0:00

Breaking news.

0:01

This is huge.

0:03

I'm sorry. Matrix for directing Keanu and Kerianne monster in it.

0:10

I don't know what to tell you.

0:12

Cause

0:12

they

0:12

were

0:12

denying

0:12

it

0:12

as

0:12

of

0:12

a

0:12

week

0:16

ago. We just wanna, as, as we sort of have already figured out it's a little loud, right?

0:23

Sort of split.

0:23

I gotta say this is like, I'm freaking out.

0:27

Feel like surprising news. I feel like we all knew this was coming.

0:30

I knew it was coming, but I figured it was not going to be with .

0:33

Weren't

0:33

doing

0:33

a

0:33

channel

0:33

window,

0:33

but

0:33

he

0:33

he'd

0:33

been

0:38

clear. He wouldn't do it. Right. David Mitchell is a co-writer on it.

0:41

The author of planet. Oh sure.

0:44

Weird.

0:44

David

0:44

is

0:44

yanking

0:44

out

0:44

his

0:44

hair

0:44

in

0:44

both

0:51

directions. So happy.

0:53

I'm genuinely so happy.

0:55

I'm going to start to take a photo of this for posterity.

0:58

The moment, the moment he learned, but back to .

1:03

Oh

1:03

boy,

1:03

we

1:03

don't

1:03

deserve

1:09

it.

1:11

Mine. I'm so happy right now.

1:12

Everyone's going to hate it.

1:15

I take a photo of me. Great. You can take a safe Let's go back to where it all started back to the podcast.

1:44

Yeah. Right? I figured you do that.

1:46

Yeah. I'm searching my brain. I mean, I'm glad you didn't do an analyst monologue.

1:51

Yeah. Cause they're long. Sure.

1:52

I

1:52

feel

1:52

like

1:52

there's

1:52

an,

1:52

I

1:52

still

1:52

know

1:52

Kung

1:52

Fu

1:52

that's

1:52

sort

1:52

of

1:52

the

1:52

trailer

1:58

And matrix the worst. We treat you. The more we manipulate you, the more energy you produce.

2:02

It's not, I, I I've been studied productivity records every year, since I took over and the best park, zero resistance people stay in their pods happier than podcasts and shit.

2:12

I should've just said people stay in their podcasts.

2:16

I was literally about to say, it's right there for you.

2:18

Fuck. Am I doing pods podcasts?

2:19

They,

2:19

you

2:19

know,

2:19

it's

2:19

it's

2:19

I'm

2:19

still

2:19

having

2:19

the

2:25

matrix. He's still having this plugging in.

2:27

There's a coffee obsessed movie right here.

2:29

This is semi latte.

2:30

There's there's coffee.

2:32

And like every frame of this movie, go on, go on.

2:35

Hi. This is an episode where people have been.

2:37

I know I'm feeling the burden a little bit feeling the weight of it.

2:41

Can I say this scared. I've been stressed out about this episode.

2:44

I'm actually not stressed out at all. I live in this shit.

2:46

I fucking eat, sleep and breathe.

2:48

This shit. It's fine.

2:49

We usually take one week off per year.

2:55

Really? Usually are dark on the final week of the year on this podcast.

2:59

Yeah. Which is blank. Check with Griffin, David.

3:03

Right? I'm Griffin On

3:05

David.

3:07

Talk about a throwback.

3:10

It's not a throw back.

3:10

It's like we, this is became a thing like last year by, by slow zoom thing, Fucking

3:18

reloaded freeway chase in that pause between I'm Griffin and I'm David That's

3:25

right? No. And that would have been down. That would have been exciting Cast

3:28

about filmography is directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

3:35

And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they go back to the matrix.

3:39

Peypey Back to the matrix.

3:41

I Can't do gruff.

3:42

I can't either. I don't know what graph is.

3:45

I don't know what, like, you know what the German, That

3:48

kind of gentle voice. I think I wasn't too far off just because I think our speaking voices, aren't not that different, but wildly dissimilar and pissy have a, He's

3:57

doing a thing in this.

3:59

I need to watch this movie 10 more times.

4:01

I guess. How many times Have you seen it now? Twice.

4:03

Same. Cool. Okay. Two times. Yeah.

4:05

I, this is, this is special for me.

4:07

I don't want to overlook.

4:09

It's the same for me with any movie. I love, I rarely, when I was a teenager, I might like, you know, watch a movie two times a week or three, you know, like over and over again.

4:20

But like these days I'm like, you know, is it time for me to watch spirited away or mastering her?

4:25

Like some movie I love like, I'm like, yeah, give it a few more months.

4:28

It's always gotta be a little special.

4:31

That's a question for you. How many times have you seen the matrix?

4:33

Reloaded? I probably seen the matrix reloaded like 10 times.

4:39

Yeah. I feel like when we started this podcast, you were like, I watch it a lot.

4:42

When I'm trying to go to sleep.

4:43

You don't count those as full viewings.

4:46

Maybe it's sort of funny to me to remember those days that Look,

4:50

this is a throwback Episode. I have not listened back to those episodes.

4:53

I'll say this in a little bit.

4:55

I mean, I haven't, you know, life David, I thought I was going to relisten before this and I forgot to do it, but I'll, let's just say it upfront.

5:01

I know I've already alluded to it.

5:03

This is our first blush review of matrix.

5:07

Resurrection's a film with a lot to process.

5:11

Absolutely. It's been a week, a lot to process and a lot of online discourse and noise surrounding it, which is Maybe

5:19

at a peak right now.

5:20

Who Knows?

5:22

Yes, no, definitely.

5:25

But we covered the matrix very early on in this show.

5:29

W

5:29

first

5:29

year

5:29

we

5:29

were

5:29

a

5:29

stupid

5:29

star

5:29

wars

5:34

podcast. And then we had the blank check premise of year two and we did M night Shyamalan.

5:38

And then we did the, which house skis. Those were the two Or

5:41

first Year we were like, this is an interesting premise to do with these two clear examples.

5:45

And then who knows what the fuck this show is after this?

5:47

Or if they cancel us, You're

5:50

going to cancel a spin. No, I wasn't going to cancel you.

5:53

But I mean, you had to do well enough to have me convince boss our blue broom closet and purchaser.

6:00

Yes. Yeah, of course. These days zoomers complain about cancel culture.

6:03

Real cancel culture. Has the UCB podcast network with no ad sales saying you don't perform well enough.

6:10

I did though. They were always nice to us, to their credits.

6:12

You did, you were the top performing show.

6:15

What's a point in time, right before we did the switch from star wars to blink check where they were like, We'll

6:21

give you That's true.

6:23

A couple months, there was one meeting we had where it was kind of like, okay, like, let's see how this reinvention goes, right?

6:29

Like we'll give it four months. And that's true.

6:31

I just want to say yes, those episodes, which posted April 28th and May 5th, 2016.

6:38

Wow. So five years ago are respectable.

6:41

Six years ago, my friend.

6:43

Yeah, close to five and a half close. And your segments are respectively an hour 50 and an hour 26.

6:49

This is a big point now, especially with revolutions is we've probably referenced on this podcast before we were on a time limit and O'Neil Shannon.

6:57

O'Neill had booked the studio and we maybe didn't know or her, she was the artistic director of new CB, but she was also doing her podcast.

7:06

We recorded both episodes back to No,

7:08

we did it Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, or something like that.

7:11

Like we did like the whole trilogy on consecutive day or something like that.

7:15

And so revolutions people get mad to this David vet episode.

7:20

Apparently doesn't have a box office game because we were so rushed.

7:23

I think we spend, you know, we did our usual thing where we spend too much time talking about some stuff.

7:29

And then at the end we're like, ah, and then also this happened, you know, like, so yeah, I that's one reason I have not listened back in a while, but those episodes are obviously fondly considered.

7:39

I will relisten before that comment, I want to formally fully announce again right now, beginning of 20, 22 year of our Lord on the blank check Patrion, we are doing the four Ghostbusters films.

7:54

And then after that we will be doing the four matrix.

7:58

We'll be Going

8:00

Back to the main, we'll be going back to the matrix. So the point is, this is January and April.

8:04

We'll be doing a second, slightly more distance view.

8:08

Oh no, No, no. Sorry. March, March and April.

8:11

Yes. April will be resurrections. April

8:13

will be resurrections, but March 1st, March 21st, the Original

8:15

trilogy, we'll revisit with episodes that are now.

8:19

So get excited. We will, we will be doing more matrix talk if this is, you know, whatever, if this isn't enough, Bring

8:28

it up because much like you I've been feeling the pressure of just like, this is an episode people didn't waiting for.

8:33

This is the thing. Yeah. I think more than anything else we've done on this show.

8:37

Even like the star wars movies, Because,

8:40

because there's the moment that, that Ben placed at the beginning of the episode and editing of you realizing in real time on the house, moving castle episode, you check your computer, you see the news, you go, oh my God.

8:51

Oh my God. And it was beyond.

8:52

So what's that that's 2019 is when it's announced.

8:56

Cause like it's not just how excited I was.

8:58

That that was happening.

9:00

to make a new matrix movie with Keanu and Karen Moss.

9:04

That was like the announcement basically.

9:05

But it was like, there had been two years of discussion and chatter of like, they're going to do a new matrix movie, the wishlist, these won't be involved, maybe a reboot Zack pen to write Michael Jordan.

9:18

And also the other element of courses, which Haskey split up.

9:22

Maybe they're never going to make He

9:24

ever right. Signaling. Maybe they're not that interested in making stuff right now, but a lot of that, but then yeah, just the sort of terminal bummer of like, oh, the matrix has gotten to the credibility point where they want to bring it back.

9:37

Right. But it's going to be some weird Boulder eyes thing.

9:40

Like just the pure excitement of that, The

9:43

way you reacted. I, it was like, did you just get the worst news of your life?

9:50

Like, did you just Like freaking out?

9:52

It was like, You just went like blank.

9:54

I

9:54

can't

9:54

even

9:57

explain. It's like, it's like looking at someone processed shock in real time, you know, where you just went like, oh my God.

10:03

Oh my God. Oh my God. And we were like, what?

10:06

And then you just sort of like said it, it was wild that it was like, there had been no rumors.

10:09

And then suddenly there was a full announcement, Very

10:12

nothing like Chad's to hell ski and said one thing once about like Londa has a pitch for matrix for that I love.

10:20

And then had walked it back and been like, well, it's very theoretical.

10:23

Like that was the only time anyone even, And

10:26

we were just ready for the Zak Penn bummer news.

10:28

And then suddenly it was like Lana Keanu, Carrie, It's

10:32

a sequel. Right. It's like right back To

10:35

the main tracks, Mitchell. And what's his name? Co-write and Mitchell, The

10:38

Alexander. And here's the release date.

10:41

And you just, you say your great line, where do I say it's going to be amazing and everyone's going to hate it.

10:48

I Look, I will say, I actually think you were less right than I thought you were going to be.

10:53

I, I thought this was going to get like Jupiter ascending levels of backlash.

10:59

And I think they're more people who are on the wavelength of this movie than I would have expected.

11:04

All right. That haven't been said when the trailer came out three, four months ago Was

11:08

like, holy shit. I was Like, great.

11:10

Is this going to be a fucking home run?

11:11

Is she going to win everyone back? And it's like the fact that she's like at like 60 or 70% positive and the other percentage I think is incredibly Well.

11:23

Here's what I'll say. All right. I'm going to say a few things.

11:25

One. We're going to talk about the Rituxan directions on this episode, obviously, too.

11:30

I'm very enthusiastic about this movie and people who listen to the show might know I'm very enthusiastic about this series.

11:36

I'm a huge fan of the sequels defender of the sequels, yada yada yada Griff.

11:40

You liked this movie a lot. I love Very

11:42

excited to give It a capital L love. So get ready.

11:45

Anyone listening for like a basically positive assessment of this movie, if that blows your mind, which some people online have indicated to me that it is mind blowing that I like this movie I'm sorta like, apologies that certainly the vibe you're going to be getting here.

12:01

Then I don't really know where you are on this To

12:05

slam dunk on this fucking mill.

12:07

I actually didn't necessarily love it.

12:11

Right. It was just, it was like so much to take in at the theater when Griffin and I, when I watched them last night and really locked in on the movie, love it.

12:22

So this will be a very positive episode. Yeah, that's fine.

12:24

It ends. I turned to Ben, I go, well, that thing fucking rules.

12:27

And Ben says, I don't know.

12:29

And I said, you don't know. And he was like, I actually, I don't know what that is.

12:33

And to be clear, you were like, I don't even know if I'm saying like negative.

12:36

I just actually don't even know what that is.

12:39

I had no idea. I'll say this. The movie got, I would say, you know, a few, a few very positive reviews, mostly mildly positive to nightly negative reviews.

12:49

And some like abjectly negative reviews.

12:52

It's about 64 on rotten tomatoes.

12:54

Not the rotten tomatoes is really metric of much, but still, you know, like not a home run.

12:58

Revolutions Was like 30 Revolutions

13:01

was greeted with a hot stain.

13:03

Whereas whereas reloaded actually was sort of like a Phantom amended thing where it got pretty good reviews.

13:10

It's a menace, a star Trek into darkness.

13:14

We're the critics were like, yeah, it looks like a star wars slash matrix it's of Skywalker.

13:20

Skywalker go fairly bad reviews, but better than it deserves.

13:23

Yeah. People being like, yeah, it's not great, but it like works.

13:25

And then I feel like six weeks later, everyone was like, oh, this thing's fucking diarrhea.

13:28

And all that, The

13:30

reviews from the critical community were all right.

13:34

And then the backlash from the span and sort of genre, film community was strong.

13:39

Yes. Quickly with reloaded.

13:40

And so by revolutions time, everyone's like, fuck, this same thing happened with pirates of the Caribbean sequels for that, the second one kinda got like Luke warmish, like this is okay.

13:50

And then the third one was really slammed.

13:52

Right. And that's, what's happening in my opinion, probably with this where it's like, there's definitely fans.

13:57

There's definitely like a lot of people who really blocked him with the movie, but I am sensing like an emerging, like, what the fuck are you talking about?

14:06

You thought that was good. Like, there's definitely a sort of like, am I taking crazy pills, community, which is fine.

14:13

Look at, and this is another, this is what I kind of want.

14:16

I know we're throwing a lot of qualifiers, but I think we're very aware of the fact that there are a lot of eyes and ears on us right now because of the history of the show because everyone knowing the investment.

14:29

But yes, I was stressed out about this.

14:32

I didn't sleep well last night I was rewatching shit.

14:34

I was just like, fuck, I can't, you know, like, how are we going to even do this episode?

14:39

But

14:39

all

14:39

of

14:39

this

14:39

to

14:39

say,

14:39

especially

14:39

the

14:39

last

14:39

two

14:39

years

14:39

when

14:39

I've

14:39

been

14:39

losing

14:39

my

14:39

fucking

14:39

mind

14:39

because

14:39

of

14:39

the

14:39

state

14:39

of

14:39

the

14:39

world

14:39

and

14:39

being

14:39

in

14:39

isolation

14:39

happened,

14:51

right.

14:51

I

14:51

feel

14:51

like

14:51

there

14:51

has

14:51

been

14:51

a

14:51

recurring,

14:51

incredibly

14:51

vocal

14:51

backlash

15:01

too. When I, especially with new release films that I love and I'm defending, try to intellectualize why people dislike it, which I think people view often as me sort of projecting your tenants, Booking

15:15

coastal elite douche Bag,

15:18

The people don't talk him down to audiences around the country.

15:21

Maybe people just don't let people not enjoy things.

15:25

Right. That's the thing I think I defend movies that I love, especially when they're To

15:30

maybe are you, you're saying like to Hetty about, well, why don't people like it, people don't Right.

15:36

And I'll say, look, let me have my hyperbole.

15:38

I enjoy being overcranked right.

15:43

You have to remember that my role on the show is to be the fucking idiot comedy doofus.

15:47

But, but, but beyond that, I do think also w w we don't do a tremendous amount of new release films and part of our sort of anthropological study of We're

16:02

usually hindsight, we're usually looking at stuff with hindsight.

16:05

I think there's, there's a muscle in my brain that is trying to understand the reaction to a thing where when it's old and it came out a week ago, people are like, you're attacking me at a raw wound.

16:15

And especially when increasingly they're oddball movies by directors that we now feel very emotionally invested in that come out and that are treated with some level of disdain.

16:25

We really like defend them if we want to.

16:28

Right. Right. And I think sometimes this is all saying, I'm going to try to, and David fucking catch me and stop me.

16:34

If I start doing the, like, I think people don't like this because of this thing.

16:38

Cause I really want to stay away from that. I really just want to focus on what I love about this movie, because I think this movie is very divisive and I, in fact, unlike some other cases, fully understand every single reason why people would dislike this.

16:49

So I'm just going to focus on what worked for.

16:53

Okay. Okay.

16:53

Was there more, or I feel like you were building to something, But

16:59

I dunno, I'm very thrilled for one.

17:02

I'm not there's the, which house keys made a movie called the matrix in 1999.

17:06

That was very, very popular.

17:08

It's a cultural landmark to this day.

17:11

They've not made a movie since that went over smooth.

17:15

They only make very big budget movies.

17:19

Correct. But they've never released anything.

17:21

Reload is the closest to a movie that did really well with the critics and in the, At

17:29

the box office, It

17:32

would be really weird for resurrections to reverse that trend.

17:34

Although it was, yeah, there was sort of a, is everything cresting where it's like, everyone loves the matrix again.

17:40

And then, you know, like no much more thrilled that it's a very divisive perplexing movie that is prompting all kinds of debate.

17:50

And you know, that's what a matrix SQL I'll

17:53

be, in my opinion, it's going to be great. And everyone's going to hate it.

17:55

The second part of the thing I was going to say, it just is I remember the, my broken brain, the two point statement I was trying to make.

18:03

The other side of the thing is I feel like very often, especially with these new releases, when you get to these responses that as you describe are, are, are you taking crazy pills?

18:14

It is impossible to like this movie.

18:16

Are these guys putting me on? Right.

18:18

I don't know a lot of that recently where I'm like, Dean, have you heard of me?

18:21

I'm very fond of these movies.

18:24

I like, no, of course not. I mean, you had a tweet about your wife going, I'm happy that you liked truly what You

18:31

said. The second the movie ended. I was like, and she was like, I'm glad that you like it.

18:36

Yeah. Okay. Which, look, that's a very romantic statement.

18:40

I find that that's so the health of your marriage and, and the loveliness of your partnership, that's a, that's a wonderful thing to a partner to say to another person.

18:49

But I just, I ask people, I will stay away from the, the fucking shit I do that annoys people.

18:56

I ask people to grant us the understanding that we're not fucking putting you on the movie.

19:02

Right. Cause even like, I wasn't Sure

19:04

Griffin would like it, but I thought he would, I

19:10

point to, and I still need to watch it a second time west side story.

19:14

I want it to be fucking like a fuse of about, and I clearly liked it a lot, but had hang ups and I didn't pretend like I fucking love this movie.

19:22

And I feel like I will see people go, like, they clearly didn't like this, but they thought it would be a bummer to shit on the movie.

19:28

So they pretend they like it. And that, that that's one of the few fan responses or show that actually regularly pisses me off.

19:36

Okay. Okay. But don't Worry about it.

19:39

Those are the two qualifying statements I want to throw out.

19:41

Okay. Just in case we do have to say, I don't know why, but just on the off chance that somebody new is checking out the show with this episode, we are going to spoil the movie.

19:49

So Fucking everything about this.

19:51

If you don't want To spoil, then turn it off and see the movie.

19:54

And then you can, And that person of course saying this, cause it's a new year.

19:57

Maybe this is a jumping in point for people who Jess is the show producer, Hey producer, Ben, the Ben deuce or the poet, Lori at the Professor Krispies that sort of Mr.

20:21

And

20:23

it just goes on and on, but fancy for some reason, I know David's like commissioning his hand.

20:28

It's like Full Ben.

20:30

That was IO Deborah Hey, because he was in Hollywood for the dark.

20:40

So he also was graduated to a series of tells over the course of different mini series, such as producer Ben Kenobi, Kylo at Some

20:48

point

20:49

English,

20:56

Mr. Bank, credible of the ditch of the Jersey.

21:04

Stop making Benz with a Z.

21:06

Now he's doing yeah. The miniseries names, colon Colin picking the city.

21:09

Ben Hosley met sally.dot dot the secret life of Benz with a Z the great mouse fart detective the heartbreak kid parentheses open to punch up Ben's in the Haas.

21:20

And I want to just say it now for the first time ever Ben scape from new Haas.

21:26

That's what we're doing. Ooh. Yep. Good.

21:27

Okay, good. I just want to cite, this is the first time that I finally have conceited and pulled up the blank, check Wiki and just read the list.

21:35

Cause I, I officially can no longer do it for me.

21:38

We'll also take too much time memories. We, we don't do it every week anymore.

21:41

And the reason we don't do it any week, any more apart from the fact that it takes a long time, is that it just became so mortifying to do it in front of any guest.

21:48

I was not very, very close with That's

21:51

a and B it became so mortifying to start the chain for me and be like, what if I blink?

21:57

Well, sure you have the performance anxiety thing.

22:00

Right. But I just like, it would be one thing if it was like, you know, someone I'm friends with embarrassing.

22:07

Absolutely. Yes. Because they get so like, I feel like that bitch especially gets so embarrassed, but like, it's like, you know, like Michael serverless, like some guy where it's like, God, it's so exciting that we have like a really fucking Tony award winning, you know, impressive, interesting person.

22:21

And then Griffin's like, you know, and I'm just like, oh fuck, I

22:25

don't want to tee it up. But we have a couple people coming on the podcast this year that are bananas.

22:33

Hopefully. I mean, let's not, let's not, but yes, yes.

22:36

I'm saying that because we just updated the spreadsheet with the new ads while you were doing that.

22:40

Now we haven't Jesus.

22:43

We have enough wild people booked that.

22:46

I feel comfortable saying we have a couple wild people coming because even if some of them drop out, there are enough people on the spreadsheet right now who blow my mind to possibly be on the show that I imagine at least one or two of them.

22:58

Well, super exciting.

22:59

We love it.

23:01

The matrix resurrection Is

23:04

A lot of which Husky film Lana's solo for the first time.

23:08

Although sensate season two is also so Lon The

23:11

context here because I do think Ben and I walked around for a while.

23:15

After seeing the movie, you Started

23:17

the Williamsburg cinema, We

23:19

did a I'm a crown has been ravaging, New York city.

23:22

This movie was obviously available on HBO, max.

23:25

I completely understand and support anyone who just does not want to go to a fucking theater right now.

23:30

Yeah. It's scary, you know, but I, you and I agree and perhaps we have biases here, but I do think I am able to impartially view this with a certain amount of logic.

23:40

I do think movies are a safer indoor activity than most public things.

23:45

I Agree we don't need to talk about, especially because Like

23:49

us, we just found a screening where they were going to be five people in a big auditorium.

23:52

And we looked at the Fandango preview.

23:54

We were like this time, no, one's there.

23:56

The screen's big enough. I see the seats Upfront,

23:59

David Griff style way up people.

24:02

Everyone's different. Everyone lives in different places.

24:04

Everyone's allowed to do Like

24:07

my father who wants to sit as close to the exit as possible.

24:10

I'll back, I'll back.

24:11

Well, the screen's not filling your face.

24:14

And I'm like, the screen is very big.

24:16

I can see the whole screen it's right there.

24:18

Right. And I didn't want to not remember that anything exists other than the screen I

24:22

need from a cinema experiences, you know, darkness, good projection, bright, you know, I, you know, no one's looking at their phones, blah, blah.

24:31

You know, like that's all like, I, I will say I saw this film in, at the Lincoln square IMAX.

24:36

Could I tell you what happened?

24:38

No. And that was like kinda, you know, it was a good, slightly edgy time.

24:41

Like If

24:43

you get stressed out about getting there earlier, early enough that you could get your seat, There's

24:49

a particular seat. I like it. The Lincoln square Amex right at the back.

24:51

Cause it's a secret bathroom.

24:53

There's a secret bathroom. Not that I went to the bathroom during this movie, but you know, I am a famous, famous pier, you know, famous Movie,

25:02

three or four things. Your most famous one Esters

25:04

are coming in front of the show loves to anytime I don't pay during a screening, be like, damn, you liked it.

25:10

You didn't, it didn't take a break.

25:13

The test used to be a movie was really good based on how little he slept through it when he would take us to fucking movies.

25:20

Yeah. It was just an edge cases were going up.

25:24

You starting to hear about people.

25:25

And so I was, I remember I was a little anxious about that, but I was also anxious about, I want to see my movie, this screening, by the way, there were not a lot of people there.

25:33

I expected like, you know, kind of a rocking full house, which I had just gotten it Spiderman for the press screening.

25:40

And this one, what, I mean, it's a very big theater that theater.

25:44

So maybe that's why it felt sparse, but it was like, you know, but despite her full, maybe Spider-Man

25:48

today just Cross

25:50

Sony's highest grossing film of all time In

25:53

nine days, 10 days, something insane.

25:56

Yeah. The stat I saw is that it just outgrown rise of Skywalker.

26:02

Sure. Which was the highest grossing film, the last two ships.

26:05

Right? Cause it was the last sort of, it Was, it was the highest grossing film in 2019, the last pre pandemic year.

26:10

Right? So it's now the highest grossing film in three years, including even the rest of the 2019 box office.

26:16

And it's surpassed rise of Skywalker's number in 12 days, it's very successful.

26:21

It took rice scholar for 91 days to get to It's

26:24

very successful. It's a fairly fun theater experience that I had seen.

26:28

That movie was nice. I enjoyed that movie.

26:31

Also it, people have look, people are reporting on the fact that this movie is bombing at the box office.

26:37

And I think that is a completely impossible to judge based on being on HBO max at the same day, at a time of a spike over the holidays when people are staying at home Well

26:48

Spider-Man is not like any other movie that has come out in the last few years.

26:52

And it's in terms of the audience reaction is getting, I

26:55

think it's great for better or worse. The thing that drives people, leaving their home and going to a theater these days is not wanting to be spoiled.

27:03

Yeah, that is Right.

27:05

Exactly.

27:07

I don't want to have to avoid the internet because there all these things that I know are going to get spoiled for me.

27:13

And I think if Spider-Man were available on Disney plus at the same day, it would have made a tremendous amount of money, but a lot of people would have gone a health risk.

27:21

I'm going to stay home and watch it. And with matrix that became a very easy decision to stay at home and watch and talk about that in the box office.

27:26

This is what I want to say.

27:29

Go ahead, Ben. And I took the walk back from the theater to the train station and I, Ben was, as, as we said, saying, I truly don't know what to make of that.

27:41

I don't even know if I dislike that. I just, I don't even understand what that is.

27:44

And I was like, Ben, I want to give you a lot of context because I do think the context on this movie is incredibly important.

27:51

This is a movie that is so much about itself, which is a thing that some people find annoying, right?

27:57

But this is a movie that is about the exact place this filmmaker is in at that point in their life.

28:04

It's about where this series stands in the cultural mind at this moment about where she wants to be as a filmmaker about the prospect of having to make this film.

28:16

It's about all of these things.

28:18

So as you said, the, which house keys are screenwriters who write a spec script called the matrix, which they sort of, it has that classic first screenplay thing, even though it wasn't literally their first screenplay, but a lot of what they had done before that was like for higher writing jobs, this sort of stuff, right?

28:37

They'd written ecto kid for a Marvel imprint.

28:40

They wrote assassins, but it got heavily rewritten, all this sort of shit.

28:45

But they were like, this is our big fucking swing.

28:48

Right? And by their own emission was one of those things where it's like, we put every single idea we had into this one script.

28:54

We put everything we liked into one movie.

28:56

It's like, make, write a script as if you're never get to make another script ever again, everything in their lives.

29:01

Up until this point in time, they pitch it to Warner brothers famously the Warner brothers executives go.

29:08

I, I, I don't think we understand it.

29:12

We can tell that this is something big, but we don't get it.

29:16

Would you mind explaining it to us again after they had read it, but it gets acquired and there were years of will this get made or not because it was risky.

29:25

They were just like, does this make any sense?

29:26

We don't want anyone else to have this. There's a version of this as a blockbuster.

29:29

They really wanted direct it.

29:32

Warner brothers was very scared about that. Untested.

29:34

They go off, they make bound essentially as an audition film.

29:39

Yeah. To prove that they could direct all, even though it's a small film, once they see that they go, these guys know where to place the camera.

29:46

Right. Sorry for saying guys, mis-gendering I manage gender neutral term, but obviously it's more sensitive when we're talking about the token.

29:52

Okay. Yeah. That's all, everything you're saying is true. I'm going to take over a little bit.

29:55

Yeah. Okay. There's two, you know, just to clarify, Lorenzo had been up in Tura and Joel silver were crucial in getting the movie made, Who

30:02

was the head of Warner brothers at the time and was a big ass dork.

30:05

And for better or worse is one of the people who is probably responsible for culture shifting that much in that direction.

30:12

And you know, they, they, the way they finally get the movie approved is the storyboarding.

30:16

This had like a 600 page storyboard book that they present where just basically the whole movie Artists.

30:24

Right. And Steve's gross, worked on that.

30:26

And, and like, that was where they finally did it.

30:28

It was made cheaply for like quote-unquote cheaply for like $65 million.

30:32

But one of these Movies that was sort of a forebear of how these blockbusters are made now, where it's like, you can watch the entire film before we've shot.

30:39

And in a film, the storyboards are so deliberate.

30:41

We're so specific about what the effects are going to be at.

30:44

The shots are going to be the timing of everything.

30:47

And they send war brothers, they shoot the first sequence.

30:49

They send it to Warner brothers, Trinity, you know, the cold open up the movie is and Warner brothers is like, looks great.

30:56

We Can relax Exactly.

30:58

You're on your own. And then obviously the movie, it was a huge hit.

31:00

The movie. The matrix is it's very interesting watching people rewatch all the matrixes.

31:07

Yeah. Right. Some people who probably have not in a long time and pretty much the universal reaction to the first matrix is damn like movies used to look like this, like blockbusters, like it is such, it is still amazing to me and to people.

31:20

I think just like how, like sort of like flawless and I don't know enduring.

31:29

It is like, I mean, it's such a, it's almost a boring movie to talk about, but it's also such a complicated movie to talk about.

31:37

They rereleased the film, they remastered IMAX and then they also released it in normal size screens.

31:42

Yeah. And I dragged passing gas, my sister Romley Newman to see it because she had never seen it.

31:47

She was one years old When

31:49

the first matrix came out, Which is a bizarre thing to think about that someone can be quote unquote, an adult.

31:55

It's a 22, 23 year old movie Now.

32:01

Right. And she's about to turn 24. So it took her to see it and she knew almost nothing about it.

32:06

Sure. She actually has avoided the cultural osmosis of the matrix.

32:09

She's not into scifi. This was nerdy boys shit.

32:12

Right. In her mind, all she knew was that I had quote unquote, some trans take on it.

32:19

And before it started, I was like, I need you to understand this.

32:22

Isn't a take, this is the reality of, okay, these filmmakers and what's happened to them the 25 years since.

32:29

Right. But I was very curious, like, is she just going to shut down?

32:33

Or is this movie as sort of like universally undeniable as I think it is.

32:36

And it is, she just went like, yeah, holy.

32:38

And it was also wild to see someone whose entire life has pretty much happened.

32:43

Post matrix, be able to pinpoint things like I was trying to contextualize for her a little bit like you to understand no one had synthesized all these things before.

32:53

Right. These were things that existed, but not in the mainstream and not together when you're combining sort of like a club culture and anime and martial arts films and like deep, hard scifi theory and shorts that were all this sort of shit.

33:08

Writing video games, video games.

33:12

Yeah. All these things. And, and she was like, the fashion in that movie is incredible.

33:16

And I was like, yeah, it's still fucking is you look at the met gala any year.

33:21

And at least 50% of the people look like they're from the matrix still almost 25 years of incredible fashion later.

33:29

But this is the funny thing.

33:31

So I'm talking about this with her.

33:33

Right. And then she's like, so then what happened after this?

33:36

She asked the questions that are so funny that are just the questions you cannot help, but ask after watching that movie, even this decades later, right.

33:43

She went like, wow, okay.

33:46

Hey, I finally get Kiana raves.

33:49

Right? Sure. She was like, yeah, this is undeniable.

33:52

I see the whole thing now. Right.

33:54

And interesting to watch now at a time when I feel like he's finally earned universal credibility as He's

34:01

no longer the butt of some jokes or Whatever.

34:03

Right. He had a, when people used to be like, he usually sucks, but he's effective here.

34:07

Now. I feel like people are like, oh, Kiana roles, question number two.

34:11

What happened to the woman who played Trinity?

34:15

Sure. You watch that movie. You go, why have I not known this person has a movie star my entire life.

34:19

And I'm like, she did other stuff.

34:21

She works. She's around her being back for fucking matrix for is crazy.

34:25

And Bromley goes like, so wait, what are the matrix sequels?

34:28

The fourth is like the first one, 20 years.

34:30

And I go Romley that everyone hated him.

34:34

And she went, how is that possible?

34:36

Are they really different?

34:38

Which I thought was such a funny response.

34:41

She was like, I just watched this thing.

34:44

This fucking is undeniable.

34:45

It's so good.

34:47

They made two more of them and people were angry.

34:49

And I was like, yeah. And she was like, are they not the same?

34:52

Yeah. My short answer I gave her was like, it was, the expectations were so high.

34:57

They shot them at the same time, cutting edge, special effects, budget, so high.

35:01

And the two movies, pretty much deconstruct and deflate everything that the first movie they do.

35:07

And I think at the very intellectual, they don't have the same sort of clear emotional sort of awakening through line that made it easy for anyone to get into the first film.

35:16

They go deep into the lore.

35:18

Yes. David loves them. And Romley was like, of course he does.

35:23

It's too complicated to talk about the SQL's right now.

35:25

I can't do it. But, but yeah, but they're yeah, they they're they're, they, they, it makes sense that they were not popular.

35:31

I didn't like them when I saw them.

35:33

I was, I was shocked about this.

35:36

I, I was annoyed about reloaded.

35:39

I was so hyped.

35:41

I was 17 years old.

35:43

Yes. And like I remember, yeah.

35:45

I was very intrigued by the architect scene, which I remember.

35:48

I do remember even at the time I was like, Hmm.

35:51

Okay. And it was definitely not like I went to see revolutions.

35:55

I wasn't like, fuck that.

35:57

Like, which a lot of people work. Cause like revolution has been half as much money, but I was, I did not, I did not go.

36:04

Right. You basically saw it for the show.

36:06

Yeah. Yeah. All these years ago, like I hadn't even seen the third one.

36:10

That's how like little interest I had had.

36:13

Did you even, I think you did watch the third one for the show.

36:16

Maybe. I think you did eventually.

36:18

Ben,

36:18

you

36:18

can

36:18

skip

36:18

this

36:18

if

36:18

you

36:21

Don't want to. But let's say, I mean, like there was, There's

36:24

lots of, lots of reasons for this $50

36:25

million domestic drop off between two.

36:28

And as you said, run tomatoes.

36:29

It went from like reload to get 78% or even higher resurrections gets like 34.

36:36

Like it was like all the anger of people, like a couple months later sitting bloated and feeling irritated.

36:41

And I also feel like it was a little bit like after Phantom menace came out where people were like, okay, that didn't rip the way I wanted it to, but maybe the third one we'll make sense of it.

36:53

And then I think when people felt like the third one didn't give them what they wanted.

36:56

They were like, now I hate reloaded twice.

36:59

The third one is also right. Is probably the most challenging in that.

37:02

Like, it sort of takes a lot of the lead characters off the board for a lot of the movie it's mostly set in the real world, which has a much more depressing aesthetic than the matrix it's got this sort of machine versus humans war, which I think some people dig, but it's very, and it's very animated, but it's not as cool as bullet time and martial arts and all that.

37:23

And so that's part of it.

37:24

They're all great. They rule, they're amazing, but there's no way they, they rule because they're very, very, very challenging and they are very, you know, not more of the same.

37:35

And as you already said, and as I said to Romley explained shit to her after this, I'm like, and then every movie they make after that bomb, They

37:43

keep, they keep making movies that are potentially challenging and interesting and innovative.

37:48

And they keep making movies that are genre films.

37:52

Yeah. A speed racer is probably the least scifi, but even that is very Saifai and obviously is a cartoon adaptation that It

37:59

took her sissy speed racer when she was a child and the look on her face when she was like, so then what happens after the matrix sequels?

38:05

And I was like, they made Dan

38:08

and

38:08

cloud

38:08

Atlas

38:08

and

38:08

it's

38:08

sort

38:08

of

38:08

scifi,

38:08

but

38:08

also

38:08

million

38:08

other

38:15

things. Jupiter sending is more, I think what people wanted from them in theory, it's like, Hey, they're doing like a sort of straightforward Saifai movie.

38:22

And then these people see it and are like, wow, I don't like this.

38:25

It's silly. It's a fairy tale.

38:27

Right. It felt like Jupiter sending was the end of the line.

38:30

And then it was like, now Netflix is backing up the Brinks truck.

38:33

This feels like a pivot and culture that certainly has intensified since that moment.

38:39

Right. Where it's like, Netflix is going to lore in the filmmakers who are starting to get reigned in at the studios and let them do whatever the fuck they want.

38:45

And sensate is absolutely a whatever the fuck they want show, but was an early example of Netflix going like, nevermind.

38:53

You know, they can't stop it.

38:55

The second season finale movie, it was so expensive.

38:58

It wasn't breakout enough for them.

39:00

Right. But definitely cult pop popular, you know, and sort of build season two is kind of like, she's the one sort of a slow plot thing.

39:09

And season two more delivers more.

39:13

I feel like, and we defend their movies and the other people, like some of them, you know, of course there is just that thing.

39:19

The general public consensus is like, why can't they just make the matrix again?

39:23

And I don't think anyone was at that moment in time, ask him to do the matrix for, but it was like, why can't you do that sort of thing again?

39:31

Why have you never, ever replicated that feeling again?

39:35

And the SQL's are like the same, but they didn't make me feel the way that the matrix did and everything you've made since then feels like it's running as far away from the matrix as possible, I

39:47

guess. So it's very, we've talked about this, listen back to our episode.

39:53

And, and of course over that same period of time, there is two transitions.

39:55

There is a shifting identity for both of them.

39:59

You know, it's all this stuff that ends up, of course, informing the text of the Cloud

40:05

Atlas. And we've talked about this since Jupiter sending her both about, you know, humankind being used as like food or energy, which is what the matrix is about.

40:18

Right. You know, every, every version like they do and like, and shifting, and Lon talks so much about like, you know, how the movies are kind of about love, conquering, all right.

40:30

Like all, you know, that's like a thing they keep going back to, that's the thing in this movie, that's the thing.

40:34

And the last thing they have, it's just that, I don't know.

40:37

Look, this movie, the matrix resurrections opens w you know, or like the first act of this movie is about, partly about people interrogating me like, well, what is it people liked about the matrix?

40:47

What is, what is it we should be delivering with a new matrix?

40:50

Like what, what do people want out of the matrix?

40:53

What did people want at the time? What has changed?

40:55

And it's very funny.

40:57

And to me, inspiring and interesting to see the movie do that, I guess, to some people it's, it's annoying.

41:04

Obviously it's very, I

41:06

want to set up is that by all accounts, it may be starting five years after revolutions, every year, Warner brothers circles, back to them and goes just by the way, if you ever wanted to make another matrix, blank, check, whatever you want.

41:26

Right. And they keep on going. No, thank you.

41:28

No, thank you. Sure. They always reject any, any talk of a fourth matrix.

41:33

It Was one of those things, even with the curl response, the sequels where it's just like, well, if a franchise is worth over a billion dollars, they're never going to let it lay dormant for too long.

41:41

Because every film they made after that was still at Warner brothers, much like Christopher Nolan, it was like, we're not going to do anything.

41:49

We're not going to go above them because we don't want to suffer this relationship.

41:53

Right. But after Jupiter sending, which is just the final flop, I think for the first time Warner brothers is like, we don't necessarily need to worry about pissing them off that much.

42:05

So they keep on saying to them, what do you want to make a matrix?

42:08

What do you want a matrix? No, no, no.

42:10

And when Zach Penn comes to them for some fucking meeting of some sort and goes, by the way, have you guys ever thought about bringing back the matrix Warner brothers is interested for the first time and he just goes like, I don't know, this thing's laying dormant lit the G the green and the jackets and the fighting.

42:24

There's something Zak Penn To

42:28

his credit, I suppose, is very enthusiastic about the world of the matrix.

42:32

Me so good. You can't leave It. So he wanted to do something.

42:35

And then there were rumors that Michael B.

42:38

Jordan had basically visited Warner brothers.

42:40

And they were kind of like, like, here's a spread of like things you could Do,

42:44

Jordan Franchise. What's the thing that interests you.

42:46

And maybe he had expressed some interest in a matrix thing, maybe playing a Morpheus type, or maybe not like Never

42:53

a script. And it absolutely sounds like the kind of exact blue sky pitching that you watch happen in this movie where they were just like Michael B.

43:00

Jordan he's black Morpheus is black.

43:02

Is it he's done Morpheus?

43:04

Is he more physicist? His grandson?

43:05

I don't know, put a pin in that.

43:08

There had been so many rumors and Zak, Penn had talked about has talked about it more about like, he really wanted to just expand, quote, unquote, expand the I'm

43:19

not going to remake. I'm not going to reboot.

43:20

I will leave neon Trinity dead.

43:22

It just feels like this is a universe in which there are other stories worth telling He

43:26

love, he worked on ready player.

43:28

One, a good movie.

43:29

I, I'm not a huge fan of Zach Penn.

43:32

No offense, neither.

43:34

I'm not a huge fan of ready player.

43:36

One ready player. One is great. But he has certainly worked on movies that I like, like, you know, he, he has a story.

43:42

You can see career versus camp superhero movies get a lot of the X-Men movies.

43:46

He wrote the first draft for the vendors, which were supposedly thrown in the garbage.

43:50

He wrote, you know, leave her in a zillion.

43:53

Sure. But he said like, ready player one. That's a movie that's set in a very matrix.

43:55

Sea world is set in a virtual world.

43:57

Like, I love that stuff When this starts getting some traction.

44:00

Sure. But then it doesn't happen because what happened was Warner brothers went to fucking Llano, which house and Lily, I think, Right.

44:08

They went to both of them. They did their annual check-in.

44:10

They go, Hey, it's that time of the year.

44:13

Yeah. This is the last offer.

44:16

Because otherwise we're going to go ahead with this guy.

44:18

I mean, I don't look, this is all rumor and conjecture, but I know, I don't think it was, it was entirely, it was also like, can we have your blessing because they needed.

44:27

Or they really wanted her blessing, their blessing, whatever, you know, you know, someone to be like one of the, which houses used to be like, we don't want to do any more matrixes, but Hey.

44:38

Yeah. There is a world for people to play in if they want to.

44:40

And they explicitly did not want to do that.

44:44

Both of them give their blessing to a different project.

44:47

Oh,

44:47

the

44:47

telephone

44:47

ringing

44:54

click. Hello, Mayo

44:57

Boy. What's up?

44:58

Who is this?

45:01

I am Morpheus.

45:02

Which Morpheus are you?

45:05

A third Morpheus. You're a new, another Morpheus.

45:08

God lousy with Morphy.

45:11

Morphe I old Morpheus.

45:14

Oh, what's up old Morpheus.

45:16

Not too much. How are you Neil?

45:19

Again? You know, I don't really know yet, but I share a lot's going on with me Neo.

45:26

Yes. Do you lie awake at night?

45:28

Thinking about programs?

45:30

I, I don't. I just lie awake at night, but yeah, yeah, no.

45:33

I do occasionally think about programs.

45:34

These programs that try to shame you tell you the way you eat you is wrong.

45:44

Yes. These programs are very bad.

45:45

W I I've been looking for a different kind of person.

45:48

These programs are even worse than agents Mayo.

45:51

I hate That.

45:53

Unlike other programs, nuMe uses a psychology based approach to help people better understand their relationship with food Neo.

46:00

It teaches them how to be more mindful of the way they eat, gives them the skills and knowledge they need to build long lasting positive habits, Neo new Ms.

46:10

Even faster working than if tank put a chip with better eating habits into the computer while you were plugged into the chair.

46:20

Sure, Sure, sure, sure. nuMe is even better than matrix learning or whatever, whatever that thing that's really cool.

46:29

I mean, I know they use a psychology based approach that helps people better understand the relationship with food.

46:34

So that's probably part of why it's so successful.

46:36

This is the beginning of your journey, Neo, Right?

46:39

So I'm going to be more mindful of the way I eat.

46:41

Have the skills and knowledge to build long lasting positive habits.

46:44

It'd be overwhelmed by all the information the wellness industry throws at you, Neo, but noon believes the only place you really need to start with is your mind Neo.

46:52

Well, look, I'm starting on my health journey.

46:55

I'm overwhelmed like you said, but since I've started using nuMe, I better understand my cravings.

47:00

I better understand my relationship with food.

47:02

I enjoy exercise instead of draining it.

47:05

I have more energy.

47:06

My mood is better and I'm less stressed out.

47:09

You take a path towards better health, one lesson at a time, Neo their psychology based approach helps you change the way you think about food and health Neo rather than demanding you to change your entire lifestyle.

47:20

Neo. Yeah, I'm more empathetic.

47:22

The, the, sorry, the program is more empathetic.

47:24

I am also more empathetic. It's flexible to your lifestyle.

47:27

It's easy to log food. It's to see your progress.

47:29

And it's based on scientific principles like cognitive behavioral therapy, which helped people better understand their relationship with food to build sustainable habits that lasts a lifetime.

47:38

Now Morpheus, how many people finish?

47:41

How many users finish this program?

47:44

Seventy-five percent of new users finished the program Neo.

47:47

And isn't it nice when you realize very shortly into an ad read that the copy is almost already written like something Morpheus would say it's Very Morpheus.

47:57

The wording. I don't even need to spin anything because the wording is already very Morpheus, adjacent Neo users programs, Neo.

48:09

Right? Exactly. And I can decide how new weight fits into my life.

48:12

Not the other way. Around 5, 10, 15 minutes a day.

48:16

How much time has been on the app is up to me.

48:18

And I'm going to start building better habits today.

48:20

Morpheus sign up.

48:23

Yes. I'm just saying your name.

48:25

Go on. Okay. Fine. This journey.

48:27

Now, Neo, I can only open the door for you.

48:30

Neo Start building better habits today.

48:33

Sign up for your trial at noon.com/check that's N O O m.com/check to sign up for your trial.

48:39

Noon.com/new meeting.

48:42

Kind of sounds like Neo new mew.

48:46

Yep. It's not neo.com Mo mano, but if you said neo.com quickly, it maybe sounded like newsroom.

48:51

No, but it's noon.com/check noom.com/check to sign up for your trial, Neo

48:57

rumor

48:57

and

48:57

conjecture

48:57

a

48:57

thing

48:57

that

48:57

you

48:57

and

48:57

I

48:57

heard

48:57

directly,

48:57

not

48:57

from

48:57

people

48:57

who

48:57

were

48:57

in

48:57

the

48:57

room,

48:57

but

48:57

was

48:57

that,

48:57

you

48:57

know,

48:57

it,

48:57

it

48:57

was

48:57

sort

48:57

of

48:57

the

48:57

final

48:57

check-in

48:57

of

48:57

like,

48:57

if

48:57

you

48:57

want

48:57

to

48:57

do

48:57

it,

48:57

we

48:57

let

48:57

you

48:57

do

49:12

it. Otherwise, can we get your blessing to do other things at this period of time, right.

49:17

Lily, a transition, which happened years after Lana.

49:22

Yeah. And when she transitions and comes out publicly about that, she also steps away from sensei.

49:27

She's not really involved at all in season of sensei.

49:30

Right. And even season one was far more than Lily by most accounts.

49:35

Okay.

49:35

They

49:35

have

49:35

a

49:35

big

49:35

facility,

49:35

they

49:35

had

49:35

the

49:35

production

49:35

company,

49:35

they

49:35

shut

49:35

it

49:43

down. They sell the facility Sort

49:45

of like you said, there was kind of the rumor of like, are they just, Are

49:50

they done? Was there a falling out with them?

49:52

Whatever are they going to do separate things who knows?

49:56

Yeah.

49:56

They

49:56

circle

49:56

back

49:56

to

49:56

the

49:56

two

49:56

of

49:56

them

49:56

in

49:56

the

49:56

year

49:56

leading

49:56

up

49:56

to

50:00

that. Both of their parents die, Ron

50:02

and Lyn, which asking who this movie is dedicated to.

50:06

And they lose a close friend as a close friend of Lana's Died.

50:08

Yeah. Yes.

50:11

Lana said that in her grief being unconsolable and being in this position where it's like, who would I want to talk to about my grief, the three people who just died.

50:19

I don't know who to turn to.

50:22

I don't know how to process this. This is so overwhelming.

50:24

She started thinking about Neo Trinity a lot.

50:27

Yes. That The idea of having the own Trinny back was a great comfort.

50:30

She said this, you know, Ilana doesn't give a lot of interviews.

50:34

No, but she has said that in, in, in whatever interviews she's given her, There

50:40

was this speech they did at that Berlin international writers conference or whatever it's called that.

50:46

I'll make sure we tweet out that I sent to Ben because I think it's very revealing in a lot of ways, but it, but I think it literally just started, as I started thinking about these characters as a comfort, I wanted to spend time with them.

50:57

And in my mind Having

50:59

them alive again, because obviously spoiler alert at the end of revolutions, they die.

51:03

Right. But I even think it congealing into an actual story pitch.

51:11

She had the story immediately, but I don't know.

51:14

It was just that in her mind, these characters come to her and then the story comes to her.

51:17

But I think a lot of this movie is about the solace of characters we love.

51:25

Right? It's like, because it is interrogating.

51:27

I think people think, I, once again, understanding all the reasons that people could dislike this moving, but a thing I pushed back on is the notion I see in some places that this movie is a cynical exercise and that this movie is arguing that it doesn't need to exist.

51:45

I think this movie is interrogating its reasons for existing.

51:49

And I think it's having some fun with the idea in culture that these things all need to be rebooted or re revise, revise.

51:56

I think it is a very earnest, passionate film about like, you know, the machines have rebuilt these two fucking dead characters, right.

52:06

And characters that weren't just dead, but were like decimated, blinded, rebar through the chest, all that shit.

52:12

And you have these two machines being like, we're going to rebuild them and make them even prettier than they were before.

52:17

Right. And let them age, but only like a sexy amount of age relative to how much time has passed in the film.

52:23

And to some degree, that's like the cynical thing of, and we've complained about this a lot in different movies, sequels where it's like the first movie.

52:30

And so perfectly, this character had good closure.

52:34

They evolved to this point and then the SQL kind of resets them or revives them in a way that is depressing where you're just like, let them have their piece.

52:43

Right. Let them enjoy this.

52:45

Yes. It's depressing that for example, agent K gets, de-normalized realized that Robocop retreats back into his robot instinct and you have this thing that feels like the sort of cynical gross exercise.

52:56

These robots are bringing new and Trinity back to life, they won't even let them stay dead because they need to use their love to power the universe.

53:05

And I think that's the thing that makes some people go like, so they're acknowledging this is gross that they brought them back and it's like, no, but the whole point of the movie is also that like two things can be true at the same time.

53:17

Nice to be back. And they, they, at the end of the movie, they thank the analysts for giving them a second chance.

53:22

Right. And Lana herself is acknowledging. I always thought it was gross to revive these characters.

53:25

But in my greatest moment of grief, I found so much comfort in thinking about them in their love, Beyond

53:32

that. Look, I love the original trilogy of movies.

53:34

I love the ending. I think the ending is great.

53:36

The ending does end with the article saying like, I think we'll see Neo again.

53:41

That's Literally the last line is like, I think he'll be Back

53:45

someday. And it does also Trinity, you know, dies.

53:48

I've always found Trinity staff, you know, it's a very emotionally compelling obviously.

53:53

And like it's sort of plot wise has to happen because Neo has to want to die.

53:59

You know, he has to accept the sacrifice and it would make less sense of Trinity.

54:03

It's just kind of like waiting in the car, man.

54:05

Like go figure it out with the machines and then get right back here.

54:07

You know? So, but I don't think Trinity's death is like so dramatically necessary to bringing her back as some like spit in the face.

54:16

Like I, you know, bringing them back is fine.

54:20

I think the Neo death was one that people felt more prickly about because of the whole sort of Messiah arc of him that it's like, he needs to have the sacrifice and bringing him back.

54:34

I agree with you fries coming back.

54:36

But the other thing that you have to acknowledge is just in the last 10, 15 years, the legacy sequel has become this fucking Yeah.

54:47

That's sort of 20 years on your face or back How

54:51

like trauma legacy is this movie that's sort of the forebear of what all studio franchise thinking becomes where it's like, what if you don't reboot it, Right?

55:01

You actually make a sequel that acknowledges the passage of time.

55:04

That is referential, Tris

55:07

generation kids, generation Coexisting.

55:10

But like, and it tries to thread the needle of like, let's make a movie for a 12 year old.

55:14

Who's never seen Tron that will, they will enjoy their dad who loved Tron will be like, oh my God, Flynn's back.

55:21

And The blue really deep and respectful of the lore, but you also need to have it be a launching pad for a new thing.

55:27

And then this is like Jason Segel, Muppets, star wars force, awakens, Ghostbusters afterlife, all these fucking things.

55:37

Right. So Pervasive to now, even, especially It's

55:40

very pervasive Sometimes. I'm like, why are all of my friends who really like movies talking like studio executives, all of a sudden and thinking that way and having these comments all of a sudden, which I just, I find really strange because like, as a someone who just wants to be entertained and likes movies, I don't go into watching something and thinking about that stuff, Look

56:05

throwing bricks in a glass house, right.

56:07

Obviously this is what we do on the show.

56:10

And it's what we fucking made our bones doing.

56:12

And it's the core of our friendship, David, you and I sure, but it is interesting seeing more and more, I feel like with every year, the mainstream culture, talking about things in terms that you and I think of where it's like the general public is very aware of studio maneuvering of IP.

56:34

It is, it's much more aware, but that's why you can make a Spiderman, no way home or whatever.

56:37

And you just make a movie that is, Oh

56:40

my God, the Fox rights are going to go back to Disney so they can put crazy X men in there.

56:44

No, no, no. That's true. It's true. It's crazy that people don't Think

56:47

of as following the film industry saying, well, the problem with the Disney star wars movies obviously is they didn't have a FYGI who was overseeing the whole series and Wharton director like that pull into intellectual lization of the business, maneuvering behind the stories and the value of the stories.

57:04

Yeah. These are all things that she's commenting on at the same time that she's commenting on where she feels about her own career, her own life.

57:12

This thing that she created that also has like many things that become so seismic, okay.

57:17

Developed reputations completely out of her control.

57:20

And she's reckoning with all of that, to what does the matrix mean to people 25 years later?

57:24

What good has come out of it? What bad has come out of it?

57:27

Why do people want to go back to that? Is that a bad impulse?

57:29

Is that a weak impulse to just want to spread things?

57:32

The matrix value, not just the matrix nostalgia in general, is that a positive, negative force?

57:37

How do we are or whatever. How, how is that a force in our life?

57:40

I sit down and see this moment.

57:42

I think it's Graham everyone.

57:44

It's one of those things where like, there's a few critics around me who were kind of like, Ooh, David's excited.

57:48

Like, you know, like everyone else is kinda like, It's

57:52

like people taking photos of your mask face to face.

57:57

I walk into the theater. I walked into the lobby with my dear friend, Esther Zuckerman, great esters were wearing all latex.

58:04

And

58:04

I

58:04

walked

58:04

up

58:04

to

58:04

the

58:08

police. I walked up to a press check-in table.

58:09

There's always a table where you check in and I walk in and it's it's Lauren, shout out Lauren, a friend of mine.

58:16

And I'm like Lauren Michaels and Laura Lauren who?

58:20

Lau, w L U R?

58:22

Yeah. Lauren. Oh, Lauren Mike Lauren.

58:25

Yeah. Okay. And I'm like, Hey Lauren.

58:27

And she's like, Hey David.

58:29

Ah, okay. I don't see you on the list, but I'll just write your name down.

58:32

And I'm like, yeah. And I'm like, Warren works for universal.

58:35

I don't know what's going on here. And she's like, anything like theater 12, you know, it's in like a crappy theater, you know, like not, I, I assumed it was playing an IMAX and I was like, and I, and I walk away and I'm like, wait, Lauren, you're not matrix.

58:47

Right. And she's like sing too. Yeah.

58:48

And I was like, just imagining a world where I'd go and sit down.

58:52

And I'm like, so excited for look for what?

58:57

In my days, just run it Sadly

58:59

from one screen to another, you miss the first two minutes.

59:01

You never get over it.

59:03

Yeah. Anyway. And then I was like, oh, I was hunted around and eventually Warner brothers somewhere else.

59:07

I'm

59:07

very

59:10

nervous. I was very excited for this movie.

59:12

I had heard from some people at the junket screening that it was bad.

59:15

And I was kind of like encouraged by that in a way where I'm like, Ooh, interesting From

59:21

some friends, from Some

59:23

people that it was good. Like Emma had seen it More

59:26

specifically. I think you're going to Love it. David and I had heard from, I talked to one person who is like, oh yeah, it was great.

59:31

You know? And then I was like, oh yeah, you know, some people don't like it.

59:34

And he was like, people don't like it.

59:36

Like people like someone who is so into it, that was like, oh wait, it's not going over with like, you know, like, but, and I was like, okay, Let's

59:43

also say, I feel like I spent more time tracking fan theories on this than you did.

59:48

Like I fucking joined the matrix subreddit and was reading everyone's breakdowns.

59:52

What they thought the movie was going to be. You were Mo more trying to stay pure with this.

59:56

I rewatched the trailer obsessively.

59:57

I Really down.

1:00:00

And you and I, for the last four months, since that trailer came out, text a lot, just going like, do you have any idea what the fuck this movie is?

1:00:09

Like, there was something thrilling to the fact that it was so hard to piece together what this film was even going to be.

1:00:15

Let's say, compared to something like no way home where both of us went, it says like, I think I know what the basics are.

1:00:22

You Guys

1:00:23

Pretty much know what the last acts is going to be.

1:00:25

They've been trying to keep it under lock and key.

1:00:27

And it's like, I think I can predict what I'm

1:00:29

pleased by how little I knew about no way home.

1:00:32

But anyway, but I knew that I Could

1:00:34

make guesses in my, did he find a way Home

1:00:36

or should we Not spoil it? It's actually a really difficult answer.

1:00:39

We're not going to Say he kind of doesn't doesn't yet.

1:00:41

Anyway, If

1:00:44

you'd look at the trailer, it'd be like, I don't understand how this and that.

1:00:46

And what, how does that all piece to get? What is this movie?

1:00:49

What is the story? What's the vibe. It was exciting.

1:00:52

My big, it wasn't even a fear, but my big thought was like, this movie will probably not be too heavy on matrix lore, be too heavy on the calls.

1:01:00

Sure. It might reset to the cultural memory of the first film Because

1:01:05

right. Like not everyone is up to date with them and because like, you know, it seems to be more emotional, like from the very little I'm getting like, and I had heard from one person who had seen it, like someone else had asked him, like, do I need to rewatch the sequels?

1:01:18

And he was like, no, no, You're fine. We know Neovia is in it.

1:01:21

We know Merv. I knew That. I knew that that's true.

1:01:23

That's true. But I was still kind of like, and then, so I watched this movie that had that somehow in my opinion is a very clever and aware take on revivals and, and sort of, you know, nostalgia and bringing things back is so exciting and deep and thrilling to a matrix nerd like me and how it delves into the lore expands very much addresses the sequels and like builds on them.

1:01:55

And they, you know, certainly does not try and kind of like wipe those away or whatever, Which

1:02:01

it would have been very easy for them to do with this premise very easily.

1:02:06

It's a very kind of, swoony more sort of new late, which house ski kind of romance, you know, like love conquers.

1:02:14

All This movie is so of a piece with their last four films, more, so much.

1:02:19

So, but not in a way where it feels like dramatically insanely different from the matrix, but it does feel different.

1:02:27

And let's say, I mean, I'm not trying to intellectualize this.

1:02:31

I'm just saying the thing I've seen people say, and to be clear, including very good friends of mine, whose opinions I respect too.

1:02:39

I've had very civil conversations with about what we do or do not like about this movie.

1:02:42

Right, right.

1:02:43

And a lot of them just say, and I think this is beyond valid.

1:02:48

I'm

1:02:48

just

1:02:48

missing

1:02:48

the

1:02:48

filmmaking

1:02:48

style

1:02:48

of

1:02:48

the

1:02:48

first

1:02:48

three

1:02:53

matrixes. This movie looks very different.

1:02:55

It has a very different visual language.

1:02:57

The action sequences, which we will talk about are very different, right?

1:03:02

The vibe of it, the tone of it, all of this sort of shit is more in line with the last three, which house projects I would say with Jupiter, sending with cloud Atlas with sensate in particular, I think this movie is very much of a piece with sensei.

1:03:18

And I think sensei being some sort of, not a final form, but like a Lon has talked about this and, and to speak to the difference in style, right?

1:03:29

As you said, matrix was sold on this incredibly dense, precise storyboarded to how the whole movie is figured out.

1:03:37

They're executing what's in their mind's eye with like Hitchcockian precision, right?

1:03:43

The actors have to move within a centimeter of the timing of this and this and that sensei, which was shot by John tall.

1:03:51

Yeah. Who shot their last two movies.

1:03:53

He shot there.

1:03:55

Half of cloud Atlas and Jupiter sanding speed racer was Tattersall.

1:04:01

And

1:04:01

before

1:04:01

that

1:04:01

bill

1:04:01

Pope,

1:04:01

the

1:04:01

great,

1:04:01

the

1:04:01

great

1:04:01

bill

1:04:01

Pope

1:04:01

did

1:04:01

their

1:04:01

first

1:04:01

four

1:04:08

movies. Yep. A very distinctive look.

1:04:11

He rules, he did a Lita. He did Shanghai this year and he rules More

1:04:16

of a regular guy and did this Spiderman movies for Sam Raimi or the SQLs, but they have different artists collaborators.

1:04:23

Now TomTec, they're just doing the score.

1:04:26

And so I've done Davis, all this sort of shit, but she's talked about how, and I think they've been moving more and more into this style.

1:04:34

Since eight, they didn't do rehearsals.

1:04:36

They didn't have blocking.

1:04:37

They wanted to shoot it more documentary style.

1:04:39

They wanted to give actors freedom and authorship over the scenes.

1:04:43

She wanted to be surprised by things that were happening, evolve things on the day, more collaborative in that sense with performance use more natural lighting, you know, things become warmer and more glowing, very helpful Off

1:04:58

the cuff improvisational.

1:04:59

Apparently, you know, like this is what I've been hearing.

1:05:01

Like, like Jonathan Groff said, like, she was like, you know what?

1:05:06

Take your socks off. Yeah. I see you as a no socks guy.

1:05:10

Like, and that was like on set.

1:05:12

As they're starting to film, like no storyboard, no, no rehearsal.

1:05:15

Emotional is how she's putting it.

1:05:18

Like, you know, very emotion less. They don't even do blocking rehearsals.

1:05:20

It's like actors show up, you have your thing.

1:05:23

We even talked about this. I want to see what you have.

1:05:25

And let's roll first take first-class grim.

1:05:29

Which for people who don't know, you show up on set, everyone's drinking their coffee.

1:05:33

The actors have their script pages.

1:05:34

You run through the thing like eight times while a bunch of different crew people go like, maybe I'd put the mic there and the lights here and this and that.

1:05:41

And very often you decide the next 20 shots you're going to do in order, based on what the actors and the director figure out, right?

1:05:49

Send people away. You do your makeup two hours later, you come back, you do everything as it was planned, right?

1:05:53

The evolution happens in that rehearsal process maybe.

1:05:56

And then it's pretty fucking locked in because now we've set up equipment here and there.

1:06:00

This was like, let's just set this up where it's lit in a way.

1:06:04

And this speaks to why the movie looks so different as well.

1:06:06

Aside from the narrative reasons why it has a very different color palette is a lot of natural lighting.

1:06:11

So that actors are not locked into a, you have to stand here because the lights there, or we can't move the camera this way, because then you'll see this equipment.

1:06:18

We want that sort of freedom, which leads to very often you need more coverage and that coverage is looser.

1:06:28

Or, And

1:06:31

this movie is I think, almost getting a bad rap.

1:06:34

I don't think it's that bad.

1:06:36

Like it's kind of, I don't know, like I think it's of a piece with the film.

1:06:41

That's sort of my main take on it. Like, but I, it is certainly not like the other matrix movies, even people don't like the burly brawl and the SQLs.

1:06:49

They don't like the Smith neophyte, but those are cutting edge sequences.

1:06:54

Those are like, let us push everything.

1:06:56

We've got to the absolute limit.

1:06:58

And you know, in the sequels, I would say maybe they reached their limit and you can see the limits, like Based

1:07:05

the best sequence of the Highway,

1:07:07

just as incredible that totally worked. But like, you know, the Smith fights and stuff like where sometimes you're like, okay, they were 95% of the way there.

1:07:14

And now I can in this shot, sort of see, it looks janky Things

1:07:17

that don't hold nothing. Well, no, even for the things that don't hold up well, tech-wise in those two sequences or just over conceptualized or whatever, there is a precision and a clarity of action that I think, I think people are more critical of the action of this movie in a way I understand, because I fall into this as well.

1:07:38

The action is the weakest aspect of this film.

1:07:40

Definitely inarguably.

1:07:42

Yeah. And I think part of that is there's perhaps a mild indifference from Lana that's not, Or

1:07:47

whatever. It just, it's just not the priority anymore to make really, really like insane action or whatever.

1:07:52

I don't know. The SQL's I was watching a matrix revisited.

1:07:57

Sure. Which was the matrix was the best selling DVD of all time.

1:08:00

And it was so successful. They put out another DVD.

1:08:02

That was essentially just more, There's

1:08:06

not a lot of special features on the original disc, but yes, it's just, it's like an in-depth, it's like a feature length documentary about making the movie, But

1:08:13

also in the early stages of the sequels.

1:08:16

And it was sort of bridging the gap of the excitement.

1:08:18

And so I was rewatching that and it's like all this footage, they kept from the early days of developing the first matrix.

1:08:24

But you're also seeing the earliest glimpses of them doing six months of stunt rehearsal for two and three before they started filming.

1:08:32

And he 57, you know, he does the John wicks.

1:08:35

So it's not like he's not doing that kind of shit anymore.

1:08:40

Different type of Action, but it a hundred Percent

1:08:42

and he can't write, he can't do like the shit they did.

1:08:46

And you can rebuild. Barry has this incredible PC re posted, talking to Chad who makes the John wicks, who is county's stunt double who plays Chad in this movie he's credited as handsome.

1:08:59

He is. And he's a handsome guy who talks talking about like how unusual it was at the time for a Hollywood movie to have individual combat, like as the center piece of your action.

1:09:10

Like, you know, cause like in the Schwartzenegger center in that era, it's more like punch, you know, like it was not like hand to hand fight sequence In

1:09:21

that Way. I mean, cause that's not their vibe.

1:09:23

Right. And so like, but the work they had to fucking do like to get all that You've

1:09:29

watched this revisited thing. It is crazy when you realize how much work they did for the first movie and for the sequels, it may be even doubled.

1:09:37

Right? Right.

1:09:37

So not excusing on somebody, but like things I think people should understand about how this movie ends up the way it does, right?

1:09:45

The actors are older.

1:09:47

They don't have a ping who choreographed the first three films working on this, who knows if they tried to hire me and he said no, or they didn't even reach out.

1:09:59

It feels to me like just, she didn't want to make as much of a martial arts movie.

1:10:04

That's just not what this movie is. Right.

1:10:06

I also think this is the first film we've seen her do without Lily and Lily was less involved in sensate and not involved at all in season two.

1:10:15

And this is very much of a piece of sensate.

1:10:19

And it's like some of those things that people are missing from the visual dynamic of this movie, might've been more Lilly things.

1:10:25

I dunno, that's pure conjecture on my part, but it's a different DP, John tall, who then they filmed like six weeks, two months of this movie in San Francisco, a lot of the exterior stuff like the building shit at the beginning of the end of the movie, the Simulex ship, whatever.

1:10:42

And then COVID hits and they shut down for like nine months.

1:10:47

Yeah. Lon is like, we might never finish this movie.

1:10:49

I might just abandon it. Right.

1:10:50

They come back, John toll is not available.

1:10:54

So the camera operator trying to tell on their last four or five films, but also Danielle

1:11:02

MES, regular Ridley, Scott collaborator and incredible steady cam operator, a camera operator becomes the de massacre, The

1:11:09

movie Jessie, that's another evolution.

1:11:13

Yeah. Right. And they're filming the film under difficult circumstances at a time where they weren't sure if they were going to be able to film it again.

1:11:20

It's very hard to do those sorts of action sequences and stunt rehearsals and all that sort of shit.

1:11:25

It's just, this is the film we have, right?

1:11:28

Yeah. I'm Satisfied. It's not trying to impress you with the Kung Fu or the cutting edge effects, visual language of the fight sequences.

1:11:35

I think it is understandable to be aggressively frustrated with the fact that the movie isn't delivering on that level.

1:11:45

I think because other action has gotten so muddy, we're lacking the sort of tactility of a matrix fight.

1:11:54

Even when it was CGI, augmented, or at least the clarity, the visual precision of it that people were like, fuck yes, here we go.

1:12:02

Lon is coming back. She's going to school, everyone.

1:12:04

She's going to show them how it's done.

1:12:05

So when a new matrix comes out and you're like, fuck, shank.

1:12:08

She kind of delivered better on that front with bill Pope than matrix.

1:12:14

Did I think that bombs people up, which makes sense, Whatever,

1:12:18

man, that's fine. I, the action is, but my defense of the action is it's maybe is what I said.

1:12:24

It's kind of of a piece.

1:12:25

I agree. I, you know, I don't, I don't think it's like completely.

1:12:28

So it's like you, you fall into this territory with this film.

1:12:32

It's sort of, we talked about this with a total recall when we did over Hoven series years ago, like, oh, there's a way in which that movie is critic proof, because anything that's shitty or nonsensical in it, you can go, well, it's all in his head.

1:12:43

It doesn't make any fucking sense. Right.

1:12:44

And in the same way, because this movie is so self-referential about its own existence.

1:12:49

You can go like, well it's like the point is it's like the way modern reboots are.

1:12:55

Right. Which I think is part of the, when people say that, like, are you taking crazy pills?

1:13:01

How can you think this thing is good?

1:13:02

They go like, are you just excusing everything that's bad in this movie by saying no, but it's supposed to be bad on purpose, which we're not saying I'm

1:13:11

not, I'm not, people can think whatever they want.

1:13:13

People can think Whatever they want. That's the, I am the action works for me.

1:13:15

Fine. But it's not incredible. It's just bugs has some good action.

1:13:19

There's some fun stuff. Bugs just over the car is fun.

1:13:23

No, this is the best. Which is the thing that's most directly emulating the style of the virtual matrix.

1:13:28

I think the Smith bathroom fights pretty decent in terms of hand-to-hand combat.

1:13:33

Yeah. But it's all, you know, it's more piecemeal The

1:13:37

wheel. Really what I'm trying to say is that those all three really did kind of reinvent the wheel every time.

1:13:43

The SQL's maybe a little less so, but they really were innovative in ways that people remember.

1:13:47

And don't remember Focusing

1:13:49

on the other three wheels now, Hey

1:13:51

man, the matrix resurrection. So let's talk about it.

1:13:54

How long have you been going about yeah.

1:13:58

Over an hour. Okay. We got to talk about the movie, like, like CNBC, The

1:14:02

cold open up the movie is of course I said the code open for a reason.

1:14:07

It's those green letters. The rainfall, right?

1:14:10

Yeah. It's the same as ever Warner brothers village road show, you know?

1:14:15

Nah, you know the theme, you remember the code dropping Into

1:14:20

matrix. Resurrections comes up much like a corpse being revived, right?

1:14:25

Like a, something rising from the grave is the first line of this movie.

1:14:29

Literally this feels familiar.

1:14:31

Yeah. And it's, it's, you know, we're seeing a call being true.

1:14:34

It's it's it's, it's how you open it up The

1:14:37

restaging of the Trinity scene. And then we get the reveal of this isn't Trinity, who is Right.

1:14:41

So you've got this great character whose name is bugs.

1:14:44

Like the bunny.

1:14:46

I mean kind of the audience surrogate of the movie.

1:14:49

Yes. Especially in the first chunk By

1:14:52

Jessica you're Sam Flynn.

1:14:54

Right? Someone or someone who's on the ban of the matrix.

1:14:58

Walter Meditech's truly like, you know, is looking for Neo is sort of reveres him, blah, blah, blah.

1:15:05

Played by Jessica. Henwick just to be clear.

1:15:07

The three examples I just cited is already its own trope.

1:15:11

No, it really has become such a trap.

1:15:12

This character is Both

1:15:15

fulfilling that and commenting on it at the same time.

1:15:18

Do you like Jessica Henwick Forkey was like, who?

1:15:21

I know this person. I was like, if you watched every episode of iron fist yet mean you didn't even like it and you watched it.

1:15:27

Cause she was in that. I never watched iron fist.

1:15:29

I didn't either. I remember the take being like she's She

1:15:33

was calling, right. She was, she was an excellent pilot and force awakens, But

1:15:39

she's not in the sequels Because

1:15:41

they didn't communicate to Ryan Johnson that she was still alive.

1:15:43

He thought she had died. Right. And she's effect in knives out too, which is funny.

1:15:48

And she, You sit on the rocks, which I thought she was very good.

1:15:51

That's the first time she stood out to me, You

1:15:53

know, that is a movie that I saw.

1:15:55

And I couldn't really tell you that she's she plays The

1:15:58

woman. I Know who she plays. There's only five characters by default.

1:16:03

It was like a really good scene at the end of the movie. And I was like, this person, this person kind of stands out and I looked up and I was like, oh, this is that action lady that everyone likes.

1:16:10

She's very, that lady there, once it was good on iron fist who keeps on ending up on casting, She

1:16:15

was all of a sudden Nim. She was in the mirror, sand and game of Thrones.

1:16:18

She's one of the sand snakes. And those characters are, are big in the books.

1:16:22

And were maybe the most sort of egregiously botched element of the show.

1:16:27

They had this sort of vibe in the show where the show like you could tell, they were kind of like, yeah, we have to do them to some extent, because we know they're important, but we really don't care.

1:16:38

Like, so they would just kind of show up and be like, we are sexy warriors.

1:16:41

See you later, you know? And then they all like die horribly.

1:16:46

She's in this zone where it's like, she keeps on being like failed parts of nerd franchises.

1:16:51

Everyone's like, but she's good. There has to be the right Jessica Henwick thing.

1:16:55

At some point she's narrating this.

1:16:57

They wanted her, I believe to play the sister and trunk sheet.

1:17:00

They did, She was the first Record. This both scripts are under lock and key and secret.

1:17:04

And both projects went, if you auditioned for one, you can't do the other, you could screen test for one or the other.

1:17:10

She picked this. But if you take the other, you you're out of consideration and you're not even guaranteed the job.

1:17:17

Well, whatever she's perfect for This

1:17:19

movie. And here are things I like about her. Her name is That

1:17:22

she's called bugs after the money. Yes.

1:17:25

You like that. Like the things you use to listen to people and also like the Bunnings, she has some line like that.

1:17:30

There's also the scene where Neo wakes up in the real world for the first time in this movie and he's being operated on in the slab and she goes, what's up doc to the doctor.

1:17:39

Great. 1 million comedy points.

1:17:44

Big fan of bugs is fashion. I think the pants in the opening sequence, rule Glasses.

1:17:49

Do you like your glasses? The line in the middle of the glass, right?

1:17:52

There's the line in the middle, like of the bridge of the arms that extends in front of the lenses.

1:17:58

Yeah. Great. I would say one of the standout characters as far as, And

1:18:04

this is another big thing is that I think part of what people were hoping for in a return to the matrix was like, man, the matrix is so fucking cool.

1:18:15

These people are so steely and bad-ass and unflappable and sexy and confident and bugs is a lot more emotional, open, childlike, vulnerable than matrix characters we've seen before.

1:18:31

That's true. Bugs is yes, it's true.

1:18:33

Is it different? And she kind of acknowledges that.

1:18:36

And in this early scene, she sort of also acknowledges like jokingly, like the silliness of the binary choice of the pills, which we'll get into.

1:18:43

She's

1:18:43

not

1:18:43

like

1:18:43

Trinity

1:18:43

where

1:18:43

Trinity

1:18:43

is

1:18:43

like

1:18:43

fucking

1:18:43

an

1:18:43

icicle,

1:18:43

like

1:18:43

so

1:18:51

cool. And like, it's not that carry on Moss, doesn't play the vulnerability.

1:18:54

Like she's afraid of the agency, you know, but still like, she's just like the most paradise and bugs is jokier and they're jokey in a wave.

1:19:04

It not bother me at all.

1:19:07

Like not, I don't think this really ever ventured into they fly now territory, you know, like I saw some complaints with some of the dialogue and I was sort of like, maybe there's a moment or two where it gets cutesy.

1:19:19

But anyway, Look, I, and I will talk around the spoilers here for this other movie that we're not talking about today, but you and I were, were texts exchanging after no way home and complaining about the fact that they, they comedically deflate some of the legacy characters.

1:19:35

They bring back in a way that is very of a piece with the MCU and their sense of humor, which is we're going to make the joke about the thing before you can.

1:19:45

Sure. Right. We're going to deflate. It's this thing that Marvel's weaponized developed through Downey Junior's improv and Fabro and Wieden, and now like perfected to a point is like, we're doing the mad magazine parody of ourselves while also doing the real movie.

1:19:57

So you can't say that we're not in on the joke and it feels very defensive.

1:20:01

And it is a thing that even if I laugh at the joke, when it happens five seconds later, very often I quote bad taste in my mouth.

1:20:07

You sold out the integrity a little bit.

1:20:10

Sure. Whereas I feel like the comedic deflations that this movie does through to like Morpheus going like blah, blah, blah.

1:20:18

And things like That. That's true. That's it?

1:20:20

Yeah. I don't, I don't think to me do not read As

1:20:24

like insulting or derogatory towards the original movies and the fans experiences of them.

1:20:30

I think It's more talking about the process of things getting repeated Over

1:20:34

and over and over. Right. It's sort of like, how do you possibly repeat something that is so painted into people's brains without it feeling silly?

1:20:45

Anyway, bugs is, that's why he loves her Watching

1:20:48

this and going, this is wrong. That's just launching a bunch of times, Essentially

1:20:51

what looks like a kind of like fan made version of the matrix.

1:20:58

Basically The actors are different and like there's something a little off

1:21:02

is

1:21:02

the

1:21:05

Same person. And she's saying, why would they use old code?

1:21:07

Like it's Why is she she's seen this multiple times?

1:21:11

Like the logic of it is so confusing.

1:21:13

And then what's this character's name?

1:21:16

Who's like the new What's

1:21:18

his name seek his name is Sequoia.

1:21:20

They come seek, they call them seek, which sort of sounds like Zeke, but it's seek seq.

1:21:24

That's paid by Toby on Numerai the replacement for MLF D I mean, yeah.

1:21:32

Right. And he's Keefus right. And in sensei, he is so much, he is physically Showing

1:21:38

operator Space, but because of the way the matrix has evolved right then he's not just on the phone.

1:21:43

He can like digitally sort of video conference in improvement rules.

1:21:47

I do think it's good.

1:21:49

I think it's so cool. I love her is finally he's in the space.

1:21:53

I love original movies, but it is amazing when you watch them, like how, how much of the footage in those sequences are cutting to either Marcus, Shaun or Harold Perrineau in a chair, looking at screens, going like, holy shit, what are you?

1:22:07

Okay. You know, like doing it, it's kind of helpful to just sort of have them there.

1:22:10

So

1:22:10

he's

1:22:12

there. It's, It's cool. And it's fun.

1:22:14

But, but this is like, We

1:22:16

are in your impact To

1:22:18

territory where you're like, we're watching characters, watch the first movie and comment on it and try to change it or exist around it.

1:22:26

So we are in a modal is what we learn.

1:22:29

They mentioned this, and this is one of my, Is

1:22:31

this the first time you pop a boner?

1:22:32

When they say the word modal?

1:22:36

No, But it is like some fucking surf is a logins for you.

1:22:39

Shit.

1:22:41

Absolutely. I was very excited.

1:22:42

They were cuter lodging. Right.

1:22:44

Sort of computer logic. So we're in a modal, which is far as I know in programming.

1:22:49

It's really just a term for like a window in a window.

1:22:51

Like it's just like a sort of program in a program, but they specifically have it mean here.

1:22:55

Like this is like a training center.

1:22:59

It's like a demo.

1:23:01

Right? It's like something where it has very limited parameters.

1:23:05

It's really seems to be sort of like a city block.

1:23:07

It's basically the first scene of the matrix.

1:23:10

Although it's a little off and you have a Trinity and you have some agents and you have some, No,

1:23:16

all the agents we've seen have always been incredibly patrician looking

1:23:22

I've

1:23:22

done

1:23:22

the

1:23:26

team. The second who we know in this movie is not going to be just playing an agent.

1:23:30

Right. And you're just like, agents don't look like that.

1:23:33

Sure. They're always white. They always have the hair split to the side.

1:23:36

But I didn't know that he was like, say, I'm walking in blind.

1:23:40

Sure. I might see that and be like, sure, there could be a black agent who cares.

1:23:44

Right. Like, you know, of course you could like, And

1:23:46

performance is already different.

1:23:47

His energy is different as he walks in.

1:23:50

I mean, agent Smith, if he's saying the lines, but there is something sort of arch about it.

1:23:56

And you're like, Hm. Different

1:23:57

than the arch. That is part of the de rigueur style locked down.

1:24:02

I am watching this and I'm like, absolutely.

1:24:03

I know what's going on. And you know, I watched this with my wife last night on HBO.

1:24:07

And she was like, what, what the fuck is going on?

1:24:12

I feel like so much of the marketing, the market kind of centered the Morpheus of it all more than the bugs of it all were bugs is kind of more key to the movie.

1:24:21

And obviously, because he's got the aesthetic, that's very recognizable sort of dressed like morphine.

1:24:25

It's a new fucking rising star, but the dude fucking goals.

1:24:29

I love him. But it's funny that he has this Candyman in the same year.

1:24:34

Yeah. Which are both this sort of legacy placing the guy or is he playing a different version of the guy that's true.

1:24:40

And he also was Dr. Manhattan, of course, where it's almost a similar thing where it's like, is He,

1:24:45

or is he The same simulation of simulacrum, which is one of the many things this film is dealing with, but the mystery of the Morpheus, how's this fit in?

1:24:56

Why isn't it Laurence Fishburne? Why is it a younger guy?

1:24:58

Is that just some in joke about the fact that they want to do the Michael B.

1:25:01

Jordan movie? What is this? The film like reveals at hand like six minutes in.

1:25:05

She gets in the room with him that is now there in the set as if you're were on a Warner brothers studio backlog.

1:25:11

Well, he pumps her into the key call back to my book.

1:25:15

I turned to Ben. I know that's a lot easier.

1:25:18

Sorry.

1:25:20

I got one shout out at one point on the blank DOE texts or with the doughboys.

1:25:24

I think Mitch was talking about the reloaded or something.

1:25:27

If someone brought up the key maker And

1:25:29

this thing where he was like, I'm watching matrix reloaded right now, actually like this, I think it's pretty good.

1:25:34

Right. And you were like, Mitch, do you know what you're saying?

1:25:37

Right. I was like, don't get me started. I mean, I wasn't about, I was just like, you guys like this, and then there was just sort of some question about the key makers, key makers, basically a root kit.

1:25:47

I just sort of texted that. Right. And then like 20 minutes later, wire was like, crazy how he just said, this is if anyone would know and he's Explanation,

1:25:54

you Love

1:25:56

to see that he goes into whatever locksmith, you know, it empty.

1:26:01

And he takes her into first a white card or with doors, which we know in the matrix is basically like programming represented.

1:26:09

Like it's sorta like Liminal

1:26:11

state it's it's C

1:26:12

colon dash.

1:26:14

Like it's just sort of like the it's just sorta like, you know, it's Good

1:26:18

to hear you saying this shit again. It's

1:26:19

just the, it's the desktop.

1:26:21

It's the it's from where you can go anywhere else.

1:26:23

And they go into, yes. This set that is Thomas Anderson's room is shitty studio apartment Matrix.

1:26:32

Right? Exactly. He's got his tag, his work tag from medic cortex.

1:26:38

This Is the room, right? This is where Neo is like born, but What's

1:26:43

your fucking deal. Something weird is going on.

1:26:45

And she explains that she, when she was a blue pill, her moment of awakening was she was being a window washer, I guess that was her job.

1:26:53

And she saw Neo jumping Building.

1:26:56

Now he was not in the form of Neo, but she made a connection with him and she heard the song, The

1:27:00

he's jumping. She sees his true form.

1:27:03

She sees Neo, do you Know the story about Lana?

1:27:05

I Don't what story I

1:27:08

believe it was when she did, it was at the glad awards or something like that.

1:27:11

When she wants some trailblazer like career award, it was one of the first time she sort of publicly spoke post-transition because she had always been very secretive about her private life.

1:27:20

And there had been rumors about her for a long time.

1:27:22

And she did this very emotional speech about why she felt like I need to come forward from my community to create an example for other kids who were like me, right.

1:27:29

I'm dealing with a sort of gender dysphoria and all of that.

1:27:32

And she said that when she was a very young child, she was suicidal.

1:27:37

She had an experience where she was suicidal when she was about the age of 12.

1:27:40

And she had a plan to, I believe, jump off a building.

1:27:42

And when she was walking to do that, she saw an old man and he locked eyes with her and they stood there in silence, looking at each other for like 15 seconds and something in that exchange stopped her from doing it.

1:27:53

I don't Know if this guy found moment that You

1:27:58

would never think about it, but that man saved my life.

1:28:00

Right. And it's literally the thing she's replicating here, Which

1:28:03

is fascinating because of course the idea is, you know, I talked to just the idea of Being

1:28:08

seen in that keeps you Alive,

1:28:10

but also it's what jolts her out of her.

1:28:13

And by the way, Lon has talked about, I think one of the things that sort of triggered that suicide was that when she was at school and they would like divide people into lines of boys and girls, that she would feel instinctually drawn to go to the girls' line and the people would call her out on it.

1:28:26

And then this is all part of the thing.

1:28:31

Yeah.

1:28:33

She sees him jump, but of course he doesn't jump.

1:28:34

Like this is the thing that she also perceived tries to jump, but the program just freezes and he is just reset back to wherever they want him.

1:28:43

And I feel like people, you know, cause jumping off a building is very crucial in the matrix.

1:28:49

It is how you prove you have kind of woken up to the matrix, you know, like that's that jump rope jumps off and jumps and involves sort of like, he's not quite there yet.

1:28:58

Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, And

1:29:00

this movie is all about the fucking drunk.

1:29:01

A lot of jumper, it builds to we're going to actually take the leap.

1:29:07

So that's bugs and Morpheus. This thing, I guess, is he, well, he lives in, he bugs is talking about her awakening from the matrix, right?

1:29:14

He doesn't even live in the matrix. He lives in this little box, but he like talks about like, I also realized, like I live in a computer, I

1:29:21

have my mirror moment. Right. But I'm a program.

1:29:24

I understand that I'm a program I've been positioned as an agent, but I see that my true destiny is I am more I'm

1:29:31

Morpheus. And I have to find me, which is sort of basically like his core programming of Morpheus and Morpheus wants to find what does, It's

1:29:39

fucking hard. You're telling me that Morphe assistant of a computer program, who was an agent who recognizes I am the second coming of the guy who recognizes the second coming of the Messiah.

1:29:50

And to be clear, what's happening is the Neo who knows in some way that he's still stuck in a matrix is making a Morpheus to get him out.

1:29:59

Cause he knows like, well, that's how I get out of the matrix.

1:30:01

Morpheus finds me. Right. So when we, if I make a Morpheus program one, yeah, come find me like, you know, and it's, you know, it's half delusion, half No

1:30:13

clear either. Cause I want to say on my first viewing.

1:30:16

Yeah. I, at this point up into the movie, have no idea what is going on.

1:30:20

I don't know. I'm like, And

1:30:23

I'll use, it's one of those sort of shocking, cold open things that movies always do where they're like, we'll catch you up later.

1:30:28

But here, you know, here's some action Of

1:30:30

course what's happening because she is visiting the matrix, but then a program in the matrix.

1:30:38

But it's just not, she's not, she's in like a program inside the major.

1:30:42

So the second time, every character we meet has three identities up ended within the span of one minute of dialogue where he goes, I'm a program and an agent and morphine And

1:30:52

she gives him the red and blue pill.

1:30:53

She

1:30:53

does

1:30:53

the

1:30:53

sort

1:30:53

of,

1:30:53

you

1:30:53

know,

1:30:53

what

1:30:53

do

1:30:53

you

1:30:57

want? Can I, this bar for one second to bring up Ben's confusion.

1:31:00

There's the thing I find very interesting about the first matrix.

1:31:04

And it's just sort of impeccable undeniable power, right?

1:31:07

That like 30 minutes into this movie where the first matrix, you forget how long it takes before they drop.

1:31:14

Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a pretty slow built too.

1:31:16

Right? You are a battery.

1:31:19

It took about half an hour before Romley turned to me and gave me the look and was like, am I?

1:31:24

And I was like, you're not supposed to understand anything yet.

1:31:26

Sure. And it's a very hard trick to pull off, to watch a movie like that, where you're engrossed and you're on board.

1:31:33

Despite the fact, you have no idea what the fuck is going on.

1:31:35

And the film takes about 45 minutes to explain itself to you.

1:31:38

This movie is doing the opposite, which is explaining a lot to you upfront and hoping you will eventually be able to process Put

1:31:46

it together. Yeah. Right.

1:31:47

That's true. It does. And I am eagerly like cramming the info to giving me into my mouth.

1:31:53

But some people are maybe like, well I like once I think it's very understandable to be sort of like, yeah, what's the difference between this and the matrix.

1:32:00

What's the difference between this matrix and old matrix?

1:32:03

See the walls.

1:32:04

I can't see the parameters, fucking blue pill.

1:32:07

That's why. Well, I

1:32:09

do take a blue pill every day.

1:32:13

So after this and write to me, but I'm like, oh, I'm very intrigued.

1:32:16

I'm like, wait. Oh, you know, she gives the pills.

1:32:18

Yeah. And he there's this again.

1:32:20

Right. The pills are who fucking gives a shit.

1:32:23

They choice in illusion Important

1:32:25

and interesting that line of what Chesky wants to say.

1:32:28

Like perhaps a binary choice is a bit simplistic.

1:32:32

I think it's funny on multiple levels that she, Especially

1:32:35

around that red pill, as an idea has become this.

1:32:38

Right. We're getting movies talking about.

1:32:41

Yeah. But, but as she says, like, look, when you're getting offered the pills, you probably already know what she wants.

1:32:46

You know? Like, you know that at that point it's really like, you know, what's Neo gonna do be like, yeah, I do feel like something's really wrong with the world.

1:32:54

And I don't understand my place in it, but you know what?

1:32:56

Like I'm not, I, I'm not going to sign any more documents here.

1:33:00

I'm going to go. We're about halfway in the movie, but I'm good.

1:33:02

whatever.

1:33:09

Click. Hello, Morpheus.

1:33:14

Hey, is this Neo, Neo, are you looking at, you're looking for Morpheus.

1:33:20

Whoa. How did you know that?

1:33:23

I just figured you'd said his name.

1:33:25

So that was sort of my big clue.

1:33:27

Are you old Neo or are you just regular?

1:33:29

Neo I'm baby Neo.

1:33:32

Oh your baby Neo. Oh, you're So

1:33:34

cute. God got Google. Whoa.

1:33:37

What's up baby. Neo, Baby. Neo hungry.

1:33:39

Oh, of course.

1:33:41

Babies. You know, they get hungry and it's the new year.

1:33:45

And it's time to focus on what's most important to you, which might be saving money by ordering, take out, learning to cook, prioritizing your wellness.

1:33:54

They may know.

1:33:56

Hello. Fresh is here to help with endless options to make cooking at home.

1:33:59

Simple and enjoyable. Hell whoa.

1:34:01

Fresh.Yeah. That's a good call.

1:34:03

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1:34:09

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1:34:12

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1:34:19

Okay. That's pretty cool.

1:34:21

Huh? Hello. Whoa. Fresh. Both.

1:34:23

Sounds like me saying whoa and how a baby would say hello.

1:34:27

Right? Because they tend to have the sort of the little, the whole transpose, the W's right.

1:34:32

'm baby Neo Gaga.

1:34:34

Gugu You are baby Neo.

1:34:37

And I know that you love how hello.

1:34:39

Fresh is 72% cheaper than a restaurant meal.

1:34:41

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1:34:45

On average, when you order HelloFresh instead of grocery shopping, that's more money to put towards those other 20, 22 goals of yours, baby.

1:34:53

Wow. Wow. When indeed baby Neo hungry.

1:34:58

I know you're hungry. Look and it's holiday time and like it's difficult.

1:35:03

You know, I'm running around here. I've got a lot going on.

1:35:06

So humblebrag, it's very helpful to have HelloFresh, just show up at my door and prepackaged ingredients with a really good recipe I can follow and just get her done.

1:35:15

It's almost Like there's a program to follow.

1:35:18

That is right.

1:35:20

You can read the code. Well, if you go to hellofresh.com/check 16 and use code check 16 for up to 16 free meals and three free gifts.

1:35:28

That's pretty cool. Right?

1:35:30

It's America's number one. Meal kit. Well go to hellofresh.com/check 16, check 16 and use code check 16 for up to 16 free meals and three free gifts.

1:35:43

Hello, fresh baby.

1:35:45

Neo get ready. Morpheus.

1:35:49

Yeah. I don't know about him, but you know, I'm sure he's around somewhere So

1:35:54

10 minutes and we finally get to Thomas Anderson, right?

1:35:57

So then you've had this one glimpse of Keanu in bugs is, And

1:36:01

now we're with Thomas Anderson. The first act of the movie is him.

1:36:04

He is a computer program or computer game programmer, Famous

1:36:08

filled with matrix memorabilia.

1:36:09

He literally has the McFarland action.

1:36:12

The

1:36:12

statue

1:36:12

of

1:36:12

the

1:36:12

Smith

1:36:12

getting

1:36:12

punched,

1:36:12

which

1:36:12

I

1:36:12

think

1:36:12

was

1:36:12

a

1:36:12

crew

1:36:12

gift

1:36:12

that

1:36:12

everyone

1:36:12

had

1:36:12

from

1:36:12

the,

1:36:21

I had a game of the year award to he's got, you know, like, okay, neo-Nazi fucking nerd.

1:36:26

He's a Silicon valley guy.

1:36:29

He's living in San Francisco.

1:36:33

All of this, that's obsessed with his past.

1:36:35

Sure. And he is a cultural shadow of the one thing he created.

1:36:38

He's working on a new game called binary, but he is the famous programmer of a trilogy give games called the matrix.

1:36:44

And if he feels like one of these guys, I, I don't know if I can say a specific example where it's like, here's someone who is so foundational to the creative ferment of this company or this property or whatever it is, but they may be kind of lost it and they haven't been able to replicate it.

1:37:02

And we keep them on payroll, a out of respect and be out of the hope of what if they fucking figured it out again, delivered another home run.

1:37:08

Right, right. But he's just sort of noodling on shit.

1:37:10

Kiano I feel like isn't this movie kind of playing sad Kiano meme, right?

1:37:15

Because John wick has become this new gravitas version of Kiano there's that period that everyone forgets about between like matrix sequels and John wick when he starts to dip out where like his prominent cultural role was a photo of him sitting on a bench, eating a sandwich and being like, what the fuck is up with this guy?

1:37:36

Sad, sad. Keanu says he was just hungry.

1:37:39

It looks like a bump. He looks kind of like a bum.

1:37:41

Yeah. But also Kiano like had horribly tragic things happen to him in his life at that period of time.

1:37:49

What not then what, what happened then?

1:37:52

I mean, he, his girlfriend died a long time.

1:37:54

Right. That was way before it was after The matrix sequels.

1:37:58

But know that that photo is not that old, the sad Campaign

1:38:01

the 15 year span.

1:38:03

Okay. Sure. But he's hungry for project too much on that photo because he has been very anti projecting on that of I'm

1:38:11

just hungry. I'm just saying there, there is a tragic nest of Kiana that I think this film is foregrounding right there.

1:38:20

He's playing very broken. I really like his performance Performance

1:38:23

in this film is Excellent.

1:38:25

I think it's excellent. I say, Especially

1:38:27

in the first chunk where he has the most acting to do, and then he's more, I

1:38:32

say this as someone who really feels like he has lost a substantial amount of identity in the last two years in isolation on top of mental stability and all of that, this performance really, really fucking resonated with me, his sort of unmoored quality.

1:38:46

And I do think you talk about the awakening aspect of the matrix, right?

1:38:50

Like the, this world feels wrong, the Strings,

1:38:54

whatever. Right. But so much of that, and it's tied to the which Huskies and their own journey of discovery and whatever is like, I feel wrong.

1:39:02

I recognize that things around me feel weird, but it's like, there's a form I should be taking that.

1:39:07

I'm not yet. It's just playing it. Not to like dramatically.

1:39:12

I get like, there's a little bit of humor to what he's doing.

1:39:17

Got that thing where he of like overly medicated and he's sort of in a bubble and he little foggy.

1:39:23

Yeah. And like everyone around him in the movie Is

1:39:28

child. Cause there were a little Bit treating like Shelly tried to kill Himself

1:39:31

again, But also is kind of like is dialed to a hundred.

1:39:35

It's very crucial in this movie that the first act of the movie is.

1:39:38

And you really notice in a rewatch, very loud, everything is loud.

1:39:42

The dialogue, you know, people are chattering all the time.

1:39:45

Energy of performance, the energy performance is very up, but also like modern music.

1:39:49

There's a lot of flashing lights, you know, a lot of colors, which has, he really wants that moment where Naomi is like, do you remember this?

1:39:56

And it's quiet to really hit.

1:39:58

And it really works in that theater, in my opinion, less so on.

1:40:01

It just it's really silence in a theater is so powerful because everyone's kind of like, wait, is she going to say something?

1:40:09

You know, like everyone's kind of like hanging to see what she's going to do anyway.

1:40:11

But when People

1:40:13

are disappointed that the movie doesn't look like the matrix doesn't have the green 10th, the precision, all that sort of stuff, which is fair.

1:40:20

It's a fucking rad aesthetic.

1:40:21

I understand wanting to see that again.

1:40:23

It's also part of the text of this film that it's like, the matrix has changed our notion of what computers could do in artificial intelligence and virtual reality and all that stuff used to be more clinical, right?

1:40:34

It used to be a, And

1:40:36

your second database in 1999, when the matrix is made, the internet is like a resource more than anything.

1:40:43

Like to the extent that it has discourse, it's so tiny.

1:40:46

It's like little tiny communities of people who know how to be allies.

1:40:52

Concepts are been now, now.

1:40:53

And so much of technology is trying to figure out ways to virtually replicate banalities in, in so many ways, right?

1:41:00

You look at the fucking Zuckerberg metaverse video and it's like, what he's pitching of.

1:41:06

Like it metaverse you get to hang out in a rainbow place And

1:41:09

you can talk to each other. It's a way to virtually have a conversation through virtual avatars.

1:41:13

It's no longer this sort of like bad-ass fucking thing.

1:41:17

The world of the first 45 minutes of this movie is very metaverse right.

1:41:23

It's like, it's, it's very, I really just think she's really trying to just talk about how it feels to be online right now, which is what obviously the big annalists monologue is about.

1:41:33

And as well, Brand's having casual Twitter accounts where they're like, Oh

1:41:38

yeah, you put your whole Bootsy into this.

1:41:41

When you made the double Cheeseburger,

1:41:46

Jude who is played by.

1:41:48

I wanna cause I didn't know that actor, Andrew Louis Caldwell.

1:41:53

Okay. Do you know him? No, he was, you know, he's, he's doing what the movie wants obviously, which is the story, I guess he's mostly he's on an eyes-on B apparently, you know, but he's like big, he's really big.

1:42:02

And he's also like kind of like a parody of not just a matrix fan, but just like a genre fan right.

1:42:09

Where he's just, you know, but also kinda like, oh, I know, I know, I know too much, too much.

1:42:15

It's kind of like this weird self-awareness And

1:42:18

the comic relief character that exists today who mostly exists deflate shit and be like, what the fuck?

1:42:24

Exactly. He doesn't seem real.

1:42:27

He doesn't seem like a real fucking person.

1:42:28

None of it feels quite real.

1:42:30

I love it. It's a different type of artificiality than we're used to have to feel wrong in a different way.

1:42:37

I said this in my review, but in 1999, you know, it's the idea of the end of history, right?

1:42:40

Where it's like, is it like over, like we just, there just won't it's pre nine 11.

1:42:45

It's sort of like, has America just kind of become what it is and we'll just kind of make money and have our jobs and nothing more is going to happen.

1:42:54

Like we've kind of reached this peak.

1:42:55

And then of course nine 11 happens and everything is completely different.

1:42:59

But like there's this moment in the late nineties where that's the existential horror, right.

1:43:04

Fight club is about that. American beauty is about that.

1:43:07

Like, you know, a lot of those movies from right around the matrix is very much about that.

1:43:11

Yeah. About a certain numbness. I do think the fact that this movie its premise was born out of grief is very important because I do think this movie is about depression in a lot, a lot, a lot of ways.

1:43:24

Whereas the first movie is sort of about identity, right.

1:43:27

And figuring out who you're supposed to be, But

1:43:30

it is about existential despair.

1:43:33

But I don't Feel

1:43:34

like This

1:43:37

world just read. There's a numbness to Neo and Tom Anderson in this movie, both in the simulation, as much as things feel wrong.

1:43:43

It's like, I don't know. Maybe I'm just dead inside now.

1:43:46

We'll stop.

1:43:47

It was like, what was the fucking point of any of this in the First

1:43:50

movie? Neo is like, there has to be more like, that's why I'm searching.

1:43:53

Cause like these can't be it.

1:43:55

Right. And in this movie he's like, well I guess it wasn't that.

1:43:59

Cause they tell me that's me.

1:44:00

So I guess I'll just fucking, you know, And

1:44:03

he's, I love him. He's successful.

1:44:05

Like in the first movie he's a little cog in a machine, right.

1:44:09

He's just like, he's a little he's Dilbert he's he goes to his cubicle and his boss yells at him.

1:44:15

Right. But no, but I'm thinking, oh, in your Movie,

1:44:18

he's not a cop. He's the fucking king of the world and everyone's waiting on him.

1:44:23

And he's just kinda like, I don't enjoy this at all Chesky

1:44:27

position when people are going, what's the new matrix.

1:44:29

And it's just like, I don't know what the fuck to do with myself.

1:44:31

You kind of Joey pants, his character ones.

1:44:35

Yeah. That's a lot of people had theories on that of like ease.

1:44:39

He now like, you know, Mr.

1:44:42

Regan, like, is he literally what Joe, you know, cipher was asking for?

1:44:47

Like he got inserted in. Cause he wanted to be rich and Famous.

1:44:50

I want to be, I want to be someone important, like an actor or anything, but I don't want her man.

1:44:55

I don't want this. And obviously he eats a steak fucking steak shot, you know, it's all, I feel like it's all basically just sort of referential.

1:45:02

It's not like suppose, but you know that white rabbit sequent rules, I think the remix of the song it's so fucking effective, the song is so clever where it's like it's using the original song.

1:45:13

Right. But then it has those things where instead of hitting the chorus, it just kind of stops for a minute and just sort of repeats that, boom, the sound stop the vocal stuff for a second.

1:45:23

And you're just like, he's fucking stuck on a treadmill.

1:45:26

Like he is crushing.

1:45:27

This is never ending. Yeah. It's but it's a specific kind of depression where the world is loud rather than quiet, right.

1:45:33

Or like the world is bright and assaultive rather than That

1:45:38

is how I felt in isolation being alone, quiet in the apartment and feeling like the entire world was screaming at me, not me in particular, but the entire world was screaming, which it was in so many ways.

1:45:49

It is very loud. The internet is loud.

1:45:51

The state of the world is loud.

1:45:52

And even just, there was a thing that was a recurring problem.

1:45:56

I had in the worst of lockdown when I was not seeing anybody leaving my house, I was not really socializing outside of doing fucking live streams and podcast episodes.

1:46:08

Otherwise I would never even speak out loud most days.

1:46:11

Right. I was sort of stuck in this rut of like this montage of what you're seeing him do, the routines where it's like, how do I change up my day?

1:46:17

I make fucking coffee.

1:46:19

You know, I take a shit.

1:46:21

And then the repetition of the pills over and over again, I had a problem at the worst, the peak of, you know, 12 months into lockdown or whatever, where my medication I take nightly for depression, anxiety.

1:46:34

I could never remember whether or not I had taken the pills already.

1:46:39

The old did I wash my hair today or not the old sort of, yeah, But

1:46:43

it would be like, I have it on my nightstand next to my bed.

1:46:45

I get in the bed And he'd be like, did I do it yet?

1:46:48

Or Did I just do this?

1:46:51

This, this is Familiar.

1:46:52

Not remember if I had done it 30 seconds ago, or if I was replaying a memory from the night before, because You're

1:46:58

just doing the same shit every day.

1:47:00

Maybe starting to hit me really hard at this point. Like, I'm just like, fuck, this is speaking to the way I've been feeling for the last two years, this atrophy of this character, who's in a position where it's like, look, I mean a tremendous amount of privilege.

1:47:11

I can't say my life socks A whole that's what I think is so clever.

1:47:15

Nothing's bad, Right.

1:47:17

Is like everyone's falling all over him.

1:47:19

And he's just sort of like, Hmm, I feel dead inside.

1:47:21

And everyone's like, look, if you have a next thing, come up with it.

1:47:25

If not, do whatever you want. And he keeps on noodling.

1:47:27

You talk about how he creates the modal because he's hoping that Morpheus will come and speak to him.

1:47:32

I also read it. I don't think these are mutually exclusive things as much like Lana being just driven in her grief to go back to those characters.

1:47:40

He was like, I want Morpheus kicking around somewhere.

1:47:45

Yeah. Right, right, right, right. Like those were the good old days.

1:47:47

Like they, yeah, me and Morpheus, like that's when we were figuring stuff out.

1:47:51

That's when there was growth. When there was progress, when there was some Well

1:47:54

said, he just created Morpheus as a fictional character.

1:47:56

It's like, look, I probably shouldn't make a fourth game.

1:47:59

That's like fucking with my legacy, but it'd be nice to just have a program running on my computer where I can look in the sets there and that you have that opening sequence and Morpheus is there.

1:48:07

It's the memory palace of like, fuck right.

1:48:10

This is widened a Soulja exists.

1:48:12

We talk a lot about it being a poisoned, especially as we're recycling the same pop culture over and over again.

1:48:17

But there clearly is some value to it.

1:48:21

If we use it deliberately in these things that stick to us so much that we cannot give up, there has to be power in returning to these characters.

1:48:31

We can't just redo the same sequence over and over again.

1:48:34

But if something has been able to last for 25 years and it's a thing you can return to, that gives you joy or comfort, clarity on your own sense of existence.

1:48:42

That isn't cheap to go back to that.

1:48:45

And I say, no, if you're doing something new At

1:48:50

the same time, right. And all this that we're talking about, there is a scene where he is summoned to talk to his boss.

1:48:55

Then the money man played by Jonathan Groff, who is Smith and who very rich right at the start of the movie has this line of like, well, Warner brothers are, our parent company is demanding.

1:49:10

We make a fourth matrix and they'll do it Without

1:49:13

us. I know you said you were done after the trilogy, But

1:49:15

like this sort of specificness of like, they can do it without us.

1:49:20

And I was like, I thought that wasn't possible.

1:49:22

And he's like, well, I was thinking I've

1:49:25

read many takes from people who tap out at that exact moment.

1:49:28

Like the movie is telling me that it shouldn't exist and that they're being forced to make this movie at gunpoint.

1:49:35

Now I am like, where am I again?

1:49:38

Where am I? Who is Neo?

1:49:40

He, I knew him to have died.

1:49:43

Yeah. Now he's back. But what is this reality again?

1:49:46

I have, no, I cannot figure out where the fuck I am.

1:49:50

Right. The movie's like very much like throwing a cold bath on you with this stuff.

1:49:54

And like I, whereas I was just like, that's so funny one that that's in the movie, it's fun.

1:49:58

That Warner brothers is like, yeah, sure, whatever, fucking throw us under the bus.

1:50:02

Who cares? But to that, like, that's like, you know, Smith Smith.

1:50:08

So Smith is part of Neo. I got, you know, we have to talk, we'll talk about it.

1:50:12

So complicated and Smith is the person that people ask me the most questions about having seen the movie where they're like, I don't understand his role in, you know, but like he's, Neo's bad side.

1:50:22

He's, Neo's most fatalistic, most Cole dyed, most cynical side in this movie.

1:50:27

Right? So like when he's saying this stuff, he's not saying that is the thesis of the movie, but he's certainly expressing the like, look, there's a bit of a rock and a hard place situation here.

1:50:36

Do you want to make another matrix or do you want, you know, faceless executives to make it?

1:50:41

Well, I think there's another thing going on David, which is agent Smith has now been reborn in the body of the studio executive.

1:50:52

Right? The executive, I wouldn't even say studio because he's also really giving like tech bro, like, you know, right.

1:50:57

Like he's like, whereas Smith in 1999, he's a G man, obviously he's the, you know, this guy in a suit, who's supposed to look anonymous with sunglasses and now it's like right shoes, no socks kind of, simpering kind of corporate speak, you know, all that personality though, too lots of, but like a personality that kind of puts you on edge for you.

1:51:19

Like, is this guy like a total phony, like, wait, does he care about anything that's performance?

1:51:24

I think an incredible showmance Textually.

1:51:27

Right? And you get to this point later in the movie where Smith keeps on talking about like how inextricably tied they are.

1:51:33

Right, right. That it, like, they used to think that they were rivals and they exist in opposition to each other.

1:51:38

And in fact, they need each other to balance out.

1:51:41

It's like this ying and yang thing, as you said, it's sorta shadow self, whatever.

1:51:44

I, I think this character that use of it, all of that, that is stated literally and directly Compare it to someone like Royalton in speed racer, who is the evil money man saying, you have to race this way.

1:52:02

You got to do it this way. And if you don't, I'll crush you.

1:52:05

I will, you, I will Mount the forces of capitalism.

1:52:07

That's the movie they make right after getting to make two hugely expensive SQLs where they get away with everything, Listen

1:52:12

to our speed, raised surface over. Cause of course, that movie ends with them being like art can triumph over commerce.

1:52:17

Of course the movie with, And

1:52:20

she's, you know, always talked about in interviews, like one of the reasons she stepped away and it seemed like they maybe neither of them would ever make a movie.

1:52:27

Again, was like, I got so tired with the business aspect of the thing with the executives, with answering to all these questions and all this sort of shit.

1:52:35

She is a filmmaker who, aside from her first movie has gotten to trafficking incredible budgets.

1:52:43

Absolutely. Right.

1:52:43

I'm

1:52:43

telling

1:52:43

stories

1:52:43

that

1:52:43

are

1:52:43

this

1:52:43

expansive

1:52:43

that

1:52:43

I'm

1:52:43

asking

1:52:43

to

1:52:43

be

1:52:43

putting

1:52:43

thousands

1:52:43

of

1:52:43

screens

1:52:43

and

1:52:43

all

1:52:43

of

1:52:51

that. And I do think this movie is reckoning with, I want, you know, I think of myself as this precious sensitive artist, but I've also chosen a medium that requires a tremendous amount of capital support and a lot of people.

1:53:03

And I am forever beholden to these people.

1:53:05

There's always going to be constantly think of Smith as a binary villain.

1:53:08

And now I realize he's part of the balance of me getting to do the thing I want to do tick.

1:53:14

Right. Very true. I just, I can think of this guy as the impediment to my creative unfiltered brilliance, but it's like, it doesn't matter.

1:53:22

It doesn't, I've never gone away. Never going away.

1:53:24

You're not, you're not getting right. You're never going to be able to.

1:53:26

Yeah. I have to learn how to create some sort of balance in a work relationship with this person.

1:53:31

Otherwise it's not going to happen. And the changing of Smith to a creative executive, but also Smith to less of a literal villain and more of an uneasy ally is so talent.

1:53:43

I agree with that now textually.

1:53:46

Yes. I do think it is the most common cause Smith has always been the most complicated element of the matrix if you dig into it.

1:53:53

And I guess I can get more into this in the commentaries, but like, Okay,

1:53:55

this thing I, I found rewatching the first movie singing the theater for the first time, being able to give it more focus recently, I

1:54:02

saw it in theaters in 1999, after buying a ticket to she's all That

1:54:05

I bought a ticket to 10 things I hate about you.

1:54:07

And then I saw 10 things I heard about you. And I said, why would I see that gun movie?

1:54:11

But look, I knew it before, but it hit me so much harder.

1:54:15

Is this idea that it's like Smith as a program, is this aberration.

1:54:19

For some reason, he's developing his own inner thoughts and his distaste of humanity.

1:54:26

He has a personality that she does Not

1:54:29

have developed, not supposed to be so angry.

1:54:32

Right? All of that's complicated.

1:54:35

We should acknowledge what the original plan was for this to be Hugo with.

1:54:41

Well, the way this movie works, you can absolutely see the original actors playing both roles, but it doesn't really matter that much to have new actors play the roles.

1:54:49

And it's in some ways kind of exciting.

1:54:52

Yeah. I, I, part of me wonders if I would have preferred the version with Hugo weaving, I think what Jonathan Groff is doing is great.

1:54:59

But I think the rush of much like seeing Tom Sanderson being like, what's going on here, why is Neo acting like this to see Hugo weaving look different, have such a different vibe and be like, well, you know, Warner brothers like playing Hollywood asshole would have given it such uneasy.

1:55:19

Yeah. I love Hugo weaving and I would love to see you go weaving, But

1:55:24

in this movie, it's now come out and interviews with like James McTeague and some of the other people who worked on the movie, Mitchell did an interview recently that, that, that was the plan as written.

1:55:36

Cause I wasn't sure after seeing it like was, I knew you go even was in talks and then there was a scheduling problem and then he's not in and out.

1:55:43

I was like, was he going to play him at some state?

1:55:45

Or some form was he was giving Smith?

1:55:49

Yeah. He was just going to be Smith. I'm sure it'd be great.

1:55:51

He was in a play. I think COVID really messed with it too.

1:55:54

Anyway, he's not in it.

1:55:56

I think graph is fantastic. And I think as part of the 20 years on plus, you know, like let's consider the internet and the experience of being online now, I think graph is a great Griffin.

1:56:07

Neil, Patrick Harris are both great expressions of those feelings.

1:56:11

I think they're great. You know, We're

1:56:14

seeing the shots of the original movie and cut and I feel like, especially that's like they're introducing their, I mean, they're hammering it over your head that this is Smith, right.

1:56:25

And it's a different actor because you're seeing His

1:56:28

opening line is him saying Cuba weaving's line intercut.

1:56:32

They do not hide for one second that he is Smith.

1:56:35

He is Smith to the extent that people are like, wait, is he Smith?

1:56:38

This movie is, is there a sort of a double reverse here?

1:56:42

Like, I guess reveal, why are they telling me so much more than I can even process right out of the gate What's

1:56:49

going on? But like, just to talk about Smith for a second, as you say in the first movie, he is the villain, but there is this sort of undercurrent of like, why is he more emotional about this and why none of the other program characters are emotional at all.

1:57:02

And he has the monologue where he takes off his ear piece and he takes disease, your cancer, you know, and then he's destroyed.

1:57:08

And then the idea in the second and third movies, he's no longer an agent.

1:57:11

He cannot move through programs.

1:57:13

So he can't get a copy himself into people.

1:57:15

Right. But he now has this new thing where he spreads like a virus he's liberated, he's, he's his own thing.

1:57:20

And I have always struggled so much with the idea because like the whole reason that may be, you know, gets to pull off his grand truce at the end of revolutions is that Smith has taken over the matrix.

1:57:32

And so Neo can go in there and deal with Smith in return.

1:57:36

You're going to, you're going to be peaceful.

1:57:38

We're going to stop the war. That's the deal he makes with the machines.

1:57:41

And the idea is like, Neo is the sixth one.

1:57:44

Like it's a thing that happens over and over again, it's built in, there'll be a one he'll hit the end of the program.

1:57:49

He'll see the architect, the Arctic, they'll be like, you got to go back to the beginning, you're going to rebuild Zion.

1:57:54

You know? I mean, he's always like, okay, I don't want humanity to die, so I'll do that.

1:57:58

Right. And instead of course, Neo picks Trinity, and that's why the movie continues rather than ends.

1:58:05

Right. Everyone's on board with this, right?

1:58:08

Yeah. So I guess that's like, I was always like, why is there a Smith?

1:58:11

Is that part of it? Like, is there always going to be like a sort of villain agents in this movie Or

1:58:16

in the sequels or Button the matrix, like, you know, why, why does Smith becomes so powerful?

1:58:19

And I Know

1:58:21

you said what you want to say. And then I have my answer.

1:58:24

Like, you know, part of it is just like, well, these movies, especially the sequels are as much about like they aren't giving you hints.

1:58:30

The programs are evolving and way reared ways too.

1:58:32

It's not just that the one is behaving differently.

1:58:34

Programs are doing weird things.

1:58:36

These two programs made a child for no reason.

1:58:38

Like, you know, like, you know, there's all kinds of Smith.

1:58:41

Yeah. He he's, he's angry and he's weird.

1:58:44

Like, you know, he, we don't know why he behaves this way.

1:58:46

He's a, he's a glitch too. There's all this glitchy can going on.

1:58:48

So like, that's why he's so tied to Neo, right?

1:58:52

Like as Neo behaves, unusually Smith behaves, that's all fine.

1:58:56

He's the one of programs in a weird way.

1:58:58

Yes. He's the aberration. And I always freaked out because I was always like, if there are many ones, why is there never, or why are we never hearing about other Smiths?

1:59:04

But I think the idea is partly just like, well, even if that was a thing, yeah.

1:59:08

Neo or the sorry, the one hitting the end of the program, meaning the architect rebooting, it would just solve that problem.

1:59:13

So it wouldn't be a thing. And instead Neo not solving that problem, he proliferates and it becomes a PR David.

1:59:20

Yep. And I, I didn't know you had all this frustrated.

1:59:24

I know It's not frustration. It's just like, David Is

1:59:27

now furiously. Rubbering his thighs the way that Neo does in this movie when he's talking.

1:59:34

Yes. Right. Those, I feel like in those sequence, like the therapist is trying to do the thing of like, yeah, you're in, you're real.

1:59:39

You're like try to, you know, But

1:59:42

David is truly doing those hand gestures unconsciously while talking about Smith of at all.

1:59:45

And this speaks to this movie as much as the first three matrix is were, and especially cause the word Chesky is barely did pressed and explain themselves, made themselves elusive, made this mythology so dense and so cool and all of this shit, right.

2:00:00

That like you're sitting there trying to connect the pieces of like, why, why, why?

2:00:05

And I always interpreted the Smith thing as like, well, we could just have a new agent, we could have a new villain.

2:00:13

We could have some other program act this way.

2:00:15

So we don't have to explain why this one is so special.

2:00:19

But

2:00:19

man,

2:00:19

look

2:00:19

at

2:00:19

that

2:00:19

performance,

2:00:19

that

2:00:19

guy

2:00:19

given

2:00:19

the

2:00:19

first

2:00:19

man,

2:00:19

it

2:00:19

would

2:00:19

be

2:00:19

stupid

2:00:19

not

2:00:19

to

2:00:19

do

2:00:19

that

2:00:24

again. Sure. And so much like the fucking sentinels reviving Trinity and Neo it's like, I guess we have to figure out why it's still the same guy from the first movie because the public wants this guy.

2:00:37

Yeah, it's right. I mean the analysts take a certain lane, right?

2:00:40

Yeah. You could have hired anyone else to play any other weird agent who has his own power and not have to deal with the why he would say how it coincides with the first movie.

2:00:48

But it is that thing of, at some point you are somewhat beholden to the demands of not just what the people controlling the purse strings want, but what the public wants Textually.

2:00:59

Yes. The way Smith puts it as like, I'm like, he's like a chain around Neo and he doesn't know either like Smith does not know that he is agent Smith until that moment where he sees the gun and he reawakens and he says, Mr.

2:01:12

Ant, you know, like that's the, before then he is locked into this as Neo.

2:01:16

I loved the movie and I like all its tonal goofiness.

2:01:19

I think it was maybe a mistake to have an unbroken four minute sequence where Smith sings Fleetwood.

2:01:23

Mac's the chain to Neo When

2:01:26

he shouldn't have done that. So yeah.

2:01:28

At the end of this first act, Neo is liberated first.

2:01:32

There's sort of a board of effort where Morpheus tries to do the red pill, blue pill in a bathroom.

2:01:38

Like I Know what focusing on the first 40 minutes a lot, but you also have the Trinity meeting in the coffee shop.

2:01:45

That's true. We should. Of course. It's not right. Trinity's there.

2:01:47

She's called Tiffany. Yeah. It's a little joke about that.

2:01:50

TIF files. I don't know if anyone picked up on that dot TIF files dot TIF is like the artwork, like that's know because that's what, when she says later in the movie, the analyst, Tiffany he's like, it was a private joke.

2:02:00

Like it's a joke about, But

2:02:02

also she says her parents were Audrey Hepburn fans to breakfast.

2:02:06

Also just, it sounds like the Trinity There's

2:02:09

there's titch, Trinity, Tiffany.

2:02:11

He knows he like, he feels connected to her, but she's this married woman who he doesn't even know what's going on.

2:02:18

Feels that a media also is like playing, you know, carry on Mazda.

2:02:22

So good in this movie. And she's very good at playing the kind of like half aware, half like confused.

2:02:28

Like I do know you, This

2:02:30

is a genuine criticism I have of the movie and one of the few, okay.

2:02:33

I don't know how they solve this.

2:02:36

Based on the way the story is structured, I do think is possibly the movie's detriment that she isn't in the middle hour pretty much at all because she's so fucking good.

2:02:47

And the two of them together on screen is so good.

2:02:51

It just has that feeling of just like, fuck, here are two people who clearly have a lot of respect for each other.

2:02:56

A lot of love have spent, had been in the trenches together, have gone through so much have aged into this kind of very easy, effortless gravitas on screen.

2:03:04

And yeah, I dunno.

2:03:08

Just one of the first scene there. I, I, I just feel a charge of putting the two of them together, which is a thing this movie is talking about, right.

2:03:16

Is if we put these two pods next to each other electricity, They're

2:03:20

like magnets. Like if you put them both together, they'll just snap together.

2:03:23

But so you have to keep a tension, keep that tension going.

2:03:25

I mean, he called it, he refers to it as something else.

2:03:28

Right. He has a different metaphor, but it's the same idea.

2:03:32

Right? He sings fleet with back. So he does Haas.

2:03:34

No fuck. Now I have to remember what there like a Tusk.

2:03:37

Okay. While you're looking that up. One little thing I noticed on my rewatch last night was the little, like moments of the reflections where you're seeing that both, you know, that Tiffany and Neo have different Sprites.

2:03:54

Reflections

2:03:58

On the teacher. Fun just little and those reflections in a cute little thing are played by Neo's reflection is played by Carrie and Masa's real husband and Tiffany Trinity's reflection is played by James McTeague.

2:04:11

Who's the first assistant directors.

2:04:14

One was the director of V for vendetta Collaborators.

2:04:17

Right.

2:04:17

And

2:04:17

so,

2:04:17

which

2:04:17

is,

2:04:21

Yes, you never get a full body shot in that kind of way.

2:04:24

You're not doing the like heaven can wait sort of a wonder woman, 1984 thing where you cut back and forth between the two actors.

2:04:32

It's always these sort of glimpse.

2:04:34

He knows he looks different with it.

2:04:36

I see them At at little moments.

2:04:38

And also this movie is just fucking all in on mirrors.

2:04:42

For obvious reason.

2:04:44

It doubles down on the Alice in Wonderland, Right.

2:04:48

Mirrors. So Crucial. It also mirrors become the transportation system in a way, fully replacing phones of the first movie, No

2:04:54

longer going to hard lines. They have to go through mirrors, portals.

2:04:58

They call them shits All there and the original trilogy.

2:05:00

But Obviously the original shows you, the mirror shot is it's not it.

2:05:05

All of that Stuff is here. It's just overwhelming.

2:05:10

But yeah. So Morpheus attempts, but you know, he's still getting used to the role.

2:05:15

Well, the other thing is just, we've had this Christina Ricci with the best agent in Hollywood getting very high billing.

2:05:21

I assume That stuff was Cut

2:05:23

out. But this montage of, of, as we say, It's

2:05:27

very funny montage of the them focus, grouping the matrix.

2:05:30

Is

2:05:30

it

2:05:30

the

2:05:33

action? Is it the WTF Nez?

2:05:35

Is it that it was so different?

2:05:37

Is it that it was, you know yeah.

2:05:39

Which speaks to these things where it's like, you can't replicate these things after as much as you can talk about the decision-making process that went into making the first thing work, it's hard to synthesize it.

2:05:49

I like the one guy in the group who was like, I never liked it.

2:05:52

I thought it was shitty. Right. There's that one guy who's just like, I just want action.

2:05:55

And the repeating that them repeating the same dialogue and they're like that guy he was wearing like the goofiest hats.

2:06:02

And like, he goes through three different outfits.

2:06:04

It's just so disconcerting.

2:06:07

It's just concerned. But I feel like it's also, like, it's just the feeling of being, having the same conversations over and over a year after year, day after day, whatever.

2:06:17

Right. Like it's sort of like, I don't know about a lot of which ask if she's been in a lot of pitch meetings over like, okay, but could matrix four beat, you know, like, and it's just kind of always the same, like what do we love about the first one bullet time?

2:06:31

I also think it's an internal monologue thing of like, how do I go back to them?

2:06:34

How is there another one of these? How do we, how do we make it different?

2:06:37

How do I need to one up bullet time?

2:06:39

Or do I need to do bullet time again? Or do I have to run away from both impulses?

2:06:42

Fremont Agim on, of course is one of the people in this boardroom, one of like eight sensei That

2:06:48

sounds great cast members in this movie love to see them.

2:06:50

And of course there are also these scenes with Neil, Patrick Harris, as Neo's blue glasses frame, wearing psychiatrists, the analyst who is very much like, look, you're just, you're not crazy, but you're projecting blah, blah, blah.

2:07:08

You know, all that stuff. There's

2:07:10

something too, in terms of just the difference of vibe of what this new matrix is like that Smith and the analyst, the two main protagonists in this film are both played by openly gay men in Hollywood who are pretty traditionally handsome and have over abundance of Broadway experience Very

2:07:36

much. So yeah. Are like great singers can be like very clean, all ages, entertainer performers, you know, it's just, it's an interesting energy that they're bringing versus like someone like Hugo weaving.

2:07:51

Absolutely

2:07:51

Eva,

2:07:51

we

2:07:51

can,

2:07:51

of

2:07:51

course

2:07:51

can

2:07:51

do

2:07:51

anything

2:07:55

Softness to both of them. That they both are certainly very capable of adding menace to that.

2:08:01

The whole thing when Neil, Patrick Harris, as much as he, you know, he's, I think he's very good in this movie.

2:08:05

Like using what people don't like about him or what people find off putting about him as like a weapon, like, which I also think he does very well in Congress.

2:08:14

He's a good actor. Like I

2:08:17

think the movie is consciously using the fact that these are like two incredibly woke likable, progressive guys, and being like, is there something to clean about these guys?

2:08:27

Like, is it upsetting how cute and adorable and lovable they are.

2:08:30

So Morpheus comes to And

2:08:33

a failed, you know, wake up Neo moment where bright Morpheus, it's just too loose.

2:08:37

He's still getting used to it.

2:08:39

He, I can't even dress properly for the matrix.

2:08:42

He's like, so freed up in the fact that he's like, I don't have to be a Smith anymore Right

2:08:47

now, really bright clothes, As

2:08:50

Ben would say, he's throwing fits.

2:08:53

And, and, and he's stepping out of a bathroom stall and he's trying to do more for his dollar.

2:08:58

And then he's like, ah, too much. Right. You know?

2:09:00

So that doesn't work. There's this big shootout.

2:09:02

That's where Smith wakes up in the office.

2:09:07

He's really funny, Really funny, like really funny, and being offered the pills and being like having the reaction of like, I can't be doing this to myself again, you know, that's of course, where does fear is?

2:09:16

It's like, oh God, I'm slipping into the, the matrix is real reverie again.

2:09:20

Like, you know, Look

2:09:22

when Smith is pointing the gun to his head, that looks like a dog.

2:09:25

That's confused. Yeah.

2:09:27

Right. Where it's not even like he's afraid for his life or that he wants to die.

2:09:31

He's just genuinely kind of like perplexed by everything going on around him.

2:09:34

And then you have the sequence, a thing that I think this film visualizes really well, and it doesn't do an incredibly complicated way, but I've talked about this before in the podcast.

2:09:43

One of the side effects, the most extreme of my states of anxiety or depression, things I've struggled with my entire life is I can have disassociative episodes where your sense of like time and personhood and your existence within your own body.

2:09:59

Essentially. Like I would describe it as my brain pushes the eject button.

2:10:03

And I have a hard time differentiating between like what is in my head and what's actually happening.

2:10:09

I need to just like lie down and close my eyes and listen to music until I feel placed again.

2:10:14

And the transition between the gunfight into just now he's in the therapist, office is really clever, very often what that feels like for me, where it's like, I have the moment before I can start to feel my brain getting loose.

2:10:28

And then there's the moment where I feel like things have settled and the stuff in between.

2:10:32

I'm like, I don't totally know if that happened.

2:10:36

And that's the trick they're pulling.

2:10:37

It's like, yes, they're doing the matrix thing of like, you see the cat deja VU.

2:10:42

They're actually just reworking the programming.

2:10:44

And they're just like, okay, fucking shut it down.

2:10:46

Put them in the analyst's office. We're going to reset his brain a little bit.

2:10:51

Just want to say, sorry, the bullet time, quote unquote in this movie, which people were like, it doesn't look cool anymore.

2:10:58

The bullet time really, really fucking feels like how it feels in the present when I'm having a dissociative episode.

2:11:07

Where, But talk soon. I know what you're saying.

2:11:09

I hear what you're saying. Yeah.

2:11:10

Anyway, shit.

2:11:13

I lost my train of thought. It's okay. So anyway, so he, but he, whatever he got Back

2:11:17

to the room, things are going wrong.

2:11:19

Nevermind.

2:11:21

And then he gets re how do they even get them out in the end?

2:11:24

Like, oh, well, he's, he's gonna go throw himself off a building again.

2:11:28

Right. And that's where bugs makes bugs gets liquored up.

2:11:31

Morpheus is how we found you. But maybe Morpheus is not ready for prime time for, right.

2:11:36

Right. So bugs bugs is the one that she has the white rabbit on her arm.

2:11:40

She's making the appeal of like, you spoke to me and, you know, unknowingly, you woke me up, you know, come on, you know, you know, this isn't going to work like in your heart of hearts.

2:11:50

Like, you know, that just fucking getting drunk and jumping off a building, you know, this, they're not going to let you do that.

2:11:55

They're just going to put you right back on the treadmill.

2:11:58

So Lana is wrestling with bad fandom and the amount of people who have misinterpreted her film, right.

2:12:03

Especially as time goes on.

2:12:06

And even just a month after matrix came out, everyone was blaming Columbine on the matrix, down to today, the red pill movement, all these fucking things that were out of her control.

2:12:17

I saw someone tweet and I'm sorry, I'm not giving them credit here because I forget who it was.

2:12:21

But like a lot of what made the matrix, everyone's been misinterpreting it for 25 years.

2:12:29

And she has decided to not be subtle at all since then.

2:12:32

Right. When people talk about her movies being too loud or blunt or obvious or earnest or goofy or whatever, it's just like, I think there's this fear of, I don't want to be misinterpreted ever again because people keep on turning the matrix.

2:12:44

I want to yell at the camera what I'm thinking.

2:12:46

Right. Sure. Sure. And I think bugs is this antidote to that where she's like, I know you're worried about what this thing you made is and what it caused and whether it's worth going back to that or not, I'm someone whose life you genuinely saved.

2:13:01

And it spoke to me and I understood it.

2:13:04

Right. And doesn't that counter way.

2:13:06

The thing a little bit, isn't it worth saying what you want to say.

2:13:09

If even one person can actually be positively affected by it.

2:13:13

Cause you can't control the other people out there who are going to fucking do whatever they do.

2:13:18

Right. And it's this other thing I love about the movie, which is when Neil wakes up and he's just like, fuck, I solved the whole matrix thing.

2:13:26

What the fuck is this?

2:13:28

Oh, sure. Well, well he feels like none of this Was

2:13:31

worth it. And she's like, everything changed.

2:13:33

And also it didn't, it's both at the same time, I

2:13:37

guess. So everything did change though. He's wrong.

2:13:38

He is wrong. He feels emotionally than nothing has changed because the world looks the same name, but he's wrong.

2:13:43

Everything did, This is the point everything's changes and nothing changes at the same Time.

2:13:48

Okay. So now can you tell me In the world, in our real world, I think that is often I understand What

2:13:53

you're saying to deepen the matrix to, to agree with.

2:13:56

But so now can you talk about, is it symbiance what did they referred to the robot racist?

2:14:01

That's what they call it. Yeah. But they're their machines, the machines, but they don't want to be called that anymore because I guess that's Right.

2:14:07

And this whole idea of the two sides.

2:14:10

Right, right. Where it's like, okay. In the old days there was the machine city and there was the Hino, the free humans.

2:14:16

Right, right, right.

2:14:18

And now there are still kind of two sides.

2:14:21

It seems to, it's more just sort of a, you know, a pro matrix and anti matrix.

2:14:26

And like, so now machines, right.

2:14:28

Are living with humans.

2:14:30

Programs have figured out how to live in the real world, by turning into ball-bearing people.

2:14:37

One has to Versus

2:14:39

metal.

2:14:41

We have to exist in opposition to each other. Right. And it's like, breads, you said it could be warring ideologies without the lines being divided by species as it were.

2:14:51

Right. And I meet those three characters.

2:14:52

And what I think is so amazing is there basically they're introducing them.

2:14:58

They risk their lives. Right? One of them, the rule bonds are, are, have life.

2:15:03

They have consciousness When you is spirited away from his pod.

2:15:06

That's one of them, one of these side by side, baby subbase, maybe his right is sorta sticking his neck out, I guess.

2:15:18

And I don't know if it was just my interpretation, but I'm watching it.

2:15:20

And I'm like, this is such an echo of his first awakening sequence.

2:15:25

Right. In the first Movie he's unplugged, he's in the red, the Pod,

2:15:28

you know, this movie has been doing echoes before, but they're usually twisted and then inner cut with the original for comparison.

2:15:35

And this just feels like you're doing the same scene again and I'm watching it and plot-wise going, how did bugs in the crew fuck this up so badly.

2:15:43

He's waking up in the pod and he's getting like surrounded by these robots.

2:15:47

How do they not have someone there for him?

2:15:50

So the twist of no, the robots who you're used to are the threats.

2:15:54

And then they have to pull the plug and flush them out and send them down.

2:15:57

The tube are actually here to protect.

2:15:59

And as I said, the second they land back on the ship, you look back at these robots who five minutes ago seemed like threatened.

2:16:07

Like the squid there's somewhat squiddy, you know, they've got red eyes, Metal

2:16:11

nobility of what they just did.

2:16:12

Hell yeah. As you said, the risk, you guys are cute Luminate, right?

2:16:17

That's one Lumina

2:16:19

little guy, the little one, which also feels like a funny commentary on just put a little cute character in the fucking Movie.

2:16:27

Octa CLIs obviously has multiple arms.

2:16:29

And then, and then I feel like there's well, survey rate Is

2:16:36

Naomi's the butterfly that's right.

2:16:38

The one who looks like the abyss aliens.

2:16:40

Right? Well about this for me, is it just, it also kind of a feeling answers a question a little bit that you don't get necessarily.

2:16:46

I feel like I might be wrong in their franchise.

2:16:48

Of course, David, you would correct me, but it's like this whole thing of all right, well what are the robots doing on the planet itself?

2:16:54

Like, okay, the matrix, they designed this, this program it's running, humans are in it, but what the fuck are the robots doing on the planet other than just they live Their

2:17:04

life, but then, but What is their life? See, I agree with that.

2:17:06

It's just A bunch of fucking towers of like power.

2:17:10

And then what, what's the point of staying up?

2:17:12

Because they're not just robots that are artificial intelligence right into it.

2:17:16

So you, the first thing, movies never interrogate really.

2:17:19

And I'm not saying This is the animatronics does, but the movies don't, the animatronics Does

2:17:24

great. But the first thing movies do not really interrogate the internal life of the robots who are so desperate to stay alive.

2:17:29

I Agree.

2:17:31

I'm now going to talk.

2:17:33

I'm Not saying that it's a flaw, but I like that this movie sets up the idea of like there robots who could go like, huh, maybe this life doesn't make that much sense.

2:17:40

Maybe we want to help people. They're not just drones.

2:17:43

Absolutely. But here's what we see in the first three movies.

2:17:46

We see two kinds of beings. We see squits which are drones.

2:17:50

Those are, it seems relatively non autonomous.

2:17:54

The sense where they're just, they're basically living weapons.

2:17:58

Right. But then we see computer programs in a matrix such as Rama Chondra who, beta child Sati like that.

2:18:06

And that is going on in the sequels where that you're there is these hints that like, there are programs that don't want to just do what they're supposed to do.

2:18:15

Right. You know, explore To

2:18:17

have David explaining What we're going to do it on the commentaries with explore emotion or whatever, you know?

2:18:22

And like that's so much of the sequels. And also there are programs like the mayor of Vingean and the exiles who have fully pieced out of the matrix.

2:18:28

They have to live in the matrix, but they live, you know, outside of its walls and are, you know, they they're doing their own thing.

2:18:35

They have a fucking sex club.

2:18:36

That's fun.

2:18:37

Now we don't see life in the machines.

2:18:41

That's what we're talking about. But that's because that is inscrutable in those movies, you know, we never get to it.

2:18:46

What happened like That? It becomes Scrutable

2:18:48

a little bit, you see, well, you see them in IO, not in, you know, just FYI, you know, the machine city, as we all know the main machine sitting, cause we've all watched.

2:18:58

The animatronics is called what?

2:18:59

What's it called?

2:19:01

I forget it's called zero one.

2:19:03

Okay. Which of course is binary for like, you know, that's like the first binary character.

2:19:07

So IO is one zero Iowa, Deborah, you know, IO anyway, but we don't see what's going on the machines, but they have a machine city.

2:19:19

We know that hovercrafts.

2:19:20

We know they built those. Like that's why they're flying them around The

2:19:25

first three movies. But this was a development that I love.

2:19:27

It's a great Development. Instead of them just being bugs, they have, they have like personalities and as a matrix revolutions, this is what I was so worried about.

2:19:37

Like, is he real? I think, you know, is, are we really gonna, is Neo sacrifice?

2:19:43

The first order problem is I would call it where it's like, the thing just happened.

2:19:48

It's Literally just rebels versus empire.

2:19:50

Again, there was nothing the cycle, The

2:19:53

fucking planet immediately. The problem with a lot of these legacy sequels is you can do whatever I thought was In

2:19:58

this movie. The stakes are really never, we have to stop the machines.

2:20:02

Of course. Or we have to destroy the well, I mean, we have to stop the matrix.

2:20:05

We have to stop the matrix is people Pointedly,

2:20:10

not the stakes Way

2:20:13

to say. We don't want to fucking get involved with that again, because what we learned has happened.

2:20:16

So yes, Neo is liberated.

2:20:18

He's taken to this new city IO and Naomi who is now very old because 60 years have passed and she played by Jada Pinkett Smith.

2:20:27

And there she is. Right. And it's fine.

2:20:29

It looks okay. Whatever the makeup.

2:20:32

Yeah. I think it looks good. I think that looks good.

2:20:35

Sure. And she tells him like, look posts you.

2:20:37

Yes, there were the machines left.

2:20:39

They stopped attacking us.

2:20:40

And but then we realized that there was some kind of machine civil war.

2:20:44

There was some internal conflict.

2:20:46

The Oracle disappeared, the matrix completely changed.

2:20:49

And that's a whole mess that we are not that interested in because we've got our city here.

2:20:55

We are all living in harmony.

2:20:56

You know, man machine program.

2:20:58

We've got a cool bio Scott Changes

2:21:02

and nothing changes. You died thinking you were going to radically change the firm and have everything forever.

2:21:08

And we've noted as here are the positive things that came out of your change.

2:21:12

Here's how things retreated back.

2:21:14

So we just decided, we'll just do this over here.

2:21:16

We don't have, I

2:21:18

mean, obviously it seems the bugs is more of the type of like, we should be, you know, getting into the matrix and pulling people out.

2:21:23

She's the new leader of a franchise. She isn't right.

2:21:25

And, and she, she can Get it.

2:21:27

Like we went Through all this, all that shit.

2:21:30

It's, you know, cause the whole thing is Video

2:21:32

game. I did two movies. We shot them all at the same time.

2:21:35

I'm exhausted at the end of revolutions, Neos.

2:21:37

Truces not, you will turn the matrix off, but it is anyone who doesn't want to be in the matrix because some people just unconsciously don't, you've got to give them the choice rap rather than we have to go fucking get them.

2:21:49

And it's a whole, you know, conflict.

2:21:51

You just get them out.

2:21:52

And what this movie sort of addresses is what would that cause in the world of the machines, a power crisis, you're losing people.

2:22:01

So like that is why eventually it sounds like the architect has been defeated or supplanted or deleted or whatever by this new guy, who's kind of like, you know, I know how to juice up the matrix even with less people.

2:22:14

And it's by like, you know, one having Neo and Trinity power it, but two, by having it be this like hyper emotional aggressive nightmare, kind of put, you know, like he talks about how like guys are making more energy when you sleep, just cause you're so freaked out, you know, all that.

2:22:29

Yeah. Which is like how Twitter now uses an algorithm to organize your feed, to prioritize the posts that are getting most controversial.

2:22:39

Same with Facebook, same with health, right? Where it's like, well there's the most discussion.

2:22:42

And it's like, well it's so fucking people yelling at each other.

2:22:45

It's going crazy. What these artificial intelligence and exams are designed to look for is like, it seems like there's some friction happening here And

2:22:54

then that, so that's why I can go on Twitter and be like, my Dick is so big and everyone who doesn't agree with me, a Nazi and Twitter is like very controversial take.

2:23:02

Does everyone want to see it? You know, like rather than me being like, hi, I'm Dick's regular.

2:23:07

And if you don't agree, I don't mind like, well, no one wants to see You,

2:23:10

David, a sane person would leave that for the alt.

2:23:12

But, but the matrix doesn't like the alter, it doesn't benefit from the Altamont.

2:23:16

People fighting out in public And

2:23:18

get the people going. Is that what will Farrell says anyway?

2:23:24

I mean, it's the same with all of the Instagram.

2:23:25

It's, they're all, it's manipulating humans right in this way.

2:23:30

That, that I don't even think we can ever really probably fully understand the perspective of the AI, these programs.

2:23:38

Right. Again, thinking in the way of matrix, think about them as To

2:23:42

underline is we figured out a way to train AI, to be able to recognize potential conflict.

2:23:48

Yeah. That in and of itself is a mind fuck that a computer program can go like, Hmm.

2:23:53

This post will make people upset.

2:23:56

Yeah. So

2:23:57

that's the thing, Neo of course never.

2:24:00

He knew in making that deal.

2:24:02

Like, it's not like you're going to turn off the matrix.

2:24:04

I know you guys need it to live. You guys literally need, it makes your power and your powers out you exist.

2:24:09

But he also wants, but I want, I don't want it to be a fucking more anymore.

2:24:14

It's a tidy end of third movie victory in his Mind.

2:24:18

I mean like everyone watching, wait, what did He

2:24:22

write? This is my point. So when he wakes up and he's like, I thought I left this place.

2:24:27

Well, anyway, balanced.

2:24:29

I like the bugs has to say to him like you, Billy worked.

2:24:32

And he's like, I don't think it worked. I never should have woken up this fucking mess.

2:24:36

Right. You still look great. It speaks to the depression.

2:24:38

And it's, it's sort of the wind rises thing of like, why am I bothering making these planes?

2:24:42

People are going to fuck him.

2:24:43

That was the other movie I kept on.

2:24:45

Thinking about in the second half of this film is, is the wind rises, struggle of like, I

2:24:52

Care so much. I try to communicate this thing and then people are gonna use it in a way I can't control.

2:24:55

Is it even fucking worth the effort?

2:24:58

There is the crucial scene that area reference Reno B presents him with silence.

2:25:02

And he's like, oh yeah, that is powerful.

2:25:04

And now it will be, I mean, I

2:25:07

say that is just good filmmaking.

2:25:10

It's I think one of the cornerstones of filmmaking, the filmmakers too often today forget, and that I think franchise filmmaking with its massive amount of oversight will often smooth out is like the most power you can have in your arsenal is restraint, removing elements strategically.

2:25:31

You know, whether it's like you withhold something for a long period of time and the basic grammar of what you have at your disposal as a technical filmmaker.

2:25:41

It's that simple where it's just like, you don't realize that the movie has been indicting you with so much noise for an hour.

2:25:48

That the second it gives you silence, it feels like a hundred million dollar special effect in the way that great filmmakers don't use color, you know, just specifically trigger things without you really recognizing it.

2:26:01

So Again,

2:26:02

my first viewing I'm like at this point now bummed because the hero basically is finding out that like, well actually the world's kind of nuanced.

2:26:13

It's not just good versus evil.

2:26:15

And it's like, things are complicated and there's like actually kind of this like political sort of ecosystem.

2:26:20

And I almost like, kind of was like, but I just wanted the first matrix.

2:26:24

Like that's what I did. I was like bummed.

2:26:26

I was like, oh my God, really like, come on now.

2:26:30

It's getting more complicated.

2:26:31

Not this clean.

2:26:33

Just like basically what the new star wars Shot.

2:26:38

I haven't seen this. I said to Griffin, I was like, I kind of wanted steak.

2:26:42

It took me. That was the line. I was hoping you'd repeat it a Second

2:26:46

at the end that they're going to actually start to be like, well, wait, actually I do fucking life.

2:26:50

I wanted the steak. He kept on saying, as we walked to the train station, I just wanted the steak.

2:26:54

I don't know if that makes me basic, but here I was like, Ben, but they're doing this and this.

2:26:58

And he's like, I understand it. But I just, it would have been great to sit down in a theater and to see the matrix and see people do come Fu and leather and be bad-ass.

2:27:07

And it's like, I can understand everything she was trying to do, but it would have been nice to eat a steak right now.

2:27:13

And it's the fucking cipher argument.

2:27:16

I mean like there's this, you know, we we've sort of skipped over, but there's the Mo Mo Neo's sort of wake up moment.

2:27:21

Post being unplugged is, goes to the dojo with Morpheus.

2:27:25

And you're like, okay, they're going to do the fight again.

2:27:28

And they don't, it's more Morpheus kind of showing off in Neo being like, I don't want to fight anymore.

2:27:35

I already did that.

2:27:36

And then his way of expressing himself, like martially now is like a Hadoop.

2:27:42

And like, it's just this sort of like it primal scream thing where he just kind of like, you know, like that's all he can do now.

2:27:50

Whenever he uses a gun, the entire movie doesn't use a gun.

2:27:52

They're very Deliberate. Doesn't. I mean, he has one fight with Smith, but apart from that, it's not really, you know, he's not really doing Kung Fu anymore.

2:28:02

He doesn't fly until the end of the movie.

2:28:04

You know, he's not like Joke of when he tries To.

2:28:06

So it's just because the jump and then falling right back down, it's just, He

2:28:11

is just such a good physical as he is a good physical, but, but, but, but you know, it gets to, obviously you, the matrix sequels, you have done a good job converting us to matrix.

2:28:26

You've recognized that we'll see what we see why I rewatched recently.

2:28:30

And I look, I don't love them as much as the first movie or you, but I don't love them as much as I love you is what I'm trying to say there in that unclear sentence structure.

2:28:38

But, but I, I certainly like, I liked them a lot more than I used to appreciate them fully and feel like I quote unquote, get them now.

2:28:47

But it's one of these things.

2:28:49

I think this is important to bring up because what is this problem that we constantly have of in culture?

2:29:00

Like fans feeling like, why didn't you give me the exact movie I wanted to say, right?

2:29:06

I'm not talking about this one in particular, but a larger thing as like fan culture has become a bigger thing and I will not name him cause I don't need to give power to it.

2:29:15

But there's a bad utuber that I watch sometimes just to make myself angry, who talks about like quote unquote, narcissistic filmmakers who get hired to make a new entry in a franchise and use it to say whatever they want to say or tell whatever story they want to tell, rather than preserving the franchise and giving us what we've already seen before.

2:29:40

And he says it was like a negative, like this is not your story.

2:29:44

You shouldn't get to tell this, give us things we already want.

2:29:46

Don't change the recipe for the big Mac.

2:29:48

Give me another big Mac.

2:29:50

You're a narcissist. If you're using this as say something else, right?

2:29:53

Matrix has erections is obviously the original person coming back to it.

2:29:57

But when I look at like the matrix subreddit, and by the way, I've seen people in the suburbs who disliked the movie who have done some of the most thoughtful, positive analysis of the film that I have sour sort of matrix subreddit R slash matrix, the matrix.

2:30:10

There are people who are just like, what the fuck she ruined the matrix.

2:30:13

And they also are sort of taking it as a personal front.

2:30:17

Like it feels like the movie is mocking me for even wanting to see the matrix.

2:30:22

Right. But there are also, people were like, look, I don't like it, but here's everything she's doing.

2:30:26

And it's like incredible analysis.

2:30:28

I've read by people who are very generous with like, it's not for me, but I do think textually, this film is very interesting, but there is that balance, right?

2:30:40

Of how much do you need to give people what they want?

2:30:42

How much are they gonna be upset if it's not the thing they have in their minds, eyes versus challenging them with something new, that's an expansion or different direction of, or what have you.

2:30:51

And I issue that the matrix equals found themself in is that the end of the first movie Neo is fucking Superman now.

2:31:00

Right? Sure. Yeah. Everyone watches powerful.

2:31:02

And the promise of equal like, oh fuck.

2:31:04

And then the sequels are, he can do anything and you get to the sequels.

2:31:08

And in many ways that's a little dramatically inert.

2:31:11

Of course he's unkillable and Neo is in so many ways, kind of passive and stoic and unknowable in reloaded particular.

2:31:18

I think revolutions does a better job of humanizing him again.

2:31:21

Well, He's brought low, Right?

2:31:23

Exactly. But they have to spend a whole movie bringing him low and deflating him.

2:31:27

And it's like the problem that people have with the star SQLs and Luke Skywalker, where it's like, if Luke has everything you wanted him to be in your mind's eye, then the movie has nowhere to go all of this to say it is funny that for so much of this film, Neo's power is you just kind of holds his hand up.

2:31:45

It goes like, just stop. Well, This is where I'm trying to say, like now he can just, I Know

2:31:48

I gave a lot of wind up to him, but that was the point I wanted to make.

2:31:51

But I do want to point out that the matrix reloaded, one of the great works of art of the 21st century is about how, when you become the fucking Messiah, when you become Luke Skywalker unlocked, that is just, you know, the, you know, and every Messiah in history is just a way of con it's just a form of control.

2:32:08

Of course, the whole point of the narrative it's like MEO is can now do anything.

2:32:12

And he's like, I can do anything. And he reaches the end and the guy's like, yeah, I wrote that you can do anything.

2:32:17

You can't do anything. You're going to do one thing, which is do what you're supposed to do.

2:32:22

Reload the matrix form. Right.

2:32:24

And of course the brilliance is that new.

2:32:26

I don't trust the mainstream media. It's a form of control.

2:32:28

It's a lie. Instead. I read everything on Facebook and I follow that to the letter.

2:32:33

And that's, I'm a free thinker.

2:32:34

You know, it's like, everything is a system of control.

2:32:37

As you said, people need structure and they need rules and they need control.

2:32:40

So even if they reject the thing, that's put upon them, they find some new structure to invest everything into.

2:32:47

And I do think that like, yes, reloaded, those action sequences, which are very good.

2:32:52

Like one of the reasons I think the burly brawl is not as fucking awesome as they thought it was going to be.

2:32:57

I think it's good. I agree.

2:32:58

But like when you watch, Because it has no ending, it's like he just leaves And

2:33:04

what we're visiting documentary reminded me how much for a year the hype was.

2:33:07

You're not going to believe this fucking fight.

2:33:09

If you thought bullet time was cool, this burly bra thing is going to blow your fucking mind and the fight.

2:33:15

Yes, it does deflate a little bit.

2:33:16

And part of it is just like, well, I know he can do anything now.

2:33:20

Right? So you can watch the coolest, special effects and the most like complicated choreographers.

2:33:25

There's less of a tension.

2:33:27

Yeah. And so In this movie, one of the reasons why you get the sense that like Lon is clearly not even prioritizing action sequences here.

2:33:33

It's not even that they're not as good. It's that like, it's not the point.

2:33:36

Is that any time there could be a big action sequence, Neo kind of holds up his hand that goes like, no, I

2:33:41

don't want to deal with it anymore.

2:33:42

It's defensive. He's now defensive.

2:33:44

Do The show of it Anymore.

2:33:46

Now to get back to the plot now be, you know, I, I think in the movie it makes total sense that she is just like, I don't want you to go rescue Trinity.

2:33:57

I don't want you to mess anything up. Everything is nice here.

2:34:00

We're, we're, we're living in harmony.

2:34:02

Like she becomes kind of a scold.

2:34:04

Like I think the movie is fine at this.

2:34:07

Like, whereas I think you kind of know in her heart of hearts, like, no, she's, you know, part of her wants Neo to, you know, to do the thing.

2:34:15

Right. But like it's sort of Nairobi.

2:34:17

So cool. Yeah, Joe, my brother was saying that he's just like, it's sort of annoying that she's like the Harry Lennox, you know, in the SQLs character for like you stay grounded, all of you, you know, space pilots, you know, I

2:34:29

have a common defense of that. And then a question that I think you might find annoying.

2:34:34

Okay. I feel like nobody's kind of playing like the elder statesman 87th term Senator who used to be a political radical.

2:34:43

And now things just kind, I, yeah.

2:34:46

I support Calm

2:34:49

down, stay quiet. She's not even being saying quite, but certainly.

2:34:53

Yeah. Just kinda like it's better to not like, fuck, If

2:34:58

you were a politician now I remember I used to be hungry and try to fuck shit up we don't need to fuck shit up anymore.

2:35:02

Right.

2:35:02

Here's

2:35:02

my

2:35:02

question

2:35:02

for

2:35:05

you. And I don't know if I have an answer, but it came to the question.

2:35:08

Do you think this movie would be better or worse if at this point when they get to IO and there was the elder statesman who was running the city, it was old Lawrence Fishburne.

2:35:21

No, that'd be much worse because it would make no sense that he would never ever say no to anything.

2:35:24

He'd be very prone to you. Okay.

2:35:27

Yeah. Cause like the whole Morpheus is like, whatever we, Neil wants to do, I am an accolade of Nia.

2:35:32

Like, you know, whereas Naomi is, as she says in the sequels, and then she says in this movie, it's just like, I never totally believed in your whole deal.

2:35:39

You know, I was always skeptical as, as this movie says, like post and you know, once the truce happens, Morpheus became the president because he was right.

2:35:48

Like, you know, like he was and you know, yeah.

2:35:52

If it's, you'd be like Neo, it's so good to see you.

2:35:54

I knew it'd be like, I got to go get Trinity. He'd be like, I know you do.

2:35:57

And I'll see you later. He just, I

2:35:59

love you to pink. It. I think she's a very underrated, we've called her out a lot on the show.

2:36:03

Cause we've had the good fortune of being able to cover a lot of movies.

2:36:06

She's good. If we want to get it's time that she bring us to the table, but David's sitting at a brown table right now.

2:36:14

This

2:36:14

is,

2:36:14

this

2:36:14

is

2:36:14

where

2:36:14

I

2:36:14

get

2:36:14

sort

2:36:14

of

2:36:14

excited

2:36:14

by

2:36:14

how

2:36:14

thorny

2:36:14

this

2:36:14

text

2:36:14

is

2:36:14

in

2:36:14

an

2:36:14

interesting

2:36:23

way. I understand every creative decision and I still walk away from it and I go, yeah, I'm a fuck.

2:36:28

I wish they figured out a way to get Hugo weaving Laurence Fishburne.

2:36:31

And there's this part of me. That's still like, I just want to see my old friends.

2:36:34

Jonathan Cross performance is great.

2:36:36

I like it. They're breaking new ground. But part of me is just like, what if it was Hugo?

2:36:40

We remember when you go, we even did the, I think the movie would work with them.

2:36:43

I mean, Fishburne would be playing Morpheus and it would be instead this sort of weird performance of like, oh, he's doing sort of a Morpheus Smith at first.

2:36:51

That's odd. And obviously he looks different. He's older.

2:36:53

He's you know, I think he would fit into the movie.

2:36:56

Just What

2:36:58

I was thinking though, is like, could you do, is there a post Sort

2:37:04

of, that is no Way

2:37:05

I got excited and I couldn't crack it.

2:37:08

Is, is there a good way to make this movie in which dual Mateen does play young program agent Morpheus and there is some version.

2:37:17

No, you can't do that. No, no, no.

2:37:21

Nope. I look at, that's why I posed it as a question.

2:37:23

It wasn't a pitch. It was a question, but could you have your cake and eat it too?

2:37:27

Okay. So they go back to the matrix. Yes.

2:37:29

They, upon entering the matrix are greeted by Smith who is now liberated again mentally, essentially.

2:37:35

And basically has the take of like, look, I know you and I used to fight.

2:37:40

I now recognize we're kind of just, you know, part of the same Petri dish here.

2:37:46

I kind of just need you to stay out of the matrix.

2:37:49

Right? Cause like, I don't even think I live in the matrix.

2:37:53

I can't have you fucking up the matrix.

2:37:55

I would perhaps like maybe I'll take it over.

2:37:58

I hate the analyst. That guy like locked me down and Neo is basically like, look, I don't want to fight you either.

2:38:04

I'm here to get Trinity, you know? Like, and he's like, yeah, but if you get Trinity things, aren't going too well.

2:38:09

So I guess we have to fight. And then of course there are also some exiles, some monster people and there's our old pal, the mayor of NGO.

2:38:16

So are these Guys all supposed to be the empires?

2:38:20

Whatever. Yeah. They're his crew. They're like the remnants of his, they're like the sad remainder of his monster.

2:38:26

We're all They're supposed to be everything.

2:38:29

Right? A couple of Frankenstein's Let

2:38:32

themselves go down. That's the whole point. It's why their program, the matrix like the mirror of engine is from an old matrix.

2:38:39

Right? That's the idea. And he's found his way. He's established himself in the, in this equals.

2:38:42

He's got his club and he's, he's the guy whose Code

2:38:46

gets dusty. Ben, The

2:38:48

matrix has been rebooted again and he has survived.

2:38:51

But now yeah, he's just like, you know, Hobo.

2:38:54

Do you know what I viewed it as when you're trying to transfer files from like a really old computer to a newer computer and you're like, it doesn't even understand.

2:39:02

That's Really

2:39:04

good. That's exactly what it is. He's he's Your

2:39:07

weird toy story three.

2:39:09

They were like, well, we did all the work. We already built all these characters and they were like, we cannot transfer the model of Woody into a present day.

2:39:16

Computer is impossible. You have to rebuild it. Can you spare apps?

2:39:19

Like some of your apps suddenly are sort of like, we're just, we don't exist anymore.

2:39:23

Sorry. We don't work with this. No, one's updating us anymore.

2:39:26

It's on a floppy disc and he's showing up and he's like freebie from, But

2:39:30

he's also like, everything sucks now, you know, he's just there.

2:39:34

He's doing a monologue about how Facebook is annoying and how culture is in the toilet.

2:39:39

Full Fisher king. He's so good.

2:39:41

It was so lovely to see him.

2:39:43

I squealed with delight.

2:39:45

David, I don't want you to spoil anything.

2:39:47

Is there any way, any way Lambert Wilson does not get a supporting actor nod from you.

2:39:57

I don't know. I got to think about between the two performances.

2:39:59

I

2:39:59

mean,

2:39:59

this

2:39:59

is

2:39:59

such

2:39:59

a

2:39:59

silly

2:40:04

scene. It's so great.

2:40:06

And I'm saying, look, you would nominate him for Ben Odetta, but this performance kind of boosts him in the Bernthal conversation where you're like you gave like three good performances.

2:40:16

Alright. Okay. I don't know. I mean, I know if someone does, then this movie is on my ballot, that's for sure.

2:40:20

But love all that.

2:40:24

Yeah. But again, the action is fine.

2:40:26

This is the Smith neophyte, which I actually think the action there is pretty solid.

2:40:30

It's just that it ends much like a lot of these fights with truck.

2:40:34

Well, they just blast them away because you can't kill Smith again, he's been killed.

2:40:38

It's not going to work. You know, that's not a thing anymore.

2:40:41

Call back to the, you know, the franchise in general really.

2:40:45

It's just, when they, they go into the matrix and they all look cool.

2:40:49

Yeah. They've all got their, they all have their, their outfits and they have that kind of just moment where you get to like take it in.

2:40:54

They look so fucking cool.

2:40:56

Cool. I get so excited. You know, every time they do it in any of the movies, but this one in particular is fucking good.

2:41:03

What's the name of the actor from sensei who has the crazy hair braids and the tattoos.

2:41:08

Her name is and the character name or the characters name is Lexi.

2:41:12

She's played by Eric.

2:41:14

she's the weird Girlfriend.

2:41:19

Exactly. The actor. Right?

2:41:21

And then Brian J. Smith plays Berg, who is the sort of, he was the cop in sensei, but he's the sort of like Neo Allah, you know, he's like a big Neo dork, right?

2:41:31

And then you have max remelt who I love, who of course has wonderful penis in sensei.

2:41:38

He's the German guy who sensei, The

2:41:40

first time we got written up in pod mass, the club, it was the quote about like this actor.

2:41:45

There's a thing about him. That's really good.

2:41:47

His penis. That was our quote of the one.

2:41:49

He's a really good actor. Yeah. I really like racks from LA.

2:41:52

And I love seeing, I like his look would be the blonde hair and this, and I love his penis.

2:41:57

He's got a great deck.

2:41:58

Those are the main ones.

2:42:00

I'm right of the crew.

2:42:02

I feel like the, the, the pilot let's get his name.

2:42:05

Right. I think he might be sensitive to, I believe he is.

2:42:10

Yeah. Anyway, It's

2:42:12

six or 7 cents actors in this.

2:42:16

What was I going to say? So yeah. So post that is it.

2:42:20

So, you know, post the Smith fight, that's the, he, they go find Trinity.

2:42:25

It is telling that this is the hardest section of the movie to recount, because this is the section that is also the most action driven, which is a little muddier.

2:42:32

The movie has been, what is that? So

2:42:34

just kind of like, it moves fairly quickly because they, then the next scene is him going to see Trinity and her bike shop.

2:42:40

She's fucking fucking Def Leppard video, practically like sparks going.

2:42:44

And she's The,

2:42:46

question's been when he wakes up. He's like, there was another pod right there.

2:42:49

It's Trinity. And they're like, I know it.

2:42:52

I feel it. And she needs to wake up and they're like, what if she does it?

2:42:55

And he's like, They look at her and she's the blue pill she doesn't want to.

2:42:59

And he's like, well, what about me? And you were like that too.

2:43:01

So it was a comfortable Existence.

2:43:04

But so when he goes to see her, that's when the analyst shows up, throws on the bullet time filter essentially slows Neo down, slows everything.

2:43:13

Let's also acknowledge they have two coffee dates.

2:43:16

Right. And then the second one, she comes to him with the information of like, so you're that game guy.

2:43:21

And I look at the game a little bit.

2:43:22

I told my husband, I thought it looked like me laughed.

2:43:25

Right. And I wish I had kicked him across the room.

2:43:27

She's so fucking good. And that's really great.

2:43:30

But I like that at first you were like, well, yeah, of course you would look at the game and go, that person looks like me.

2:43:35

This is creepy. But then when you get the reflection, you remember like, she literally doesn't look like that at all.

2:43:40

There's something triggering in her brain that looks like me to her husband.

2:43:43

He's like, you have blonde hair Like

2:43:46

this. There's No facial structure resemblance.

2:43:48

We're seeing the version of her that does look like the hurt and the game.

2:43:54

I don't know if I assume Neo is seeing Trinity as, as she is to not her RSI.

2:43:58

That's how I S I saw I sort of taking it, obviously they're playing anyway.

2:44:02

But yeah.

2:44:04

And Which is why she feels comfortable saying that to him.

2:44:06

Cause he recognizes like, yes, you do look like the person in the game.

2:44:10

And, but this is where the analyst sort of just explains everything.

2:44:13

We've been talking about how this new matrix is predicated on emotion, on stories, on like, you know, fiction over fact on desire and Into

2:44:22

another disassociative episode where he's moving in, slow motion, Reversible

2:44:25

over stimulating how it looks. I think it's really, yeah.

2:44:28

I like the weird jittery overstimulation of it.

2:44:30

I like the way patch Neil, Patrick Harris plays it.

2:44:32

Once again, it feels Like an anxiety attack.

2:44:33

Definitely In parallel. Absolutely.

2:44:36

Absolutely.

2:44:36

And

2:44:36

you

2:44:36

know,

2:44:36

and

2:44:36

also

2:44:36

I'm

2:44:36

also

2:44:36

just

2:44:36

like

2:44:36

freaking

2:44:36

out

2:44:36

on

2:44:36

the

2:44:42

lore. I'm just like so happy that they're like, yes, they're explaining how this new matrix works.

2:44:47

Right. Where the architect, when, how this guy is different.

2:44:49

This guy to me is an evil article.

2:44:51

Like it's not so much that he obviously he's the architect and that he's like the running the program, but he's an evil Oracle in that, like he was also designed to understand humans.

2:45:02

Well, they also said there was no order Oracle in this new matrix, he's fulfilling both roles at the same time, But

2:45:07

like The mirror Vingean was the, We

2:45:13

did this recently. We can talk about this in the commentary when we're reading the mayor of engine is he is the article of matrix to the, I think he's the article because I think that's why he's obsessed with getting the articles eyes, but that's, that's a different discussion.

2:45:27

Okay. But yeah, no, but like, but like the articles, hope point in the matrix movies is that she's a program who's designed to understand people and understand what motivates them.

2:45:36

And that's how they create the matrix is to serve that.

2:45:38

And he is the same. He gets people, but he gets how to push their buttons, how to aggravate them.

2:45:43

How does stir them up? Like, you know, so he's sort of like a nigga Oracle Also,

2:45:47

he's kind of a good therapist.

2:45:48

Like there was a version of me that was worried where I'm like, is she going to come in with some Antifa?

2:45:52

Cause he's the villain.

2:45:54

And it's like, no, the point is his power is that he actually does understand people's psychology, right?

2:45:59

Yes, yes, absolutely.

2:46:00

And He's

2:46:03

not just lying to this dude.

2:46:06

It's so good that the villain of this movie is not another super powered agents who you are going to have a fight with.

2:46:12

Right. And it's more like the big test in this movie at the end is, is a conversation, is that he needs to truly, when Trinity over to waking up and the analyst is like, okay, yeah, if you can do that and what can I do also if He

2:46:26

can't do it, then Neo doesn't even want to, he Wants

2:46:29

to blue pill. He wants to go back no better than nothing.

2:46:32

Right. Did you say the speech also if you're reading between the lines definitely is like, I think a moment where people who didn't like this movie, right.

2:46:40

Are feeling attacked because he's like, you're a fucking idiot.

2:46:46

I think this is not intellectualized, but I've seen people say this directly, but it is like, this feels like this movie is calling me an idiot for wanting to see the movie I wanted to see.

2:46:58

So not only am I not getting that movie, but the movie's mocking me.

2:47:01

And then on top of that, when they read, which I think is a misread, the perception that she doesn't even want to be making this movie Would,

2:47:09

that I think is not true. Right. That's The thing I think is fundamentally mystery because I understand being pissed off that the movie is both withholding from you, what you want and seemingly mocking you for not ultimately For

2:47:19

one old man fucking made a movie, dude, didn't even fucking want to do it, man.

2:47:24

But like, I mean, I'll say This

2:47:28

whole movies, don't worry about, Well,

2:47:29

let's move on. Let's move on from other people. Sorry.

2:47:31

It's okay. No, it's fine. But beyond the fact that we've been running for so long, I will say I watched this with my, with my wife last night, this final sequence where yes.

2:47:40

Neo makes the emotional appeal to Trinny that connected with her.

2:47:44

Okay. You know, that moment of like, you know, the cops are going to like take him in.

2:47:48

Trinity, says, Chad, like, I wish you'd stop fucking calling me that night.

2:47:52

You know? Like all that, that I imagine any time the two of them are onscreen at the same time that probably connected with Forkey.

2:47:58

Cause it's such a clear emotional land.

2:48:01

What the, you know, sort of heisty element of the final action sequence where it's like, okay, like Morpheus and bugs are gonna go to the pod and they're going to kind of switch Trinity out surreptitiously by using bug, you know, and Sati shows up, played by a Brianca Chopra, you know?

2:48:19

And it's like, well, it's pretty brief, But

2:48:22

they have like a council of Elron around like a fucking W

2:48:26

what I said in my wife's name. It's fine.

2:48:29

You know, please just like, I don't know who this is.

2:48:31

And I'm like, oh, it's, I'll

2:48:33

run around like a wishing, well, in the middle of the woods, right.

2:48:38

To quickly surmise that. Cause I like explain just kind of though what we learn in that moment.

2:48:44

I wasn't a hundred percent.

2:48:46

Sonny is the daughter of she's in the matrix revolution.

2:48:49

She's the daughter of two programs that made a baby for no reason.

2:48:52