When I’m with a boy I like, it’s hard for me to say anything cool, or witty — or at all. I can usually make a few vowel sounds, and then I have to go away.
— Willow, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer ‘Welcome to the Hellmouth‘
TV And Films
The shows and movies I like (or don’t).
The Matrix has me!
I’ve been in complete Matrix mode for most of this weekend — saw the sequel Thursday night, watched the original yesterday with Prairie, and then went back to see the sequel again tonight.
I’ve also been going through the discussion thread on the Home Theater Forum (all 20-some pages of it so far!), and in addition to a lot of very interesting conversation about the film, many good links have been posted. I’ve added quite a few of those to the end of my movie post, so if you’re as caught up in all this as I am, you might enjoy poking around some of them.
Lastly, an amusing post from the forementioned discussion thread…
I’m entirely baffled how anyone can characterize this as the WORST Movie/WORST sequel of all time
Many people
- don’t see a lot of movies
- have a short memory or attention span, so they give more weight to recent events
- have a poor vocabulary
- have no sense of scale or nuance, as evidenced by the typical “sucks”/”rules” dichotomy
- can’t hold two seemingly contradictory thoughts in their head at the same time
- are unable to balance their high expectations in an objective appraisal
- are idiots
- are about as useful as a Duracell
- some of the above
- all of the above
— Ken Chan
The Matrix: Reloaded
Just got back from seeing The Matrix: Reloaded. In short, I’m quite satisfied with what I was presented with. At the same time, I can certainly understand why so many middling to flat out bad reviews have been popping up in the last few days. I don’t think that this is the sequel that people were really expecting, and I think that that is what is affecting many of the reviews. For my part, the fact that the story is moving in ways that weren’t expected is exactly the reason I enjoyed it, and I’m really looking forward to seeing the final chapter in six months or so.
Briefly, I’d definitely recommend it — on three conditions.
First: Realize that this, much like Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, is not a self-contained movie. It doesn’t answer all the questions it raises, and ends on a cliffhanger. Thankfully, it’s a relatively short wait for the next and final chapter.
Second: Don’t expect a standard-formula Hollywood sequel. Don’t turn off your brain when you go in (one of the things I enjoy about these movies is that they provide brain food as well as good eye candy), but don’t head in with too many preconceived notions and expectations, either.
Third: Probably the most important, this is not a movie to go into cold. I’d highly recommend watching The Matrix beforehand, if you’re not already fairly familiar with the first film in the series. The Matrix: Reloaded builds and expands upon the foundation laid in The Matrix, but without some familiarity with the first film, it’d be fairly easy to get lost, especially towards the end. Optionally, if you have the time/bandwidth to do so, reading through the comics (especially ‘Bits and Pieces‘) and watching the Animatrix episodes ‘The Second Renaissance, Part One and Part Two to get some historical background of the Man/Machine conflict and the creation of the Matrix. More thoughts…more loosely structured, and ripe with possibilities for expansion and further exploration later on.
Firstly, just to get it out of the way, the effects are 95% of what they were hyped to be. There were a few instances in the “burly brawl” (where Neo is fighting upwards of 100 Agent Smiths) that didn’t quite look right, but overall, mindboggling work. So. Done. Now on to the more interesting stuff.
The Matrix set the ground rules, but The Matrix: Reloaded is rewriting them. Not disregarding them, but fleshing them out and re-interpreting them, finding the loopholes in the rules that were previously written and exploiting them, while still remaining true to the core story. Fascinating to watch, and a big part of why I believe that this isn’t a “safe”, normal Hollywood sequel.
Lots of interesting questioning of beliefs, and how much beliefs (or conflicting beliefs) really matter. Early in the film, Morpheus is having an argument with one of his superiors. After Morpheus expresses his belief in Neo as “The One” and in Neo’s ability to save everyone, his superior says, “Not everyone believes what you do.” Morpheus responds, “My beliefs don’t require them to.” A little later on, Link (one of the new characters) is getting ready to leave with Morpheus and the gang. His wife, not thrilled that he’s leaving, gives him a necklace for luck. “Aw, come on, you know that I don’t believe in all that…” he complains. “But I do,” she tells him, and gives him the necklace. I thought both scenes were nicely done.
Three key scenes that I’d like to watch quite a few more times to work my way through the various ideas and concepts presented, just to make sure I understood them all: the Merovingian’s monologue in the restaurant regarding choice and cause/effect; the conversation between Neo and the Oracle in the playground where we learn more about the Oracle’s role in the Matrix; and the revelations regarding the Matrix given to Neo towards the end of the film. Lots of information is presented fairly quickly in those three scenes, and they each bear some re-watching.
A very interesting (and very spoiler filled, don’t read this before seeing the movie) rundown of the events in the film is up at The Hot Button (via this (spoiler-filled) HTF thread). There are a few other Matrix articles up on the same site, all linked to at the bottom of that Hot Button page. It’s worth reading them all.
This is good for a giggle.
Salon’s review is excellent (both a positive review of the film, and a well-written review).
A transcript of the conversation between Neo and the Architect can be found here.
Dad sent me this article from Beliefnet exploring some of the religious symbolism in the Matrix films.
Local Seattle alternative paper reviews: The Stranger and the Seattle Weekly.
Another nice point to the movie: when Trinity has some hacking to do, instead of flashy 3D “movie style” graphic displays, she calls up a command line and uses the real-world nmap utility! I noticed this and grinned while I was watching the film, and other people are picking up on it too. The Register has an article about it, too.
The New Yorker’s pan of The Matrix: Reloaded, and The Hot Button’s rebuttal (snide, but has some good points).
A good analysis of religious symbolism here.
Something amusing: MatrixXP. ;)
Thanks to Kirsten for this Salon article: The Matrix way of Knowledge.
Not In Our Name wants you to take the red pill.
Abstract Dynamics points out possible political undertones.
The teaser for The Matrix: Revolutions has hit the ‘net.
Shaolin Soccer
Thanks to Jimmy for pointing out Shaolin Soccer, a movie I’ll definitely be seeing when it hits stateside (not until August, unfortunately)! Looks to be a lot of fun.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
Thoroughly enjoyable! Not really a lot to it, all told (Greek-American girl meets American boy, boy has to cope with her very proudly Greek family), but a quite pleasant and silly movie. When Dad was telling me about it after he saw it, he compared it to his family — having survived (and enjoyed) a couple family reunions, I can definitely see the parallels. While our middle-American roots aren’t quite the same as the Greek roots in the movie’s family, in many ways, a big family is a big family, no matter what their heritage…and I think I’m glad I don’t have 27 first cousins! Anyway, definitely worth a rent.
Signs
First and foremost — creepy. Extremely so. Shyamalan excels when it comes to creating unsettling moods, and he uses that to full effect throughout the movie. Unfortunately, after ninety minutes of buildup, the end is something of a letdown — a bit too pat and sudden after all that suspense, not to mention an extremely heavy dose of ‘deus ex machina‘. I was reminded both of Chrichton’s ‘Andromeda Strain’ and many Heinlein novels — page turners ’til the very end, when everything just suddenly stops. Quite unsatisfying.
Having watched all three of Shyamalan’s films now (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs), I think he’s an excellent director, and a very gifted conceptualizer, but I also think he could benefit from turning over his ideas to a more accomplished writer. While I’ve enjoyed each of his films, I’ve also found each of them somewhat lacking. The Sixth Sense was very much a one-trick pony (worth watching only twice: once to be surprised by the twist end, and again to catch all the clues you missed the first time), Unbreakable was an interesting idea but was too distant and cold in its execution to really grab me, and Signs topped off an atmosphere of tension and suspense that many horror movies could really use with a letdown of a resolution.
Secretary
Wow…now that was an interesting film. I can definitely see why Kirsten’s been suggesting it! A fascinating portrayal of two people breaking out of their respective self-imposed psychological prisons to find support and love through a light S&M, D/s relationship. Wonderfully done, too — they manage to present a fetish that has a lot of misunderstanding among most people as something that, while unusual, is not freakish, and is actually healthy and liberating for both of the parties involved. Admittedly, it’s not a fetish that I’ve got much interest in, but I’ve certainly got more of an understanding of and appreciation for why some people do find it to their taste. I’ll probably be keeping this disc long enough to listen to the commentary track (from the writer and the director), just to get a bit more insight into the film.
About a Boy
Hugh Grant plays his “charming slimeball” routine to a T, as the world’s shallowest bachelor who finds acceptance, and hidden depths, after stumbling into becoming a surrogate father figure for the quirky son of a troubled single mom. Quite enjoyable, with a lot of cute lines.
Besides — even though it was in all the trailers, his reaction to being asked to be the godfather to his friends’ newborn daughter is priceless! “Let’s face it, I’d make a horrible godfather. I’d drop her on her head at her christening, forget all her birthdays until her 18th when I’d take her out, get her drunk and, let’s face it, probably try to shag her. This is a horrid idea.”
NORAD? Um, nope!
There’s a very interesting site that I found via Atrios that, among other things, has a very comprehensive look at the events of Sept. 11^th^ in this timeline. They seem to have done a good job of piecing together the various news reports about the events of that day, comparing them and questioning the many inconsistencies that exist.
From there, I started browsing through the rest of the source site, the Center for Cooperative Research. Looking at another page on the site, a more straightforward timeline of Sept. 11^th^, imagine my surprise when I saw a picture captioned ‘NORAD’s war room in Cheyenne, Wyoming,’ that, rather than being a picture of the Norad control room, is actually a screen shot from the 1983 adventure/suspense film Wargames!
As important as I think it is that we continue to investigate the events of Sept. 11^th^, and the events surrounding it, when a site does something like this — no matter how good their overall intentions may be — it only serves to damage their credibility. The webmaster of the Center for Cooperative Research should either replace that photo with a real photo of NORAD (if such a photo exists in the private sector), or simply remove the Wargames photo. Leaving it there can only damage how seriously people take their site, no matter how much effort they’ve put into their research.
Update: I e-mailed my concerns about the picture to the webmaster, and they’ve replaced the former photo with one from Discover magazine. While I’ve never been in NORAD, and therefore can’t assert to the photo’s accuracy firsthand, it does look far more likely to be the real thing (more realistic graphics on the monitors, more realistic computer terminals, less flashy overall — and I don’t recognize it from a movie!).
My Netflix queue
After severely decimating my movie collection, I got to talking with one of the guys at work, and he gave Netflix a glowing recommendation.
It looks like a handy little service. You select what moves you’d like to rent, and then subscribe for a \$20/month fee. As movies become available, Netflix sends them to you. You watch them, then send them back. No per-day charges, no late fees — just send them back whenever you’re done. You’re allowed to have three out at a time, and when you send any back, more from your list get sent to you.
So, I figured what the heck, and signed up. ~~If anyone’s really morbidly curious, I’ll keep track of what’s in my queue here.~~ Feel free to suggest some, too!
Update: Trying to keep track of my rental queue was rapidly becoming fairly obnoxious to try to deal with as I kept adding stuff, so I’ve discontinued that. I’ve also moved my mini-reviews to posts of their own, rather than perpetually adding comments to this post. They’ll show up on the main page, or you can always check the MovieReviews category listing to catch up.