The cameos are tremendous and feel very 1993: Oliver Stone, Tip O'Neill, Jay Leno, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the McGluffin Group (as transcribed), early Camden Yards two years in, Ben Stein and Paul Simon, not the politician; the only missing piece would be a fake SNL sketch with Phil Hartman doing Kevin Kline, and the movie feels trapped in that year.
The 'if you've ever seen the look on someone's face when they get a job' riff still gets a host; the soundtrack and music are happy and perfect yet completely of a moment, like the score in The Firm, the kind of score nobody writes anymore and which feels stolen for other movies and trailers.
Bob Alexander is a phenomenal bit and an iconic character to be discussed later, and the Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver wedding photo next to the bed is basically their Ice Storm photo before they made The Ice Storm, sideburns included, foreshadowing a movie the hosts all love.
The Kevin Kline and Ving Rhames scenes: Rhames, who later plays Marcellus and the Kiss of Death guy and all these crazy characters, is a straight presence here, and the exchange about his sweaters making his neck look too thick and whether to get a sweater vest is a sweet friendship.
DC itself: the film is said to be one of the only movies that realistically portrays what it's like to drive around Washington, unlike the virtually impossible routes most DC movies take, something the show points out about New York in nitpicks, though it helps that they don't go that many places.
Kevin Kline's performance counts too: he walks a fine tonal line in this that not many people could pull off, basically its own brand of comedy we haven't seen much of.
The cameos are one host's final answer, with the Oliver Stone one singled out as excellent and so funny, and the movie gets out of it quickly so the joke isn't beaten into the ground.
Six nominees are offered, starting with the scene when Dave becomes Mitchell's stand-in, is taught the part, runs into the guy and then goes out and does God Bless America; it has the right dramatic tone and is really fun.
Second is the montage when President Mitchell is feeling better, with the 'I once caught a fish this big' moment, the early-nineties shows like the McGoughlin group (as transcribed) and real senators weighing in, nicely edited and finishing with the first pitch at the Orioles game at Camden Yards, probably shot right before a real game started; third is Dave fixing the budget in four minutes, one of a host's favorite scenes in movie history.
Fourth is Dave firing Bob and giving the speech about his new jobs initiative, which is called a little flimsy and, for the record, a pitch for socialism; fifth is his last speech and the stroke, with the party where everybody leaves, an amazing five minutes.
The 'I would have taken a bullet for you' farewell is made its own scene and is one host's most rewatchable, getting this host every time: two guys reaching that Shawshank beach-hug place, with Ving Ramsey (as transcribed) going from not even eating the sandwich Dave made him to saying he would have taken a bullet; a second voice notes once again listening to the guys talk about men not expressing their emotions.
Another nominee is when Dave and Sigourney Weaver are pulled over by the cops, Dave does the club med routine and they sing Tomorrow; her voice is bad on purpose, the cop flashing the flashlight in Kevin Kline's eyes and the 'I'm okay' keep-singing beat have perfect comedic timing, and a host who basically hates live singing picks it as a favorite scene and sticks with it over the montage despite the arms-up moment on the mound.
The children's homeless shelter visit, Dave sitting down to talk to the little kid and telling the press 'guys, not now', is a nominee but not a pick; it is hokey yet works, you have to be a great actor to keep it from seeming schmaltzy, and Robin Williams would have botched it with handkerchiefs everywhere; a host goes with 'I would have taken a bullet for you', or the four-minute budget fix if the farewell is not considered a scene.
The budget scene is walked through: delinquent defense contracts saving 23 million a month, the need to reach 650 million to save the homeless, the 47 million car marketing campaign to make people feel better about a car they already bought, and the carry-over-the-two 656 finish; the clip of 'I don't want to tell some eight-year-old kid that he's got to sleep in the street' is played, and the cabinet ends up shaking his hand saying 'Mr. President, well done, sir'.
Asked whether balancing the budget could really be this easy if the pork were stripped out of every bill in Congress, the answer is yes but that it sounds like every person on talk radio and you only pick your own causes; cutting money to help the homeless is agreed to be a good thing, there is doubt whether a real campaign to make people feel better about their cars ever existed, and a host whose husband recently got a new car has been performing that service for free, at 47 million emotional dollars.
During the research block, the scene where Dave and the First Lady pose as presidential impersonators, added late in the shoot, is named by a host as their most rewatchable scene.
What happened to Toretto's Market? Did Jesse deserve to die? Was Brian a bad or an atrocious undercover cop? Did the franchise have a deal with Corona? Who joins Letty on the Mount Rushmore of female action heroes? What happened to Leon? What is Mia studying?
What happened to Toretto's Market once the crew was stealing hundreds of millions from Brazil by Fast Five? Who makes the roast beef and buys the tuna; maybe Danny Trejo's uncle character works it, maybe Dom let the lease expire, or the government repossessed it along with the house and the cars.
Did Jesse deserve to die? One host answers no but holds that racing Johnny Tran at Race Wars and driving away gets you shot; the other points out Jesse did not know whom he was racing until the window came down and could not back out, and that Johnny overreacted, trying to kill four people over a car instead of waiting two hours, which is why he cannot be respected despite his own speech about respect.
Was Brian O'Connor a bad undercover cop or an atrocious undercover cop? Bad rather than atrocious, since he at least taught himself to drive at a really high level in the Dodger Stadium lot.
Did they have a deal with Corona, a question raised by Craig the producer and already in the notes? No; a Ringer story by Andrew found the beer was all gratis.
The Letty Mount Rushmore of female action heroes is thrown to the show's Facebook group: Letty is a lock, then Furiosa from Fury Road, Sigourney Weaver in the second Aliens movie (an action movie if Total Recall counts) and Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2, chiseled and doing pull-ups before working out for a movie was cool; an actress may appear only once, so Atomic Blonde is out.
Linda Hamilton's character, prepared for years, still panics and falls to the floor when the Terminator shows up at the hospital, likened to the Halloween remake's forty years of preparation ending in 'you're in my house'.
What happened to Leon, who was part of the family and just did not make it? Nobody could find out, so a theory is built live: every crew member had a specific job, like a basketball team with Dom as James Harden and Vince, the muscle, as PJ Tucker, while Letty makes every other character better; Leon's only job was the scanner, waiting on the sideline during the races.
In the final chase, when Vince is caught up, Leon's is the only car that hangs back listening to the scanner instead of helping, and he goes to get Letty only because Dom's tire is blown; so he was exposed as the most dispensable, dumped from the family, and maybe reassigned to Toretto's Market cutting roast beef and reordering Coronas while the others globetrot and steal billions.
Letty is called a true female action hero and an all-timer, probably on the Mount Rushmore, a question saved for later.
Teased during what aged worst: did Jesse deserve to die, met with an instant no and a promise to mull it over.
At the party after Brian saves Dom, Mia is in her room with a textbook open, clearly studying and maybe taking notes; is she in college, in high school, doing the bookkeeping for Toretto's Market, or studying restaurant management?
Kurt Russell first, with the reminder that the question is the highest point of his career, not the favorite: one case is The Thing in 1982, after Escape from New York and with Silkwood, Swing Shift and Big Trouble in Little China coming; a no is cast because Escape from New York was only later a cult hit, raising whether apex is judged at the time or on reflection.
Reading about Tombstone makes it sound like Russell was able to finance the movie coming off Backdraft, a relatively big hit he starred in, likened to LeBron in the 2018 Finals; a controversial case is made for Tango and Cash, when after the well-liked Tequila Sunrise with Michelle Pfeiffer a hit with Stallone, an absolutely ridiculous movie only those two could pull off, left him looking like an A plus list star.
Tango and Cash was not a huge hit, costing $55 million and making $66 million, though $55 million in 1988 is like $160 million today, and it is not that good; the counter is that it opened up Backdraft and his ability to finance Tombstone; the actual answer may be that there was no apex at all, a range of rolling hills, which is what is cool about his career.
Russell was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Silkwood, which is why his Apex Mountain is around The Thing in 1982 or 1983, when Escape from New York was becoming a cult movie. — Sean Fennessey
Whether Russell was ever Oscar-nominated is disputed, Miracle floated and rejected, until the Silkwood nomination is recalled; the host who forgot it concedes, a 180 the others tease.
Russell could have had a different career as a serious dramatic actor rather than leaning into the masculine hero; he and Harrison Ford are cut from the same cloth, smart throwbacks to Paul Newman charisma, but Ford got two franchises while Russell alternates three good films and three bad; he is also just a good-looking dude, at his most handsome here, a man who should be on a poster.
Val Kilmer: a no, with Top Gun imagined as his apex, since coming out of it people saw him neck and neck with the star, though another calls that the star's movie and goes Heat, where as De Niro's wingman in the biggest mid-90s movie he is the next wave; his pre-Batman run is traced through True Romance, Tombstone, The Real McCoy, Thunderheart and The Doors.
1987 right after Top Gun is floated, when Willow was hopefully going to be his Han Solo and did not work out; one host's personal apex for him is The Doors, where he was out of control, and a Doors rewatchable is wanted, though JFK would have to come first among the Oliver Stone movies.
Jason Priestley is a thousand-percent yes: 90210 was never bigger, he is in a movie with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer and has a couple of heat-check scenes, the steepest mountain of all time, very high with a precipitous drop on either side; a caution that a later show (transcribed 'Natuna') was big for three and a half years does not change the view that this literally was his Apex Mountain and his first dabbling in movies.
Dana Delaney's apex has to be China Beach, which was probably already gone by this point, so she is not a yes; nobody else is proposed except George Cosmatos as ghost director, already covered, with the joke of a Ringer video secretly directed by someone else.
The late Bill Paxton: this is not a Mount Rushmore Paxton performance next to Aliens, Near Dark, One False Move, Weird Science, True Lies and Twister, though it may be his sweetest spot while figuring out how to be Bill Paxton; in Aliens Sigourney Weaver is the hero but Paxton and Biehn would in any other world have been the stars, and One False Move is incredible though arguably Billy Bob's movie too.
Twister was Hollywood's first concerted effort to make Paxton a major star, marketed with Helen Hunt and Philip Seymour Hoffman as people who were going to be stars rather than actual stars; the shift from needing a movie star to needing a tornado, meteor or alien invasion is traced to Speed, where Keanu was the guy and Sandra Bullock turned out to be one of the biggest stars of the next twenty years.
Paxton is one of the all-time great number two or three guys: here he sets picks and makes a couple of corner threes, telling Wyatt he is the one, spits a lot, works the scorer's-table handshakes at the start, and gets the 'hey' when Doc responds to Wyatt's description of his new wife with 'pure as the driven snow'.
