untitled rough notes
by Jon Dunmore ©


Keanu Reeves discovers The World Is An Illusion. Whoa! Bodacious 'shrooms, dude!

Never has a movie that has made so little sense become so renowned for the little sense that it makes. THE MATRIX is a science fiction action madhouse that wends its way into the philosophical dust-corners of our brains even as it stuns our visual cortexes with audacious new filmic techniques.

opens with Trinity in a big brawl - the hottest thing when a womn in stiched-in leather runs and figtts ike a man!

He sleeps in gloop; he is programmed to see what they want him to see; he is programmed to think what he believes are his own thoughts... Kinda like what you're doing right now, except for the gloop part.

Innovative film-mkaing, faux philosophical, thoguh-rpovking and metaphor for modern society, And if nothing else can be said about the MATRIX, it's green. Yes, very green.

If Neo wakes up in the green gloop and that's the "real him" - and he goes down and meets with Morpheus, then who was the guy that was siting in the chair that they just connected via a tube to the back of the head? TRY AND WORK OUT THAT PARADOX - WATCH CLOSELY.

like total recall where doc comes inand says ywe're not really here - this is your fantasy youre inventing it as you go along.

Like the Native Americans, each of them has a descriptive name that illuminates their personality/role - there's Tank, built like a Tonka toy, there's Dozer, his bigger brother, I guess Skunk smells or has a good nose for something fishy; the new guy is called Neo (of course), Cypher is probably the encoder guy, and I guess she's called Trinity for her impending menage a trois with Morpheus and Neo.

Apoch tells neo that Zion is "depp undereground near the earth's core where it's still warm" Oh, the same Earth's core where the pressure is so great that it crushes stone into diamonds? Royt...

cartwheeling across th eline of fire - will defienitely make bullets miss you - even if you are directly in the line of fire. Remeber assassins, if someon is shooitng at you CARTWHEEL that's the key. Not many spies do this because they think it makes thme look gay. Also, because it gets them shot a lot.

ORACLE says to him, "you'll remember you dont believe in any of this fate crap, thast you are in control of your own life" sarcastically - when she's just propheisied that Morpheus is going to die sacrificing himself. In the final telling - NO ONE DIES, Morpheus lives through all three MATRIC movies,so again, prophecy is proved wortless, yet NO ONE SEEMS TO NOTICE. Just like th eMAyans ("Dec 12, 2012"), JKust like Harold Acamping ("May 21, 2011"). Just like LOTR ("one ring to bind them"), just lke star wars ("balance to the force") nothign works NEVER works.

KARATE - morpheus and neo - seamless cannot tellt he stuntmen, can almost not see the sirework - obviousl practiced very hard to look authrntic. even if's done with "special effects" whatever that means these days, the final look is very authrntic, if a tad clinical and stagey.

In the "real world" they are all in rags and living in steel-rooms that resemble sewers even thoguh they are onboard some kind of spacechip. so obviously they haven't resuscitated any tailors or interior decorators yet.

At least when they go into the Matrix, they get a badass wardrobe. Neo dressed in restless black, Trinity in sensual night, Morpheus in mysterious gloom

impressing 16-year-olds the world over with their criminal cool.

They go visit The Oracle, or as she is known here on Earth, Morgan Freeman's Mother. Aparently triyng to kill Neo with an overdoese of Smug. She examines him like a lacklustre GPO and proclaims him "Not The One." Gee, I'd get better service from a health insurance company, and health insurance companys' slogans are "Die Quickly."

so is he the one or not? what good is prophesy either way. If he IS the One then her prophesy is not worth shit. and if he is'nt the one then what's he doing growing into the part of The One and being more super than everyone else and flying? Prophesy - once again - is not worth the spittle it took to say it.

Revolutionary filmmaking by th eWachowski brothers - we've grown so used to that pan around camera techniqu that seeing it in this original movie remind us that this was where it was first populariszed with that crane gesture frozen in mid-air and the camera panning all the way round it.

KJeanu Reeves loses his baby fat and puts on the clint Eastwood demeanor - proablby the most startling performacen of his life which would erase 99% of his Theodor eLogan charater.It is not 100% because at one point, he stands amazed by something MOrpheus does and lets out a stupefied, "Whoa...!" and the Spectre of Ted passes over his grave.

movie is revolutionary and created so many trends and lent itself to the vernacular - we all use concepts and phrases and refer back to iconic scenes and characters from this movie

MATRIC seprates Keanu's perfornace from all his previous ones by his appearance, not just his demeanor, he's gaunt, wiry, muscular, with a trendy hip short haircut, rather than the bowl in BILL AND TED. [CHECK HIS PREVIOSU ROLES]

Besides her crap-talk, I wouldn't be trusting an Oracle who is living in the Matrix baking cookies; why doesn't she kick it REAL, like they do - living underground in a steel prison spaceship eating snot?

STINGER:
--- --- --- -It's this it's tthat.

And green. Yes, very green.

END