Hackers | Welcome To The Basement

[@Matt_Barkley]

My favorite thing when they show "hacking" in movies is when it looks like the actor is doing an impression of keyboard cat.

[@CrazyKungfuGirl]

Piss-ant is a medieval slang term for the common wood ant that later became an insult meaning "insignificant"

[@Phryxil]

The piss part actually comes from "pismire" an archaic word for 🐜, no connection to urine.

[@skybluemarshall]

@@Phryxil Pismire was a combination of the words piss + mire which meant, ant. The word piss describes the smell of an anthill. People describe the smell of anthill in many different ways: rotting coconut, citronella, lemony, pinesol. I've always thought that ants smell like amonia. Perhaps different ants have different smells and some ants have more of an amonia smell, which is how urine can smell sometimes.

[@Tobio88]

We have an ant species commonly referred to as piss-ants here in Sweden. Mostly because of their bites itching for ages has an old wives tale of being a result of them pissing in it.

[@Gillsing]

And here I thought the pissants were called that because they're yellow, unlike black ants and ordinary forest ants. At least the ones that attacked my knee when I was a child were yellow, so it's not something I've just heard about. Got some ointment from my grandpa to take the stinging sensation away.

[@voodoodudu2547]

So piss-ant is repetitive? When broken down, it translates to ant-ant?

[@sthomson06]

Hackers, Clueless, and Empire Records all came out in 1995, the year I started middle school. Thus I viewed them as educational films on what high school would be like.

[@aandromaliuss]

this movie is a masterpiece and I refuse to hear otherwise

[@avatarkc]

This movie is like an exploitation film of a culture they made up.

[@craigjohnson6423]

Brilliant observation.

[@chumon1992]

I feel like a lot of "cautionary tale" movies do this.

[@smacksalad]

"The Picasso of Insufferability" is up there with "The Wizard of Loneliness" from Nathan For You. I shall add it to my internal list of insults :D

[@Seantendo]

Also reminds of "the Super Bowl of self abuse" from Friday The 13th.

[@rkgaustin]

That cat at the end better yell "hack the planet!" Did not disappoint.

[@TheACanning]

‘I have an answer for you, Danny Boyle!’ Bwhahahahaha That timing was amazing!

[@steviea427]

"Wine drunk is the best drunk" would be a great ad pitch from the National Grape Growers Association.

[@Trevin_Taylor]

You mentioned the bad CG to demonstrate hacking, but not the spinning. I always loved the spinning metaphor. Spinning in the base transitions to spinning in the subway to show we’ve hacked in the transit system. I love this choice. Bring back the spin transition!

[@RicardoAlmeidatm]

"Crash Override" is what a normal person would think hacker "names" sound like.

[@better.better]

back then it probably would have been. now a hacker's name would be just whatever they came up with to sign into Xbox when they were 10, like: GodsRockHardKok715

[@Leo-sd3jt]

It's a pun that's a reference to a level of message or call priority in military communications systems. The highest level is Flash Override and back then it would've been known in reference to the AUTOVON military phone system.

[@hull_k0gan641]

I really needed this video today, guys. Cheered me up. Thank you

[@DieHumanless]

One of my favorite "guilty pleasure" movies. It gets criticism, and deserves it, but the movie is mostly fun, and you can turn you brain off and enjoy some good characters on screen.

[@revengefrommars]

Exactly. If you want to watch a hacking movie that deserves criticism, and is mostly _not_ fun, watch Antitrust (though I do like Claire Forlani and she's in it, so...).

[@LittleDinkens]

its so good!! i just got the poster

[@AnthonyValli]

Speaking of Matthew Lillard being great when working with the right director, he was great in Peaks the Return!

[@JWMangrum]

Strong recommendation for SLC PUNK if you're looking for another great Matthew Lillard performance.

[@themoviedealers]

Lillard chose a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if that worked out for him.

[@alamunez]

Urban Dance Squad in fact inspired Rage Against The Machine. Sorry, this comment should’ve started with “Uhm, actually...”

[@jean-paularends4535]

I was just about to type the same message! (Also included the phrase "Um Actually", hahaha.) Anyway: you are correct!

[@gemaskerdemannen]

thank you!

[@chipmunck98kid]

Every time a Smiths reference is made on Welcome to the Basement I am a very happy man 12:56

[@Fastwinstondoom]

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable!

[@sassychicken]

This movie was my teenage years passion!

[@pcwkid76]

Great shirt, Craig. SPIRITED AWAY is my favorite Miyazaki film.

[@tecumsehcristero]

In the 1990's movies computers were magic and Hackers were the sorcerers/wizards

[@deadpan80]

Hackers is very much a guilty pleasure - it is so over-the -top and cheesy, yet its one of those films, if I turn it on; no matter where it is in the film I must watch it. If you turn your brain OFF, its very entertaining - its not a "good" movie by any stretch of the imagination, but its wacky costumes, plot, computer abilities and acting has a certain charm to it.

[@willsi]

"BULLS ON PARADE." I lost it, haha. Love this movie, no matter how dumb it is.

[@dheisey1014]

Hackers is to a late 00’s IT major what love story is to Harvard students. You get drunk at a party and laugh at it at least once.

[@marleyobrien12]

Love you guys, this was a great episode as usual ❤ I really thought Thor was miserable

[@eliotmccann2589]

23:57 made me expel coffee from my nose. Again. Kudos, gents.

[@nailedtoeternity]

Been watching for about 4 years. I've always wondered how you felt about Name of the Rose? Life prevents me from contributing, but I do enjoy this series.

[@EmpathP]

oh GOD this movie, every time I think I forget it, it comes crawling right back XD

[@NinjaVampireCyborg]

This movie is the epitome of "90s cool"

[@BernHaggerty]

Looks like Tron (1982) meets War Games (1983)

[@Gunbu]

Another surprisingly great and recent performance by Matthew Lillard was his small role in the third season of Twin Peaks.

[@alexanderforbes1452]

I understand where Matt's coming from with Yesterday, but I have to say, I absolutely adore that film.

[@CaptChrispy]

I never would have thought Yesterday would be so polarizing; I love it! And who wouldn't want Lily James to be longing for them? I want a sequel Nowhere Man about the other guy who'd never heard of the Beatles coming to our dimension!

[@JoeyMarziano]

I love this movie bc it's the epitome of this very specific late 90s/ early 2000s Hollywood aesthetic where everyone in movies dressed like this, computers did all sorts of things they could never do, lots of bizarre visualizations of stuff happening on computers, etc (it's kinda hard to describe). Like Jason X and Blade and Hollowman.

[@joelcole161]

"There were probably not 36 frames together that I enjoyed." [-Craig] 🤣 Damn, that killed me! So ... 1.5 seconds is the hard cut-off for Hackers, then

[@bad-people6510]

11:56 Yeah I've also seen Superman III and a half a dozen other movies where that's the exact same scheme.

[@mari88334]

8:42 Young Mark Anthony , the heart of Puerto Rico. El Flaco de oro. Very famous latin salsa singer.

[@freewired13]

Finally a movie I’ve seen before the episode airs. I saw this back in 2011 in one of my computer tech classes.

[@enotdetcelfer]

Would not change a single thing about this glorious movie... Especially the things you guys mentioned xD

[@curseyoujordanshow]

I just watched this for the first time myself, and it really does feel like the type of movie that you had to see when it came out and be just the right age at the time for it to have really made an impression on you. I think if I had seen this when I was 11, I would have loved it.

[@jordanhunter1267]

you fool, your curses mean nothing to me

[@Doombot8336684]

Idk why but when you called Lorraine Brocco Dr. Melfi, I just started cracking up. I do that a lot too, where I call an actor by the name of the character they’re known for.

[@redsands1001]

This was so cool to me as a child

[@victoriapollard6995]

10:14 RISC architecture is going to change everything - well, this is finally relevant.

[@sharijimmy3675]

15:52 I almost choked from laughter!

[@tonyb7615]

didn't grow up with computers and even i was rolling my eyes at 10 years old. then when i finally got cable when i was older, you couldn't go more than 6 weeks without some channel :no matter how obscure: showing it 5 times a day to fill time. this is one of those movies i've seen a billion times but not sure i actually sat and watched start to finish. i'd assume i must've at some point, but i have no idea. i seem to recall matt bringing this up once b4. speaking of, what are some movies like that for u guys and the fancy pants ppl that were lucky and got cable and hbo growing up/b4 the streaming era? another one i remember and actually liked (for tv) was con air

[@Xopie96]

So dissapointed you guys didn't love this movie as much as I do. It's THE movie that my friends and I go back to again and again

[@29keyser]

I read somewhere that Timothy Olyphant auditioned for the role of Iron Man. Honestly, I would've loved to see that.

[@daangergg]

There are hackers everywhere I go!! Lol love you guys.

[@NinjaDimes]

Great ep guys! There were so many terrible 90s movies in the vein of Hackers. And thanks for the MCU seen it! Been wondering what you think about everything. I"m with Craig-- I also really enjoyed Guardians... if you take them purely as comedy shenanigans they are hilarious to me. Though their over the top sci-fi-ness kinda makes them fit in weird with the rest of the MCU imo. And like Craig, Winter Soldier is my fave Captain America film. I really like Bucky but I agree I didn't like him in the first movie, I only started liking him in Winter Soldier and no, it has nothing to do with him being hot and buff and broody (ok, maybe a little)... but I do think his character falls flat again in Falcon & The Winter Soldier show... maybe he's directed badly? I agree 'The Dark World' was kinda blah over all but it's not THAT bad, and it's also judged a bit too harshly. And I kinda agree with you Matt-- about Infinity War's writing-- and I felt the same about Endgame, personally. The movies are really 'epic' and cool feeling (I especially enjoyed the whole Peter Dinklage scene in Infinity War) but there's just too much happening and Thanos is too flawed as a villain imo, and I'm not a fan of 'the snap' in general. If I had to pick a fave MCU movie, though, its definitely Ragnarok, I've had a soft sport for the Thor comics my whole life because my brother was into them. You can practically see Waititi's particular brand of humor (kinda 'What We Do in the Shadows' style) throughout it and somehow he made it feel really epic and funny. I'm wondering if he can pull it off again with Love & Thunder tbh... I feel like Natalie Portman is a little out of place in the MCU in general but we'll see I guess.

[@GonzoCiosain]

Awesome Miyazaki shirt! Also is that a stagehand's union sticker on Matt's folder at the beginning?

[@anandashankarmazumdar]

“Pissant” just means “ant,” originating supposedly from the fact that ants kind of smell like urine. It works as an insult because it has an extra syllable.

[@stevensedlak]

is that Seann William Scott in the background 5:38?

[@PoseidonXIII]

Matt's point on the boringness of people on computers reminded me of how we don't film people on their phones either yet both activities take up the bulk of our waking lives. That and traffic.

[@JoeFinsternis]

I have that same Spirited Away shirt Craig is wearing.

[@Efreeti]

I still like this movie. It's techno-camp. It has something about it that makes it less of a 90s period piece and more of a timeless thing. Pissant is just a type of ant btw.

[@quantum5226]

How many bodies have been buried in the basement over the years?

[@hull_k0gan641]

01:30 I swear to god I just knew this was going to be a Nord VPN ad lol.

[@quentinfool]

I greatly enjoyed this movie. so stupidly over the top, amusing for sure

[@GeekHouseYT]

YES. I love this movie!

[@tomservo5007]

this movie is a guilty pleasure

[@somecathchick]

I hope you guys get around to watching "SLC Punk" if you haven't already. It made me turn the corner on Matthew Lillard as an actor.

[@bloodwrage]

Nice IATSE sticker

[@OneUponADime]

Never saw the movie but the 2 soundtracks were superb. And Mathew Lillard is a damn gem. (Who himself said he cant believe he was allowed to overact so much in film)

[@ClintWestwood-nj4fg]

Has the Lost Weekend episode been taken down? I just saw the movie and I could've sworn they reviewed it years ago.

[@blamesocietyfilms]

Ha ha. We've never watched that movie on the show, we just talk about it all the time.

[@ClintWestwood-nj4fg]

@@blamesocietyfilms that explains it. Love the show. Hope you guys keep going for many more years!

[@gobot567]

I.....love this movie.

[@MadamFoogie]

I remember the old roof pool trick. Stole the idea from _Hackers,_ but it still totally worked on high-school freshmen in 2003. Also, I'm disappointed in the total lack of Sam Riegel. Guess he couldn't gleam the Blame Society cube, so he got sliced.

[@blamesocietyfilms]

I don't know who that is

[@Piterdeveirs333]

Matt said Danny Boyle and I pictured Peter Boyle

[@caffeineadvocate]

Always liked this as a double-feature with 'The Net'. These are memories frozen in time, people! :)

[@LobsterSpecial]

I've always liked this film just because of how late '90's it is

[@danielweingarten9554]

stellar

[@richardcoulson6027]

Mr Robot does non-boring hacking without silly graphics.

[@aestevalis0]

Initiate fluid exchange interface port docking.

[@AtticusTsaiMcCarthy]

I’ve been a fan of Lillard ever since I saw Scream. On the topic of him as Shaggy, I think he’s the only actor I know who went from being a live action version of a character to going on to voice him in the following cartoons. Also, I would love to know your guys’ thoughts on Antman 1 and 2.

[@SugarcatPlays]

"Yesterday" failed because the Beatles are too huge of an icon, legend, mythos, whatever you want to call them. Every scenario plays out in your head because of how legendary the songs are. A 2 hour movie simply wasn't big enough to encapsulate that kind of power

[@MrHypnofan]

Was Fisher Stevens (or rather "The Plague") actually skating in his intro scene, or was that just supposed to be artsy?

[@craigjohnson6423]

He was skating. The scene where he picks up the disc is trying so hard to be cool and ominous. It tries so hard.

[@davidranderson1]

I didn't see Hackers when it came out and never felt any motivation to catch it later on. Thank you for taking one for the team! I appreciate knowing just enough about to confirm I still don't want to see it. It was fun hearing both of you reflect on the MCU. You know, it occurred to me at one point that the Marvel movies do something that the X-Files series did. Like the X-Files, the MCU mixes stand alone stories and "mythology" stories. You watch the Avengers movies if you want an overall unifying mythology, but, if you don't, you can just pick the characters you like and just watch their stand alone movies.

[@t3l3phasicworksh0p]

Yesterday is based in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft in the East of England - most definitely NOT London!

[@RetroKidReviews]

HACK THE PLAENT!

[@highbrowloubrew]

Excuse me, I know my Blame Society lore and I believe it's "Grand Central...Terminal". Bill would back me up on this.

[@jessicabudin]

Yesterday could’ve been really interesting and creative, and there were some really cool scenes, but it just felt like an especially bad Wattpad fan-fiction

[@erniemiller1953]

A pissant is a specific type of ant.

[@tecumsehcristero]

Wasn't Trainspotting Johnny Lee Miller's Big screen debut????

[@Chris_Blaze94]

My hacker name would be Hackedy'all Jim Buggin

[@damiandunbar6702]

“ use your best viruses “ lol

[@kenchun24]

Matthew Lillard was pretty good in Twin Peaks: The Return too. But yeah his '90s schtick was grating.

[@LordBaruch]

Apparently some anthills smell like urine, so pissant is just another term for ants, an evolution from the term pismire, which also just means piss mire referring to the urine smell of anthills.

[@chuckthunder781]

I actually know this because I'm a big fan of the show Kung Fu. Pismire is an old word for ant and I believe the term piss-ant was just the word ant combined with the first part of pismire.

[@stormcloudsabound]

So the word basically means "ant-ant"? Wild.

[@chuckthunder781]

@@stormcloudsabound Well, the first part of the word could've just been interpreted to mean urine when later misapplied as piss-ant. But that is just an assumption I'm making. All I know for sure is that pismire is an old word for ant.

[@skybluemarshall]

@@stormcloudsabound The word pismire was a combination of the words piss and mire, which meant ant. Pissant and pismire are basically the same thing. I believe the piss part come from the strong chemical smell of an anthill. The smell of anthill is due to the formic acid in their bodies. The smell of ants has been described in many ways. One description is amonia or cleaning fluid. That's how ants smell to me. They smell like amonia and something sweet. Urine has often been described the same way. Definitely not a pleasant smell.

[@Gillsing]

"Myra" in Swedish means "ant", and "piss" is slang for urine in both languages. Personally I always thought pissants were yellow ants, of the same smaller size as black ants. I've seen such yellow ants myself, even though that was decades ago, so I guess they're not that common.

[@skybluemarshall]

@@Gillsing I think that originally, the term was specific to the type of ant that actually smelled like urine. But, very few people know that, so the is being incorrectly applied to any small type of ant. I believe the ones that smell like urine are wood ants that consume fallen pine needles.

[@PokerJoker811]

This movie is probably responsible for planting in a lot of computer misconceptions that it took a long time for people to unlearn. The word "worm" was being used in antivirus ads for decades - we pretty much only forgot it when we all got the word "app" hammered into us instead.

[@JasonTHutchinson]

I think they originally were going to show more actual hacking, but the producers or the studio insisted that nobody would understand it and thought it would be too boring to show in a movie so it was replaced with CG.

[@thejackal007]

While I won't defend the film (I haven't seen it and feel happy with that), do you think you would have felt vaguely different if you saw it when it came out and was of the target demographic? I know it won't fix a lot of its issues, but would some of the computer technobabble/magic computers seem more acceptable?

[@sharkh20]

Not a fan of much of the MCU, but I did like the first Guardians and Thor Ragnarok is probably my favorite. Similar tones.

[@Caveboy0]

I always looked at Thanos’ motivation as similar to Walter White. He states this moral superiority to the people around him this willingness to make the tough choices for the good, but it’s just power. As for the environmental villain aspect Maybe I’m just online too much but people make his same argument all the time. Not just climate disaster but anything. Wishing half the people the “other half” would just disappear or go away. Thanos isn’t spiteful because he lost his planet it’s that he wasn’t chosen to being right. He wasn’t validated politically. There is that deep selfish feeling we all have that wishes we didn’t have to compromise as a society. I think Thanos really resonated for those reasons. His moral posturing like captain America and his ego like Iron Man. He’s a good foil for the main heroes.

[@jordanhunter1562]

jolie's debut in a leading role was Cyborg 2 in 1993

[@blamesocietyfilms]

Cyborg 2 appears to be a straight to video release. I said this was her BIG screen debut.

[@jordanhunter1562]

@@blamesocietyfilms the movie was actually first screened in a theatre and she threw up after watching it because it was so bad

[@Leo-sd3jt]

This is one of my favorite movies and, even though you didn't like it, I'm happy that you didn't like it because you don't agree with the acting choices and stuff like that. I've seen so many reviews on podcasts and stuff that say they don't like it because they think that the technical terms are made up and stuff like that and it's painfully hilarious how wrong the podcasts tend to get it. One was saying that nobody would be excited over a PCI bus because it's just how you plug everything into the computer and ignoring the fact that it was something like 20 times faster than the ISA bus that came before it and introduced plug and play. I'm rambling now. Anyways, thanks for the vid!

[@truegod99]

Marc Anthony a famous salsa singer if not the most famous salsa singer has a big role in this movie.

[@corbelius6]

"Spam" would be my hacker name.

[@tlheingrunst]

Plauge is from short circuit

[@nevet1212]

Now whenever I see a movie or show with kissing I make the noises you guys make.

[@better.better]

yeah it's a fairly go-to comedic tool, Greg Benson does it too -and to be honest I've always done it too whenever I watch movies. either you go for overly wet fully-engaged kissing sounds or you go for the brain-sucking sound. both are funny because it's a grown man doing something that a prepubescent boy might do at the theater as the third wheel to their older sibling and their date.

[@nevet1212]

@@better.better I get it, must be my youngest sibling traits showing.

[@jrkinnard1]

Pissant is no dickweed, but it's still pretty good.

[@AddSerious]

this is a good example of a good script that the director just did not understand, this movie was about 5 years ahead of its time, it could had been a good movie if handled better.