inception

The Academy Awards aren't really the place for high technology; the subset of awards commemorating film-industry engineering are relegated to a separate ceremony and only briefly acknowledged, after all. Consider last year, for instance, when James Cameron's 3D adventure "Avatar" lost out to "The Hurt Locker" for Best Picture and for Directing. Digital innovation can only really claim one category as its own: Achievement in Visual Effects.

Christopher Nolan's film "Inception," a film that managed the dual feat of being both technologically impressive and thematically brainy, took home the Visual Effects … Read more

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Sony launches Sony Music Unlimited, the company's own music store.

The FBI gets ready to outline wire-tapping policies for digital communication.

Google announces Google One Pass, a subscription service for newspapers and magazines that will compete with Apple's recently announced iTunes subscription service.

The iPhone rumor mill is predicting a smaller, $99 version of the iPhone this summer.

Warner Bros. announces App Editions of "Inception" and "The Dark Knight."

Sony announces its zero-tolerance policy for hacking the PlayStation 3.

The more Facebook friends you have, the more … Read more

Caroline McCarthy from CNET's The Social blog joins us on today's podcast to discuss this morning's Oscar nominations and eight nods for "The Social Network" including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay Adaptation, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Original Score.

The film undoubtedly deserves the recognition, but it seems they left off Andrew Garfield for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Eduardo Saverin, Facebook's co-founder and a 5 percent shareholder of the $2.5 billion company.

Despite this oversight, Garfield will likely have another chance with his upcoming role as the famous Webslinger in the upcoming reboot of the Spider-Man franchise. The rest of the cast includes Rhys Ifans as the Lizard, Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben, Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, and Chris Zylka as Flash Thompson.

But there's no chance the movie will be quite as awful as "Turn off the Dark," Broadway's version of the Spider-Man genesis wrought with disaster even in the face of its new finale.

Wilson checked out an early preview of the show and has an equally negative review to share that makes this Onion headline sound right on the mark: "Nuclear Bomb Detonates During Rehearsal For 'Spider-Man' Musical." We blame Bono.

As usual, the Razzie nominations were announced today in conjunction with the Oscars, and it's no surprise that the "Twilight Saga: Eclipse" swept the Golden Raspberries for Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Robert Pattinson), Worst Screenplay, and...actually, the movie appears in all the categories except for Worst Supporting Actress and Worst Eye-Gouging Misuse of 3D, where they were ineligible to be nominated.

Wilson's still gone in China rehabilitating baby pandas, so this yuletide episode of The 404 Podcast features me and Jeff going through the movies and film trends that struck a chord in 2010.

Follow along with us as we the best (Inception, Social Network, Hot Tub Time Machine) and the worst (Prince of Peria: The Sands of Time, Devil, Legends of the Guardians) movies of the past twelve months!

Hope you're having a great holiday, and look forward to another 404 yuletide episode coming your way soon!

If you have time in the morning, be sure to check out CNET's The 404 Podcast every day at 8 a.m. PT on CNET LIVE; that way you won't miss things like yesterday's post-show, where the three of us spent half an hour reminiscing about the glory days of ABC's classic TGIF programming lineup.

All of us connected to legacy sitcoms like "Full House," "Perfect Strangers," and "Boy Meets World," but join us this morning as we belt out a pitch-poor version of the "Family Matters" theme song, … Read more

Thursdays are always special on The 404 Podcast because Natali Del Conte drops by to help us discuss stories, but today we say TTFN to our Loaded friend as she takes time off to take care of our little co-host-to-be. Since today is the last time she'll be on the show for awhile, we make a solemn oath to leave pickles, Inception, and iPhones out of the day's news rundown.

Remember Chatroulette, the Web site that uses your webcam to put you in a video chat sesion with a person on the Internet? It might be so three … Read more

We tried, I swear we did; we had the sincerest intentions not to talk about Inception again, but all three of us have finally seen the movie and while we're generally happy with the film, it wouldn't be The 404 without Wilson almost ruining the ending for everyone who hasn't seen it yet.

We'll have to find a chicken leg to keep him busy next time. Full disclosure: the first 5 minutes of today's show is about Inception (with a little more during Calls From the Public), but it's definitely SPOILER FREE!

The big … Read more

A quick announcement prior to today's episode of The 404 Podcast: Good news! After several failed attempts at watching "Inception," we learn today that tickets are indeed still available for purchase. The bad news is that you have to hike out to Hoboken, N.J., to see it.

Jeff caught a showing of it last night, and Wilson joins in as they offer a unique review of the rather confusing film. Jeff even wonders if director Chris Nolan has a firm grasp of the winding plot, and it apparently doesn't help when Ken Watanabe stumbles through … Read more

Jeff looks a little different on this morning's episode of The 404 podcast, doesn't he? Initial reports tell us that the half-moon forming on Jeff's face is actually a smile, which probably has to do with Ilya Kovalchuk staying with the New Jersey Devils this season.

The LA Kings, New York Islanders, the NJ Devils, and a random team in Russia all grabbed for Kovalchuk when he became a free agent on July 1, but only the Devils were able to secure the hockey star for a reported 100 million bucks over the next 17 years, which … Read more