The Matrix

Because after watching Inception, I wanted a reminder of what I was missing. What hit me this time around was just how well this film was paced -- feeding you little bits of mystery as you go along. Every scene works off the one before. Particularly liked the steakhouse cut to protein goop transition. Also noted the less-subtle-now-that-my-beard-is-long green / blue tinge of the shots in the Matrix / the Real. Clever! Cause green is, like, sickly and computer-y? And blue is, like, cold and metallic? Props Mr. Cinematographer! Also: Hey! Do you like cybergoths and bullet-time and Japanese anime? Yeah? So does THE WORLD, thanks to The Matrix.

But enough with the gush. What we want to talk about is THEMES, because that's what we always talk about on The Hot-Doll Pages. Number one, and here Mr. Nolan of Inception fame has been paying particularly close attention: is reality preferable to fantasy. Cypher believes it is, and is willing to kill his friends in order to go back to ignorance is bliss. EVIL! But wait, what is interesting here is that Cypher rebels not just because he wants steak, but because he doesn't like being told what to do by Morpheus. And here we get to theme number two: defiance of authority. Thomas A. Anderson is a cog in the machine. Get a job, pay your taxes, die. He is a battery. We ALL are, in this world we live in. You wonder, what would it be like to fly? Neo finds out at the end of the film (SPOILERZZZ!). And how does he get there? Here we arrive at theme number three: whatever the hell that Oracle lady was talking about. A puzzle, when I was younger. But now I have beard-growth! Hear me speak wisdom! The Oracle cannot tell you the future (no determinism here, strictly free will). She points the way, by making you BELIEVE she knows the future. Because when you believe something hard enough, it becomes true. At least, it worked for Morpheus and Trinity and Neo. But does it work, like, always? Also: can you fly, like, in the real world? Also: isn't Morpheus's zealotry, like, a bit scary? Could have been interesting territory to explore in Reloaded or Revolutions or whatever. If only...

So, friends, here we have THEMES. Also the bullet-time, cybergoth, anime-like stuff mentioned in the first paragraph. We shall hereby add the two together and make for ourselves one of the greatest films of ALL MUTHAFUCKIN TIME. Defence. Rests.