In short
“The Mount” launches with a “Mount Rushmore” format: four “faces” chosen per episode for two themes. Episode 1 covers (1) best movie chefs (with Remy as the rat chef from Ratatouille, plus Tampopo’s chef from the film Tampopo, Hannibal Lecter as a chef-like figure from Hannibal, and Jon Favreau’s Chef/Carl Casper from Chef) and (2) best life-or-death scene at a precarious height, discussed via examples like North by Northwest (meta “Mount Rushmore on Mount Rushmore”), Cliffhanger, Gandalf’s fall/landing in The Lord of the Rings, Mission: Impossible Fallout (Ethan Hunt on a cliff edge), plus references to Die Hard, Superman saving Lois Lane, and other height-fear-inducing sequences.
Guests
Chris Hewitt (host), John Ugent, Ben Travis, James Dyer.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOConcept of The Mount
0:45 to 2:41
The hosts explain the show's format and introduce the first topic.
“And we've been doing a, we're not alone in this.”
First Topic: Best Movie Chefs
2:41 to 3:18
The hosts discuss the topic suggested by Eddie Hamilton: Best movie chefs.
“than editor extraordinaire Eddie Hamilton who slid into my Instagram DMs the editor of course of several Mission Impossible movies, Top Gun, Maverick, The First Kingsman, all sorts of stuff.”
Remy from Ratatouille
3:18 to 5:12
The first suggested movie chef is Remy from Ratatouille, leading to a lively discussion.
“Now, there's probably one obvious answer for this.”
Tampopo and Other Chefs
5:12 to 7:40
John introduces Tampopo as a significant movie chef, leading to further comparisons.
“And he's gone for Remy the Rat from Ratatouille.”
Hannibal Lecter: Gourmet Chef
7:40 to 10:11
The discussion shifts to Hannibal Lecter, exploring his culinary skills in film.
“but I just can't get on with the tea-stained egg.”
Chef and Its Impact
10:11 to 12:11
Hosts discuss the film Chef and its portrayal of food and cooking.
“I mean, if we're opening this to TV, which, by the way, we're fucking not.”
Finalizing the Mount Rushmore
12:11 to 14:00
The hosts conclude their selections for the Mount Rushmore of movie chefs.
“Because Chef Avro actually learned how to chef, didn't he?”
Exploring Movie Chefs for Mount Rushmore
14:00 to 15:48
Discussion on iconic movie chefs and their contributions to cinema.
“There's a Cuban sandwich at the end of that movie, I think it is.”
Life or Death Scenes at Heights
15:48 to 17:46
Analysis of memorable life-or-death scenes in films set at high altitudes.
“This comes from fear.dorcha underscore C.”
Falling in Film: Iconic Sequences
17:46 to 21:08
Discussion about iconic falling sequences in films and their impact.
“So are these scenes that make you feel that way?”
Show all 15 chapters
Climbing and Precarious Heights in Movies
21:08 to 24:42
Exploration of films that feature climbing on precarious ledges and the fear they invoke.
“It's almost exactly what I'm talking about of, you know, it felt like it is actually Clint Eastwood doing that stunt.”
Final Choices for the Mount Rushmore
24:42 to 28:03
Final discussion on choices for the Mount Rushmore of film moments involving heights.
“The idea was, yes, of course, Alan Ritten was up there.”
Discussion on the Show's Conclusion
28:03 to 28:24
The hosts reflect on the end of the first episode of the Mount Rushmore.
“This format is collapsing before it's even begun.”
Audience Engagement and Future Topics
28:24 to 29:18
Hosts discuss audience suggestions for future topics and encourage interaction.
“They're not famously litigious, being as they are lumps of rock.”
Final Goodbyes and Closing Remarks
29:18 to 30:27
The hosts say their goodbyes and thank the audience for listening.
“iconic Jews and or fictional sports, needle drops, best use of pop, rock song and a fight scene and someone I will spare them the ignominy of having their name read out on the show has just simply said, I've no Willie.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:15Chris Hewitt:Hello pod, I'm Chris Hewitt and welcome to the first episode of a brand new show that we're calling to avoid being sued, The Mount. Imagine being sued by a mountain, that'd be wild. Do you get sued by the four individual faces? I guess you do. Because there's a famous mountain, isn't there? There's a famous mountain in America, and it's called Mount Rushmore. And on it are carved the faces of four U.S. presidents, giant faces of four U.S. presidents. Don't ask me the name who's on there. And we've been doing a, we're not alone in this. A lot of people do Mount Rushmore shows where we discuss topics, and we come up with our own Mount Rushmore of whatever that topic is.
0:59Chris Hewitt:And now that the Empire Plus paywall is up and running, we've decided to bring the Mount Rushmore format to the Empire Plus channel. But we're going to call it the Mount so that I don't get sued by the giant face of Thomas Jefferson. That's fair. I think that makes sense. So in this first show, I'm joined by two colleagues of such lethal cunning. John Ugent is here. Hi, Chris. Ben Travis is here. I have asked for your Mount, the Mount suggestions on Instagram. And I couldn't have rushed more to answer your call. And you have sent in, I'm not kidding, hundreds of ideas. So that's exciting. We'll be doing a Mount Rushmore, the Mount show every single month.
1:48Chris Hewitt:There'll be one episode a month on Empire Plus. And we're going to tackle two topics in each episode. That is the plan as things stand. Could be open to change. We don't know. But right now, we have two topics. How it's going to work is we're all going to choose one each. And then at the end of that topic, we're going to come together and choose a collective example. So we're going to have four faces ultimately on Mount Empire Moore, which is what I'm calling it now to avoid being sued even more. are you sure there's copyright on a mountain? it might be copyrighted, I don't know I mean I see Mount Rushmore everywhere you know, like the people are oh the Mount Rushmore footballers Mount Rushmore of this, Mount Rushmore of that so it's probably fine but at the same time I'm just a little skittish alright, so the first topic gentleman has been suggested by none other than editor extraordinaire Eddie Hamilton who slid into my Instagram DMs the editor of course of several Mission Impossible movies, Top Gun, Maverick, The First Kingsman, all sorts of stuff.
2:58Chris Hewitt:Oscar winning? Not yet. Okay. Not yet. Way to rub it in, John. Yeah. And it is his, and Eddie's topic was best editors who have not yet won an Oscar. No, of course not. He has suggested a whole bunch of stuff. The one I've chosen, movie chefs. Best movie chefs. Now, there's probably one obvious answer for this. So who's going to say it? Well, shall I as somebody with an interest in animation from a particular studio and subsections of studios? We're all thinking Remy, right? Yeah. We're saying the first face on Mount Rushmore is not a human. It's a rat. It's a rat. Okay, but here's the thing. Is it or is it the...
3:46Chris Hewitt:What's the kid's name in Ratatouille? Linguini. It's not Linguini. Linguini has no talent of his own. But wouldn't you like to see his face with the giant chef's hat on Mount Rushmore? You could have Linguini and Remy. Okay, so Linguini's face, but it's Remy on top holding strands of hair to do the ratatouille-ing. Yes. Yes, although obviously the outcome of that film is that the rats have their own restaurant, and it's the best restaurant in Paris. and I have eaten at that restaurant. It exists in Disneyland Paris, Bistro Chez Remy, which is, I mean, the food is not great. What's the health rating in that place?
4:25Don't ask her. But they deck the restaurant out as if you are rat-sized in a rat restaurant. So all the chairs are like the little twiddly bits
4:34Chris Hewitt:from champagne corks turned into seats and the umbrellas are like cocktail umbrellas and stuff. It's very fun. Remy has incredible skill he cooks the most delicious looking ratatouille as somebody who doesn't even like ratatouille I would eat that dish I don't like ratatouille really? I know I'll eat it if it's made by a Michelin star rat but I don't know if I would necessarily choose it in a restaurant and I don't know if it would trigger in me the same kind of flashback that Anton Ego has Jimbo what do you think about this? oh shit James Dyer is here oh my god James Dyer is here yeah I wouldn't eat ratatouille
5:16John Nugent:not voluntarily you'd have to force feed it to me
5:18Chris Hewitt:alright James you've changed the rules of what I'm now calling the mount to avoid being sued by a mountain
5:23John Nugent:oh ok
5:24Chris Hewitt:the mount welcome to the first episode of the mount right yeah do you like it no ok because there's now four of us here we all get to choose one each we were going to come together and do a collective fourth but now we don't need to so Ben has suggested in case you weren't aware is Movie Chefs.
5:41John Nugent:Oh, okay. That was good information. I didn't know that coming in. And he's gone for Remy the Rat from Ratatouille. However, I did that initially in the spirit of we were going to say the obvious one and then maybe add some additional thoughts. I mean, I do back Remy with my whole heart. He's a great chef. We see that through the course of the film. He knows all the flavors. He knows just what to add into the dishes to make them sing. He's like Paulie from Goodfellas. Right. Slicing the garlic real thin. I imagine Remy with a razor blade. slicing garlic. I can go a very different way. I mean, you might liquefy in the pan and that's not what you want.
6:15I mean, I will happily put Remy forward as my choice. I do have other thoughts and suggestions. All right. Hopefully we'll get to discuss.
6:23Chris Hewitt:Well, let's see. Let's see what happens here. Let's give James some thinking time. Thank you. I appreciate that. John. Yeah. Hit me with the chef. If you say the chef I'm thinking of, I will scream because I can't think of anyone else. Chef. Well, yes. I know the next most obvious answer is the film chef. Fuck! But I'm not going to go there. The chef from the movie Chef. Shit! I think it was called The Buster. Couldn't slow down. No, my pick is Tampopo. Oh, what a film. I'm going to Japan. Tampopo, if you've not seen it, is a fantastic Japanese film from the 80s. Yes. And it's basically all about making the perfect bowl of ramen.
7:05and Tan Popo is the name of the chef who opens her own ramen restaurant and it honestly will make you want to eat ramen for the rest of your life. It's one of the best food films I've ever seen. Yeah, simple as that. Tan Popo.
7:22Chris Hewitt:Tan Popo. Get her up there. Tan Popo from Tan Popo. And not controlled by a rat that we know of? No, I think she can do it without the assistance of a rat. I mean, I think everything would be improved with a rat, obviously. Where do we all stand on a tea-stained egg? Because I really enjoy a bowl of ramen, but I just can't get on with the tea-stained egg. Maybe that's just me. I don't know. I like a tea-stained egg. I quite like the eggs that have been soaked in soy sauce or something like that, you know, and then they've gone a bit dark. Juicy. I've looked it up, by the way, and a rat's life expectancy is no more than four years.
8:05Chris Hewitt:Oh, sweet God. Remy cut down in his prime. But all the more reason to be immortalized forever on the side of a mountain. Yeah. That we shall not name. Imagine the health inspector going to that restaurant. There's a dead rat on the floor and they're all in tears going, we know he was the chef. I'm going to close this restaurant down. We're closing anyway. Wow. Ratatouille 2 is looking more and more unlikely. Yeah, don't get attached to animated animals. They will die very, very quickly. Jimbo, you had a time to think? Oh, sure.
8:38John Nugent:I've had time to Google things. If you say the chef from Chef now, and fuck it, Chris, who can forget the chef from Chef? Like, it's in the name. I don't know where to start. Chef Chelios. Very good.
8:52Chris Hewitt:He made bread. He got better. He did.
8:55John Nugent:I feel like I need to do something slightly different. So my first thought on this was like Annabeth Gish and Cameron Diaz from, do you remember the 1995 film The Last Supper? I do remember it, Cameron Diaz. They invite people over, they feed them a nice meal, and then murderize them. Yes. Yes. So any one of those, because apparently the food was great, right? Yes. But actually, honestly, in terms of presentation and a certain je ne sais quoi, I would say Hannibal Lecter. But not Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter. That's a good call. I would go with Mads Mikkelsen's Hannibal Lecter from the Pro Film TV show.
9:33John Nugent:No, no, no. No, no, no. Stay with me. Stay with me. Because if you go with Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, other than Ray Liotta's brain, we actually don't see him prepare an awful lot in the way of sort of gourmand-worthy cuisine. Whereas in the TV show, it's basically pornography. It is food porn. The effort he gets is beautiful. It's absolutely stunning. And yes, obviously, some of it is made of human flesh. But it looks beautiful. Beautiful. The thing is, if we were inviting TV, then obviously the bear from the bear goes with the rat from Ratatouille and the chef from Chef from the bear.
10:05Because would it be Kami or would it be Sid? I think it's Sid. I don't know if we're doing, if there's a spoiler for season five, but it's Sid's Coca-Cola ribs.
10:15John Nugent:His toxic ribs are great.
10:18Chris Hewitt:I haven't seen season five yet. Chef Sid makes Coca-Cola ribs. He does. That look, they're just jaw-dropping. I mean, if we're opening this to TV, which, by the way, we're fucking not. It would open up a world of possibilities. Masterchef does not count. Masterchef very, very much counts. But we're not going to go there. But I do think Hannibal Lecter is a good idea because he does. He makes, you know, he does a lot of stuff with sweet bread. He does. Fava beans.
10:50John Nugent:Yeah, he eats a guy's liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Which is ridiculous because everyone knows a Merlot goes with liver.
10:56Chris Hewitt:I'm not drinking fucking Merlot. And of course, he does make Radiota's brain look very, very appetizing. Yeah. Like a little bento box. Yeah. Not a lot of seasoning, but just fries it gently. A little bit of oil. Very nice. Yeah. I think that's pretty nice. That would be pretty, pretty good. Does Babette do a lot of chefing in Babette's Feast? Because that's again, that's a kind of food porn kind of movie. But I can't look beyond Jon Favreau's chef in Jon Favreau's chef, who's the best chef in any Jon Favreau movie, even more so than six-armed Martin Scorsese in The Mandalorian and Grogu. That movie is, I just, I can rewatch it a lot.
11:43Chris Hewitt:And the food that he makes in that film just looks sumptuous. Even a cheese sandwich. I do not like cheese sandwiches.
11:49John Nugent:Well, the grilled cheese is supposed to be his greatest achievement. Yeah. Because I remember when we were doing the Mandalorian TV show, and there was a possibility at one point that I was doing a Fav's interview, and they said, are you available? Would you be able to go to Fav's house and have lunch with him? What the fuck? No way. So just to be clear, you want me to go to Chef's house with Chef and have one of his grilled cheese? Fuck yes! And it didn't happen.
12:12Chris Hewitt:Because Chef Avro actually learned how to chef, didn't he? He did. with Roy Choi and one of the best things that Chef the movie gave us is the Chef show that was on Netflix for a couple of seasons that was just Jon Favreau and Roy Choi cooking and making things then often with other famous people from projects that Favreau was involved in there's one while they were shooting Infinity War and Endgame where it's like him and Roy Choi and the Russos and Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Holland all having dinner together there's one where him and Robert Rodriguez make pizzas together when they should have really been sharpening up the Book of Boba Fett.
12:53They're at Skyrocker Ranch using ingredients farmed on the ranch. The Book of Boba Fett needed more seasoning,
12:58Chris Hewitt:I think. Yeah, that's a great show. I think Chef is such a great film. I think it's Favreau's best film by some distance. And I just love watching it. There's so much going on there. By the way, before I've got a couple more thoughts about Chef, there's some stuff in that film that just looks absolutely delicious. But I saw recently there was a video online of Chris Walken, Christopher Walken, doing some sort of cooking video as well. He did a cooking video years ago, if you remember. There was one where he shows you how to prepare a chicken. But it's an Italian thing, an Italian food thing, where he's on the streets of New York at a restaurant with Julian Schnabel, the director of Basquiat.
13:44and they're basically then cooking food
13:48Chris Hewitt:and sharing food tips. It's online. It's really, really bizarre, but really, really great as well. But yes, chef, it's not just a cheese sandwich. There's this spaghetti dish or the pasta dish with which he seduces Scarlett Johansson. There's the ribs that he makes. Then, of course, there's his signature. There's a Cuban sandwich at the end of that movie, I think it is. All of it. I had a chicken stuffing sandwich from Sainsbury's for lunch and this is bad for me to talk about. You don't want to try Christopher Wilkins' carbonara
14:16John Nugent:because he makes it in an unconventional way. How does he make it? To my eyes fall. To the cream. I turn it as a butter. Oh, no.
14:28Chris Hewitt:So there you go. All right, so on our Mount Rushmore of movie chefs, do we have Remy the Rat from Ratatouille? Is he holding on to Ninguini's head or is he not? I think he, yes, he can be on Ninguini's head as long as it's clear that the chef being featured is Remy and not Linguini. Yeah, all right. Well, just maybe we'll do the top of Linguini's head. So it's just like the forehead with the hair. We can acknowledge his contribution, but Remy is the main chef. Does Remy control Linguini for other things? Oh, I don't like where this is going.
15:03John Nugent:Feels like we're straying into Raccacuni territory. Oh, yeah, we could have had that in here as well.
15:09Chris Hewitt:Yeah, we could have had. Thanks to Mr. Krabs from Spongebob. We could have had an entire Animal Chefs lineup. So we have Remy. We have Tampopo from the film Tampopo. We have Hannibal Lecter played by... Dr. Hannibal Lecter. Played by Matt Mickelson. Played by Anthony Hopkins on the mount, which is good. And then we have Jon Favreau's chef, whose real name is Carl in the film, Carl Casper. But everyone thinks of him as chef. All right. Yes, chef. That's a good one. Yes, indeed. Yes, chef. Hands corner behind. One more topic to tackle now. This comes from fear.dorcha underscore C. Best life or death scene at a precarious height.
15:59Chris Hewitt:So, therefore, I think inspired by the idea that we're on the Mount, not Mount Rushmore. So, we're high up. We're high up on Mount Rushmore. so movies in which people are clinging on to life for dear life or maybe they're falling to their deaths uh oh I mean I immediately turned to North by Northwest just because Mount Rushmore is at the front of my mind I don't know how that works do you put a Mount Rushmore on Mount Rushmore? I want that I want the four faces of Mount Rushmore squished as one face of Mount Rushmore yeah yeah yeah Yeah, with Cary Grant just sort of hanging precipitously off, is it Lincoln's nose or something?
16:44Is that what he does?
16:44Chris Hewitt:I think it's Trump's quiff. Trump's quiff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, great. That's a very, very good choice. John, straight in there with a bullet. Mount Rushmore, on Mount Rushmore. James, do you have one?
Read the full transcript
16:58John Nugent:Well, obviously I'm leaning towards cliffhanger because that feels like the obvious one. So I want to do something slightly different. If we're falling off mountains, technically, technically falling onto a mountain should also count. So I'm going to say Gandalf at the bridge of Khazad-dum because he falls into a canyon under the earth but he lands on the top of a snowy peak. He has been falling for 30 minutes. Which is arguably the best falling sequence. But yeah, so I'm going to say Gandalf. So would you be specifically, if you're picking a film, are you picking Two Towers? This is Return of the King.
17:34John Nugent:oh I see what you've got me on technicality but I think you have to say he does it in Fellowship and even though we don't see it properly until Two Towers it happens in Fellowship yes he falls in Fellowship and then it's flashback exactly so I think it's still even though it appears in Two Towers it's technically Fellowship falling with style falling with style the Loki one is very good though
17:58Chris Hewitt:I've been falling for 30 minutes are these scenes sort of make you feel quite queasy I've got a crippling fear of heights. So are these scenes that make you feel that way? Or do you just think about...
18:10John Nugent:Well, I mean, if you're talking free solo then at that point, isn't it? Where your heart is in your throat. Even though you know he's alive. Right, exactly. But you can't believe that he could possibly be alive. Yeah. That's genuinely upsetting. Yeah. Yeah, if we're going by films that have left me sweaty palm-iest, if that is a word.
18:30Chris Hewitt:Knees weak. Palms are sweaty. Yeah. Mum's spaghetti. Mum's spaghetti. Mum's spaghetti. That was the chef course. Mum's spaghetti aglio e oilio. Fall really actually made me... I mean, it's a silly, silly film, but that is a very precipitous height, and basically the entire film is spent like a thousand feet up or whatever it is. And they do an incredible job of situating you with those characters up there. Like the whole tower is wobbling. You constantly have like the creaking and groaning of the tower and bolts, shots of like rattling bolts that are going to fall out at any minute. I think the one demerit for fall is that it's all very obviously shot in the soundstage.
19:18Chris Hewitt:And it's all, there's quite a lot of pretty bad CG. And from what I've seen of fall too, that seems to be also going down the same route. I get it. They're low budget movies. You can't afford to endanger actors. I understand that. but I do like it when you actually have actors whether it's you know whether you're face replacing or whether you're doing very very clever things with camera angles where you actually have actors climbing shit and feeling at least like they're endangering themselves like Harold Lloyd in Safety Last I mean that is just to this day it's just the primo one right because even something like Cliffhanger if you go back and rewatch the opening of Cliffhanger which I did recently and they did go out and they did shoot a lot of that for real but when the actress at the end of that sequence falls obviously they couldn't do that so it's a soundstage and it's pretty shonky back projection.
20:20Chris Hewitt:Harold Lloyd, yes there was safety procedures in place and he wasn't quite as high up as you think he is, but he was still kind of risking quite a lot by being up there. You know, Cruise has done the same
20:32John Nugent:for a lot of the things that he's been doing. Well, I was going to say, we have to mention Cruise, don't we? Because Mission Impossible 2 is an objectively not good film, but the climbing sequence in that is great. And the only reason I mention that is because he is climbing a rock formation, whereas if we're going to talk Ghost Protocol, the Burj Khalifa is not a mountain, but it is a very cool sequence. And the great thing with the Burj Khalifa as well is you have him slamming into the glass, the gloves are failing and slipping and falling i think i would like to choose a mission movie for my mount rush for this all right and i actually love mission impossible 2 but i'm not going to pick mission impossible 2 and i'm not picking the burj khalifa either i am i'm not sucking up to eddie hamilton but i'm picking mission impossible fallout because the end of fallout that fight against henry cavill on the cliff edge seeing that i was so heart and mouth and you know they're not gonna kill ethan hunt and yet the danger in that sequence the sheer adrenaline of that battle and how far they push you to the edge of that sequence and like squeeze every last drop to me if you're talking like precipitous edges that is where my brain immediately went and so i think of all the Tom Cruise climby clingy help me stuff Fallout I think is my number one
21:54Chris Hewitt:yeah that's a great one I mean there's a lot of great movies a lot of great sequences where people are climbing on very very thin ledges and that sort of thing gets me a bit wobbly and sometimes if you can do a shot where you can get an overhead of your actor and the street below many many many levels below then that always gets me vertigo is one I think we should mention here as well something like there's a weird sequence in Clint Eastwood's or Wolfgang Peterson's more accurately in the line of fire which takes place on the edge of a building where they're chasing John Malkovich Dylan McDermott and Clint Eastwood are chasing John Malkovich over these rooftops and there's a leap that they try to make and there's a great shot of Eastwood doesn't quite Mike make it, and Malkovich, who's the baddie, grabs him and holds on to him.
22:52Chris Hewitt:And it was a great shot from above. It's almost exactly what I'm talking about of, you know, it felt like it is actually Clint Eastwood doing that stunt. And the street's only like 80 feet below, but that would still squish you, right? That would still ruin your day. So things like that, as someone who has a genuine crippling fear of heights, is the kind of thing that occurs to me. something like there's that great shot in the Shawshank Redemption where Clancy Brown as the as Byron Hadley the dreadful prison guard when they're what do they do they're tarring the roof that's right yeah and do you trust your wife Andy Dufresne says yeah how much do you trust your wife and he goes this punk's about to have him as of an accident and he walks him off to the edge he's about to throw him off the edge of the prison again only about what three four stories but still enough to ruin your day and uh it's just an amazing shot where uh it's obviously frank d 'arbonne directing and roger deakins who's the the dp on that one and i think they had a rig they built a rig so the camera goes out beyond uh where um where clancy brown and tim robbins were and they're literally right on the roof obviously they have safety harnesses and whatnot in place but you don't know it at the point and the camera goes out beyond them to really sell the height of how far the drop is and that gets me every time as well i'm i'm thinking of going back to harold lloyd in this one i think i really i think i really am on this the only other one that i might go for is in the original dick donner's superman you got me who's got you which uh you know a lot of these are about people falling to their deaths and this is one in which someone gets saved.
24:41Chris Hewitt:So I don't know, maybe I'll go for that one which is obviously where Lois Lane is falling from a malfunctioning helicopter on the Daily Planet building and it's the first appearance in the movie of Chris Reeve as Superman and he flies up to save her and grab the helicopter as well. Although that bit comes later. She looks down at him and he says, it's alright miss, I've got you and she goes you've got me who's got you and it's just absolutely incredible I have a Tokyo Sexwell illustration of that in my office it's so maybe for that reason I'm going to go for that sorry Harold
25:18John Nugent:I think whoever we have engraved on Mount Rushmore you need a little Tom Cruise hanging off the nose of one of them and then a little Hans Gruber falling down the front oh I was about to say have you not picked Die Hard yet yeah what's wrong with you I know you've got to have Gruber tell a story about that that shot for people who don't know it. The idea was, yes, of course, Alan Ritten was up there. They were going to drop him onto some mats, not actually off a building, because, you know, insurance wouldn't have covered that. And they were like, right, we're going to go on three and drop. And so he's genuinely like, what the fuck?
25:48John Nugent:Because he's falling, which is why the acting is so on point, because the man is shitting himself. And it's genius. It's amazing.
25:56Chris Hewitt:All right, so what did we choose, John? What was your choice again? North by Northwest. All right, so we're putting Mount Rushmore up on Mount Rushmore,
26:02John Nugent:which is good. That's very meta. James, what was yours? You know, I'd love to say Gandalf, but I think I am going to go with Alan Rickman for falling. I don't think you can call it climbing, but we seem to have moved beyond the original question at this point, so we're no longer on mountains. We're just up in the air, however we are. It was a mountain. Was it anyone who's asked to fight? Precarious fight. I mean, the Nakatomi Plaza definitely qualifies as a precarious fight.
26:26Chris Hewitt:How many stories is Nakatomi Plaza?
26:29John Nugent:Oh, this is information I should know. 60-odd? 50-odd? I don't know. They say, don't they? Yeah, they do say. I can't remember off the top of my head.
26:36Chris Hewitt:Isn't the tagline something like 58 stories of pure adventure or something like that? Something like that, yeah. All right, so Hans Gruber with his hair flopping around.
26:45John Nugent:Yeah, but with Tom Cruise hanging off his nose. But isn't Cruise going to be on it already? I don't know. Are you putting Cruise on? Yeah, I'm doing Mission Impossible Fallout. Do we want, I guess we don't want the cliff from Mission Impossible Fallout to be the thing carved into the rock face. We want Cruise. Yes, Cruise.
27:03Chris Hewitt:But then Cruise can hang off Cruise. He could. He should. He must. Yeah.
27:09John Nugent:Suspended like that. Like doing that, like, yeah, Mission Impossible 2. Yeah, yeah. This is an audio medium, but I love the fact that you're gesticulating. Well, you know. Crucifix pose. Yes.
27:17Chris Hewitt:Yeah. He's doing the full JC. So TC's doing JC. So Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2 is hanging off the nose of Tom Cruise from Mission Impossible 6. Yeah, that works. Or he's at least hanging between the mini Mount Rushmore carved onto the Mount Rushmore and the Tom Cruise representing Mission Impossible Fallout. And in between them, he's doing the Crucifix pose. On the mini Mount Rushmore that is on Mount Rushmore, are all the other Mount Rushmore choices already on that Mount Rushmore? So the mini Mount Rushmore has Remy the rat, the chef from Chef. No, I didn't mean that Mount Rushmore. I meant this Mount Rushmore.
27:55But that's a good idea. I'm so lucky.
27:58Chris Hewitt:Basically, I think we can get four Tom Cruises onto this Mount Rushmore. I support that. This format is collapsing before it's even begun. I think we've reached a precarious height. And then last but not least, I'm putting Superman and Lois Lane up there as well. So, there we go. Okay. Done. A successful end, I think, to the first episode of the Mount Rushmore, which is very, very exciting. Can we be super mountain, Jimbo? No, no.
28:26John Nugent:They're not famously litigious, being as they are lumps of rock.
28:29Chris Hewitt:but they are represented by people who are famously litigious yeah but they're carved
28:33John Nugent:into stone
28:34Chris Hewitt:this is true is it? I don't know probably I agree with that so readily it is true this is true yes it is very very very true anyway I hope you enjoyed it if you want to suggest more things more topics for us to discuss in future episodes of the mount or Mount Rushmore or whatever it is I end up calling this show I am on Instagram ctah1976 slide into my DMs on that. We have loads to tide us over for the next few episodes but keep them coming because you never know something might just appeal to us. But anyway in the meantime all that remains is to say goodbye to someone someone just said I've no willy.
29:14Chris Hewitt:I'm just looking at some of the questions here and there's obviously people going films about filmmaking Mount Rushmore corporations, companies iconic Jews and or fictional sports, needle drops, best use of pop, rock song and a fight scene and someone I will spare them the ignominy of having their name read out on the show has just simply said, I've no Willie. Now, I don't know if that was meant to be an insult aimed at me. Is that a Father Ted quote? Yeah, I don't know. But, you know, or maybe they were saying that I have no Willie. Or maybe they're just oversharing. I don't really know. Maybe that's a topic.
29:46Chris Hewitt:Is that a new spinoff podcast? Chris reads DMs? And it tries to decipher them. What does this person mean? I've no Willie. Anyway. slide it in by DMs and send us more topic suggestions and we will tackle them in due course all that remains now is to say goodbye to my three colleagues of such a lethal kind goodbye Ben goodbye I'm still sad we didn't get the Swedish chef on the chef's list oh my fucking god we can re-record we should re-record
30:22goodbye John goodbye goodbye James
30:25Chris Hewitt:goodbye Chris and it's goodbye from me. I've no Willie? Thanks for listening. See you next time. Bye.
From the publisher
Empire+ subscribers, rejoice! For here is the first episode of a brand-new show, which takes a popular format from the regular Empire Podcast and gives it its own platform. A platform shaped suspiciously like a famous mountain in America. You know, the one with loads of faces on it. That one. Anyway, we're calling this show The Mount, and in it Chris Hewitt is joined by Ben Travis, John Nugent and, eventually, James Dyer to tackle a string of film-related topics and discuss which giant filmic faces they'd like to see up on that mount. In this episode, the topics are Movie Chefs and Movies Involving Precipitous Heights, and if you have a topic you'd like to see the team tackle, slide into Chris' DMs on Instagram, where he's ctah1976. For now, though, enjoy this first episode of The Mount!