Apex Mountain on The Rewatchables
7:12 – 9:58… cancer cells. The doctor comes in and says, I'm basically giving you, like, a B12, and he makes him bend over and gives him a shot in the ass. That's Apex Mountain. That's what we're going to do to each other. That's what this past I think. And chronologically, sorry, Corner of the Fourth of July did come first. So he made that, and then he made JFK. Right. Yeah, so I guess the question with this movie as the years pass is he gets really, really liberal with a lot of stuff and openly makes up stuff, but we don't have an internet yet. And the dialogue of this movie was basically, oh, well, this is …
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The deleted scenes have Jack Ruby injected in his jail cell with pancreatic cancer cells. The doctor comes in and says, I'm basically giving you, like, a B12, and he makes him bend over and gives him a shot in the ass. That's Apex Mountain. That's what we're going to do to each other. That's what this past I think. And chronologically, sorry, Corner of the Fourth of July did come first. So he made that, and then he made JFK. Right. Yeah, so I guess the question with this movie as the years pass is he gets really, really liberal with a lot of stuff and openly makes up stuff, but we don't have an internet yet. And the dialogue of this movie was basically, oh, well, this is whatever, but this is an awesome movie. And then as the years pass, people start picking a part. And it even started happening in the early 90s where there would be these think pieces about— It started happening before the movie came out. Right. Yeah. But I don't think the general public was really as aware of it. No, I still remember seeing this movie almost 30 years ago, like right now, when I was on winter break in Lake Worth, Florida with my mom visiting my grandmother. We went and saw JFK. She remembers exactly where she was when Kennedy was killed. She was working in a dentist's office in Manhattan. And we got out of the theater. And I was like, that was really cool. Like, I obviously had never seen anything like that in my life or had been exposed to thinking like that before. And she was just in tears because she was like, it never felt right. It never seemed like what they were telling us was true. And now we know. Right. Now we know. Right. Now we have the curtains been lifted. But there were always these—I would say the only thing is these theories would pop up. As a 55-year-old, I can say that in the 80s, there's no doubt you would have college classes on what was really— Umbrella Man. Gerald Posner was writing 400 books where eventually he lands on a single shooter. Did you have your friend in college who was— Oh, dude. Because Jacko and I, we went deep on this stuff. We saw this movie together when we were in college. And we were like, we'd been waiting for it for months. We were like, here we go. Our friend's house was called The Lodge. And you can imagine when you would go over to The Lodge, they had this cooler that they kept their weed in. They had the best weed on campus. And you would go over and they would take the special weed out. And they would make gravity bong. You know, they would cut open a gravity bong, make a gravity bong. And you would sit around and just talk about things like the JFK. Interesting. I wonder if that—does that happen anymore? Because we would literally sit in somebody's room and talk about this and talk about theories and stuff. And now I just feel like people just go on the internet. Well, someone would call their expert friend. Like, even when we were in school, someone would call their expert friend to come over. Yeah. Not even on a cell phone. We didn't have them, right? So, like, someone would call their buddy who was like, oh, yeah, she's a history major. She knows a lot about this. And then she would come over and you'd hand— That person weirdly never had plans. Right. They would just show up and you would hand them the gravity bong. They would do a giant hit and then be like, let me tell you about the grassy knoll.
58:55 – 61:41… don't know if you've heard of him. Score is incredible. Amazing score. Yep. Robert Richardson, cinematographer. Our boy. Oscar winner. Wins some gold. He's an apex mountain candidate for me for this. Richardson is one of the greats who ever lived. It's up there. The editing techniques in this movie just had not been done before. Now they seem pretty relatively standard. We've seen it a bunch of times, but in 1991 had not seen it. Here are the Oscars. JFK nominated. Loses to Silence of the Lambs. JFK, Oliver Stone nominated. Our best director that year, Jonathan Demme wins. John Singleton, Barry Levinson for …
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who can just bring in big eyes. But I mean, for a movie, pretty impressive. Guy named John Williams did the music. I don't know if you've heard of him. Score is incredible. Amazing score. Yep. Robert Richardson, cinematographer. Our boy. Oscar winner. Wins some gold. He's an apex mountain candidate for me for this. Richardson is one of the greats who ever lived. It's up there. The editing techniques in this movie just had not been done before. Now they seem pretty relatively standard. We've seen it a bunch of times, but in 1991 had not seen it. Here are the Oscars. JFK nominated. Loses to Silence of the Lambs. JFK, Oliver Stone nominated. Our best director that year, Jonathan Demme wins. John Singleton, Barry Levinson for Bugsy. People love Bugsy that year. Still trying to figure that out. Oliver Stone, JFK. Ridley Scott, Thelma, and Louise. Oh, yeah. That's a hell of a year, by the way. Those are all really, really strong movies. We have one Best Supporting Actor nomination from this movie. Yeah. Can you guess what it was? Clay Bertrand. Clay Shaw. Tommy Lee. Clay Shaw. He wins the Oscar. No. He does not. Jack the Fugitive. Jack Pounce. He wins for the Fugitive that year. No, he wins the Fugitive like two years later. I gotta say, I would have had Sutherland if I had to pick one Supporting Actor nomination. I think Sutherland. I thought Sutherland is so amazing in that scene. He just fucking crushes it. It's so good. It's 60 minutes. He just blacks out. So good. We'll do it every watchable scene. I think there's a case for almost everybody. I think Bacon and Pesci and all of them have a case for it. Have a case for what? Supporting Actor nomination. Do you think so? I think Pesci's I think it's the single worst. I love Joe Pesci. You can't meet a bigger Joe Pesci fan. I don't like Pesci. He's gone fishing over. I thought his work in The Irishman was like the best thing I've seen in years. And I don't understand the performance. I think he's saving it for the categories. What they're trying to do perfectly, but we can debate it. $40 million budget made $205 million. Jesus. Eight Academy Award nominations. One, two. Best Cinematography. Best Film Editing. Our last Oliver Storm movie to win Academy Awards. Really? Yeah, that was it. Roger Ebert, our guy. Over the Moon. Four stars. Best movie of the year, right? The achievement of this film is not that it answers the mystery of the Kennedy assassination because it does not. That's it. Raj, coming through. Its achievement is that it tries to marshal the anger, which ever since 1963 has been gnawing away on some dark shelf of the national psyche. Perfect. That's why he's our guy. His essay in The Great Movies book on this movie is one of his best pieces. Said it was the year's best.
77:28 – 80:16… I just wrote this down, Chris. Tommy Lee in gold paint getting slapped by Pesci dressed as a dangerous liaison's character. I was going to save this for Apex Mountain, but it's definitely Apex Mountain for the New Orleans anti-communist homosexual underground. That's the thing, Sean's not going to tell you that really late on those Friday nights, God in gold, he gives me a little titty twister. Those are wild times. Do some poppers, start blogging. This is the good version of, the bad version of when Nicholson and The Departed was like, I have an idea, Marty. What about a scene with opera and cocaine and …
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if you look closely, the president, it's just, it was funny that he was self-deprecating about it. You mentioned Oldman. I just wrote this down, Chris. Tommy Lee in gold paint getting slapped by Pesci dressed as a dangerous liaison's character. I was going to save this for Apex Mountain, but it's definitely Apex Mountain for the New Orleans anti-communist homosexual underground. That's the thing, Sean's not going to tell you that really late on those Friday nights, God in gold, he gives me a little titty twister. Those are wild times. Do some poppers, start blogging. This is the good version of, the bad version of when Nicholson and The Departed was like, I have an idea, Marty. What about a scene with opera and cocaine and dildos and it doesn't work and they have to cut it? This one, somebody was like, I have an idea. We'll put Tommy Lee in gold paint. Joe Pesci's in a dangerous liaison's outfit. Yes. And Bacon is dressed like Glenn Close in dangerous liaison. But you know that Bacon is up for all this, right, as an actor. Tommy Lee is not that guy. So for him to do it, it's great. He bumps right up against what's aged the worst, which is the movie's attitude about homosexuality. I mean, it's right. We're not there yet. No, but if you, no, I gotta bring it up right at the time we're making a titty twister joke. Sorry, you gotta, right then, you gotta just say the film's attitude about homosexuality is not acceptable on any level. It's pretty retrograde. And even though she brings it up, she goes, you just don't like him because they're homosexuals. But that's one line that's said in the movie. And Jim was like, whoa! Where did that come from? But when the whole time he's clearly looking at them like they're free. But that was part of Garrison's case though. This crazy Clay Shaw and he would have these gay parties. Like, it was part of why he was trying to knock them down. in the era, that era's judgment about perversion in the language of that time. That's why it's age of the worst. I'm just saying when we're laughing about that moment. Who's the Mad Men character? Sal. Yeah. Sal. All of a sudden he's there. We never saw him again on the show. Here's another what's age of the best. Stone wanted to recreate the Kennedy assassination in Dealey Plaza and actually pulled it off. They spent $4 million to restore it to 1963 conditions. They had to pay all this money to reroute the traffic. And they did it. Oliver Stone said Sutherland and Costner memorized both of the monologues. Love it. I'm convinced. All right. I'm glad you're here. I'm going to ask you this. Acting. 80% just having a good memory. 20% charisma, talent. 80% just being able to memorize shit. Really no.
83:39 – 86:25… do less than one scene. Ron Rifkin's in, got one line. Prua Taylor Vance, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lolita Davidovich, Frank Whaley, Brian Doyle Murray, Bob Gunton. Apex Mountain for Brian Doyle Murray. I'm gonna, I have him saved for that. John Larket. Yeah. All these people crop up in this movie for like 45 seconds. So do you think that's because they shot a 120 hour movie and there's like a lot of Lolita Davidovich that we didn't get? Maybe, I don't know. She was having a moment back then. Chris and I always have this joke about cable channels that should exist, but there's not quite enough movies for them. Like …
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and will ever see it again, but he gets the highest level character actors to do less than one scene. Ron Rifkin's in, got one line. Prua Taylor Vance, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lolita Davidovich, Frank Whaley, Brian Doyle Murray, Bob Gunton. Apex Mountain for Brian Doyle Murray. I'm gonna, I have him saved for that. John Larket. Yeah. All these people crop up in this movie for like 45 seconds. So do you think that's because they shot a 120 hour movie and there's like a lot of Lolita Davidovich that we didn't get? Maybe, I don't know. She was having a moment back then. Chris and I always have this joke about cable channels that should exist, but there's not quite enough movies for them. Like the Heist channel. Oh yeah. Just be like channel 528 on whatever. It's just Heist movies. I mean, I would turn on that. I would turn that on the way these guys turn on the Titty Twister. That's not what I said for the record. Watching that, I would be watching that all the time. Do you think a New Orleans channel, there's probably only like 15 New Orleans movies. Then you just roll them over and over again. Yeah. Every time we're in New Orleans, I'm happy. The Heist channel would be the best. Weirdly, I didn't like CSI New Orleans that much. Well, because you probably don't like CSI. I don't, I don't really like CSI. You know there's an NCIS Hawaii now? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But are you an Angel Heart person or no? Come on. Lisa Bonet is like- Lou Cipher? Don't. The attorney. You're the attorney. You're saying the attorney. Which is like a lawyer, but more expensive. They don't have enough movies where the lawyers are actually the devil. You know, there's- That should be a channel. The devil's advocate and Angel Heart. The most important people in my life in 1986, obviously Larry Bird was first, but Letterman. Larry Bird was not in your life. No, in my life. You're going to say Epiphany Proudfoot? No, Lisa Bonet was in the top 12. No, because she was also Cosby. Well, she was- You can make her argument she was the most beautiful- You said fucking love. She was the greatest. You can make the argument she was the most beautiful woman in the world at that moment. Who were the other 11? She comes in enemy of the state and gets killed and you're like- You're devastated. You want the movie to stop. You're devastated. And Kleenex. Love Lisa Bonet. Huey Lewis. Also on your list then? Zoe Kravitz. She just keeps giving us gifts. What's age the worst? Let's take a break and then we'll do What's age the worst. This episode is brought to you by Mazda. Want to be as confident behind the wheel as I am about a movie nobody else will admit as a top five all-timer? Get the Mazda CX-50 Hybrid. It comes standard with a suite of proactive safety features and lets you explore far and wide with an EPA estimated 38 miles per gallon combined in electronic all-wheel drive. Mazda. Move and be moved. Visit MazdaUSA.com Discover how confidence comes standard. Mileage will vary based on vehicle condition, driving habits
103:24 – 110:54… Earl Warren. We've mentioned most of the other stuff unless you guys have... What were you going to say about Roker? You said you had a spot. It's coming. Apex Mountain. Tommy Lee Jones decided he wanted to paint himself gold. That's my favorite half-ass internet research. Is that true? Yeah. That didn't come up in my research. TLJ was like, I'll do that. Yeah. You learned that late one night and on Friday at my house. Apex Mountain. Costner. I still think it's Dances with Wolves. I mean, he won all the Oscars. He became the new modern Warren Beatty. I think it has to be that. He has the most juice coming …
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that he said he did. There's a lot of holes in Prouty's stories. A lot. Just so you can Google that. As you said, the real Garrison appears in the film. It's Judge Earl Warren. We've mentioned most of the other stuff unless you guys have... What were you going to say about Roker? You said you had a spot. It's coming. Apex Mountain. Tommy Lee Jones decided he wanted to paint himself gold. That's my favorite half-ass internet research. Is that true? Yeah. That didn't come up in my research. TLJ was like, I'll do that. Yeah. You learned that late one night and on Friday at my house. Apex Mountain. Costner. I still think it's Dances with Wolves. I mean, he won all the Oscars. He became the new modern Warren Beatty. I think it has to be that. He has the most juice coming out of that movie that you could have. No argument for me. Oliver Stone. It might be this. He convinced a studio to fund a movie about an assassination where he made up his theory for it, basically. And they said, cool. He also made The Doors and JFK in the same year. Yeah. I think there's a really good case for it. Okay, great. JFK assassination conspiracies, Chris. Was this it? Was this the Apex right here, early 90s? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I feel like it was too. The Rookersants. I mean, Henry is his high point. See you love. Henry Portrait of a serial killer, JFK. JFK. And it's all happening for Michael Rooker. It's one year. I'm buying his rookie cards. No, it's like a two-year span. I'm buying his rookie cards. Henry, if you haven't seen Henry Portrait of a serial killer, I mean, don't necessarily, but if you're a real movie fanatic, I disagree. It's a really good horror movie. Watch it with your whole family? I think people should see it. No, I think watch it. So I saw that movie. Full-throated. Would you rather watch Ben Simmons shoot three-pointers or watch Henry Portrait of a serial killer? It's a very realistic portrait of a serial killer. There are a couple of scenes in it that are among the most disturbing scenes I've ever seen in a film. I used to drive in from college to go to Celtic games and I would go early to beat the traffic. To go to the combat zone? No. There's this movie theater in BU that would have movies like Henry Portrait of a serial killer. Oh, yeah. And I would go and they would always have like a three o'clock, four o'clock. So I would go early, see the movie and then go meet my dad at the game. And I saw Henry Portrait of a serial killer there and it was me and like seven other guys. Yeah, it was. All spaced apart. And like halfway through that movie you start kind of like, oh, yeah. You're like, am I just going to get my throat slit during this? Huge, huge fan of you seeing that movie Alone. Oh, yeah. I used to solo all the time. Me too. I love going to movies alone. But the all-time never sleep again double feature to watch at home is that. And then what's the name of that Carl Franklin movie? One False Move. One False Move. Yeah. That and One False Move as a dog. I think I would go One False Move first and then Henry. Henry's the sort of palate cleanser. But then if you watch those two in a row, that's it. If you don't have an alarm at home, you're never sleeping again. I said to Chris the other day when I was re-watching the movie that you know this is one of the craziest studio movies ever made when Michael Rooker is the most normal-seeming character in the whole movie. Yeah. Michael Rooker famed for being an absolute lunatic in almost everything he does. And he seems kind of logical. Yeah, he's the only person who's just like, you can't be accusing LBJ of assassinating the president. It's a weird, you wonder, there was definitely, that's something that definitely was cut out. And I read this, the details of how they all felt Rooker betrayed them. Yeah. Because that is an absurd scene, that argument. Don't you feel like there's half that argument? We should have had that in What's Age of Worse. There's a whole thing where that character is supposed to be also like ex-FBI or ex-intelligence or something like that. Well, all of them are. Yeah. J.O. is. Yeah. That scene is very weird. Oh, yeah. Do you like him in Cliffhanger? Of course I like him in Cliffhanger. What are you talking about? Rooker's one of those guys, he's just fantastic all the time. And yet, you won't put him in anything. I've met with him. He and I have had a meeting. It was a fascinating, fascinating meeting. He's huge now. He's in the MCU. He's in all these James Gunn movies. He couldn't fucking work for Axe Capital for three episodes? You see him as a hedge fund guy? I think he's like a custodian who might be on the inside. More Apex Mountain, Wayne Knight, no question. Mm-hmm. Wow, Newman. Well, Newman's same time. I got simultaneous combo. And when was Third Rock? And when's Jurassic? Jurassic's right around here, right? Oh, Jurassic too. How about the Zapruder film? Apex Mountain for the Zapruder film? Yeah. When was the Apex Mountain? Apex Mountain for Abram's Zapruder? Well, yeah, I would say it was selling it. I would say it was selling it. How about Dallas? Comeback. Cowboys doing well? No. 91? Mavs title. Dirt Jets one. JFK? Yeah. When is Zapruder going to make his NFT? Gary V is like, what you got to do is you got to turn into an NFT. Gary V. NFT. It's a good idea. Honestly, it's not a bad idea. Gary V would already have six of them marketed by the end of this pod. It's a good idea. He'd have six of them released. Any other Apex Mountains for you guys? Brian mentioned Richardson. Who's got one of the greatest filmographies of any cinematographer ever. He really does. Say some of his movies, Sean. I mean, he was Stone's go-to guy for years and years. So did Salvador, Platoon, Wall Street, Talk Radio, Born on the Fourth of July, Doors, JFK, Heaven and Earth, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, U-Turn, and then I think they stopped working together. I liked U-Turn. He also was working with John Sayles at the same time. He has Eight Men Out. He was doing City of Hope. The City of Hope. During this movie. Yeah. He then starts working with Martin Scorsese. Yeah. And he shoots Casino and Bring Out the Dead. And then he starts working with Quentin Tarantino and shoots Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2, Inglourious Bastards, Django Unchained, Hateful Eight, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. One of the greatest cinematographers ever lived. And really at the top of his game in this film. CR's like, he's no Gordon Willis. Too bright. But he's really flexible. Think about how all those movies look so different. And he's such a distinctive style, that blown out white light overhead stuff. The Tarantino Stone thing is so fascinating to me because they were kind of... Well, he hates it. Quentin hates it. I mean, they hate each other. I told you to listen to the... The best episode on my podcast probably ever, other than, of course, when you were a guest, is Quentin's episode. And we talk at length about Oliver ruining Natural Born Killers because Quentin's script's incredible. The original Quentin Tarantino script's one of the best scripts I've ever read in my life. I'll just say also... They should make that again. Speaking of Stone and his contemporaries, it's fascinating to me that Stone and Spike Lee both were in the same NYU film class. And that they made these kinds of films and you can make an argument that Malcolm X is like... Wait, Stone? I didn't know that Stone was there. Oh, because Stone came back from Vietnam. And Scorsese was his professor. Scorsese taught him. I didn't know that. And honestly, one of the best books I read last year was the Stone biography. It's called Chasing the Light. And it's about everything up to Platoon. It ends after he wins the Oscar for Platoon. Does he talk about seeing like We Cut Heads and stuff? He talks about seeing Spikes. Oh, yeah. He talks about Vietnam. Does he talk about Spike at NYU? Oh, see, he talks about NYU. He talks about Scorsese a lot. And he's clearly this guy who's wearing a jacket not unlike the one you're wearing right now, Brian. The army jacket all the time and kind of like a little more sullen, very internal, a guy who hasn't totally figured out what kind of movies he wants to make. This is an Alex Mill mod jacket. What the fuck, man? It's not an army jacket. It's green. It's just the color that I'm referring to. But that book is really, really good because it talks a lot about his psychology and a lot of the stuff that we're talking about and why he wanted
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