Apex Mountain on The Rewatchables
49:49 – 52:34… Get out of it. Yeah, it was amazing. An amazing scene. All right. I'm going to give this one to Hoffman, but there's a lot of honorable mentions there. Apex Mountain. This is tough. Or is it? Is there anything better in this movie than Goodman? Is there ever been anything better in the world than Goodman in this movie? He's got every line. It's just, you know. You see what happens, Larry? You see what happens? This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass, Larry. This is what happens, Larry. You see what happens, Larry? That's what happens when you fuck a man in the ass as he's destroying a …
The whole segment, as transcribed
It definitely feels like the most choreographed scene in the whole movie. I mean, it's from cameras to everything else. He's sitting in the beanbag. Get out of it. Yeah, it was amazing. An amazing scene. All right. I'm going to give this one to Hoffman, but there's a lot of honorable mentions there. Apex Mountain. This is tough. Or is it? Is there anything better in this movie than Goodman? Is there ever been anything better in the world than Goodman in this movie? He's got every line. It's just, you know. You see what happens, Larry? You see what happens? This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass, Larry. This is what happens, Larry. You see what happens, Larry? That's what happens when you fuck a man in the ass as he's destroying a car. And the TV version of it is that's what happens when you fuck a man in the Alps? What is it? It can't be fuck. It was. It's whatever. It's like you screw a man in the Alps or something like that. You know, they are. No, no. This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps. Oh, God. That's even better. This is like the double reference because the fuck in the ass thing came from Jesus, right? Yeah. And then the stranger is obviously a call to the stranger from the story. Yeah. Yeah. When you find a stranger in the Alps, it's just legendary. Every line reading he gives. I mean, they show up at that house because the dude finds like the kid's book report. Right. And then so Walter like has it in a Ziploc bag in a briefcase, like as if it's actual evidence of something and then they show up at the guy's house and the kid's father was like some television writer. He wrote Branded. He wrote a hundred episodes of Branded. And just how delighted Walter is by that. And a good day to you, sir. They were originally going to make this movie before Fargo and couldn't because Goodman was shooting Roseanne. It's just such a pure, I mean, he's been in so many Coen Brothers movies. He's given so many great performances in Coen Brothers movies, but this is really one of the iconic performances like of the last 20 years. I heard Goodman on Howard Stern a couple of years ago and it was just like the most heartening conversation I've ever had where Howard is basically telling him he's a genius the whole time. And John Goodman is like surprised to hear that anybody thinks anything he's ever done is good. And he's obviously like a very insecure guy and very thoughtful guy. And in this movie, like it's such a cliche to say that someone is transformative and that they like slip into something. But I definitely am like Walter Sobchak is in a Ralph's right now, wandering around like with peace on his ankle. Like I just, I buy it so much. He's in the dairy section with a 22. Right. Exactly. All right. So there's Goodman.
57:08 – 60:48… of them, he embodied, he embodied this part to such a degree that you don't, it's not a gag. You know, I mean, this is, it's, it's really great stuff. Is it Apex Mountain for Buscemi? It is for the consciousness of Buscemi. You know, like Buscemi, I think before this was Mr. Pink and he was a guy who was in a lot of indies. This is actually a pretty big role for him at this stage of his career. And then basically from this point forward, you know who Steve Buscemi is. You know what his name is. You know how to pronounce it. He's not just a, that guy. He's Steve Buscemi. I remember, I remember discussing the …
The whole segment, as transcribed
just because obviously the Coen brothers have a sort of their own little fascination with taking the Cloonies of the world and putting oil all over their faces. Yeah, exactly. And Bridges of all of them, he embodied, he embodied this part to such a degree that you don't, it's not a gag. You know, I mean, this is, it's, it's really great stuff. Is it Apex Mountain for Buscemi? It is for the consciousness of Buscemi. You know, like Buscemi, I think before this was Mr. Pink and he was a guy who was in a lot of indies. This is actually a pretty big role for him at this stage of his career. And then basically from this point forward, you know who Steve Buscemi is. You know what his name is. You know how to pronounce it. He's not just a, that guy. He's Steve Buscemi. I remember, I remember discussing the pronunciation of his name with friends. Like that, that, that was, when we figured it out, that was big for Steve Buscemi. It was Steve Buscemi at times. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is also an against type movie when it came out for Steve Buscemi because he was like the tough guy. Yeah, he was Mink from Miller's Crossing. Yeah. Yeah. And then all of a sudden he's this very sincere, slightly dopey guy who does not understand what is going on around him. Mm-hmm. Totoro. Is it his Apex Mountain? Mm-hmm. I'm a huge, I'm a big Kanish guy from Rounders. Yeah. Wow. So, uh. Yeah. Maybe this is a game that can be beat. So, no, not for me. Coen Brothers. No. There are movies that I think are better than this. It's hard for me to say it's that when they don't think it is. I don't know what they think is their best movie, but they're sort of a little dismissive about this one. Yeah. I think that they saw it as a small movie or as just a way to kind of fill the time. I'm sure they loved every little twist and turn when they were creating it, but, you know, they have, they have, they would rank it. They would not rank this at the top. I don't have a lot of nitpicks for this, for this film. I, I, I guess the dude's landlord is, is like an extra thread that I don't know if we need, but it's not like a nitpick. I don't really. Do you guys mean, yeah. They do go to, they do go to the dance recital. I know. I guess they need to be at the dance recital. There's that great conversation there. The best, one of the best lines in the movie, though, is can you give me notes? Yeah. I'd like you to come and give me notes. Just worth it for that. That's also just some LA shit that you don't hear in any other town. It's true. Do you have any nitpicks? No, no. I, I, I, I actually liked that scene. I mean, I just, again, doing too much research. You can, you sort of can reverse engineer so much of the movie. And I, I read that Thulis was, Thulis' character was brought in solely because they realized the scene was all exposition and was just going to go and was just going to be boring. So they just wrote a character in to make the scene not boring. To make the, to make, oh yeah, right. So, and, and I feel like it was a similar thing. I mean, the, the dance recital was just a setting for other things to happen, but also a beautiful contrivance. And you can just sort of see that, like see the thought process. It's an incredible bit. Shoemaker said earlier that he's not super into the, you know, sort of the big dance sequences slash like the hallucinations. I wonder if that stuff, like, I like it as an acknowledgement of like, we're also super into Busby Berkeley movies. And this is an acid flashback. Like, I like it as a referential idea, but rewatching the movie, it's like one of the few things I can skip. Yeah. It's like Anchorman. It's like, you just skip past the, the flute section. Or it's like what I taught, I say this to you before. It's like the, the italics chapters in crime novels. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is sort of just masturbatory. And for me, it's kind of like the ending, which is, I remember being shocked that the movie was over when all of a sudden it was just over. Yeah. I was not sure where we were in terms of the various MacGuffins. Is the dude going to have a child? Where is, where is Bunny Lebowski? I didn't, I didn't, I had no closure on what was happening.
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