Apex Mountain on The Rewatchables
6:27 – 9:16… talked about how Martin Lawrence, what an important movie it was for him. It's weirdly an important movie for every single person in the movie. Like, we'll do Apex Mountain later, and we're like, what's the apex of somebody? This movie, everybody who's in it has some sort of stake. You know, like, it launches Halle Berry. Halle Berry becomes Halle Berry from this movie. It's the last good thing Robin Givens does. It's the best movie David Allen Gray ever made. It's a movie that launches Martin Lawrence's TV career and his movie career. It revives Eddie Murphy as this guy who was, like, this LeBron-like talent …
The whole segment, as transcribed
It gets more unbelievable by the year how many people are in this movie, like, in bit parts. Like, Chris Rock's barely in the movie, and it's fucking Chris Rock. He's, like, the 10th lead in this. But then you think, you talked about how Martin Lawrence, what an important movie it was for him. It's weirdly an important movie for every single person in the movie. Like, we'll do Apex Mountain later, and we're like, what's the apex of somebody? This movie, everybody who's in it has some sort of stake. You know, like, it launches Halle Berry. Halle Berry becomes Halle Berry from this movie. It's the last good thing Robin Givens does. It's the best movie David Allen Gray ever made. It's a movie that launches Martin Lawrence's TV career and his movie career. It revives Eddie Murphy as this guy who was, like, this LeBron-like talent that we were disappointed in, who now circles back. And it's like, oh, yeah, that's LeBron putting up 35, 12, and 15 in a game. What am I missing, Wesley? I mean, there are the sort of ancillary things where it's a big moment for black people. It's a big moment for black people who want to be in movies and who want to see black people in movies. And I think that the pressure... It's weird that this movie doesn't feel like there's any pressure on it when you watch it. But the pressure on the movie to not just be good, but just to make money to satisfy whoever gave them the money to make the movie in the first place. That pressure was enormous. And it's funny watching it now with no pressure on it at all. How... I mean, this might be one of the problems with the movie. We can talk about this later. But it is so carefree. And it is so only interested in being the thing that these people who are making this... Like Tisha Campbell. Like Tisha... Well, whatever. We can go back to Tisha Campbell. But the way that she functions in this movie is so... It's just such a black movie. It's so black. Yeah. And I was surprised by... That was a thing I could only appreciate at this remove. But as a kid, it was just like... Oh, well, this is just like being in the cafeteria at school. So we're talking a six-year stretch that leads to this movie where you have the birth of Spike Lee's career. You have House Party. You have Hollywood Shuffle. You have Raw directed by Robert Townsend. You have Boys in the Hood. It's a six-year arc to a mainstream Eddie Murphy movie that's trying to basically rejuvenate his career in a little bit of a way. But also is an all-black movie.
105:13 – 113:09… ugly her feet up, put some makeup and some fake hammer time stuff on it. One of the all time great scream beauties, Lila Rashan. Yes. Beautiful woman. Agree. Apex Mountain, Robin Givens. For sure. Mm-hmm. Has to be. For sure. Yeah. David Alan Greer, I think has to be, he's on In Living Color at the same time. And I think he's had a good career, but this is, I think he's in this movie and he's on a hit TV show at the same time. He's really good in this movie though. I would never have been able to appreciate like what he's bringing to this film and like watching it as a grown man who is paying attention in a …
The whole segment, as transcribed
And then, uh, Lila Rashan apparently had beautiful feet. Just for the record, they had to ugly her feet up, put some makeup and some fake hammer time stuff on it. One of the all time great scream beauties, Lila Rashan. Yes. Beautiful woman. Agree. Apex Mountain, Robin Givens. For sure. Mm-hmm. Has to be. For sure. Yeah. David Alan Greer, I think has to be, he's on In Living Color at the same time. And I think he's had a good career, but this is, I think he's in this movie and he's on a hit TV show at the same time. He's really good in this movie though. I would never have been able to appreciate like what he's bringing to this film and like watching it as a grown man who is paying attention in a different way. He's so wonderful in every scene he has. He's present in a different way than Eddie Murphy is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's such a fantastic performer. Like you, you wonder, and he went on to do some things like Jumanji and stuff, but you wonder like why we keep asking this question, but like, yeah, he's so good in this and he's so real and so human yet still so funny. It's like a level you didn't think he's just great. And you just wonder why he never, it was never recreated. You know, he's still having a great career, but it was never recreated on screen to this level again. It's funny because I, I meant to put this in what's age the best. Cause I, I'm the same way. I love him in this movie. I think he's really, really good and just so fucking likable. And I just think he's likable in general. Like he's a legendary talk shows guest. Like, right. Like if Kimmel knows like, Oh, we need somebody two Thursdays from now. Let's get dad. He'll, he'll kill. Um, it's funny that all the seeds that you see of him in this movie and the same for Martin Lawrence, but then Martin Lawrence propels it into like four things, right? He's got his TV show. He's got bad boys. Like it just kind of keeps going and you can see all the seeds of it in this movie, but you can also see the seeds with dag. And it's like, I don't, I don't know why it didn't happen other than all the reasons we've already discussed. He's so fucking likable. Yeah. He just, I think that he, he's has the misfortune of having gone first in a lot of places. Like he had key and peel show before key and peel. Yeah. Right. And he, he just unlucky. Like he's, there's either somebody more outrageously funny than he is, or he comes after Chappelle and nobody was really ready for, like what I can only describe as like middle-class black comedy. Um, I think that, you know, he isn't a star person and he's a character actor. If he's a character, if he's an actor, you know, if he considers himself like a serious actor, he's a, he's a tweener. Cause he can't like be the lead guy in the poster, but he's too good to be like, you know, the buddy. Right. But he's overqualified to be the buddy. He, he does something that a lot of actors don't do, which he's, he adds to every single production that he's in. Yeah. Like every single, like a lot of actors cannot say that some of them was on these screens, taken up space, but he adds to everything. See, he's just an incredibly talented guy. Like he really is, man. And when he's had, and he's had a great career, by the way, he's had a great career. I rarely say stuff like this cause it's obnoxious, but he's a fucking awesome guy. Cause he's in that whole Kimmel universe. And he's exactly like he is, like you would think he is to hang out with. Like, he just like really a great guy. I really like him. Hey, we're going to take a break for two reasons. One, I wanted to tell you about a podcast called higher learning. With Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay that we are launching on late Wednesday night. And, uh, they're talking about anything and everything, pop culture, sports, urban culture, you name it. It's going to be happening. You can subscribe to the feed on Spotify or Apple, wherever you get your podcasts starting on Tuesday morning, higher learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay, really excited for this podcast. Check it out. More importantly, we got someone to this boomerang podcast, and this is the first time this is, whatever happened in the history of the rewatchables. I actually forgot to finish a category. Once we stopped talking about David Allen Greer, I moved on and forgot to finish apex mountain. So Wesley and Van and I, we went through some of the other ones retroactively. So this is a little back to the future model here. Uh, the biggest thing boys to men. Absolutely. Yes. Apex mountain for boys to men. We all decided emphatic. Yes. Tony Braxton. No. Eddie Murphy. No. Martin Lawrence. No. Reginald Hudlin. Yes. I mean, what a masterpiece. 28 years later. PM Don. Yes. Giving it to him to apex mountain. Strange perfume. Absolutely. Yes. Uh, three guys playing a game of pool, which I've never seen in my life. Other than this movie. Yeah. I think it was the apex mountain for that. The 1992 Knicks. No. Chitlins. No. Black rom-coms. Wesley says, yes. He thought the only thing close is the best man. Van could not decide. And I'm going to say semi, yes. It's the best black theme sex comedy ever. I'm not sure. Best rom-com. I need to put more thought into that, but there you go. Apex mountain. My apologies to boys to men, because I feel like all of us were robbed a really good five minute conversation about, uh, the boys to men apex, but Hey, it happens when you have a two hour rewatchables. Let's go back to it. Uh, the rewatchables with me, Van and Wesley. Here we go. Picking knits. We've mentioned a lot of the picking knits. Here's the only one that really bugs me. Angela really moves in fast with Marcus. Like they, they're watching star Trek and hooking up. And next thing you know, like all her stuff's there. Like I, it's abrupt. And I, I don't know this movie from a concept of time. Cause at some point then they break up and they say how four months has passed. And she has this new job that already has a new perfume out. And Marcus doesn't have a job anymore, but that's only four months. But then you figure she moves in, in five seconds, but then there's a whole year leading up to that. And I don't know how many years this movie is supposed to cover, but you would think it's at least three. There is a three hour cut of this movie. I'm telling you. Hmm. There's a three hour for it. I think it, I think it went, I'm in it. It flows by the two hours it's at now. I'm like this podcast. Uh, best quote. Uh, I'm going with love. Should have brought your ass home last night. What do you possibly think? You know, about love, you know, I'm sick and tired of men using love. Like it's some kind of disease. You just catch love should have brought your ass home last night. Only because it, then it becomes a song. It's when you have the combo of, it's always good when they work the title into the movie, like say anything is which we're doing for this week. They worked the title of the movie this day. Work a line that becomes a memorable song into the movie, which I, I think high degree of difficulty for that. You're wrong. By the way, the quote, the quote, you're wrong. The quote, give it to me. Okay. It's easily, uh, don't get pussy whipped, whip that pussy. Well, we covered that one. We said that one already. So that's the quote. Do you think anyone ever use that as a senior yearbook quote or no? I want to say I've got, I, the thing, the line that really stuck in my brain though, all these years is, I'm giving you my Mac daddy vibes here. Right. I'm giving it like, check it. Yo, check it. Stop. You know, I didn't come up here to talk to you about no strong.
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