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Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Also referred to as JGL, J.G. Allen

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The Wolf of Wall Street The Rewatchables
The Wolf of Wall Street

Casting What-Ifs

Brad Pitt and Paramount lost the 2007 rights bidding war to DiCaprio and Warner Brothers; Chris Evans and Joseph Gordon-Levitt auditioned; Jonah Hill took $60,000; Blake Lively, Rosie Huntington-Whitley, Teresa Palmer, Amber Heard and Olivia Wilde were in the mix for Naomi; Julie Andrews was considered for Aunt Emma; Ridley Scott was wanted to direct

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 01:14:52Read transcript
  • In 2007 Leonardo DiCaprio and Warner Brothers won a bidding war against Brad Pitt and Paramount for the rights to Belfort's memoir, and Belfort made a million dollars on the rights.
  • Does it work with Pitt: absolutely for some, since Pitt is better at the darker thing and a less attractive, rougher guy might let you hate Jordan more, there being moments when DiCaprio looks too great on screen; the counter is that DiCaprio uses his handsomeness as a tool to push further, as in Django, while Damon plays relatable, and Jordan's looks explain why anyone would let him sell them anything; the telephone-terrorists speech, banging the microphone on his head, is a place Pitt may not be able to go.
  • Many Pitt and DiCaprio roles would be interchangeable, though The Aviator is hard to see with Pitt for one host while another could see Pitt there more than in this; both were circling The Departed at the same time; Pitt in California, twenty years earlier, and Fight Club show a weird dark gear.
  • Chris Evans and Joseph Gordon-Levitt auditioned for an unspecified role, presumably Donnie, which does not seem right for Evans; Jonah took about sixty grand per his Howard Stern interview, while Leo had box-office points; he was already Moneyball-nominated and in Superbad, flew to see DiCaprio, joked that Leo should kill anyone else cast, and practiced with the capped teeth and phone calls.
  • Moneyball was essentially playing Paul De Podesta (as transcribed), so it is hard to believe he was nominated for that and did not win for this, strong, unique and weird even if some scenes are too much; the cousin exchange, she grew up hot and if anyone is going to fuck my cousin it's going to be me out of respect, and the 'you're free' scene are things only Jonah could have done.
  • Asked for his Blake Lively thoughts, the addressed host would have been fine with her as Naomi. — Ryen Russillo
  • Blake Lively and Rosie Huntington-Whitley were considered and Teresa Palmer and Amber Heard auditioned for Naomi before Robbie; her being unknown helped, and Lively at the height of her post-Town moment could have nailed it but could not have reached the Robbie phenomenon; Robbie is doing Marissa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny, the voice and Buick Skylock (as transcribed), and the daughter is even named Skylar.
  • Olivia Wilde auditioned for Naomi but was deemed too old to play DiCaprio's wife even though he is ten years older, a tough beat; Julie Andrews was considered for Aunt Emma before Joanna Lumley but was convalescing from a titanium ankle implant, probably for the best given the Mary Poppins crowd; the Emma scene is sneaky extra evidence that Belfort is a bad guy.
  • People wanted Ridley Scott to direct for a time: his version is forty minutes shorter with a four-and-a-half-hour director's cut and less chaotic; Scorsese related to the addiction and throwing-your-life-away-for-cocaine material, which he discussed on the promo circuit, whereas Scott would bring less dialogue, longer driving scenes and a lude scene more like Kingdom of Heaven.
Inception The Rewatchables
Inception

Apex Mountain

In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:39:59Read transcript
  • The shortlist is Christopher Nolan, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, cinematographer and longtime Nolan collaborator Wally Pfister, Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy.
  • Wally Pfister is a yes: he went on to become a not terribly successful director, but the first scene of Cobb showing Ariadne how dreams work is masterful mind-blowing stuff, and watching a building fold onto another like an M.C. Escher painting is about how the film is shot, not just conceived, since any stoner in a dorm room could conceive it. — Sean Fennessey
  • Calling the cinematographer the winner is admitted to be not the most interesting opinion, but it feels true to someone who is a little dubious of the movie while liking it.
  • JGL is a yes. — Andrew Gruttadaro
  • The hosts ask where Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been since: commercials, his company Hit Record, which one thinks is an app, dressing up as Edward Snowden, Lincoln's son in Lincoln with a mustache, Looper under prosthetics, and a so-called Robin in The Dark Knight Rises; he is really good here, and his ribbing rapport with Tom Hardy is funny.
  • A second participant also has JGL, calling him great in this.
Inception The Rewatchables
Inception

What’s Aged the Best?

Tom Hardy without a mask and with a normal voice; Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a suit; the zero-gravity set pieces; that there is a $150 million movie about dreams

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:18:35Read transcript
  • The category is awkward for a movie only seven years old; one answer is Tom Hardy not wearing a mask and speaking with a normal human voice, plus JGL in a suit, which the host would like to see more of.
  • It is doubtful a studio would pony up for a $150 million movie about dreams now; the counterargument is that at its core it is a fantasy story, a genre with more money than ever, just packaged differently, prompting jokes about a YA label, aged-down stars, Taylor Swift and magic wolves.
  • The film is sequel-ready, but a sequel would undo the power of the ending, if you think the ending has power, which two of the hosts doubt.
  • The set pieces, as already said, are the answer: the gravity scene is incredible, and the bedroom fight where JGL grabs the gun at the last second is stunning in how abruptly the man falls and how the gun keeps sliding toward them across the room. — Andrew Gruttadaro
  • The hallway rotation is questioned: the van flipping on level one should itself count as a kick that wakes everyone, which one host finds a distracting logic flaw; the kick is defined as the sensation of falling that pulls dreamers up a level, as when Arthur tips Ariadne's chair.
  • The defense offered is that the team is heavily sedated and several levels down and needed synchronized kicks; the objection is that the film never establishes synchronization is required to wake, only that it is a timing problem, and that close-ups of the sleepers swaying should by the film's own rules have served as a kick.
  • The hosts wonder how many of the cast understood the movie, and whether a Freudian psychotherapist was on set the way an astrophysicist was for Interstellar, since the science is high-level and bunk at once.
Inception The Rewatchables
Inception

Most Rewatchable Scene

The snow fortress heist; the Paris training scene with Ariadne; the zero-gravity hotel corridor fight

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:13:29Read transcript
  • The pick is hard because the set pieces are interthreaded in a dreamlike way; the candidates laid out are the ski heist three dreams down, the hotel heist two down, the Los Angeles rain heist, the training scenes with Ariadne that explain the movie, and the heartbreaking Dom and Mal scenes in limbo.
  • The Cobb and Mal scenes, whether the elevator memories or the limbo train reveal, are the most emotionally gripping, but for sheer captivating rewatchability it is the snow scene where every single thing is white, with the good guys distinguished from the bad only by a light dusting of gray on their outfits and even the guns wrapped in gauze or painted white. — Mallory Rubin
  • The avalanche and the rope trick are extremely fun, and although the snow heist lacks the emotional weight of other scenes it feels like a relief at that point in a movie that asks you to track so much; the color choices are tied to Nolan being colorblind, with little red or green and everything slate, night or pure white.
  • The snow heist has some of the film's only humor: after the missed first kick there is Cillian Murphy's line about dreaming up a beach next time, and Tom Hardy gives a thumbs-up after throwing an explosive onto a truck; the same scene also has the most moments that make no sense, like staring at the explosive for forty-five seconds, while Leo's perfect sniping is excused because it is a dream.
  • The training scene in Paris, or dream Paris, in the cafe is pretty incredible. — Andrew Gruttadaro
  • Watching the cafe scene again, the moment when Cobb's question of how they got there arrives still lands because the viewer realizes they do not know either, which is called a masterful thing to do, as is his explanation of how the dreams operate.
  • The zero-gravity fight scenes hold up really well; A.O. Scott's review compared the film to The Dark Knight and was dubious of Nolan, as this host is, but Nolan has built a career on being arguably the best at set pieces that make you say oh shit, like the truck flip in The Dark Knight, and there is no sense of how he pulled off Joseph Gordon-Levitt sliding up the ceiling like a spider. — Sean Fennessey
Inception The Rewatchables
Inception

Casting What-Ifs

Kate Winslet was approached for Mal before Marion Cotillard; Evan Rachel Wood, Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams, Emma Roberts, Jesse Schramm (as transcribed), Taylor Swift and Terry Mulligan (as transcribed) were considered for Ariadne; James Franco was offered Arthur; Don Johnson was considered for Peter Browning

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:05:50Read transcript
  • Kate Winslet was approached for Mal before the part went to Marion Cotillard; the hosts think Cotillard, who often plays a stormy femme fatale, is a very different actress, and that a French rather than English woman is what the crazed dream wife needed, since Winslet would not have been as frightening.
  • Nolan's films are said to keep returning to a dead woman who lets the leading man discover his emotional vulnerability; the casting is seen as letting him pretend something more complex was going on with the character, and a joke in a producer voice notes that Kate with Leo would have added twenty million.
  • For Ariadne the considered names were Evan Rachel Wood, Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams, Emma Roberts, Jesse Schramm (as transcribed), Taylor Swift and Terry Mulligan (as transcribed), to disbelief around the table; Ellen Page is judged perfect for combining intense intelligence with wide-eyed vulnerability, something clinical and nurse-like, where Evan Rachel Wood would be too tall, beautiful and imperious.
  • Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Arthur was also offered to James Franco, who turned it down over scheduling; JGL's blankness and deadpan are liked for the part.
  • Don Johnson was considered for Peter Browning, the part Tom Berenger took; Johnson's ruined-man quality might have worked, Berenger was a shock to recognize, and Browning is not an essential character so Johnson would have been fine.
10 Things I Hate About You The Rewatchables
10 Things I Hate About You

What’s Aged the Worst?

Parts of the soundtrack, including the One Week remix and an unironic Smash Mouth cue; the school's lax discipline, from the flashing to the sausage prank, the arrow and the golf balls; Kat's crop tops and platform flip-flops

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:15:52Read transcript
  • Some of the soundtrack has aged worst: the film opens with a remix of Barenaked Ladies' One Week, disputed as a remix, positioned as the popular girls' music that Kat drowns out with riot grrrl; a very unironic Smash Mouth cue feels corny, and Smash Mouth, who also covered Can't Get Enough of You Baby for Can't Hardly Wait, were a nineties soundtrack staple who no longer are.
  • Some soundtrack bands now read as jokes, such as Daz by Brick and Saturday Night by Tagana (as transcribed), though George Clinton and the Cardigans are also on it; one host realized they spent a lot of time with the CD as a teenager and saw Barenaked Ladies and the Cardigans at Atlanta's Jingle Ball.
  • Flashing a teacher to get someone out of detention would be received differently now, and the teacher would fear for his job; the school's discipline is lax overall, with Miss Perky merely telling Patrick Verona not to do it after his sausage prank on a lunch lady, Bianca shooting a teacher in the rear with an arrow, and a character firing golf balls into a crowd with no consequences.
  • The persistent trope of nerds getting away with things because they are smart, as in Stranger Things, appears here when Joseph Gordon-Levitt and David Krumholtz descend into a nerd lab like a parallel society.
  • Bianca's outfits are good but Julia Stiles' are poor: crop tops that are not coming back and platform flip-flops from Delia's that date it to a specific moment, though platforms are back on the market and slides were everywhere; the sisters have similar styles executed differently.
Displaying all 6 discussions