Taking a gander at his Wikipedia page, there’s no answer as to the why of his minimal roles beyond that stellar hat trick of films between 2009 and 2010. After “Inception”, he did a couple of indie films, a few guest spots on a small handful of TV shows, and then he was back under James Cameron’s wing to shoot more “Avatar” movies for the foreseeable future. Maybe there were personal reasons behind his sort-of-absence for all those years, or maybe there was some quietly racist fuckery afoot where nobody was hiring him in spite of the pedigree of his first three films establishing his career so strongly out of the gate. Whatever the reasons, he deserved to be in so many more things. (Then again, he IS in two of the very top highest grossing movies of all time, which isn’t nothing! 😁)
And yeah, in the grand scheme of things, the lifespan of the “Inception” app was too brief to linger in the public consciousness for long, given the swift obsolescence it faced with technology’s steady progress.
Worth noting is that Nolan and Zimmer returned to this app concept again with “The Dark Knight Rises” two years later, with app-exclusive versions and arrangements of Zimmer’s score. That app’s also long since been shuttered, but at least those pieces of music from it are more easily and readily found, such as on YouTube:
As for HitRECord, you may be surprised to learn that the “HitRECord On TV” show ran for 2 seasons, won an Emmy or two, was briefly on Netflix globally after the Pivot streaming service tanked, and is now mostly forgotten by everyone except for those of us who worked on it. The site also produced multiple books, vinyl records of music releases, worked on some commercials, and a couple of video games - one that was released (“Watch Dogs: Legion”), and another that’s looking evermore unlikely to see the light of day (“Beyond Good & Evil 2”).
Within something like one year, Dileep Rao was in Avatar, Inception and Drag Me To Hell. KILLER run. What happened to that dude?
Fromtheyardtothearthouse.substack.com
Taking a gander at his Wikipedia page, there’s no answer as to the why of his minimal roles beyond that stellar hat trick of films between 2009 and 2010. After “Inception”, he did a couple of indie films, a few guest spots on a small handful of TV shows, and then he was back under James Cameron’s wing to shoot more “Avatar” movies for the foreseeable future. Maybe there were personal reasons behind his sort-of-absence for all those years, or maybe there was some quietly racist fuckery afoot where nobody was hiring him in spite of the pedigree of his first three films establishing his career so strongly out of the gate. Whatever the reasons, he deserved to be in so many more things. (Then again, he IS in two of the very top highest grossing movies of all time, which isn’t nothing! 😁)
Really insightful piece, I had not heard of the inception app or HiRecord, this was a great read.
Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoyed it.
And yeah, in the grand scheme of things, the lifespan of the “Inception” app was too brief to linger in the public consciousness for long, given the swift obsolescence it faced with technology’s steady progress.
Worth noting is that Nolan and Zimmer returned to this app concept again with “The Dark Knight Rises” two years later, with app-exclusive versions and arrangements of Zimmer’s score. That app’s also long since been shuttered, but at least those pieces of music from it are more easily and readily found, such as on YouTube:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwVSqUjA5FCK0Ofp52yCyXFN1bQW0uPfv&si=QZHPGRDldx-dyj5j
As for HitRECord, you may be surprised to learn that the “HitRECord On TV” show ran for 2 seasons, won an Emmy or two, was briefly on Netflix globally after the Pivot streaming service tanked, and is now mostly forgotten by everyone except for those of us who worked on it. The site also produced multiple books, vinyl records of music releases, worked on some commercials, and a couple of video games - one that was released (“Watch Dogs: Legion”), and another that’s looking evermore unlikely to see the light of day (“Beyond Good & Evil 2”).
Those were the days…
😁