King of New York may win the best-Walken-role contest because he gets to be funny, scary and weird here, unlike The Deer Hunter, and plays a vampire without making it metaphysical.
Apex Mountain is 1990 Walken, setting up Batman Returns about 18 months later and filmmakers writing scenes for him. — Bill Simmons
Fishburne is named: the excitement over him after this movie was never matched; another voice can go with that while citing The Matrix.
Boyz n the Hood is raised as an alternative peak; the Fishburne case says he could have become the greatest actor of his generation after this, building on Apocalypse Now and every film before it.
Searching for Bobby Fisher is joked about as an Apex. — Bill Simmons
The Plaza Hotel is named, compared with its Home Alone appearance; it has to be Apex Mountain. — Bill Simmons
Movie limos are added: 'Let's put it in there.'
Schoolly D is an Apex on screen, no question, though maybe not in his career.
Freddie Jackson is offered, with uncertainty about where he was in his career.
Pre-gentrification Brooklyn is just thrown out. — Sean Fennessey
Snipes's performance reads as Diet Coke Snipes until the end; his one Black cop among white cops is called a purposeful inversion of Walken's white boss with a Black gang.
The account given: Russo, a Ferrara regular since China Girl, was written Jimmy Jump and Caruso the cop to exploit their rivalry from that film, but Russo turned it down rather than let Caruso spit in his face.
Russo is said to have later admitted on Django that turning down the part was idiotic; Fishburne licks the spit and wins that scene.
Casting what-ifs is said to be done already, but more stories are being saved.
Per the account given, four years earlier Ferrara planned the film with James Remar as Frank White after The Cotton Club; later at Live it was to be Harvey Keitel, who backed out to do Bad Lieutenant instead, and then the part went to Walken.
It has to be Walken, with a distancing quality Keitel lacks; it is called the best Walken part of all time, and the whole-movie contest is a three-way dogfight among The Deer Hunter, King of New York and The Funeral.
The limo as an action-movie car; the young New York cast; the Snipes-Caruso buddy-cop movie inside it; The Wire-like structure; Caruso's wedding performance; Walken and the subway muggers; Larry Wong's MSG containers and Nosferatu hang; the hip-hop gangster milieu; 1990 New York
The limo is used as an action-movie car, with Fishburne blasting two guns out of the sunroof and Theresa Randle popping out too; the opening limo is compared to Dracula's driverless coach; Night Shift and Big are mentioned for limo scenes.
The Snipes-Caruso buddy-cop movie buried inside is wanted as a prequel, in the Running Scared world.
The whole structure is basically The Wire: you watch Frank like Barksdale, know every crew member's function, meet the less flashy cops, and root for the bad guys.
A think piece found in research argued the film paved the way for The Shield and The Wire; it was the first of its kind. — Bill Simmons
As in The Shield, the cops' badness is real; Caruso breaks the law intending to kill Frank, which is why you root for Frank White. — Sean Fennessey
Caruso's wedding performance is named a second time, with the toast quoted, including 'The test came back negative' and Roy Bishop's Afro Sheen.
Walken dealing with muggers on the subway is a vestige of 70s and 80s New York movies, with a super-young Harold Perrineau. — Bill Simmons
Larry Wong keeping cocaine in giant MSG containers is a great idea, and his hanging upside down is read as a callback to Nosferatu, with Walken channeling it like a bat.
The hip-hop gangster aspect and the Black and Puerto Rican foot-soldier gang introduced something new to gangster films and set off a dozen similar movies after New Jack City.
1990 New York as a locale and its actors of that moment; it is high-low New York, the Plaza and under the bridge, combining exploitation roots with a beautiful cinematic sense.
Catching all these guys at a cool moment of their careers is another favorite. — Bill Simmons
The phone booth execution at the very beginning is included; the walkthrough starts when Frank leaves his cell and the credits begin.
The Benny character walking through the brothel and being executed in the phone booth is a separate set piece that announces the film's style.
Fishburne's first scene with Buscemi's Test Tube is loved, from the dab of cocaine to 'you ever get the feeling you was being watched', 'You play ball, Tito?', the suitcase of Tampax and 'Room service, motherfuckers!'.
The actor playing Leonard was Sam Jackson's stand-in for years.
Walken's reunion with Fishburne's crew, with 'My feelings are dead', 'I feel no remorse' and a dance somewhere between Fred Astaire and Elvis, is iconic.
Walken playing blackjack with Artie White (as heard) and shooting him is a rewatchable scene; the second round of shots after he is dead tops even Artie White pissing on Calderon's shoes.
The fried chicken arrest scene ('Fuck you very much') is one of Fishburne's three big arias, with his Tito opening and his reunion with Frank; it was filmed in a grim Brooklyn slum neighborhood and is said to be a favorite of the director's.
'I'll slap the black off you' and 'Fuck you very much' were first heard in this movie by one participant, while another had heard the phrases growing up in New York.
The wedding scene and the speech are a huge one, maybe the most Chimino-esque sequence.
Caruso's bar monologue about having to kill Frank White ('My job is to protect the people of this city') is listed; delivering it in front of the bartender may be a tactical mistake because the bartender in a cop bar is always an old cop.
Also listed: the big nightclub shootout with Schoolly D, Fishburne killing Snipes in the rain, and the tail end in the cab.
The Plaza Hotel dinner with the columnists, the lawyer and the beautiful people evokes a New York that maybe never existed, a little Bonfire of the Vanities; Pete Hamill was a participant's grandparents' favorite columnist.
Walken going to see Victor Argo and the line about the country spending a hundred billion a year getting high is added; quotable lines are held for later.
The car chase is called the best action scene, though sloppy: Ferrara is likened to Sam Fuller, all about the moment, and it is obvious the black-haired driver is not Walken.
The 'Am I Black Enough for You' party sequence running into the raid on the compound is proposed as unlike any scene set to a song or use of color seen before.
A second voice had that scene as well, and a third, enamored with Jimmy Jump's introduction, joins 'you guys' because the song is fantastic and it takes you into their world.
Few movies of the time used hip-hop correctly other than Do the Right Thing; Schoolly D is called the godfather of gangster rap from Philly, influencing NWA, and Abel connecting with him shows taste.
Walken killing Caruso at the police funeral is recalled as a missed scene and one of the great shotgun deaths; one voice doubts anyone could get away at a guarded police funeral, while another would not change a frame.
"You have a beautiful home, John."; "Rules. Without them, we live with the animals."; "Mr. Wick. Do enjoy your party."; "This rounds on me. Consider it professional courtesy."; "what have you done"; "someone get this man a gun"; "alright then enjoy your kingdom Winston while you still can"; "I am all seeing and I am all knowing"; "The knife is in your aorta. You pull it out, you will bleed and you will die. Consider this a professional courtesy."
Lines written down: 'You have a beautiful home, John', a foreboding one; 'Rules. Without them, we live with the animals'; 'Mr. Wick. Do enjoy your party' from the sommelier (transcribed 'Somalia') after he walks out with the guns; and 'This rounds on me. Consider it professional courtesy'.
More: 'what have you done' after Santino is shot; McShane has some good ones, as does 'someone get this man a gun' and 'somebody please'; Santino's 'enjoy your kingdom Winston while you still can' met by Winston's 'and you its privileges sir'; the Bowery King's 'I am all seeing and I am all knowing'; and the knife-in-your-aorta speech ending with 'Consider this a professional courtesy'; no single winner is picked, just some good ones.
Addressed as the one who loves overacting most, he wants to go with Santino, who really lays it on thick. — Chris Ryan
Santino's duck fat scene is cited; McShane could be argued, on the theory that he will be in any action movie as long as he wears a nice suit, stays stationary, gives a speech and cashes his check, two pages of dialogue or he is out, but the pick stays Santino.
The counter is that it has to be Fishburne, the most scene-chewing Fishburne in forever, hamming it up with the 'somebody please' line reading, dialed up so far that Forrest Whitaker (as transcribed) would be calling his agent.
The category is brought back for this movie and all three would have ruled: they should all be assassins trying to kill Wick, Buscemi would be a great Continental guy or bartender in the vein of his Miller's Crossing character, Trejo one of the assassins when the first call goes out, and Michael K. Williams could run the Motel 6 empire with Fishburne as the Bowery Prince to his Bowery King.
Body count 116; Keanu trained three months in judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, marksmanship and driving and did 95% of the stunts; the Rome DJ is La Casovania (as transcribed), who scored both films; the back tattoo means fortune favors the brave; 'So I guess you have a choice' echoes the Matrix films; the dog is an American bully; Common has played a contract killer four times; the religious vocabulary; Winston's 11111 order matches JFK's executive order; the Bowery King as the Motel 6 to the Continental's five-star
The body count is put at 116, though it is unclear how anyone counts, since karate chops to the neck leave people down but not obviously dead; the working assumption is that everyone who comes into contact with him dies, which prompts a Game of Thrones aside about Jon Snow's Valyrian sword.
Keanu trained for three months in judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, marksmanship and driving and did 95% of the stunts; the DJ at the Rome party is La Casovania (as transcribed), a favorite who wrote music for both films; the Latin tattooed on his back, 'fortis fortuna adio vet' (as transcribed), means fortune favors the brave, and Keanu's 'So I guess you have a choice' to Fishburne echoes a constant theme of their Matrix trilogy, which one host is not in on.
The dog is an American bully, similar to the Staffordshire bull terrier; Common has played a contract killer four times, including Run All Night in 2015, Smoking Aces and Wanted.
The film is full of religious and biblical terminology: Santino means the little saint, there is a stabbing of the devil in the back, a descent into hell and an excommunicado, and the assassins play like a chivalrous Knights Templar brotherhood.
Winston's order of 11111 at the end is the same number as JFK's June 1963 executive order on obstructions of justice in Alabama, five months before his assassination, which leads to jokes about revealing who killed JFK on minute 48 of a John Wick pod and a request to finally do JFK, perhaps in season four.
The director explained the homeless network as a sub-world: if the Continental is the five-star where rich assassins go, there had to be a Motel 6, which became Fishburne's people.
A lot of candidates; Peter Stormare's Tarasov is a great five minutes at the top, with reactions and everything, a guy who starts at 11 with no warm-up time; Michael Nyquist played Tarasov in the first film and Stormare plays his brother, both Russians played by Swedish actors.
Gianna is one host's pick; Common, in only a couple of scenes, is still in it too much to be Dion, and Fishburne is slightly too much as well; Tarasov is called the definition of a Dion Waiters (transcribed 'demon later'), so over the top for five minutes.
Franco Nero as Julius, manager of the Rome Continental, greets John as an old friend and immediately asks whether he is there to kill the Pope; a larger question is that Gianna's coronation as a mafia boss involves clergy high up in the Vatican, with a cardinal at the club.
The document could have been written without rewatching because the movie is so clearly centered around six scenes; the first is the chop-shop opener where John Wick gets his car back, one of the most intense openings for an action movie, including shooting the giant guy in the kneecaps instead of fighting him, and garages are liked in general; it is called essentially a four-way tie between action scenes.
After he kills Gianna he goes down to the nightclub and finds Common, with the 'you working?' exchange and the stare-down, then runs off the stage shooting people at close range, an action scene unlike any seen before; it is the first real gunplay since the garage was mostly beatings, the house music runs throughout, and the venue is a Roman ruin or outdoor palladium with hundreds of extras.
The cave shootout is liked for one film-nerdy reason: it is clearly an allusion to the sewer chase in The Third Man, one host's favorite movie of all time, though without 900 henchmen shot in the face; he leaves guns around and has thousands of bullets, with the asterisk that henchmen shoot at him point blank from nine or ten feet and miss.
Common versus Wick is made its own scene: hit by the car, the whole fight, and the drink at the Continental; the seven-million-dollar contract going out with attacks everywhere, two people killed with a pencil, the stealth silencer shooting while walking along, the subway concourse into the train and the knife fight; knife fights are underrated, and a bystander would have gotten off the subway after watching ten seconds.
Wick crashing Santino's art gallery is another rewatchable, as is Santino eating duck fat fries at the Continental before being blown away, still shocking after ten viewings; the ending with the hour's head start, everybody stopping in Central Park and the music starting is the last of the six.
Two other nominees: the lead-up to Gianna's death, where she goes into the bathtub saying she lived her life her way, beautifully shot, with the actress identified as Claudia Garini (as transcribed), mostly in Italian work and in Passion of the Christ, which sets off a Peter Gabriel Last Temptation versus Passion mix-up; and the whole Bowery King sequence with Fishburne, the negotiation for a gun, seven bullets for seven million, and the 'somebody, please' line.
Asked for favorites, one host takes the nightclub fight, which took the movie to another level; another goes subway concourse for the hyper, slightly futuristic underworld version of New York, boarding at Lincoln Center and heading south through Tokyo-like concourses, the musician attacking, the silencer fight with Common and the knife left in the aorta as a courtesy; a second voice says that is their pick too, noting the movie calms down after its big set pieces and then dials up again.
The knife fight is great and Common is loved, so a further vote goes to that scene as well.
