Apex Mountain
In the discussion (8)
Approx. transcript time · 01:09:59Read transcript
- Mountains are a big thing in the movie, like Pits Paloo (as transcribed), which prompts the question of whether this is Tarantino's Apex Mountain.
- Asked by name to define the category, the host first jokes about having broken his foot the day before and his new cast, then explains that Apex Mountain means a person at the peak of their powers both commercially and artistically. — Chris Ryan
- One host says this cannot be Tarantino's Apex Mountain: he won the screenplay Oscar at about 29 after Pulp Fiction, was the toast of Hollywood, could have done anything and made Jackie Brown; whether this is his best movie is a different question.
- Tarantino has three phases: Dogs, Fiction and Brown as Elmore Leonard underworld movies; Kill Bill and Grindhouse as martial-arts exploitation raised to an art-house level; and Basterds, Django, Hateful Eight and Hollywood as alternate history heavily influenced by Westerns. A host has a sentimental attachment to phase one, which taught him pop culture, likes phase two less, and finds it remarkable that in 2019 people still turn out for two-and-a-half-hour talky films like the roadshow Hateful Eight.
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a TBD, possibly a phase four or a continuation or throwback. Asked by name for a big Tarantino conversation, the host says she loves Tarantino, that this is her favorite Tarantino movie, that she really loves Django and Pulp Fiction, and that this is the one she thinks about, craves and enjoys the most. — Mallory Rubin
- It might be Apex Mountain for Pitt: shouted out as the last half century's most beautiful person, a very weird guy with extraordinary taste who works with interesting people and never gets credit, the character actor trapped in a leading man's body; the run-up is Ocean's 13, The Assassination of Jesse James, Burn After Reading, Benjamin Button and this in a row, all different performances for great directors in movies that cannot happen without him.
- Not all were hits, Jesse James was famously a bomb though remembered by some as maybe the best movie of the century; afterward he does The Tree of Life, Moneyball, World War Z, Killing Them Softly, 12 Years a Slave and The Counselor and produces good work, but this period feels like the most significant of his career since his 90s breakthrough.
- The hosts are split on Tarantino, one no, one arguably yes and a third no, prompting the joke that nobody understands Apex Mountain; Pitt, Waltz, Kruger and Laurent are all yes, and B.J. Novak is a no because The Office is his apex, when the residuals hit.