens. Reynolds wants an NSA promotion so he has his team murder Hammersley. Are there better ways to get a promotion than murdering a U.S. congressman in a park? It just feels like maybe this could have been massaged a little easier than an assassination basically. What are your thoughts on that? Why is he present? Why is he there for that? Like, obviously it makes a great scene where they sit on that park bench like I talked about but in what universe would the deputy director of the NSA be present for the assassination of a sitting congressman? That's insane. It's insane. And it's like basically the premise would be well if I can talk him into this we won't kill him. But you already told like the three other people we're killing this guy if he doesn't go along with it. And then he does go along with it and it's like cool and just fucking murders a congressman. Feels like this would have been a bigger deal. They don't really do it in a very like private area. Like did they they didn't really check out the other side of the river. You know what I mean? And that leads to the second ridiculous part of that scene which is they're borrowing from Blowout with Travolta which borrowed from a whole bunch of other movies but Jason Lee just filming a park that day just putting his camera the whole concept of these cameramen got these migrations man. Yeah man oh wow wait there was a murder at that park? I should check the tape. Like oh it's a flimsy premise for a movie and then him going back to get the tape and somebody studying it and realizing like oh that's a little dicey but it is a Tony Scott action movie. Why did Will Smith handle the first mafia meeting so aggressively and so badly? That whole scene is just weird. I know they had to introduce Sizemore and all those guys to you know to bring them back later but he's just so kind of aggro
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