Posted by Anthony in HAWPcast on July 26th, 2010
Leave him alone, lady. He just wants to watch television.
We recorded a new HAWPcast, and you can watch it here.
There are SPOILERS for Inception and Shutter Island. If you’re worried about that sort of thing, just skip to the twenty minute mark and you’ll be fine. Probably. Unless I’ve forgotten something.
Which I likely have.
Either way, this episode is about Inception and great fictional villains. Hope you enjoy it.
Anthony and Ashly Burch are writers and game critics who make surreal videos in their spare time. The videos aren't that bad.
Rev Rants: Every week, sort of, Anthony discusses games and gamer culture in this Destructoid video series (now defunct).
Anthony Burch on Destructoid: In addition to creating video content, Anthony used to write some awesome stuff for Destructoid.com.
Video Game Flicks: Over at AMC's blog, Anthony writes about videogames, movies, and videogame movies. Updates every other Tuesday.
Occasionally, Ashly acts in other stuff, like the movie Donna.
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© 2010 Hey Ash LLC.
All Rights Reserved.
Handmade by Hugs For Monsters.
Pecked by an Odd Looking Bird.
WHERE DID YOU FIND THIS FUCKING AMAZING PICTURE OF JGL
He just don’t give a FUCK.
I am more partial to younger JGL, though this is full of awesome.
Through a quick Google adventure, this was apparently part of a GQ photoshoot. I found a set (but probably not the full set) here:
http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/21763744.html
fapfapfapfapfap
I concur. JGL continues to be the fucking man. Brick. The man. Photoshoot with Claudia Schiffer? The man. **SPOILERALERT** That scene in inception, in the lobby? Using a time of crisis to make a move? The fucking man. **ENDSPOILERALERT**
SPOILERS FOR MY POST YO!
this may be a bit long, I haven’t adequately geeked out about Inception yet.
First off, I totally made the comparison to Ocean’s 11 too, but I saw it like Ocean’s 11 + The Matrix divided by Memento, just really awesome and kinda heady but also very bleak at times. I sorta justified us not seeing more cool dream-like shit like the city folding because everyone had a very serious mindset. Pulling off the job was srs bizness and there would’ve been dangers in fantastical shit from the projections and whatnot. Really dug the ending, it leaves it open to the viewer and I think it was better to end that way, knowing Leo’s character was in another dream would’ve made me sad and the spinning/wobbling top does justice to both ideas but feels right at the same time. I think the idea that Moll was right is cool but that would’ve been a cheap sort of twist that you know is coming, I felt that way right off the bat.
That’s pretty much it except I gotta point out that this is one of the sexiest cast ensembles ever. As if Leo and Jospeh weren’t enough, Ellen Page was smokin and then Gillam shows up looking super handsome and not batshit crazy for once, fucking win.
and I believe the Joker totally eats a samich and Dent’s party.
The Joker may never eat a sandwich, but he is comically eating hors d’oeuvres throughout the beginning of that fundraiser scene you mentioned. including during the specific look you praised.
AHA!
I knew he was munching on something, also
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/8593/joker1nb5xt9.gif
can someone help me post that so you don gotta click on it, I am not savvy
BOOM!
So how does it feel to have been so influenced by Brad Nicholson?
***Inception Spoilers***
Food for thought, there is a theory galloping round the tubes that Mal was attempting to commit inception on Cobb – all the ‘projections’ of her were really her picking her moments, trying to convince him of what she knew when she jumped – it really was a dream. Don’t ask me to reconcile the totems or the scene transitions with this theory, downgrading it to a hypothesis actually, the idea just intrigued me.
On more concrete ground, a pretty strong visual argument for the end and the non-dream bits being true reality is Cobb’s wedding ring – if you watch, in the dreams he’s wearing it, but he isn’t in ‘reality’, including the final scene.
Spoilers for Inception
In the theater I saw Inception in everyone had reactions. At the end the whole audience simultaneously went “Awwwwwwww!” And at the part where Leo meets Ken as an old guy some dude yelled “OH SHIT!” at the top of his lungs.
The Daily Mail is a right wing newspaper that thinks Britain’s problems come from an influx of minorities. A good description of them would be this fantastic mock up of their front page when Obama became president:
http://www2.b3ta.com/host/creative/49722/1225847832/dailymailfrontpage.jpg
The Daily Star is. Er. Ok. When you try to go to a missing page on their website, you get a picture of a naked woman and the message “oops, page cannot be found, why not try our babes section!” That is the Daily Star.
I am 99% positive that you did the Engerlbert Humperdink conversation on a previous HAWPCast. Either that, or I am fucking psychic and I am doing the lottery RIGHT NOW.
Zombies need to digest meat as they eat people, so the difference between a zombie and a skeleton would be the disgusting innards used to process the meat of the freshly munched upon.
PSYCHIC UPDATE.
I am not psychic. I am now down £100.
I blame you lot for this.
Ditto on the Firefly comment. What pisses me off even more is that Fox decided to go, “OK. Dollhouse gets a reroll and a respective 2nd Season.” But not Firefly.
I’m going to attempt to put a reason to the insanity behind the reactions to the Gears of War episode: gayness triggers a lot of very strong opinions. Bringing gayness into the equation will cause people to stop mindlessly watching shit. They might keep watching it. They might still enjoy it (like me). But they will often revisit it with a mental filter based on those strong opinions and experiences (like I did – my comment was my initial reaction).
This can be partially avoided by doing things to defuse that filter…and I think fleshing out the reactions by Ash and Papa Burch could have helped do this more.
That being said…I still liked the damn thing and I think the absurdity of it made it work well. It’s just I study gayness A LOT. Enough to go way into TL;DR territory, which is where this is going so I shall stop here.
Well…almost. Here’s gay humor that’s semi-ironically about high school reunions and gay porn.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLbFJi-yIoA
INCEPTION SPOILER
I know it’s basically a back and forth argument but I’m pretty convinced, after having read many an internet debate, that the ending was reality. Apparently, and I’ll have to watch it again to make sure, when Cobb is dreaming he’s wearing his wedding ring. And at the end of the movie he’s not wearing it.
Again apparently (fact checking lolz) in an interview Nolan said to listen to the ending more than pay attention to what your seeing. I’m pretty sure I heard, and other people have said so too that they hear the top fall when it cuts to black. Although it’s hard to tell because apparently every audience in the world groaned when the screen went black so I may only know for sure when I get the DVD.
Also JGL 4 LIFE, yo.
Hey guys,
Just so you know “The star” is basically a soft core porn mag with fictional stories and some sports.
Love one of your two British listeners.
when i finished watching this, i realized that this movie did the high concept thematic elements of the matrix better than the matrix.
what i mean by that is, like, the matrix sort of deals with the theme of the “folly of knowledge” vs. the “bliss of ignorance” but it abandons that idea in favor for more action. But inception was able to combine action and delve deep into this idea.
loved the movie
Yeah, Clancy Brown was Lex Luthor for lots of DC cartoons.
He is also Mr. Krabs from Spongebob, so he’s great at playing villains.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000317/
I just want to point out that Dennis Hopper’s character in Speed goes to the bathroom and then eats a sandwich with a Coke. I guess that villain is a little more fleshed out as a normal person. I do hate to use the movie Speed as an example of anything. I blame Ash.
Great podcast this time around: You didn’t hurt my feelings this time!
I would, however, like to show you all how wrong we’ve all been about Inception. The video I’m about to provide for you is easily the best most thoughtful critique of this blockbuster, yet.
http://youtu.be/gkHlYLnedM4
That video is incredible. Thanks you sir. Thank you.
One of your English listeners here.
I think the thing that fleshes out villains the most is when they have family, or interact with friends in a non-violent way. I can’t think of any examples as of yet, but my point still stands.
I remember you guys wondering if Heath Ledger improvised the scene in front of the hospital.
Well I actually found an interview with Chris Corbould the special effects supervisor for both of Nolan’s batman films.
From about half down the interview:
” BOF:I’ve heard from a lot of my “TDK” friends that Heath — God bless him — improvised a bit with the detonator coming out of the hospital. True?
CC: He improvised on everything he did in the film. I was truly in awe of the guy. “
(I know this is really off topic and kinda stupid)
Hey Anthony, I have a question. Have you or Ash ever played Yume Nikki? If so, what did you think?
inception spoilers…
so i really don’t understand why people are all over this movie. dont get me wrong – i thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it was one of the best movies to come out this year, but seriously? there are so many plot holes in the film, its absurd. a feeling of falling will wake you up, yet they FLIP A CAR and the extractor in the 2nd level stays asleep. if you can kill yourself in limbo and just wake up, what is the problem with slipping into limbo? how can you possibly be trapped if you can just kill yourself and get out of it? (this criticism is only valid if he does, in fact, wake up when he kills himself)
And if the kicks can be felt through each layer (as proven on the ice stage when they feel the kick that causes the avalanche), that means that gravity carries over to each level. so why wasn’t the entire snow scene in zero gravity?
Also, all the speculation about whether or not the top falls is silly because he says earlier in the movie that the top was his wife’s totem. so he has no idea of the physical weight / feel of the object if he is, in fact, in a dream the whole time. this means that the top is just part of his dream world. if he knows hes in a dream, his mind keeps the top spinning. if he is dreaming and doesn’t know it, his mind would make it fall, because the totem isn’t his and he has no idea how it behaves in reality. the truth is, even if the movie would have shown the top blatantly falling, it would have proven nothing. so the whole movie is meant to be an unsolvable puzzle. which is cool, but it irritates me that people are spending so much time arguing about it. but thats the internet i guess…
anyway, in conclusion, its a good movie, but it needed a couple more rewrites in my opinion. it ultimately served its purpose of entertainment, but saying that it is the best heist film of all time is just not true.
good episode, i enjoyed it
I’m british and have not read the mail before actually *checks their website…
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Efraim Siounis says:
A lot of my friends didn’t like it because quote “I knew what was going to happen at the end like right away.” And that pisses me off. Movies like the 6th Sense started this fad where movies need to trick the audience. Movies like that are great, The Prestige is an excellent example of that. (WAY better than 6th Sense) But to expect them all to have a twist ending is stupid. I mean watching Romeo and Juliet (with Leo D) I knew what the fuck was going to happen- but I still cried. I even admit I saw Titanic twice.
Shutter Island was a classic story form. Traditional 3 act story with appropriate fore shadowing and pace. It wasn’t trying to be something it’s not. It’s good story telling, plain and simple.
SALT comes to mind too. SALT was a straight up revenge story. They kidnapped my husband – I will find him, I will kill them. That’s it. They PR pitched it as a whole ‘is she really a agent???” and it’s stupid. well maybe not stupid, it appeals to the wider audience (like my friends who didn’t like Shutter Island) but I liked Salt. I liked it because it was unassuming, and straight.
Another movie that fits this bill is Drag Me to Hell. Sam Raimi likes classic horror movies. He put up his hat from Spider Man and wanted to do a story he loves. In Drag Me to Hell, someone gets cursed by a gypsy she wronged. In 6 days she will be (literally) dragged to hell. On each day something bad will happen to fuck with her- then she will die.
In the movie- that’s exactly what happens. Just like in Ringu (the original The Ring (from Japan)) You watch the movies, in x days you die. That’s it.
No big twist, no dues ex mechaniah (spl?) You get on the roller coaster. There is going to be three loops then 2 dips then a horizontal loop then done. You will get on it. You will ride it. It will rock. You don’t get all pissy when the roller coaster doesn’t suddenly turn into a bumper car ride do you? Seesh. People today..
Gavin Roy Seal says:
I agree, the problem is that it was marketed as a psychological thriller, when really it was an incredible psychological drama.
PS. I have my phone ring the MGS Codec every time I get a text. So while listening I kept looking at my phone.
Anyway- basically Shutter Island is great if you look at it as a psychological drama and not psychological thriller. (Ie. No Big Twist)
Ashly has the same voice as Ellen Page! No offence…
I couldnt stop thinking of the Keanu Reeves picture when you guys joked about villains and sandwiches lol