Transcript of 70mm’s The Matrix Resurrections (2021) Episode.
SLIM Hey, it’s your old pal Slim and this is 70mm, a podcast for film lovers. Every Monday I sit down to talk about a recently watched movies with dear friend and artist Danny Haas.
DANNY I can never get over how Jimmy Stewart kisses on the screen. The cheek flaps he has. He just rubs all over these women’s faces.
SLIM And our own spiritual adviser, Protolexus.
PROTO You know, we’re all slouchers. You know, we’re we’re working from home and our sweatpants and sweatshirts. You know, when’s the last time you sat up straight? Weeks?
SLIM Not only that, but we also have our dear friend Sean Astin to call in and talk about his favorite movies.
SEAN I will say I love LA Confidential — a lot.
SLIM Later in this very episode, we end our Matrix journey with Lana Wachowski’s subversive Matrix Resurrections. Does Lana try to make the same old matrix action movie or does she do something completely different and blow our minds? Let’s find out… together.
[70mm theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM The buzz around Matrix 4, in our VHS village Discord, if I can be brutally frank with you is that of a clogged toilet right now. [Proto laughs] The ratings coming in, people are pissed. People are disappointed. I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve gone from the highs of Spider-Man: Far From Fome. Which if you go by our Discord is the second coming of Christ Himself.
DANNY Seriously.
SLIM We’ve come full circle. Proto, how have you been perceiving this busy week for us? You know, we’ve had two huge releases come out.
PROTO It has been interesting. I was thinking about this today of how is interacting with movies primarily through Letterboxd warping, maybe my sense of hype for different movies, or even like reception. Because Letterboxd is the main way I think I’m interacting and our Letterboxd feed. Which is still just like you know, a small group of people, so I’m not really sure of what that means in the in the larger sphere. Of course, there’s hype around — I mean, you just hearing about it on, you know, all over the place of people loving Spider-Man. So it’s, you know, it’s bigger than that. But definitely in the Discord, yeah, it’s been I mean, there’s people breaking down crying in the theaters. I mean, people passing out, people making love in the seats.
DANNY Excuse me?
PROTO Like it’s just pandamonium.
DANNY My god.
SLIM How many children were conceived during a super spreader Spider-Man event in theatres? Has it ever been done?
PROTO It’s gonna be the Spider-Kids in 15 years. [Slim laughs] “Wait, when’s your birthday? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You must be one of those Spider-Kids.”
SLIM So just a reminder, Matrix: Resurrections is our main course this evening. It’s our feature presentation. If you want to skip ahead to it by all means you can use the chapters in your podcast app if they support it. We’re going to get to Matrix 4. We will set the record straight, the three of us, with how we perceive this film. And next week is Jurassic Park. Okay? If you want to join us for the ride, you can do so get ready for Jurassic Park. And then we’ve got a lot of big plans for next week. A lot of big plans. Not sure the world is ready. Least of all our Discord for next week. Gosh. Far From Home came out last — how much time do you want to spend on Far From Home? Danny, you saw it in theatres, right?
PROTO I’d like to hear your thoughts.
DANNY It’s also No Way Home.
SLIM No Way Home?
DANNY Yeah, they tried hard with these titles for these movies. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Get a different title scheme! Why do they all have to sound the same? We should just say real quick, now we won’t go spoilery. Real quick, Danny our dear friend and artist Danny Haas, he’s a little bit under the weather this week, you know, send your positive vibes to Danny this week. He needs them. But he’s troopering through.
DANNY For the pod.
SLIM For the pod. Spider-Man Home 3. James and I went to theaters to see it. James loved it. The atmosphere was electric in the theater. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was if like, Endgame happened. But if the people that were sitting to see Endgame were high on drugs of some kind. Like bath salts.
DANNY Holy cow.
SLIM Like they were losing their minds. Danny, what was your experience in theaters for the new one?
DANNY Honestly, I feel like it was very close to the same. A lot of clapping, a lot of cheering. Which I don’t like in my movie theaters. Except for Star Wars. [Slim laughs]
SLIM You like perfect silence when you go to the movies.
DANNY It was electric hat night we saw it, or afternoon, caught a matinee, save a couple extra bucks.
SLIM I think we had the same vibes. So I don’t want to dwell on our thoughts too long since we’re not going to get into spoiler territory. But the highs of this movie didn’t really hit as high for me as most people. I think like I’m in the 0.1% of people that didn’t love this movie. So it seems like it has universal acclaim. It’s shot to the top of the Letterboxd like end of year charts already. Like I think it’s gonna be the number one movie for the year. And I feel like Danny, you probably felt the same way a little bit, maybe with the writing and the CGI also, visuals.
DANNY I don’t know about visuals. But I feel like for a Marvel movie, this is on par with writing. So I’m not very keen on that. But for concept level of what they’re doing, or what they did, I was all about it. I had a great time seeing things happen on screen, like the highs for me were high.
SLIM You got high.
DANNY I did yeah, yeah. We have the bath salts in Florida. This is probably why sound like this.
SLIM It’s where they originated.
DANNY But yeah, I think I’m landing middle ground with like even star ratings for this. But there are moments I did kind of sit up in my chair. There were some good, there’s some good moments, especially for I don’t know, people who are a fan of Spider-Man. There’s just some fun Spidey bits.
SLIM Cut the stream.
DANNY I won’t miss a Spider-Man movie in theaters.
SLIM Yeah, the visuals, at least in my opinion left a lot to be desired. But James, my son, loved it. I didn’t get son-fluenced this time around. But as we left the theater, he wanted to go back into the history of Spider-Man, like he was now interested in whatever Marvel has done with Spider-Man in the past. So we sat down to go back to watch the movies that I grew up with, with Tobey’s Spider-Man, we watched that, which is amazing, which is available in 4L. FYI.
DANNY That’s in 4K?
SLIM That’s in 4K baby. Not the third one, I don’t think. We didn’t watch the third one. But Spider-Man 2, if we can just spend just a few minutes on Spider-Man 2.
DANNY Okay.
PROTO Sure.
SLIM I mean, is there a more perfect superhero film?
DANNY No.
SLIM Starring Tobey Maguire, ever made? I mean, unbelievable.
DANNY It’s a lot of fun.
SLIM It’s like the Spider Man I grew up with. So I’m gonna date myself, but like my Spider- Man that I love is one that’s like poor, can’t pay his bills. He has trouble making friends. He can’t get even near a girlfriend. And those are his problems, but he’s still forcing himself to like be a superhero and like stop crime and stuff. And you get all that with Spider-Man 2. It’s like the perfect version. Proto, do you remember the last time you saw Spider-Man 2 with Doc Oct?
PROTO No, with all these rewatches coming in. I was trying to remember what even happened in Spider-Man 2. And then I did remember. It’s like, oh, that’s the Doc Oct one. But really, other than that, I don’t know what happens if you’re ringing a few bells with some of your comments. But it’s been a long time.
SLIM I highly recommend — I mean, can you imagine Spider-Man 2 episode?
PROTO I cannot.
SLIM Danny’s Spider-Man art. Has it ever happened?
DANNY Stop.
PROTO Stop right now.
SLIM Let’s say hello to some new friends on our Patreon this week. Tyler and Ezra joined and you can do the same thing at 70mmpod.com You can get access to uncut episodes. Listen live in our Discord, the VHS village Discord. get discounts on Danny’s prints and you get access to episodes that are only available for supporters. We just released the Prisoner of Azkaban episode. So we’re doing all the Harry Potter’s in there. We just did the first three Matrix movies, Batman Returns, Batman Forever. Remember how great Batman Forever was?
DANNY An amazing moment.
PROTO Bright spot.
SLIM And you can also listen to those exclusive episodes on Apple or Spotify, if you support us there. So thank you for joining us this week. Proto, did you watch any movies?
PROTO I was able to watch one movie. Our friends over at BAT & SPIDER, Dale and Chuck, they watched a movie this week Class Of Nuke ’Em High from 1986, which is from the I think it’s called like Troma productions. So they did Toxic Avenger two is you know, a bunch of other B movies. This is the only one of those I’ve seen. I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into other than, you know, a cheap movie from the 80s, looked like fun. And it was, it was a ton of fun. This movie is a riot. I thought it was hilarious. I thought the effects were great for what the movie was. I thought it was funny. And I thought it had like a lot to say underneath of it too. You know, it’s a it’s about this town called Troma which has a nuclear power plant there. And it’s really, it’s poisoning the town. But all the officials act like everything’s okay. Nothing’s going wrong. And in high school there. The kids are getting like infected by this nuclear waste. Things are happening to their bodies. They’re transforming. They’re getting high. They’re getting high on on Nuke energy. So things go wrong. Something’s go right. But it’s just a ton of fun. You watched it too, right Slim?
SLIM I watched this because, so BAT & SPIDER, if you’re into filth movies, by the sounds of this movie, you should listen to BAT & SPIDER. But they did Gymkata last week, which was a karate movie with a secret agent who was a gymnast. [Slim laughs] And movie was atrocious. And not in a fun way. So when they announced Class Of Nuke ’Em High, I was really excited because I remember Toxic Avenger. I have memories as a kid watching Toxie the anime like Toxic Avenger animated series. So I have like, you know, vague memories of Troma, you know, low budge, fun movies. So I was like, hell yes. I’ve never seen this. And I had an amazing time watching Class Of Nuke ’Em High. It just felt like, you know, the kind of independent, fun energy in a movie that you don’t really see mainstream anymore. Like, I don’t know if this was ever really mainstream. So maybe that was the wrong word. But it just looked like everyone was having fun. Everyone who filmed it had fun. And I was just having fun, because that like poured off the screen when I was watching it.
PROTO Totally. That’s what one of my main takeaways was, there’s a lot of extras in this. And it just seemed like everybody who was involved was having the best time of their lives making this movie. And you could feel that energy watching it. It was it was great.
SLIM Yeah, I wrote in my Letterboxd review that if I had watched this when I was a kid, I probably would have started to like, make my own movies. Or wanted to really make my own movies, because it just looks so independent. And like, you can do this too. If you really wanted to.
PROTO I was getting, like John Carpenter vibes, in terms of like the effects, like it reminded me of like effects from The Thing. Like just like that level of practical stuff that’s over the top. But like really fun and disgusting. I felt like I got the same, you know, same payoff in this. Yeah, yeah.
SLIM Every week we give away free year of Letterboxd Pro, no ads, gets rid of all those third party ads in the website, get access to a host of stats for yourself. And you can see where movies that you add your watchlists are streaming, so easy access to see where you can watch a movie that you want to see. So this week, this week’s winner is Alison on Instagram. She shared the Pride and Prejudice ep.
DANNY My goodness.
SLIM On IG.
DANNY What a night.
SLIM Quote “If you’re a movie lover and haven’t started listening to 70mm, what are you doing, homie?” End quote.
DANNY Oh my goodness.
SLIM So Alison, congratulations.
DANNY Thank you.
SLIM I was crucified that episode if I remember correctly, but we don’t want to get into that.
PROTO Rightfully so. [Proto laughs]
SLIM Danny, did you watch any movies this week?
DANNY I did. Last weekend, George and I were home watching movies. We burned through a bunch of the Rankin/Bass, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, Year without Santa Claus, Drummer Boy. Had a good time watching those. Anniversary for Rogue One came around, watched Rogue One for the 1 million time. Still the perfect movie. Casey and I got around to watch some Christian movies, watched Little Women. We’ve added Little Women as a part of our Christmas movie watch list. Actually. I feel like I can just put that on any holiday and watch that movie. I don’t really need a reason to watch Little Women but it’s perfect for Christmas. And last night we watched It’s A Wonderful Life which hurts, it’s so good. I just can’t get over how good that movie is.
SLIM To Bill’s house! No! no!
DANNY I can never get over how Jimmy Stewart kisses on screen. [Slim laughs] I can’t get over it. The cheek flaps he has, he just rubs all over these women’s faces.
SLIM That’s how they kissed back then, though!
PROTO The sandpaper burns.
SLIM It was like everyone had to kiss like it was PG and the most unsexy thing you could do. You just rubbed cheeks.
DANNY I mean, he’s gonna suffocate someone if he’s not careful. [Slim laughs]
PROTO How many women passed out from scenes with him? He’s blocking air through the mouth and nose.
SLIM I mean, I was watching, I started Nightmare Alley on Criterion, the original version.
DANNY Oh, okay.
SLIM And I just had this like weird thought about, this is gonna sound weird, but like men’s bodies, back then in the 40s. They just have a physique that you don’t see anymore. It’s like your granddad’s physique or like your dad’s physique. Proto, do you know what I mean? Like, just the way they’re, they they’re standing their chest is kind of like out, they got thin arms. It’s just like a 1950s man’s body. You don’t see it anymore.
PROTO I think that’s also an illusion from the high waist pants. It makes their legs seem very long, because they wore them up really high. So they had like six inches more of leg than the modern man. Through, you know, pant height. Yeah. So I think that has something to do with it. But you know, yeah, I mean, they, you know, they were they were more business oriented at that time. You know, we’re all slouchers. You know, we’re we’re working from home and our sweatpants and sweatshirts. You know, when’s the last time you sat up straight?
SLIM I’ve never sat up straight up in my life. When’s the last time you worse slacks? You know? These dudes wear slacks all the time. High waisted slacks. Ridiculous. We’re rapidly running out of time. We still have matrix for to get into. We have a lot of films to talk about. Maybe just real briefly, I’ll talk about The Power of the Dog.
DANNY Oh, yeah. You loved that.
PROTO Please do.
SLIM I finally watched The Power of the Dog. There was a lot of hype around this movie that had come out. This is Jane Campion. Gemma, my cohort, my partner in crime on The Letterboxd Show, a huge Campion champion.
DANNY Excuse me?
SLIM She did The Piano. I just coined that, I don’t know if that’s a thing, but maybe it’ll stick. TM TM TM.
PROTO Dale, copyright that.
SLIM She also directed Bright Star, In The Cut. And there’s just a lot of buzz. Jane Campion movie, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst from Spider-Man.
DANNY Kirsten’s in that? Oh.
SLIM And Jesse Plemons.
DANNY Oh, her husband.
SLIM Who is like, you know, the new Timothée Chalamet.
DANNY Are they still married?
SLIM Jesse Plemons. Jesse Plemons. So I figured I had to check this out. Very good, slow burn. Music is amazing. Visually, it’s stunning. So I’ve kind of like ignored most reviews about this movie. I just kind of wanted to just go in blind and I was glad I did. I loved it. Four and a half stars I gave it.
PROTO Hmm. I want to watch this.
SLIM I think you should. I think you should do it this weekend.
PROTO Maybe I will.
SLIM I’m not a big Cumberbatch guy. I think the only thing I really liked him in was Sherlock. God, remember Sherlock?
DANNY What a time. What a time for television.
PROTO Talk about hype.
SLIM Holy. Where did that era go? Was that 20 years ago? No one talks about that anymore.
DANNY No one talks about it anymore.
SLIM What happened?
DANNY We’ve moved on.
PROTO Streaming happened. I think that was the last great show before streaming took over.
SLIM That could be, because I remember had to like premiere overseas first. We’re all waiting around like schlubs for that to hit some streaming service. I do remember — this is not a dumb spoiler, but remember he like died at the end of the one season?
DANNY Excuse me?
SLIM And we had to like figure out how he didn’t die. How he like escaped death. That was kind of corny.
DANNY It was awesome. [Proto & Slim laugh]
SLIM Alright, we have to get into what I talked about the top of this show. Matrix: Resurrections. Matrix 4. Lana Wachowski comes back to do the thing.
DANNY Poor Lana.
SLIM The buzz, I mentioned it on Discord, the buzz is palpable in our mini community. And the buzz is bad, like just torrential drizzle of badness on this movie. But we start on this journey, the first three movies, you can listen to on our Patreon or Spotify and Apple if you want. So, right off the bat, I think we both said during the third movie, our buzz for this movie was real low, after we watched the third movie, but we need to get into it. Proto, do you want to attempt the synopsis for Matrix 4: Resurrections?
PROTO Sure, Matrix 4. Neo experiences life after Saviorhood, where he gets a cozy spot back in the Matrix as a programmer who created The Matrix within the Matrix. This creates a loop of sorts in which Neo exits out of the Matrix once again, this time with a more pronounced bone structure. [Slim laughs] Trinity is now alive and still plugged into the Matrix. So Neo must make the choice to give Trinity the choice to get out of the video game too. But it’s not really a choice. It’s love. Matrix: Resurrections.
[White Rabbit from The Matrix: Resurrections plays]
SLIM I do want to spotlight that I think the first review dropped for this and it was from, you know, the firebrand reviewer David Ehrlich.
DANNY Oh no.
SLIM And he gave it four and a half stars. And he said, paraphrasing, if Spider-Man: Far From Home is the poison, Matrix 4 is the antidote.
PROTO Ah!
SLIM He said non-spoilery in his review that like this is the franchise movie that dares to be different. So my hype level, you know, like last week, was like, yeah, whatever Matrix4, I get to watch at home. After that review came out, my eyebrow started going up.
DANNY Twitching.
SLIM It twitched a little bit. And then when I sat down to watch this movie, my first note is like, is literally just streaming a new Matrix movie at home, is rad. Like, what a world, right? Did you got any of those feelings, Proto, when you fired this up?
PROTO Yeah. Well, you know, I was trying to get to the theater to see this because I figured, man, I really should make it to the theater. I’d love to watch it there. But unfortunately, with everything going on with the holiday, I couldn’t make it happen before the show. So I watched it at home. Also big news for me, I was able to secure a new TV. So I was able to watch this on a television again. We’re back.
PROTO Thank you. Thank you. That’s how I feel on the inside. [Slim laughs] But that is so true. Being able to watch a new movie like this. Just, you know, kids are in bed you go upstairs, bam, a new Matrix. It’s amazing.
SLIM God, it felt so good to just like — I don’t know how to describe it. You grow up on The Matrix movies. And then flash forward 20 years and you’re just like, I feel like I’m having a moment, sitting down watching something brand new. And I know Danny hates this, but I didn’t watch any trailers for this.
DANNY I don’t hate it.
SLIM So I went in totally, just like a stranger off the street firing it up and it just felt amazing. Like, it was almost like, I’m not trying to overhype it, but like, seen a new Star Wars movie, you know?
DANNY Ugh, god.
SLIM Sitting down there. Whether or not it did that have effects you know, who knows? Danny, what did you go through firing this movie up?
DANNY Being sick this week kind of sucked because I didn’t want to do anything. So firing this up felt like a chore. Not gonna lie. And then after all the Letterboxd reviews rolling in, I was just not excited to watch it. So that probably took a big toll on my experience. But when when the Matrix drip starts happening and that sound effects hit, it just gets you in that moment instantly. And this intro to this story with the mirror universe watching Trinity from the first film. I mean, I was throbbing. I got hype real fast, because that was a really cool way to start this film. Getting to watch that scene again, but from a different angle, and with different characters. I was very excited, very, very excited.
SLIM Proto, what’s on your list for Matrix: Resurrections?
PROTO Where to start with this? There’s so much I want to talk about. But I guess just Yeah, with that, that opening scene of it, just really doing a replay of the first movie and dropping you into it. But everything being slightly off, you know, the characters being different, a different Trinity, a different Smith, you know, seeing this new character Bugs, seeing an operator in the Matrix, it throws a lot at you. And it really from the get go just sets up this whole idea that, you know, we’re rehashing scenes and characters from the first movie, but they’re being played out by other characters in the movie, from the first story. And because of that, there’s so many like layers and like nuance to this movie, that, as I was watching as like a fan of the Matrix, I found that so, so fun and engaging to me of like this property that I that I love so much. And you know, you know, people can say what they say about, you know, remakes or whatever, not liking them or whatever. But to me the way this was done, I just had like, so much fun with this, like anything where there was a nod and I don’t know if you call this like fanservice, if it is, then I guess I’m guilty of enjoying that, because I just thought that was just a way of playing with the different characters and roles was so much fun to me.
SLIM Yeah, I effing loved this movie. I gotta get out of the way right now. So like, the movie at the start is very hard to understand. Like, I had to rewind a few times. But by the end of this movie, I was like in tears. I don’t know, if it was the meta textual storyline of this movie and it just like going in a different direction than what would you would anticipate in a reboot or relaunch. Like I was all in at the by the end of this movie. So like the conversation with Smith and Neo about how they wanted to do another Matrix game.
[clip of Matrix: Resurrections plays]
SMITH I’m sure you can understand why our beloved parent company Warner Brothers has decided to make a sequel to the trilogy.
THOMAS ANDERSON What?
SMITH They informed me they’re going to do it with or without us.
THOMAS ANDERSON I thought they couldn’t do that.
SMITH Oh, they can. And they made it clear, they’ll kill our contract if we don’t cooperate.
THOMAS ANDERSON Really?
SMITH I know you said the story was over for you. But that’s the thing about stories. They never really end, do they? We’re telling the same stories we’ve always told, just with different names, different faces. And I have to say I’m kind of excited. After all these years, to be going back to where it all started, back to the Matrix.
SLIM And how they’re going to do it with or without him. Like all that stuff, I thought was so cool. Like them deciding that like, Neo doesn’t know he’s Neo, and they let him become a coder. And he’s like coding video games. And he uses his memories of the Matrix to make a Matrix game. I thought that was awesome. I mean, like Matrix Online as a thing. I saw some comments in the spoilers stuff about like, why did they choose to do a game and not like, why didn’t he just make his own movies? I mean, games are so intrinsically tied to the Matrix movies. It makes total sense to me.
PROTO It’s also like his role. He’s a programmer, so it makes more sense.
SLIM So like all that stuff, like the overall picture, I was in love with it. Like I wasn’t expecting to be in love with it. By that point, I did. Danny, what did you think of like the gaming aspect of Neo kind of like, not knowing who he is for the majority of this movie?
DANNY I would say the first hour, I am all in on this film. I thought the complete meta-ness of poking fun at Warner Brothers, making him a game designer, and all of that. And I didn’t feel lost, which I thought was gonna happen in this film, I thought that they were going to try and be this existential, how I felt watching Reloaded in and whatever this third one is called. But I was just connecting left and right with this film right away. And I was surprised to see, because what I thought was just going to be in the trailers, were clips from the movies themselves, I really thought that that was just kind of a trailer gimmick that they were throwing at us. But to see them use clips from the older movies as if they were Neos video games that he remembers, I thought was a little bit genius, and a lot of fun to catch left and right.
PROTO Back to that scene with Smith, where they meet in the room together for the first time. And Smith, of course, is now kind of like the CEO boss of the business side for the gaming company. So they have a partnership, but just like the meta levels of this where it takes it out of the movie, which took the whole Warner Brothers thing and comes into reality, even like with the Wachowskis, right, because, like, here, he’s talking to Neo saying, you know, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re twisting our arm here, we have no choice, we have to make a fourth game, you know, is is the same thing applies to Lana Wachowski in this situation as well, because, you know, here’s her property, and that she that, you know, is all of her creative energy into it. And now they’re making a fourth one, and doing the same thing. So when the stuff like even comes out of the movie, and it’s like self referential in that way, I just felt like the way that it was done, because it’s the Matrix, like we’re talking about a simulation of reality, so those things they actually fit in this story, rather than just being some kind of like, fourth wall breaking gimmick that is just like tied into a movie just for, you know, a laugh. When in Monty Python, when they when they look at the look into the camera and talk to you, that’s just for, you know, a gag, but this it actually makes sense within the framework of these movies, which is really cool.
DANNY And I wondered when Smith makes that comment about they were gonna do Matrix 4 with or without us. I wonder if that was like Lana’s — I wonder if, like her cry for help or whatever, like was she being forced to make this?
SLIM I did read that they were working on creating like another Matrix movie in anticipation with the Wachowskis saying yes eventually. But they had said, like, for many years that they had no interest in doing it.
DANNY Interesting.
SLIM And in fact, when, you know, she did come back on this, the story that she’s told interviews is like, Why did you come back to the Matrix? I think she had like her, one of her parents died, a dear friend of her died. And through her grief, working with the characters of matrix, and the people of the movie was like, her way of dealing with it. And that’s like, what she wanted to do to comfort herself. And when they started in COVID, like when they started filming COVID pause that I think after a few months, and she actually didn’t, she thought about not coming back to finish the movie. She thought it like maybe we just don’t finish this movie. And it just becomes one of those urban legends that no one ever sees. And Keanu and the cast talked her into doing it like, and Carrie, like, let’s finish this movie. Like we have to finish this movie. So that like backstory, I thought was just really fascinating. And also the scenes where you know that that like planning session with all the designers that they had was hilarious. And them like, you know, what is the meaning of The Matrix game?
[clip of The Matrix: Resurrections plays]
SLIM I love that stuff. Yeah, I love that. Like she has now come out and said that, like the trans stuff is like insanely true now, how that meaning. And I’ve been seeing in some reviews that like it’s even more the case in this film. But one of the things I love about this is it’s not like the other Matrix movies. Like, right, it doesn’t even look like another Matrix movie. And you could say that about like, this is a new version of the Matrix, but like, they shot it for better or worse with steadicam, and like it, what looks like RED cameras, and I don’t love how it looks in a lot of things, it just looks like obvious set pieces. But I love that it looks that way. Because it’s different. And it’s Lana saying like, I’m not going to make another effing Matrix movie that we already did, I’m going to make something different. And whether you like it or not, it’s up to you.
PROTO Yeah, some other choices with the effects, like the bullet time stuff, just the speed at which things moved. Because I feel like in the other Matrix movies, like there was bullet time where things almost completely stopped. And then there was like a normal suit. But this had like a lot of like, almost like, I don’t know what to say like, just in between speeds where things were kind of like slow mo and it felt like Neo was moving in slow motion. But there was just like a lot of different things. And I didn’t want to say like I loved it, like I was over I wasn’t over the moon. I think to me, the action a lot. A lot of people have said this, that the action was kind of like the low point. And I think I would kind of agree. Like I think of all the parts of this movie, probably the action moments of like the fighting was just the thing that I didn’t love the most.
DANNY Yeah, I have to agree. The action sequences, I don’t feel like we’re anything to write home about, especially when from the first three films. We’ve had these major set action sequences that are amazing. And I feel like maybe the motorcycle scene at the end reaches that level, but not really, it wasn’t any. And also any action sequence we saw on this didn’t feel fresh or anything. They didn’t try anything different. That was kind of pushing The Matrix kind of boundary of what they could do fighting wise. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t feel like there was there was no action moments where I’m sitting up my chair super excited about.
SLIM I just have like a overall vibe of like, the visuals of this movie being different is great, but I just don’t love how it looks like it just looks like it almost seems almost looks like a TV show. Like a CSI scene. And I don’t know if it was the 4K or like, I almost like watch this on like my tablet. Like I wonder if it’ll look a little bit better on my tablet. Maybe it’s the 4k that’s having this impact. Like a mental crisis. But on the topic of the action, I’ve landed on the fact that, you know, I almost like appreciate Lana not trying to reinvent the wheel with action. Like we’ve already tried to do that with the other three movies like, Yeah, I’m not trying to do that movie again. You know, I’m not trying to do the insane wire work, which actually liked more in this movie, to be honest, like the stunts looked way smoother to me than like the wire work shenanigans that were in the other movies. I always kind of thought I think I said in this episode, I look kind of corny. I like them more in this movie personally.
PROTO Well Lana even hints at that in that whole planning session for Matrix, for the video game, inside The Matrix, when they’re talking about and of saying, you know, what is the matrix known for bullet time? You know, one word bullet time, we have to reinvent bullet time. And they’re like racking their brains, which is exactly what a studio who’s trying to produce Matrix 4 would say like, how do we do everything to keep the nostalgia for everyone who loves the series, but add a new fresh twist to it, to pull in new people and get them to say wow, like they did for the first one.
SLIM Should we talk about Carrie-Anne Moss?
DANNY My god. Please.
SLIM Is she a God?
PROTO Yes. Seeing her and Keanu together to was — yeah, it was emotional. I felt like emotional about it, just seeing these two characters together again, especially the way it’s done where they don’t know each other again. They’re trying to figure it out. They remember something of one another. Are you in my dream? I loved all of that.
DANNY Carrie was a positive and negative kind of note for me. There’s not enough of her in this film. For what her role ends up being at the end. I needed way more Carrie in this film.
SLIM Sorry, I’m not chuckling at you. I am chuckling at a horrendous Photoshop.
DANNY Matt, I need your eyes up.
SLIM So I think maybe some background of why I love this. You know, the focus of this movie isn’t defeating the machines. It’s giving love a chance like another chance at love between Neo and Trinity. Like they didn’t get it at the end. Like I think we talked about in the third movie like she just like dies before he gets to the big machine. And the entire thing is just Neo like, I don’t give a crap about like where you guys are at with Zion too like, I need to find Trinity. That’s all I care about. And to the point where like, he goes to try to talk her into waking up from the Matrix. That scene in the coffee shop or all the cops they have that, that, like, packed with Neil Patrick Harris. And he’s like, if I get her to say yes, you know, whatever, if I get her to wake up, then we can leave. And she leaves with Chad. And like Chad, her husband is trying to like, leave her at the coffee shop. And then she turns around, I swear to you, I started crying during that scene.
[clip of The Matrix: Resurrections plays]
SLIM But also, we should talk about the machines in general, because he did change things. And we call that out in The Animatrix episode. But like, them trying to wake up some of the machines to come to their side, that storyline is back again. And it’s a huge part of IO.
PROTO Yeah, I feel like this one makes sense of the other movies a lot more. And I feel like it’s a good it’s a good payoff. In terms of, you know, the third one ends and Neo change things but we didn’t really know what changed, you know, what is actually different? Did he save the human race are they all out of the Matrix, what’s going on? And the idea that they are now in like this symbiotic relationship, instead of this antagonistic relationship between man and machine, where it’s now they’re choosing to live with one another, they understand each other, they both like have boundaries. And like, there’s certain things that they can do, and they can’t do. I loved all that. And I also loved the idea that like programs are now like a third race that has come about, right, because we have humans, you know, trying to escape the Matrix, we have machines that are running the matrix, but now we have programs who are also coming out of the machines and who are coming into the physical world. So they’re kind of having like the reverse you know, they’re trying to exit the world that they were created for and go into the human world. And the whole thing with, you know, Morpheus, whatever the I forget what that was called, but the whole like, metal ball thing.
DANNY Oh gosh.
PROTO I thought that was awesome.
SLIM I thought that was insane. I mean, even like the CGI in this movie, we kind of harped on it and the other ones but like everything looked great. I felt like. I thought that like the the computer programs in the real world looked awesome. Like one of them was a gardener. I thought that was pretty badass. What CGI didn’t look good Danny?
DANNY I don’t know if it was CGI, now that I say that. But the scene where Neo comes to the Ducati shop to see Trinity and they do the bull the time where NPH is supposed to be moving at full speed. And while bullet time is happening around him, it looked like shit. I don’t know what they were doing with that or trying to do with that but I did not like it at all. He was like jittery at some points. And then it was smooth at some points and it didn’t make any sense. I feel like this kind of slow-mo while someone’s moving full speed has been done time and time again that it shouldn’t look this bad.
SLIM I would have went a totally different direction visually.
DANNY And also, while we’re on Neil Patrick Harris. I need whoever casted Jonathan Groff and Neil Patrick Harris in this film, fired. I don’t know what we’re doing trying to think these guys are villains at all. I need them removed.
SLIM Proto, yours thoughts?
PROTO Is Jonathan Groff, is he — Smith?
SLIM Smith.
PROTO I loved Smith. I loved his portrayal of that character. So when Morpheus — we have to talk about Morpheus too — but when Morpheus is trying to get Neo out of the building, and they’re having that first firefight, where the guys run in and Smith comes in the room and he just goes “Oh my god.” That was hilarious. A lot of his line of delivery was so good. I mean he’s definitely you know, he’s a different taste than Hugo Weaving for the character but I really liked it. He’s kind of slimy. I liked it. What didn’t you like about it?
DANNY Well, my past with the actors, I could not get past seeing them as some sort of villain.
SLIM You’ve probably seen him in Mindhunter.
DANNY Well, he’s from Hamilton as well.
SLIM Ohhhhh.
DANNY And he’s the voice of Christoph on Frozen and stuff like that. So it’s just, it’s very hard to accept Jonathan Groff as some sort of villain. Also, NPH, I can’t. I just need NPH to just do magic tricks for me at this point in his life. I don’t really need to see him in anything else.
SLIM I am the first person to talk trash about Neil Patrick Harris. He was the Hamilton of his day. Remember he was doing those sing alongs with that prick, Joss Whedon?
DANNY Are you about to take a dump on Dr. Horrible?
SLIM I’m not a fan. It’s just too much in my face. With that said, I love Neil Patrick Harris in this.
DANNY How?
SLIM I thought he was great as this analyst character. I had a lot of fun.
DANNY I could not.
SLIM And I’m not a Neil Patrick fanboy. So I don’t know. Maybe Maybe I’m out of the Neil Patrick loop. And that’s why I liked it.
PROTO “We’ve talked about the value of adaptive anger and healing trauma.” Come on, his delivery as a therapist. He was so spot on in those scenes.
DANNY Can we get back to Morpheus real quick?
PROTO Yes.
DANNY Morpheus’ drip in this movie was unreal. His first look in that bathroom with that gold wool suit. Are you kidding me?
SLIM It was insane.
DANNY My god. And he’s an amazing actor. He was such a good Morpheus.
PROTO His whole jokes about I’m gonna do the Morpheus stuff. I love that. That was legit funny. And also just a great play on like, the whole idea. Like, here he is. He knows that he is Morpheus, but not really. And he’s trying to play the role and like having fun with it at the same time. I love that. Yeah.
SLIM What did you think about the dispersion of The Matrix using Neo and Trinity? And that Neil Patrick Harris says that, using you know, getting people agitated, getting them angry, getting them scared, has increased productivity year over year. And that is why this Matrix is more successful than the other ones. Proto, what did you think of that plot?
PROTO I like that a lot. Because I think the whole analysts thing is a good update from for this movie. 20 years separated from when the first one came out. And just this idea that, you know, like humans in the way that humans and our civilization has evolved machines are also evolving and figuring out the best way to do things. And, but more and more, they kind of sound like humans, especially this analyst character. You know, before it was the architect who was running the show, who, who sounded like more like he ran things as if he was a god, who was engineering a perfected experience for humanity in the matrix. Whereas like, this analyst, kind of concedes that there’s factors that they can control, most notably Neo and Trinity, this anomaly. So that, so instead of trying to completely control it, they just try to tweak the existence of humans to get the best results, they’re no longer like, forcing things, they’re, they’re like, crunching the data and being like, alright, if we agitate humans, get them on the treadmill, you know, get them anxious, get their heart racing, we can boost the productivity. And it’s so I mean, kind of, like terrifying, but it just kind of feels almost like the society that we’re in now in a lot of ways.
DANNY There’s a great line that I thought was very poignant to our society when NPH is talking as a bullets about to hit Carrie in the bullet time, and he said —
[clip of The Matrix: Resurrections plays]
THE ANALYST Here’s the thing about feelings. They’re so much easier to control than facts.
DANNY I thought that makes a lot of sense. It’s such a great line.
SLIM Yeah, that felt like Lana, also trying to regain control of like, what The Matrix is, you know, it’s it’s been like co-opted by, you know, right wing sides. And I felt like this was like another way for her to say, you know, I’m taking control of this property like, This is mine, I’m gonna do whatever I want with it. And I’m gonna explain to you how this works. Which I love like the quote, the more we manipulate you, the more energy you produce, and how like there’s zero resistance from people, people stay in their pods. And there was alluded to that too, because I think a swaying earlier, but like, people have the option to like leave, right? Like that was like part of the deal from the last movie, but less people are leaving and like given up, they just stay where they are. They don’t want to leave The Matrix. So I thought that was genius, to be honest. I love that.
