Apex Mountain
Heath Ledger; Aaron Eckhart; Christopher Nolan, for cultural impact; Christian Bale, as a movie star only
In the discussion (16)
Approx. transcript time · 00:53:11Read transcript
- Heath Ledger is Apex Mountain, with the 'all part of the plan' speech performed; this and Brokeback are his two shining achievements, he is an all-time great American, or Australian, actor, the performance is burned into the brains of a generation, and he has kind of ruined comic book villains.
- Tangent: basically all other comic book villains are bad or problematic; Marvel punted with various space monsters, Thanos is a rip-off of Darkseid, and apart from Magneto there is no psychological depth to apply.
- Two exceptions are offered: Magneto, especially the Fassbender iteration, and Sam Raimi's Dr. Octopus as played by Alfred Molina in the second Spider-Man, good for the opposite reason to Ledger because he is vulnerable, with a story about his wife driving him mad. — Sean Fennessey
- There are only a handful of great villains, Anton Chagru (as transcribed), Hannibal Lecter and the Joker; a great villain thinks he is the hero, which cannot apply to a cartoon Nazi like the Red Skull, while the Joker understands he is the flip side of Batman; Lex Luthor was left on the table, Gene Hackman's version a great movie character if schlocky.
- Taken on its face, Ledger's Joker literally asks the audience why they care about anything, lighting a mountain of money on fire, which pokes at the heroism and financial motivations of these movies.
- Bale is the most interesting Apex question: his only huge non-ensemble success is Batman, Big Short and American Hustle were ensembles and his top-lined films are strange, a couple of Malicks and Scott Coopers; The Fighter is arguably his greatest role, one host personally picks Empire of the Sun though he was a child, and some are partial to American Psycho.
- The vote is American Psycho: he is extraordinarily well suited to that role and not to Bruce Wayne; this host has never liked his Batman, finding many of his choices grating, particularly the voice. — Sean Fennessey
- Does the movie work without Ledger: no. Not being all the way in on Christian Bale, with American Psycho his most interesting and The Fighter his most realized performance, leads to this not being Apex Mountain for him as a performance, though probably as a movie star, a framing that is agreed to.
- American Psycho is also picked, as an investigation of the dark side of the handsome, square-jawed movie-star image, where Bruce Wayne is a blank mirror for the far more interesting Joker; the tonal similarity between Bane's and Bruce's voices is part of why Dark Knight Rises did not resonate.
- Batman might be the hardest role in movies: a performer with any sense of irony cannot play Bruce Wayne, which is why Bale's funny American Psycho turn and Affleck's larded irony are problems; Keaton did a good job and nobody has tried the snappy Adam West version.
- Aaron Eckhart's canon is read out: In the Company of Men, Any Given Sunday, Erin Brockovich (as transcribed, Aaron Brockovich), The Core, Thank You for Smoking, Battle for Los Angeles, President Benjamin Asher in Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen, and Jeff Skiles, Sully's loyal co-pilot.
- Is Harvey Dent Apex Mountain for Eckhart: yes, citing a Twitter meme that one of the great movie moments is Dent not recognizing the Joker in the hospital until the surgical mask comes off, a scene liked a lot, with the comment that it is a good scene for Eckhart too and a huge flex for Ledger, every line of his great; Eckhart is a pretty good actor, a really good number two, and well cast and good here.
- Maggie Gyllenhaal: no, that goes to The Honorable Woman or Secretary, and she is phenomenal in The Deuce.
- Nolan: in terms of cultural impact, yes; whether it is his best movie splits the room among Dunkirk, Inception, and Dark Knight first with Inception second; what he accomplishes even in fits and starts is above almost all his peers, he can be John Ford, Howard Hawks or Spielberg, which is why one host is harder on him than on anyone.
- Does Nolan need a David Coop (as transcribed) or William Goldman to write his scripts, the way Andy Reid needs a time-management coach; his Dark Knight dialogue is more comic-booky than remembered, telling you the theme of each scene, and the set pieces hold the movie up while seams show in the small moments.
- Nolan and Fincher together would be the greatest filmmaker of all time, since Fincher cares about the precision of intimate one-on-one scenes while Nolan's set pieces are incredible but he does not know how two people talk to each other; another host accepts comic-book corniness but finds the plotting of almost all his movies too convoluted for no reason, charming only in Memento.