- This is all bullshit.
- I should be paid for this.
- No.
- Not paid.
- Lauded.
- I should be fucking lauded for this service I provide.
- Why haven’t I been given a MacArthur Genius Grant?
- They give those things to poets.
- Poets!
- I’m not much a man, but I’m better than a poet.
- Anyway, Trinity and Lawrence Fishburne have gone to see the Oracle, possibly because Lawrence Fishburne remembered that the Oracle was fond of baking cookies.
- “Anything in that oven, sister?”
- Keanu is in an unbelievably symbolic subway station.
- The station is labeled “Mobil Avenue.”
- Like I said: unbelievably symbolic.
- Keanu is talking to Indian people, who are refugees.
- And o so wise and kind.
- I might have to store my DVD copies of these movies in the Problem Attic, Enthusiasts.
- Does anyone in the Matrix wear jeans and a tee-shirt?
- Pair of New Balance sneakers?
- And why does everyone share an aesthetic?
- There’s just sort of a uniformity to everyone’s uniforms.
- I wish one member of Keanu’s crew was in, like, hippie-wear.
- Tank-top, yoga pants, Birks.
- Fuck, the French Satan guy is back, and he’s talking again.
- His tie knot is daunting.
- My God.
- Decent Christian doesn’t knot his tie like that.
- Says something about a man fixes his cravat in such a fashion.
- A guy with a necktie like that is a guy you shouldn’t play baccarat with.
- Wait.
- Hold on.
- Turn your brightness way up; trust me.
- Keanu’s knot is every bit as complicated as Satanic Frenchie’s.
- Actually, y’know what?
- Don’t trust me.
- TRUST MY EDITING SKILLS, BITCHES.
- I lightened that shit for you!
- Three, maybe four clicks rightwards.
- Because, as you may remember, the Matrix sequels are dark, miserable slogs of gray, brown, and almost-black.
- So I brightened that shit for you.
- That was the last in a list of tasks I undertook for your entertainment.
- I had to open up Netflix on my laptop.
- Find a good shot of Keanu.
- Screenshot it, which requires both hands and is therefore exhausting.
- And I won’t bore you with all the details, but there was more clicking after that.
- Waaaaaay more clicking and fiddling than I’d prefer to do.
- But I did it, and I did it for you.
- A non-zero possibility exists that this will be the first time I’ve sat all the way through Matrix: Rubberbabybuggybumpers.
- I did not see the film in the theaters, despite having eagerly attended the second installment just months prior.
- The Matrix snuck up on everyone.
- It was released in 1999, when everyone had heard of the internet, but no one knew quite what it was; there was far less movie gossip than there is now.
- Trailers were only seen at movie theaters, plus teevee commercials and print ads.
- That was it.
- No teasers, followed by reaction videos, then frame-by-frame breakdown, then articles on varying theories, then set photos, then articles on varying theories based on the set photos, then a set of memes, then a new trailer and we go around the merry-go-round until the film is released, by which point everyone’s entirely sick of it.
- Memory, as always, is a stumbling dance partner, but I specifically recall not having heard anything of this Keanu Reeves picture I ventured out to Pasadena to see with old college friends.
- The billboards were up on Sunset Boulevard, and I had seen them as I drove past over and over again.
- Green bullshit.
- The digital nonsense, you know.
- But otherwise I went in cold, and you can call The Matrix Ted Wiliams, because it came out of left-field.
- Knocked the crowd’s socks right off.
- Halfway through the picture, there’s a giant pile of socks by the popcorn counter.
- Which is a fire hazard, but attests to how well the movie played.
- And so it made a billion dollars and inspired the cultural aesthetic for a few years and, of course, spawned a sequel.
- Two, in fact.
- Because “trilogy” is the base unit for franchises.
- This was going to be the new Star Wars.
- Instead, it was the Prequels.
- Because the Wachowskis did what George Lucas did, which is disappear up their own ass only to crow about the smell, and not what George Lucas did, which is “let other people write and direct.”
- 1980’s George Lucas hired much better directors than 2000’s George Lucas.
- A fresh eye may have done.
- Because the Wachowskis did not understand what viewers enjoyed about the film.
- The first movie had razor-sharp fight scenes that moved the plot along.
- Where as in this, the third film, I have been watching a guy who looks to be Maori in an War Machine shoot robot squids in the face for, like, fifteen minutes now.
- Why?
- I dunno.
- Good for the economy, I guess.
- The Sequels also make the mistake of the Prequels in thinking that I care about newly-introduced characters.
- Empire and Jedi each brought fresh friends and enemies on board, but mostly stuck with the same Farm Boy, Knight Errant, Princess, and Dark Wizard that we fell in love with in Star Wars.
- Not Matrix: Redondobeach.
- Long stretches of time with the Maori guy and some kid and Jada Pickle-Smith and assorted other randos.
- Plus a guy who’s not Joe Morton.
- He’s, like, a general?
- Everyone’s wearing sweaters, so it’s hard to tell rank.
- He shouts at Lawrence Fishburne.
- He’s a black guy, but he’s not Joe Morton.
- Many black guys, in fact, are not Joe Morton.
- Maybe even most.
- …
- Henry Lennix.
- The gentleman’s name is Henry Lennix.
- In my defense, Joe Morton could’ve slaughtered this role.
- It’s right in the Joe Morton wheelhouse.
- Man’s got range.
- Ugh, what’s going on?
- They’re flying in their ship, which is not cool like the Millennium Falcon, but instead a school bus covered in bug zappers, and it’s all so dour.
- The colors are downright Zack-Snyderific.
- Am I misremembering The Matrix?
- The original?
- Were there repeated scenes of people standing in lazy medium shots talking about stuff?
- STOP TALKING ABOUT STUFF.
- DO STUFF.
- Wait.
- Not this stuff.
- Keanu and Trinity are doing stuff, and I don’t like it.
- Somewhere along the way, Keanu has been blinded.
- I missed that.
- Trinity’s got a hell of a face.
- Go a long way in this world with that face.
- Gotta be careful with it, though.
- Moisturize.
- Exfoliate.
- Don’t leave it on the bus.
- Plus, Trinity is Canadian, so she has to get her face through Customs.
- Lotta responsibility having a face like that.
- Anyway, she’s been dying for ten minutes.
- This is the longest death scene since Pee-Wee Herman in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
- What do you mean, you’re unfamiliar with Pee-Wee Herman’s legendary death scene in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
- You’re welcome.
- I do and I do and I do for you.
- Keanu, having gone to the Source, is now talking to Computer God.
- He wants to be plugged back into the Matrix so he can have a fist-fight with Agent Smith.
- The movie throws all sorts of bullshit at you about why, but it’s an action movie and there needs to be a fist-fight at the end.
- It is raining, and the motion is very slow.
- All of the fu is of the kung type; this fu has been thoroughly kunged.
- Why are they punching?
- Doesn’t Keanu have to reintegrate with the Source in order for the Seventh Rebirth of Zion to takeOH I DON’T CARE ABOUT ANY OF THIS ANYMORE.
- Why won’t these two stop bickering?
- The roughhousing is out of hand.
- Just get it over with, Keanu.
- Or Hugo WeavingEXCEPT JESUS GOD NO HUGO WEAVING IS YELLING PHILOSOPHY AT KEANU.
- I’m dying here.
- I’m hungry and I hate the Matrix and the two pretty men won’t stop striking one another.
- Kill the bad guy and let me be, Matrix: Riefenstahl.
- Is Computer God eating Keanu?
- I’m not objecting to it, just asking.
- The squidbots all stop trying to fuck up Zion.
- Yay?
- In The Matrix, Keanu promises to set everyone free, but in the Sequels, he just saves a squat punk commune.
- Ooh, the Magic White Guy and the Magic Black Lady are having an ambiguous conversation.
- That means it’s over.
- It’s gotta be over.
- Be over.
- Die, goddamn you.
And then the Wachowskis went on to desecrate the most important cultural touchpoint of my early childhood: “Speed Racer.” If you has not seen that particular technicolor technobabble bullshit, you might could get some more gummies and have thoughts . . .
I’ve not seen that or Jupiter Ascending (tho I’m tempted), but I did like Cloud Atlas. I did not understand Cloud Atlas, but I sure did enjoy it.
Loved the book. Fell asleep during the movie. Alcohol might have been involved. (You really should do the “Speed Racer” thing). (Really).
May a Ghost Cat snuggle up with you in the bed tonight
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P_J9ZPnAvC8
All the sweet cream icing
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9EVtBPkqDuo