Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about the Copa
Cabana and like the songs, you actually don't know what the song is about.
Yes, Copa Cabana is much much darker right than I could have ever
imagined. All I want to do is make love to you. Is about
a woman using a man for his seed to have a child. Like you
don't know that's what it's about. I was listening, I had like my
I was walking the other day through Brooklyn and the song come sail Away came
on, Come sail away, Come sail away, Come sail away, hillo
away with me. That's about an alien abduction. Are we sure? Well?
A gathering of angels appeared above my head. They sang to me the
song of Hope, and this is what they said, Come sail away,
et cetera, et cetera. Then the next verse, I thought that they
were angels, but to my surprise, we climbed aboard their starship and headed
for the skies. Oh, it feels like a third verse about anal probes
would not be completely unexpected when you listen to the lyrics come sail Away.
Yeah, I'm true. Interesting. There's a metaphor in there somewhere about following
your dreams forever. But what they describe is someone thinking they're getting raptured and
then instead being abducted by aliens. Wow, it's called dark. Hey,
I'm Paul and America and this is that aged. Well, yesterday's pop culture.
Today Mother's Day. May we're giving. We're giving our mothers a month,
not just today. We're two mothers who love our mothers. That's right,
even though if you really think about the term we're two mothers, what
we're saying is we're two motherfuckers who love our mothers. That's gross too.
If you think that's also that's also weird. That's weird. I've made it
weird. I made it weird. Congratulations, you've ruined the entire month for
me. I didn't have to point that out to anyone. We are doing
films directed by women this entire month. Little known fact, Paul. A
lot of people don't know this. Women can direct movies too. It's not
illegal. Not only are we going to talk about four films this month,
but there were other films that we could have talked about, yeah, that
were also directed by women. There have been up to ten films directed by
women since the beginning of Hollywood in nineteen twenty three, or what tens and
tens of films? No, no, no ten, just ten, just
ten. I don't want you to get your numbers wrong. All right,
before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, we do have a
five star Apple podcast review. Shall I read for you? Yes? Please?
All right? This is from Lindsey. Okay, I'm trying to I'm
trying to act the name. It's Lindsay with an exclamation point and then K
Lindsay. Okay. My only wish is there was a question mark after K
Lindsey, K Lindsey. K kind of thing. Anyway, Lindsay writes tens
tens, tens across the board. I am officially addicted to this podcast.
My sister got me hooked a few months ago, and I have literally listened
every day since, catching up on all the archives when I'm washing up for
bed, aged, when I'm driving to work, aged, when i'm doing
the dishes. Aged. Thank you for giving me a chance to laugh each
and every day. Putting in a request for future episodes. Just one of
the guys pretty in Pink, once Bitten some kind of wonderful. Keep them
coming, you two. Thank you again. Paul. Have we not done
some kind of wonderful yet? We have not done any of these? Oh
my god, I had it in my head that we had Nope. Oh
you know what, We're gonna scrap this episode and just make this some kind
of wonderful month. We're just gonna do some kind of wonderful all months.
Sorry, moms, you're canceled. Canceled it is instead John Hughes month.
Yeah, it is some kind of wonderful month. Paul. That's really portant
here. I know you've many times told me that I would love some kind
of one. It would be a John Hughes that would that would turn me
around a little bit on John Hughes. So good. It is so good.
I realize you're not saying that about pretty in pink. Pretty in pink
is not perfect. I'm not Pretty in pink has flaws. There's cracks.
Oll I love it? Yes? Is it flawed? Sure? Who cares?
Lindsey Kay, thank you so much for this Apple Podcast review. If
you would like a toe bag that you could show off to your sister and
make your sister jealous, get her to write another review. You just let
us know and I will send it off for you right away. Erica,
what is the first the first movie we are doing on this The month of
All Female Directors, All Female Director Month kicks off with a sci fi bang,
y'all. Today's film is The Matrix. Yes, The Matrix was a
directed not by not one woman, but two women. That's right, right
now, we're getting crazy. I forgot to say nineteen ninety nine sci fi
epic The Ma The Matrix was requested by Sidney Sonny in a Patty, Brian,
Marissa and John. It was written and directed by the Wakowski siblings and
it stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving,
and Joe Pantoliano. Joe Pantoliano is to the Wakowskis what Robert de Niro is
to Martin Scorsese. He's their muse. I will not take any questions,
there will be no there will be no discussion. He is what Emma Stone
is to Yorgos Lanthemos. No one brings out the best in Joey Pants like
Joey Pants. The Wakowskis understand Joey Pants on a level that even Joey Pants
didn't know Joey Chance exactly. The Wakowskis have all of Joey Pants therapists notes,
they know him inside and out. He is so good in this movie
that you forget he's supposed to be a computer hacker. Joe Pantoliano aged,
I don't know forty three. It's supposed to be a computer hacker in this
movie. That is the premise, and yet it fucking works. What if
this movie, what if the Wakowskis had really doubled down on hackers and they
had just cast like Johnny Lee Miller, Angelina Joe Lee, and Matthew Lillard
from Hackers as the futuristic hackers in The Matrix. Uh you want to hear
my actual synopsis for this movie. I'll just tell you it right now.
Yeah, actual synopsis. What if Hackers and Enter the Dragon had a baby,
Yeah, that would be this movie. That's this movie. Yeah.
Yeah. The Matrix was nominated for and won four Oscars Best Sound, Best
Sound Effects Editing, Best Film Editing, and Best Visual Effects. You know
what I call that? Paul a sweep that's inside the park home run.
This was American Beauty Year, so it certainly aged better than the Best Picture
winner. It's her, it did. Actually, you're right. Uh.
Lily Wakowski has said the film was all about the desire for transmation, but
from a closeted point of view, and that she did not realize how much
her trans identity was coming forward when writing the film. Wooh, that's super
interesting. I'd not heard that quote before. Very interesting. I mean one
of the reasons that we were we thought it's kind of cool to do this
movie in this month because for anyone, I would imagine anyone listening knows this,
but both of the Wakowski siblings are trans women. But they directed this
film prior to coming out, Yes as women. When you watch the film,
it says directed by the Wakowski brothers, right, So it's really an
interesting watch to watch this movie with all of the hindsight that that them coming
out provides it only it only improves the movie. Frankly, Yeah, really,
you know what's funny, Paul is I didn't even think of that while
I was watching the movie this week. Oh really, it's just super interesting.
I'm curious, Like, as we go along through the plot points of
the film, like where that's going to become more and more clear. That
that was like, that was like a subtle subtext of the writings as Lily
Wlakowski was writing it. Yeah. Absolutely. The Matrix has an eighty three
percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an eighty five percent audience score. It
has an eighty six on cherry Picks. This is the most closely aligned ever,
very bunched up. Yeah, I you know, I'm good with all
of these. I could see why the critical rating was a little was maybe
a little lower than the other two, only because at the time I think
some of the performances in this film were maligned, specifically when mister Keanu Reeves
and as we have said before, this is a pro Keanu Reeves podcast.
I agree, this is a pro But you know what's funny is I would
have been one of those naysayers. Of course, we've grown who was like
but everyone knows Keanu's terrible in that movie. And then I watched it again
this week. Keanu is not terrible in this movie. Keanu is fulfilling the
fucking brief. He is excellent in this movie. It's not even He's not
even just good. Excellent. I would I could also see, look,
this movie has a lot of ideas, like a lot of ideas, and
they are they are Jackson pollocking the wall with ideas and some of them.
And I'll say right now, I've never seen any of the any of the
sequels, so I don't know if some of those ideas come back, if
they're if they're seating something for later to bring it back around. But like
the very popular sci fi ideas that humans are not mammals, they are the
virus, right like that comes up, it comes and goes, barely explored,
it all like that just flies right past in one line. So I
could see a a reviewer being like, it's a little confused, which,
having watched it now twice this week, I think I can actually pretty confidently
say I can explain the matrix to somebody. It all tracks. I do
get it. I understand what the purpose is. But they're they're throwing a
lot at the screen and some of it does not matter. Yeah, and
you kind of have to like let some of that go. So I can
see a reviewer being like, well, why is it there then, which
is a completely fair, fair take on the did you ever see Jupiter Ascending?
No, but you have told me it is a watch unlike any other.
That is the apex of the Wakowski is throwing everything at the screen.
I am a little surprised the audience rating isn't higher. I was expecting this
to be ninety five percent audience rating. You know what, That's true.
This movie made a huge, huge impact in American cinema. Like I don't
think we can adequately describe the impact it had in visual style for the next
twenty years, in fight choreography for the next twenty years. I mean,
I'm not saying this is the first time the fight choreography like this appeared in
an American film, or even in a movie that was popular in America.
I would say Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon laid to the groundwork for this.
But like, this movie became a runaway sensation. Everyone had to see it.
Everyone was talking about it, everyone was parodying it. Everyone dressed as
these people for Halloween, you know that year. The visual style of American
filmmaking just changed after this. It's really fun to be able to talk about
one of these totally so Erica. When did you first see the Matrix?
Were you one of the people who went to see it. I did not
see it in the theater. Really, I don't know why. I think
I was in college and I was busy and I just wasn't paying attention,
and I saw it after the fact. I saw it. I think what
happened was I had a similar conversation with someone who was like, you've never
seen the Matrix. Yeah. I was like, oh, oh, you
got to see the Matrix, and so I read this. Was it a
man? Was he like? Oh my god, if you know me,
let me watch the Matrix with you. Cau's still confusing, So I'll make
sure I'm going to explain it to you so you don't get confused with your
woman brain. I just need to explain this to you. No, No,
I don't think it was a man. I'm not sure who it was.
But I had a conversation with several people who were like, well,
you're missing a moment in American culture if you're not watching the Matrix because everyone's
talking about it. And I was like, you know what, You're right.
So I rented it. I was probably in my early twenties when I
watched it for the first time. Okay, really was not expecting what I
got. I was expecting, like a fun action movie. I didn't really
care, Like I was like, this is gonna be lame. I whatever,
it's gonna be all flash, no substance. And I was blown away
by it. I really really loved it the first time I saw it.
I've seen one of the sequels, maybe two of the sequels. I can't
I can't really pinpoint how many of the sequels I've seen. Okay, this
one I've seen a couple of times since that first viewing, and then again
this week for maybe like the third time or fourth time. It's crazy because
it's not my general cup of tea. Actually, this is not usually the
kind of movie I gravitate towards. Yeah, I would say it's a little
I think you prefer your action movie is a little dumber than this movie.
I like veage and dumb. I'm gonna ding the movie hard today on the
gun violence in it, and like I have a thing with movies even before,
like you know, all the violence in the past twenty years, when
a movie gets too loud and too like gun violent, y and I and
I don't believe the stakes are high because I'm like, well, they're not
going to kill Counter Reeves. You can show me ten minutes of someone firing
a gun at Kanta Reeves, but it's boring. Yeah, you know,
this movie manages to subvert those expectations, though, Like I was expecting that,
and it was much more interesting than that. There is a little bit
of that. There are definitely moments where I'm like, oha, definitely let's
move on. I'm done, but it doesn't indulge in those moments too much,
and it's the stylistically like unimpeachable. Yeah, how about you, Paul,
when did you first see the Matrix? I think I saw this in
the theaters, unlike you, you are in on the I was, yes,
exactly, I couldn't. I couldn't let this moment pass me by.
I had let so many moments pass me by by that point in my life.
But as anyone listen to this podcast knows, I haven't seen anything.
I was like, I have to see the matrix. And this is also
I think a little bit more my speed than yours. Like I like a
mythology, I like a world. I prefer a world with like dragons,
like I like a fantasy world more than a robot world. But I do
like a world mythology, So did you know that was what you were going
to get when you were going in? Because I feel like the marketing for
this movie didn't adequately explain it. I think I went in basically just knowing
like it's complicated. That is my memory of my expectation, Like you're not
really gonna understand everything. You have to see it like two times to really
be able to follow what's going on, because I think the movie does a
It does tell a lot, but it also shows and it doesn't over explain.
It's like if you miss one line, you might be a little bit
lost because you missed the one line kind of thing. I liked it.
I enjoyed it. I had no desire to see any of the sequels,
so I guess that I probably was like okay, cool, and then like
moved on with my life. And then I watched it again this week and
it's so good. Yeah. Not only does it work as a metaphor for
the transidentity of the two directors, it works as a metaphor for like AI
and America trying to literally like eat the middle class and destroy people so that
rich people can live, you can live on their high hogs. The fact
that AI like was a thing twenty years ago that was like the villain in
a movie, and it's still a thing. I'm like, shit, Oly,
shit. The movies are warning us, y'all. They're telling us stop
uh Erica. The tagline for The Matrix was Free your Mind and the rest
will follow. The fact that there was no en Vogue needle drop in this
movie is a miss. That's so disappointing, especially since the entire fashion sense
of this film came from that end Vogue for Your Mind music video. Correct.
I said what I said. I said it. I said it.
I actually think for your Mind is perfect. Yeah, agreed. Do you
want to read the iTunes synopsis? Sure? Neo Keanu Reeves believes that Morpheus
Laurence Fishburne, an elusive figure considered to be the most dangerous man alive,
can answer his question what is the mat Neo is contacted by Trinity Carrie Anne
Moss, a beautiful stranger who leads him into an underworld where he meets Morpheus.
They fight a brutal battle for their lives against a cadre of viciously intelligent
secret agents. It's a truth that could cost Neo something more precious than his
life. I know, if that last sentence makes sense, it doesn't make
sense. It's also not one hundred percent accurate. Yeah, but I understand
the iTunes synopsis writer is problem here is that, like, how do you
explain this movie in a right pithy way. Yeah, it's it's it's very
difficult. I mean, maybe just they fight a brutal battle for their lives
and more against a cadre of viciously intelligent secret agents. Yes, also there
also computer code. Also, so much code. You're gonna have so much
code. I maintain it is Hackers meets Enter the Dragon, and I swear
that's what the Wakowskis came into the pitch meeting with. They were like,
can we do Hackers meets Enter the Dragon? And then I don't know,
yes, yeah, just drumped a dump like a dump truck full of money
in front of their house and turned on the money faucet and was like,
here you go. All right, so everyone stick around, We will be
right back and we're going to take you through the matrix after these messages.
For anyone who's not a member of the Patreon, you don't want messages,
go join the Patreon and we're back. The Matrix opens with green tinted credits,
like the WB logo is tinted green. I love it when they when
they like the credits start rolling and we're already in the movie, already in
the experience. It's like a ride great adventures. Exactly. Do you like
roller coasters? I hate them. I've never been good with roller coasters.
I have I throw up easily. Yeah, you have motions like this issues
I don't. I just don't like being jostled. I don't like the people
who run them. I don't don't trust them, Sorry, don't trust them.
And I'm like, I'm sure some of them are great, wonderful people,
but every once in a while you get one where I'm like, I
don't. Yeah, but why are their eyes always so shifty? That's the
question. If they're great, wonderful people, why you so squirrellly? Okay,
I don't think. I don't think my life should be in your hands.
I just saw you eat corn dogs and a fifth of room. You
are fifteen years old, and you are high. I don't really want to
get on this ride right now with your controlling it any crap. The Matrix
opens on a computer screen, and we see like indications that a phone call
is being traced. As we overhear the voices on the phone line discussing the
one quote unquote, the male voice mocks the female voice that, oh,
you like him, you like watching him, you like the one The voice
is realize that the call is being bugged, and they quickly hang up,
and we see police officers approaching through a dark hallway and they kick open the
door and they shout at the back of a leather clad woman to put her
hands up, and we cut to the street and reinforcements arrive in the form
of Agents Capital A Agents. These are men in business suits with ear pieces
and sunglasses, and they are led by Agent Smith Hugo Weaving, who commandeers
the scene and tells the police outside that the units in the hotel are already
dead. Hugo Weaving doing so much with so little. The whole point of
the agents, specifically Agent Smith, is that they're like unfeeling their actual robots
right, their actual like computer codes come to life. And he does this
thing with his voice where he's doing he's Australian doing an American accent, but
he's like over pivoting that American accent, like yeah, hitting every consonant.
It is such an underappreciated I think, and truly truly excellent performance. He
says the word life like the word live, but with it with an unvocalized
consonant. It's a really weird thing that I was fascinated by the whole time.
If anyone is ever wondering what speech and voice classes and theater school are
for, it's for this. Go watch you go weaving in the Matrix.
That's a speech and voice class in theater school. We cut back inside as
the policeman enter the hotel room with a leather clad woman, Trinity played by
Carrie Anne Moss, and that ass. Oh fetishes were born that day,
my friend, the way her ass just sings that in those black leather pants.
Yep, and it's pleather. We know it's not leather. It's definitely
pleather that these poor actors had to wear because it has they wanted something that
looks shiny. Holy shit, this body, her ass sing so much,
it's like Pavarotti in the Moon and Mulan rouge. Yes, that's that's that's
her ass. That's her ass work in these pleather pants. Her assing so
much. It's like Whitney Houston at the super Bowl. Okay, yes,
yes, her ass sings so much that the Bradley Cooper wants to conduct it.
That's right. Yeah, that's how that's how much her ass singing.
Her ass sing so much that Lady Gaga took out a hit on Carrie Anne
Moss's ass. I don't want the competition as all fully beautiful Top ten women
are. Trinity is a renegade computer hacker. Obviously, if someone ever asked
me what the nineties were, like, I'm gonna say renegade computer hackers.
That's what the nineties were. It's so true. I mean, like,
honestly, it's like Angelina Jolie wasn't beautiful enough in hackers, so they had
to throw and carry and Moss into this list like impossibly beautiful women who are
also computer geniuses. Yeah, uh huh. Renegade computer hacker was like such
a fucking fetish in the nineties. Oh yeah, it was unbelievable how much
people cared. Well, it's also like, because we were all the Internet
was in its nascency, so we didn't really know what was possible with it.
Yeah, and so if they if some movie came along was like this
computer hacker can use the Internet to literally turn your hair gray, we'd be
like, oh my god, really, yeah for real, there were like
wizards in dungeons and dragons, like they could just cast spells that we didn't
understand. Yeah, they were the girls from the Craft exactly. We're the
weirdos, mister. So as a totally average renegade computer hacker, Trinity easily
outclasses all the men with their gravity defying martial arts. Like the movie starts
right away with this like incredible stop motion. So again I'm not exaggerly what
going I say. Entered the Dragon, it's very Bruce Lee es. It's
very like old school martial arts from the seventies, but instead of sped up
or in real time, it's slowed down and all the actors are on wires,
so it looks like they can float and fly in space. It's very
cool. I also like it because the in universe explanation for how they can
do this makes the unreality of it. It makes the unreality of it makes
sense, like the fact they look suspended on wires, it makes sense with
the powers that they supposedly have in this world. Yeah. So, after
dispatching the cops, she calls someone on a cell phone, concerned that she
doesn't know how the call got hacked. A new voice on the line tells
her that they cut the hard line and she needs an exit. The voice
gives her an address and tells her that the agents are there and that she
can make it. The agents burst into the room, and it seems that
the tables have turned as calmly as Trinity took out all those police. She
wants no part of these agents, right. She just turns around and runs.
They pursue Trinity. She goes out up the building over the roofs.
They're running across the rooftops of this unnamed city, and the agents quickly reveal
themselves to be able to accomplish the same kind of superhuman feats that Trinity is
able to do. They're making leaps that no human could make over these rooftops.
Right. Eventually, Trinity dives through a window and she rolls to a
stop at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and she whips around and
she has two pistols at the ready, right, And I love this moment
because she's terrified and Carrie on Moss says, get up, Trinity, just
get up. The juxtaposition of having her beat the shit out of all of
those men thirty seconds ago and now she is genuinely scared makes her human.
She's genuinely worried about this. This is not like she's so scared she almost
can't make herself move to keep running. She's vulnerable. This raises the stakes,
right, She's not this impervious being. She can be killed. Trinity
flees to the address given and we see a payphone there, a phone booth.
The phone rings. At the same time a semi truck appears, headlights
on the phone booth. Trinity makes a run for it. As the semi
accelerates, she picks up the phone and we see her turn to the camera
and put her hand up as the headlights bear down on her and the truck
crashes into the phone booth. In the aftermath, the agency there is no
body in the booth. Trinity has escaped. They are unconcerned as they now
know the informant is real and they know their next target is someone named Neo,
so important. They have an informant in whatever organization Trinity is in.
That's how the phone call got hacked yep, and the informant gave them the
correct information to find Trinity, So okay, this is a good lead.
Basically, the amount of nineties ephemera in this film, such as landlines,
payphones, uh huh, just delight me so much, I know, And
how unadvanced the cell phones that they use are. Oh the rinky, These
rinky dink like nineteen ninety eight Nokia phones that they're using basically look like walkie
talkies. When did you get your first cell phone? Now we got to
talk about this. Oh, my first cell phone was after I graduated college,
so like two thousand and two. Oh, so probably had like the
ability to take pictures as Oh no, no, no, because I do
things. I got like a rinky dink. I got the cheapest one I
could. I was was good. I had to do the whole thing where
you're typing. There's no keyboard to you. You have to hit like the
five forty time numbers. Yes, mine did that too. I got mine
a little earlier than you. I got mine when I was still in college.
The freedom to be able to like use the phone while I was walking
to class, and like it changed my life. I was like this,
who this technology where I get a whole five hundred minutes a month to talk
on this phone. That's incredible. I am blown away. We cut to
Thomas and played by Keanu. Keanu Reeves like, I don't think there's I
don't think he should be the next James Bond, but I'm not against it.
I'm not against Keanu in anything. Keanu will be willing to give us
of himself. Frankly, yactly, yeah, yeah. Keanu, who also
is a computer hacker in this film, Beautiful, Gorgeous, Keanu Reeves,
beautiful, beautiful, Keanu reeves. Ah, it's asleep at his computer desk.
Messages from an unknown source flash across his screen and refer to him by
his hacker handle Neo. He does the thing that I love people doing movies
when, like on the computer screen someone's like, hi, Neo, you
know we're we've hacked to your computer and he turns around and looks behind him.
Yeah that's how man, that's how it works. You can't see them,
Otherwise they would just knock on your door. The messages tell him the
matrix has you follow the white Rabbit and then knock knock Neo, and just
then there's a knock at the door outside a skeezy client awaits. Neo,
as it turns out, sells illegal software in this world. That's his side
hustle. Okay, what is he selling? Though? They never make it
clear. The one part of this movie that I never got clarity on,
and I'm like, but what is he selling? Because the people he is
selling it to are a bunch of like very cool, downtown looking, leather
clad rock and roll types. They're they're on their way to a club.
They're gonna do e and coke all night, They're gonna fuck in the bathrooms.
They're definitely proposing a threesome when they ask him if he wants to come
with a million percent. So he's what software could he be selling to these
people? Maybe it's maybe it's proto grinder. Maybe the guy is like a
finance bro, but like, dress is cool. I really wish the movie
had buttoned this up just a tiny bit because I'm like, genuinely, what
the fuck is that? What would that guy want with anything Neo has?
Like it's the codes to the to the Pentagon, Like that's that they could
Why does that guy want them? That's the thing. It's not like he's
like if if he'd been like some sleazy like you know, Russian underground like
mafioso, I'd be like, Okay, yeah, he wants to key,
he wants to get into pack the Pentagon. Sure, this guy looks like
like like the lead singer of the band that goes before the band that goes
before like my Chemical Romance, my chemical romance. Yeah, like they didn't
open for my chemical romance, but they opened for the opener of my Chemical
Romance. So why does that guy need anything from a computer hacker? It's
so funny that like this bothered you so much because my head can because it's
obviously intentionally set up to be like a drug deal, Like you think he's
going to sell them, yes, right, and like my head canon immediately
went to in this world, computer programs are drugs, but how no,
No, it doesn't make any sense, Like that is my immediate reactions,
like, oh, like we're gonna see them, like you know they can
like plug it into a port in their finger and they get high or something
like. It doesn't that doesn't make any sense and we don't see that.
But that's I just defined it for myself and moved on Meanwhile, cut to
Gwen and Gavin later tried to smash the computer thing, the computer chip and
snorted in the bathroom, and they're like, that wasn't cocaine at all.
Erica. They have names. Their names are Choi and Dujore. Okay,
it's a Choi and Dujure, but I in my in my head canon right
now, they are Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rosdale nineteen ninety nine. That's what
they look like, So Choi. But by the way, in case you're
wondering how subtle this movie is, Choi says things to Neo like you're my
savior man, my own personal Jesus Christ, and just sounds like you need
to unplug man. Like it's not subtle. I really can see now,
like thinking about it, Like if I was like a forty five year old
male like critic his favorite movie is like a conversation watching this, I would
be like, no, no, fuck you and the horse you rode in
on. So that in retrospect, that ninety three percent or whatever this movie
got seems really reasonable. So Neo delivers his goods to Joy, and he
notices on Dujour's shoulder that there's a white Rabbit tattoo, and he remembers those
messages he just got which told him to follow the White Rabbit, so he
agrees to follow them to this goth techno club. Have you ever seen a
single episode of Alias? Then you know exactly where this goth techno club looks
like. There, You're done. You're done. You've never seen Alias.
Highly recommend season one and then just stop. You can actually no two season
two because that cliffhanger is legit at the end of season two. Season two,
and then stop maybe the beginning of season three to catch up to what
happened at the end of season two, because that that cliffhanger is for real.
Now for real stop now, no, really, stop, really stop
In the club, Trinny, he approaches Neo and tells him she sent the
messages. She's the one that hacked into his computer. He recognizes her hacker
handle as you know Trinity, because again, like in the film Hackers,
they all know each other. They're all famous to each other. It's like
seven of them. They don't know what they all look like yet they're all
somehow fucking underwear models. Yeah, but she says she was a hacker a
long time ago. She tells him he's in danger. She knows who he's
looking for, and she knows the question he wants to ask, what is
the matrix? She tells him the answer is out there and is looking for
him. An alarm clock rings and Neo wakes up in his own bed,
late for work. We cut to Neo at work getting chewed out by his
boss. He heads back to his little cubicle desk and he receives a hand
delivered package from FedEx. Now, I know we're in a futuristic world,
but a does anyone get FedEx packages delivered? Can you can you like put
you know, forty third floor of this building cubicle seventeen? Like, did
FedEx do that? I don't think they did that. I think before everyone
and their mother started buying shit online, FedEx had very little to do.
They had like seven packages in a data deliver They were like, Hey,
do you want us to do anything around the house while we're here? Yeah?
Used to be a cushy gig. Now it's run, run, Run.
Also, I'm sorry this FedEx guy is flirting with Keanu. It's my
head canon. I'm sticking with it. Fair enough, So he takes this
package. Inside is a cell phone. The cell phone rings, Neo picks
it up, and a deep voiced man identifies himself as Morpheus. This is
the man that Neo was looking for. This is the man he wanted to
ask what is the matrix? But before he can say anything, Morpheus says
they're coming. Neo looks up and he sees the agents arriving in his office,
being pointed towards his cubicle by some of his co workers. Morpheus tells
him that he can escape, but only if he follows Morpheus's instructions exactly.
Neo scrambles to obey, but ultimately is unable to bring himself to walk out
on the window ledge of skyscraper to get to a scaffolding, which is where
Morpheus tells me he has to go. He cannot. He cannot conquer his
own fear of being eighty stories up and inches from falling to his death.
You know what, Neo, man? The fuck up? Come on?
Come on? What are you doing? What is your problem? Every time
a stranger on the phone tells me to put myself in extreme mortal danger,
I do it. They only have good intentions. Ever, yeah, yeah,
it only ever ends up well, so Neo is captured by the agents.
So Agent Smith leads the interrogation of Neo, calling him mister Anderson and
telling him in a creepy, semi monotone voice that, despite having evidence of
all of Neo's illegal hacker activities, whatever the fuck he was selling to Gwyn
and Gavin, Yeah, he just wants Neo's help in finding Morpheus. Neo
flips him off. He literally gives him the bird, which is very funny,
and demands his phone call. He's like, he listens to this podcast,
he said, lawyer. He knows he's heard our PSAs many many times
on this subject. And when a cop talks to you, you say,
lawyer, he don't necessarily flip them off. First, I wouldn't recommend that
that's a bold move. That's a that is a that's a that's a varsity
move. Not everyone's here for that, That's right. It depends on the
cop. It depends on the on the person being questioned. But yeah,
he was like, uh, fuck you, I want my phone call.
I'm calling I'm calling my lawyer. Agent Smith wonders what good a phone call
would be if Neo is unable to speak wow, and then Suddenly flesh grows
over Neo's mouth, rendering him mute. This is funny because this is the
only like special effect in the movie that does not work for me at all.
It looks so janky, and I was like, wow, they mastered
the art of like stop motion technology and wire choreography whatever cgi it took to
make like bullets seem like they were stopping in mid air and then and then
Keanu can touch one and it drops. But they couldn't quite get like the
mouth being covered over by flesh interesting. They just couldn't figure that out.
They should have given him like a zipper over his mouth, like they didn't
beatlejuice yeah or shut yeah. The other agents burst into the room and they
hold Neo down. They rip open his shirt. Hot fair again computer hacker.
I look, I don't want to be a broken record here, but
like the nineties were like, oh, was Johnny Lee Miller not believable enough
as a computer hacker to you? How about we throw in Keanu Reeves?
Is that better? Is that more like it? They release a metallic scorpion
like device that crawls over Neo's body and burrows into his stomach through his belly
button as Neo tries to scream but still can't because he's got my guess is
I don't know, like a bit of plaster on his face that's supposed to
be supposed to be little. Yeah, Neo jokes awake at home and chalks
the whole experience up to a bad dream. That's some dream. That's all
quite a heavy dream. Yeah. His phone rings and it's Morpheus again,
and Morpheus tells him that he believes that Neo is the one and proposes meeting
under a nearby bridge. Neo agrees. Just a stunning shot of the bridge
with the rain pouring over it on. Neo waits, I mean, just
like this world is all like chrome and like neon green and pinks, and
like it's there are many shots this movie that are just gorgeous to look at.
Yeah, we discussed this a little bit when we talked about Bound,
Like every shot is art in their films. They're really like they understand how
to make visual art in a way that like few filmmakers do. Yeah.
Trinity arrives in a black car along with allies, Switch played by Belinda McClory,
an Apoc played by Julian Arahanga. Interesting little factoid I found out while
researching this Switch who the woman here in the original script was a woman in
the matrix but a man in the world. Oh okay, they don't do
that in them film, do they? They don't do it in the film.
No, it was just that was the original concept. They threw it
out. I think my guess is they thought it would be confusing for people
and they just didn't do it. But like, just starting to talk about
all of these trans things that start to like pop up in this movie,
Yeah, that's super interesting. So Neo gets in and Switch immediately pulls a
gun on him and tells him it's our way or the highway, which like
doesn't quite work like the my way. The highway rhymes our way or the
highway just sounds. It doesn't rhyme. It doesn't really it's not very threatening.
Could he used to ReadWrite on that one? Haha. Anyway, she
tells him to open his shirt hot and he refuses, but before he can
leave, Trinity grabs his arm and she tells him that he knows what life
is like. It's out there, and she knows it's not where he wants
to be, and Neo stays. He opens his shirt and Trinity uses a
device to yank the wriggling mechanical scorpion thingy back out of his belly button.
That's a penis pump, right, That is a penis pump. They're using
a penis pump. That is a penis pump. The pop I got a
penis pump and Jerry ringed it to make it not looks like a penis pump.
But that is one hundred a penis pump. And I I don't mean
to be gross, but if something that large has to leave my body,
I'm gonna say, let's go to the back door. I'd rather not come
through my belly button, which is not a natural hole. No no,
I'm actually like clutching my belly button just thinking about that, Like ah no,
no, no, leave her alone. She closed up years ago.
Let to stay. Something about it big that the belly button grossed me out
so much. There is a lot of body horror in this movie that frankly
too much for me. But I'm a you know me, I'm a sensitive
boy. So uh. Neo was shocked that his dream from the prior night
was real. The thing's real. Oh my god, where'd you get where'd
you get a penis? Pump that big? Is that for like a horse?
Did you ever have to pump horse penises? Holy shit? A pocket?
Is your dick this big? If I dick's not big an for this?
If I'm in the maintrix, can I make my dick bigger? I
mean actually yes, yes, yes, you know you can answer is yes?
What if he was not on board at all with helping them in any
way with any of their mission until they told him he could make his dick
like, not even significantly bigger, like a quarter of an inch bigger,
And he'd be like, okay, o woman, no, what if Porphous
is like neo, your penis can be six and a half inches long while
erect? And he was like, yes, I'm in I'm in six and
a half Is that even possible? I can triple it? Wait, damn
it out loud. Trinity and the others take him to an abandoned building because
again we are basically in an episode of Alias Yeah, where he finally gets
to meet the Great Morpheus played by the Great Laurence Fishburne. Paul writes here
a man that is somehow making a sneak skin black duster work. Correct,
Yeah, you really have to be Laurence Fishburne. There's no one else.
There's so few actors that can pull any of this shit off. Yeah,
Laurence Fishburne said, you require gravitas, and thus here I am. You
require someone who can make any outfits saying I'm here. You're welcome, You're
welcome. Morpheus asks Neo if he believes in fate, and Neo says no.
He doesn't like the idea that he's not in control of his own life.
Morphius tells Neo that the Matrix is everywhere. It is the world that
has been pulled over Neo's eyes, and he's always been a slave to it.
Morpheus offers to reveal it to him. Are we all caught up here
on what's happening? Okay, just checking with the audience here, I mean,
we've all seen this movie right by this point. But like, the
Matrix is everywhere, It is the world that Paul and I are podcasting.
And what if the Matrix bothered to do this? Truly? What if like
AI took over, created the Matrix turned humans into their like body bag slaves
and they were like but still, we should have four hundred thousand podcasts the
same time, the same time. Somehow that's important. Yep, that's the
most important thing. Morpheus holds out two pills, very famous scene. If
Neo takes the blue one, he'll wake up at home and remember nothing of
this whole adventure, no harm, no foul. If he takes the red
one, he gets to know everything. Right, there's that speech going down
the rabbit hole Alice. Right, Yeah, Neo takes the blue one.
End of movie. Weird, right, that's a twist. That was my
favorite, one of my favorite jokes in the Barbie movie when the same choice
is offered her and she's like, blue pill. How long do you think
it took for them to set up that famous shot? So it's it's Laurence
Fishburne's sunglasses and his hands are have the pill in each and each in each
lens and Keanu where you can see Kanu reason it that was it. That
was two hours of the cinematographer's life that he's not getting back, right,
probably, I mean it's a little computers generated too. I'm sure like the
ke is added on afterwards. Honestly, I'm just shocked he could wear the
whole movie Laurence Fishburne wears these sunglasses that have no arms to it's just the
lenses like stuck on his nose and I'm like, but how the spirit gum?
Do you have spirit gum on your nose? Sir? How are those
staying? Poor Laurence fishburn had to have spirit gum on his nose for like
the six months it took to shoot this movie. I think that's a safe
bet. So obviously, Neo picks the red one. Morpheus and his crew
hook Neo up to a machine and a mirror next to him just liquefies,
and he's like, whoa very Keanu moment. No one nails a woe like
Keanu, not even Joey Lawrence, no nobody, frankly. So the mirror
liquefies that becomes a thick silver metallic substance that then incases Neo. There's a
long sequence with a lot of body horror and birth imagery, and when you
think about it, birthing a baby is the original body horror. Isn't it
like that? Oh? Correct, I've never done it, but correct.
Ultimately we see Neo waking up naked and hairless in this that of Jelly with
all kinds of plugs in his body, threw his arms down his spine that
connect the vat, and he's surrounded by other similar pods. Right, how
much ky jelly do you think they used for this? Like? All of
it? All of it, like could no one could buy lube for like
a year, fourteen to fifteen drums of astroglide went into this, by the
way, you say, other similar pods, hundreds maybe thousands of similar pods.
You have to explain a little bit of stuff to me. Actually,
okay, where is this? This is the real world? So this is
right? But physically where like is this on Earth? These pods that we
see Neo lined up in? Like this is this is what Earth is now?
It's just these pods, right, So like this is modern day Oklahoma
City and Neo is just one of many hundreds of thousands of lads and this
and this is a human farm. So Neo's vat suddenly drains of all the
ky jelly and he falls down into a pit of water, but he obviously
doesn't know how to swim. And just jumping into the movie a little bit,
this is where his body has been its his entire existence. This is
his real world body. Its muscles of obviously atrophied. He's never learned how
to swim, and he has no musk, he has no musculature to do
it, so he starts to drown. Before he can drown, a door
opens up in the ceiling because he's like basically been flushed down essentially into the
sewer system of this world. The machines have thought he died, and now
he's being flushed down into the system. This claw comes fall, comes down
and picks him up and lifts him up out before he can drown. And
as he's falling unconscious, Morphia says, welcome to the real world. So,
going back to giving birth being the original body, did you ever watch
a birth that a birthing video in like health class? Absolutely not. You
didn't have to. We were like required to. And it was boys and
girls. It wasn't just the girls. I think it's because we were I
grew up in Miami, and they knew there was a high possibility of team
pregnancy, just given just given everyone's uh watching some that's a scared gay video,
that's what that is, as opposed to a scared straight one. Yeah,
And so like they showed us a woman giving birth and like, I
will genuinely never forget the feeling of that moment of seventh grade health class,
and like they didn't have any sound on it. There was no sound to
the video, so you couldn't hear screaming or crying or anything. But you
just watched this baby come out. And at first you're horrified. And first
you're hugely embarrassed because you're thirteen in a classroom filled with all your friends.
Yeah, and you're watching a lady's vagina up close, like you're like ross.
And then and then the baby comes out, and you're all like,
oh wow, the miracle of wow, that's okay, that's not so that's
awful, but it's not so awful. And then the placenta comes and the
scream that erupted from that classroom because no one had ever told any of us
that that was going to happen. It feels like something you should be warned
about one hundred percent and something why doesn't anyone tell children, by the way,
after the baby is born, and that all that whole part is gonna
be awkward and embarrassing and gross and terrifying, but also kind of miraculous and
beautiful. This woman's vagina is going to do a wet sneeze and this unholy
glow, just mucus and blood is gonna fly out of her. It is
a memory I will never forget. Everyone was so traumatized. I wish I
could go back and double check this, but I'm pretty sure no one got
pregnant in that class. Now whatever, all those kids probably all virgins passed
well to this day. To this day, I'm like, oh, I'm
sorry, I did you see the placentive? Is you? I'm not I'm
not participating in anything that's gonna clause that what sneeze. I'm just saying.
I'm just saying. After that, the ky jelly situation with the Kanu doesn't
seem so gross. This seems so well. Now I understand why horror movies
don't bother you, because you you were when I was like thirteen, mandatorily
AnyWho, any crap. Neil falls in and out of awareness as we see
him being I'm just picturing the thirteen year olds like me, like we made
it through, guys. This comes out and just pandemonium. The boy,
the boy, the boy sitting next to me literally jumped out of his seat
like and turned around was like, no, no, no, no,
God. Who Okay? All right, I can't believe I've never told that
story before on this podcast. Absolutely not great story. I'm so glad this
episode got that up. That story, the celebration of womanhood. All right,
I'm back now, I'm ready. Neo falls in and out of awareness
as we see him being rehabilitated by Morpheus, Trinity, and their crew.
Since Neo's actual body has been his entire existence in a vat of jelly,
his muscles of totally atrophied, so there's like an acupuncture section that they put
him in. They put him in like a pod. He'll raise eat your
heart out. Eventually, they explained to Neo, like your muscles of atropheed
were rebuilding them for you so you can walk and move and do all the
things we do. Right, Eventually, Neo is ready. But now he
has a permanent port in his neck at the base of his skull. We're
gonna find out later that's the part of the whole issue that he was in
with the human farm before he was connected. Basically, so Morpheus explains to
Neo what has happened. He is now in the real world, he is
on Morpheus's ship, the Nebekadnezzar, and the year is not nineteen ninety nine,
it's closer to twenty one ninety nine. And then Morpheus introduces Neo to
the crew that he hasn't met yet, so we all meet Cipher played by
Joey Pants Joe Pantoliano fucking nailing it like he always does. Yep, bless
Joe Pantoliano. He is another freed human, so he was also once in
the human farms, but he has been freed by Morpheus. He's dripping with
sarcasm. He's mustachioed like a malicious lion tamer. He seems to enjoy needling
Trinity and she seems to dislike him. Yeah, she's not a big fan.
Cipher Mouse played by Matt Duran, who's another freed human and he's the
ship's ways. He's like the young one. He looks to be like twenty
maybe yeah. And then the brothers Dozer played by Anthony Ray Parker and Tank
played by Marcus Chong. Oh yeah, every time Tank came on screen,
I flooded my basement. This person is beautiful. This guy is so hot
that you forget about KEYONU reeves instantly, instantly like no, never mind,
I want to fight Tank whatever, Ken shut up. Oh. So Tank
and Dozer are brothers. They were born in the last surviving human settlement of
Zion, which lies deep underground near the warmth of the Earth's core. So
they have never been part of the Matrix, and they lack the ports at
the back of their head right, so they cannot enter the matrix. And
as a result, that means Tank is usually the person who's guiding the other
people who are in the matrix, the team communications expert. Basically they call
him the operator. Yeah, so then can we get an info dump?
All right? So this is and this is gonna be a little bit dry,
but I will say the movie does a pretty good job of kind of
dramatizing it as Morpheus is explaining what's going on. So via their headports,
all the freed humans that were born in the Matrix can re enter the Matrix
and also enter other computer programs, usually run by Tank. That's why he
is the lead operator. What is the matrix Erica. It's simply a neural
interactive simulation of the world as it was in nineteen ninety nine. That's all
it is okay, any questions great? You know, I wouldn't mind going
back to nineteen ninety nine. Yeah, some things were better, not everything,
but some part of me was like, who a world where I get
to perpetually live in nineteen ninety nine? Sign me up. Not so bad,
I was. We were in our sophomore year of college. It was
pretty good. Yeah, times were good. The Matrix exists because humans developed
AI years ago but lost control and a war between man and machines started.
The machines were winning, and so humans chose to cause a nuclear winter to
block out the sun, hoping to depower the robots, which relied on solar
power function. Unfortunately, the robots adapted, as AI is wont to do
in these stories, and they created the human farms that we saw Neo wake
up from, where they breed humans as living batteries to power themselves with bioelectricity.
The Matrix is the dream world that the robots put the brains of their
human batteries in to keep them under control. So essentially, Neo was born
in this human farm, his brain was placed in the Matrix, and his
whole life, his actual body, has been existing to power the machines while
his brain lived out this fictitious life in like nineteen ninety nine. Yep,
one man. And by the way, you may think we're gonna get explanation
on this one man, we are not, So just go with this.
One man was born into the matrix with the power to change things, and
it was he who freed the first human minds. And Oracle prophesied this man's
return, and Morpheus believes that Neo is his reincarnation. Neo is the one.
So we get a lot of like this Messiah uh storyline in this one
and in the past times really dinged movies on this Messiah storyline. I'm like,
I hate the idea that, like it's one person who can save us
all it's always a dude, you know, except refreshingly in Jupiter Ascending,
it is my it's Mila Kunis. Oh, okay, it is a woman.
I find that really like conservative thinking. This film does does a good
job of like taking the teeth out of it a little bit, so I
don't find it as irritating as I usually do. Okay, fair enough,
it didn't that that kind of stuff doesn't really usually great on me as much
as it does to you. I read a lot of fantasy novels, and
so much of it. There is so much of it the one I mean
most everything we talk about that's like sci fi or fantasy fiction tends to have
that narrative, right. Like Star Wars Harry Potter. We get a training
montage. Neo enters a computer program and Tank downloads skill into his brain,
every martial art imaginable. We get the incredible I know kung fu O line
that Keanu immortalized in this film. That is a great line. But my
personal favorite line is jiu jitsu. I'm going to learn jujitsu. Ha.
Do you also notice that one of the programs was drunk in boxing. No,
that's very important. If you ever planned to travel to New Orleans,
they're gonna need that one. Yeah. He spars with Morpheus, who explains
that in the matrix, or in any virtual computer world, Neo can break
the accepted rules. We see ultra fast fighting, punches through the floor,
gravity defying leaps. Morpheus tells him that he's trying to free Neo's mind,
but he can only show Neo the door. Neo has to walk through it
again. Laurence Fishern goes a long way for me, because normally this kind
of thing drives me insane, where I'm like, yeah, shut up and
get to the rest of the plot. Stop, like stop wasting my time.
Yeah. Laurence Fishburn's performance in this does the Lord's work in lifting this
like haiku nonsense nonsense lines that he's being given. Eventually, Morpheus tests Neo
by telling him he can jump from one skyscraper to another. The crew,
like on the Nebukanezer watched pensively. No one has ever had enough faith to
make the first jump, but if Neo is truly the one, maybe he
will. He'll actually make it yep alas he does not. You see him.
Keanu winds up for the run. He's running, he's running, and
you see the moment that he loses faith and he can make it and he's
like Nope, not gonna make it. Boom and he falls off of this
skyscraper. Neo wakes up with a bloody mouth, and Morpheus explains that while
the matrix is not real, his mind in the matrix is, which again
you would get way more than a bloody mouth from that fall. Well,
because that's a specific program they set up. So when he hits the page
ground, right, He like, it's like an elastic thing. Yeah.
Yeah, But if you die in the Matrix, you die in the real
world because your brain doesn't know the difference. Morpheus goes on to explain that
the agents are sentient programs and can transform themselves into anyone inside the matrix.
Right, So the Matrix's computer code is just people's brains in there, and
the agents are computer code within that that can enter other people's bodies. Basically,
no freed human has ever defeated an agent in the Matrix. But at
some point Neo will have to fight them, and Morpheus believes he can defeat
them, and Neo wonders if Morpheus believes he can dodge bullets, and Morpheus
smiles and says, no, when you're ready, you won't have to.
I am glad this check. This particular check is cashed later in the film
That made Me Very happy. The nebekon Nezer. This ship then has a
brief encounter with quote unquote Squidties, which are basically enormous robots sentinels that can
detect bioelectricity. The only weapon against them is an electromagnetic pulse, which can
knock the squidties out, but it can only be used once and it requires
time to recharge, and the crew manages to hide from the robots. Just
remember those for later because they come back later as a plot point. That's
why all of that stuff an p squidties. You need to know that later.
Okay, second question, then, so where are they? Where is
their ship? They're in the real world. They're flying around the Earth and
they're hiding. They're cloaking themselves from the robots. So they're flying a is
it a spaceship? Are they just above the Earth's atmosphere? Yeah, pretty
much, and they're they're they're like adventurers from the City of Zion, basically,
got it, and they're trying to free more humans. All right,
I'm in, I'm in, I'm all in here. Neo meets with Cipher.
Cipher offers Neo a drink and says he knows what Neo is thinking.
Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill? Am I right? Cipher
advises him if he ever sees an agent, to run. Okay, So,
no matter what Morpheus believes about your abilities, even if you are the
one, no one has ever survived an agent ever. Just run, Yeah,
Neo leaves and Cipher then enters the Matrix. We see Cipher at a
steak dinner with Agent Smith. This steak look good, but is it also
the largest steak you've ever seen in your life? It is a It is
a prime rib because if you're starving, if you've been living on a if
you've been living on scraps of food in space, and you gets cold,
half cooked oatmeal, you get to go down into the Matrix and you get
a fucking Argentinian steak, like a real fucking stake that. I don't know
why that steak looks so good like, but I was watching the movie.
I was like, oh, I want steak. You want to know why?
It is because Joey Pants. Joey Pants sells a moment, sells the
shit out of eating that steak. That is absolutely true, So Smith.
Agent Smith calls Cipher mister Reagan, mister Reagan, Mister Reagan, and Cipher
bargains with him for a return to the Matrix. He says he's realized,
after nine long years living this outlaw renegade lifestyle, that ignorance truly was bliss
and he didn't know how good he had it when he was in the matrix.
He is also a white man. That's worth it in mind. He
tells them though, that he has he has some conditions before he gives up
with all this information. A. He wants his memory cleared of all the
real world stuff. He doesn't want to remember any of it. Just wipe
my slate clean. And B. I want to live well. I want
to be rich. I want to live a high class life. I want
to be I want to live an easy life from here on out. Yeah.
Smith agrees and says that in return, he needs the access codes to
the Zion mainframe. That's That's That's City, the Free City still on Earth.
Cipher says he doesn't have them, but he'll give Smith the one who
does, Morpheus. We cut to Morpheus telling Neo that he's taking him to
see the Oracle. The crew is all very excited. Ooh, Morpheus really
believes Neo is the one. He's gonna take him see the Oracle. So
everyone who can enter the Matrix enters the matrix. Morpheus, Neo, Trinity,
and Cipher head to the Oracle, while Switch, Apoc and Mouse keep
watch on their exit say they stay back. Before they depart, Cipher drops
a cell phone in the trash can, and this signals to the agents what
their location is. I have two fashion notes here. Please, not even
Carrie Moss can pull off this leather smock they have her in here, like,
I don't know why they put her in this. It looks like an
art teacher smock over her leather pants. Is this the one where it looks
like a dress? Yeah? I like this one. No, I really
like it. It's like the suggestion of femininity without actual femininity. Okay,
okay, But the fact that Laurence Fishburne can still pull off gravtas with this
riddler looking tie that he has on. He is like a bright neon green
pattern tie. Yeah, he fares less well in this scene to make a
casus. Also, every single thing they put Switch in is one no notes.
Switch is the fashion goddess of this film. Well, she also,
and they put her in white for some reason. She's almost always in white
leather while everyone else in black level, And she's got white hair, short
white hair, and she's got very pale skin. So it's a little monochromatic
in the way that like in the way that carry in Moss is also a
little monochromatic with her dark hair. It's fantastic. In the car on the
way to the Oracle, Neo asks Trinity if she's ever seen the Oracle,
and Trinity says she has, But when Neo asks what the oracle said,
she seems hesitant to share. She doesn't want to tell them. Yeah,
none of your business, fucker, we met yesterday. Back off, back
off. Morpheus reminds Neo that the Oracle is a guide who can help him
find the path. They arrive, They're welcomed into this very zen space.
This is easily the warmest place we've seen, and like everywhere else in the
matrix is like blue filters. Keanu has never looked so pale as he does
in like the office setting of this of this movie, but in here,
like it's like warm sunlight feeling, it's very different. There are a lot
of children there. They're accomplishing feats of telekinesis and matter manipulation, and an
aid introduces the children as quote unquote the other potentials, which will absolutely not
be referenced again in this movie. Yeah. I have to presume they pick
that up on later movies, because it seems like they're all searching for the
one, and these are the kids that they think might be the one for
some reason, because they already have these abilities as children. Whereas yeah,
well, also, there was a point in the movie, I don't know
if it's been said already that Morpheus says they don't usually take people out of
the Matrix at the age of Neo, like Neo's older than they try to
take people out when they're younger so they can adapt better. But Neo they
got to a little late, which also make question makes me question Cipher,
like, yeah, what happened? Who's asleep on that wheel because he's only
canonically been there nine years. Yeah, and Trinity was in the matrix long
enough to be a famous hacker, so she wasn't taken out at ten.
Yeah, that's true, but she could have been fifteen maybe or something.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay. So Neo speaks to the young
boy who's bald obviously made to look like a little bit like a monk,
and the young boy teaches him to bend a spoon with his mind because there
is no spoon, there's so many reflections, and then the reflection gets twisted
in this movie, or the reflection gets cut up which I which I think
is a very like I think it's another interesting thing about a trans identity.
Right, Like you're looking in the mirror and then the mirror changes, you're
what you're looking at. Neo is ushered in to meet the Oracle played by
Gloria Foster, again a very warm presence. Can we overstate how good she
is in this No, she operates at a completely different frequency than everyone else
in the movie. Yeah she's, she's a she's in a play. She's
yeah, yeah she is. And she's just so calm. Everyone else in
the movie is tense and intense and like anxious, and she is just chill.
But she's also chill in a very like normal is like a bad word
because it's like it doesn't adequately describe it in a grounded way. She's very
yeah, because like I would say, Morpheus is also very calm the whole
movie. But it's almost like zen master calm. Yes, it's almost like
this, like I have studied the art of calmness, and now I will
I will show you calmness. Whereas with this woman, it just seems to
come naturally. It's like grandmotherly almost. Yes, yes, that's exactly it.
It's very comforting. Yeah, so she smiles. She's like, we
said, a very maternal presence. She's got this scene, it all vibe.
Guess what she's seen it all. She asks him if he thinks he's
the one, and he admits he doesn't know, and she tells him being
the one is like being in love. No one can tell you you are,
you just know it balls to bones. Ah, excellent good writing.
The Oracle gets down to brass tacks with him pretty quickly, and she tells
him that unfortunately, you are not the one, despite what Morpheus believes.
I'm sorry, it's not you kid. You have the gift. You seem
to be waiting for something to like activate the gift, but it's not coming
in this life. Maybe in the next one, yeah, which is again
kind of posits that this woman knows that, like we all get a second
life. And I'm like, could we pause there for a moment. So
reincarnation is a thing, right, that's the real thing. We can to
actually do this again. Yeah. Then she tell him that soon he'll have
to decide between saving his own life and Morpheus's because Morpheus believes so much in
you that he is going to sacrifice himself to save you, and you have
to decide do you sacrifice yourself to save Morpheus. Neo is shaken. She's
like, oh, sorry, buddy, I know that was a whole lot
of news all at once. She offers him a cookie. Yeah, and
he's like, She's like, hey, listen, you don't believe in any
of this bullshit anyway, because you don't believe in fate, So why would
you even listen to me? After all? It's great, it's a great
scene. It's a great scene that Gloria Foster, by the way, was
married to Clarence Williams, the third who was the dad in Purple rain Oh
really remember like the one actor in Purple Rainey said was a real actor.
That's what she was married to. All right? Cool? Yeah, So
the team heads back to the extraction point. They meet up with switching apoc
at the door. Mouse is inside. He is in the room with the
exit. As they climb the stairs, Neo notices a black cat crossing through
the doorway twice in a row, and he says, oh, do deja
vu? The team goes on high alert. Deja vu indicates a glitch in
the matrix, kind of Sappie right there. Because I saw the movie once
a long ass time ago. I barely have seen it. I don't like
this week when I watched it again, I was like, oh, yeah,
I'm kind of remembering this, but I didn't really remember it. And
yet at least once or twice a year, I will have a dja vu
and I will go, whoof glitch in the Matrix? Yeah? That line
stopped Daid with me. Mm hmm. Yeah. So the glitch in the
matrix, they say usually happens when they change something. And we cut to
Mouse, who's in the room. And Mouse is getting an alert because Tank
is noticing that something is weird, and he runs to the window and he
throws open the window and it's been bricked up, so the Matrix has bricked
over the building. Once everybody's inside, so they can't get out. Mouse
grabs like two huge machine guns and now that Like, there's been some gunfire
before in this movie, but from here to the end, the number of
bullets fired is genuinely it's astronomical, like, yes, insane, So wars
have been fought with fewer bullets this movie has. Yes, Mouse goes down,
he's he is killed. Everyone realizes that the building has been bricked up
on the inside, and Morpheus tells Tank, you got to tell me where
the pipes are. Where the pipes. Tank tells them. They run and
they hide inside the walls of the building, right, So where the pipes
are is where there's space in between the walls, So that's where they go.
They're hanging in there. The agents and various policemen are combing the building
looking for them. Everything's going okay, and then Cipher coughs, alerting the
agents to their location. Morpheus, in an attempt to save Neo, bursts
through the wall and engages the agents. He yells at Trinity, you run,
save Neo. You have to save Neo. She does. Over Neo's
protests. Neo is trying to say, the Oracle told me that wasn't the
one. You can't like, don't sacrifice yourself to save me. Trinity takes
him out. They start running with the other people. Morpheus is visio beaten
and taken prisoner. Cipher manages to split off from the rest of the group
and calls Tank for an extraction. Tank provides one and answers the phone call
from Trinity. A few moments later, with the rest of the team and
sends them to the same location. Cipher gets there first and ports back up
to the ship. He shoots Tank and Dozer. When I tell you,
I squealed me too. He was like, not Tank, he's too good
looking. Poor Dozer. Poor Dozer, because, by the way, is
also very good looking, very handsome. I'm sure a tremendous actor. Got
very little to do in this movie. Cannon fodder, though, Let's get
real cannon shatter. As soon as he dies, I'm like, well,
yeah, someone has to die or else. There's no stakes. No,
not Tank, anyone but Tank. I don't want to go on spoiler alert.
We do get tank backs. Dozer does die, but Tank lives.
I think they knew. The Lekowskis knew. They were like, if we
take this away from the viewing audience, we're going to get in some deep
shit for this. Yeah, there's gonna be a riot. Trinity calls for
an ex Riots of nineteen ninety nine just what no one expected, the horny
tank riots. Riots. The theaters were rated by angry, vicious, horny
teenagers screaming not you. Trinity calls for an extraction, and Cipher is there
remember Tank is gone. Now he's been shot. Cipher answers in a truly
spectacular monologue, an oscar for Joey Pants, for this monologue, please.
He monologues about how he's tired of war, tired of the shitty food they're
eating, tired of Morpheus with all his bullshit. All the while he's like
sniffing at Trinity's unconscious body inside the ship, and he tells her, you
know, for years I thought I was in love with you, But I
guess I'm not for heterosexuals on this trip, on this on this space ship,
it's thin on the ground. The numbers are not adding up. No
one's getting off together. I get claim switch for the head aside here who
knows what switches? The whole thing is good, good for them, whatever
they whatever they want. But still I get, I get. I get
the frustration of a heterosexual man on this ship where he's like, holy shit,
I have switched hands back and forth eight times. It no longer feels
different. This is a fucking sausage fist. I do not care for the
future. He leaps from Trinity's body onto Morpheus's and says that he wishes he
could be there when Morpheus breaks, he gets really ugly. In this moment,
right, Cipher unplugs a pock and switch, killing them in front of
Trinity. So while he unplugs them in the real world, Trinity sees them
die in front of her. In the matrix. Cipher reasons that Neo is
not the one after all, if he were, a miracle would occur at
that moment to save Neo's life. So he gets on top of Neo's body.
He goes to reached around to he gives them the whole reach around.
He goes to unplug Neo. The number of times I've given guys the all
reach around, you'll reach around just to kill them in the matrix yep.
At that moment, rightet Moore in the matrix, at that moment, right
before he unhooks Theo, he looks up and he sees that Tank, gorgeous,
gorgeous Tank is still alive, thank God, training a gun on him.
Tank kills Cipher and extracts Neo and Trinity from the matrix. The line
that he has to say, so he's he's whispering to Trinity and he's like,
do you believe that he's the one? Do you believe it, and
she whispers yes, and then it's a it's on Joey Pants, who we
have praise to the high heavens. But the line they have given him is
no, I don't believe it. And then it cuts to like tank holding
the gun on him, and I'm like, that is a rough line to
give someone on their exit. Just have them look up and go oh or
no or something. The I don't believe it is so much. Give him
a shit or a fuck, give me something I believe he would say.
Yeah. In the Matrix, Smith and the other agents interrogate Morpheus. They
shoot him full of drugs, they beat him. Morpheus refuses to give up
the Zion codes under their torture, and Smith tells the other agents to leave
and disconnects from their communication. He's truly alone with Morpheus, and he tells
them that he hates the Matrix. He cannot stand the stench of humanity any
longer, and he wants the access codes to Zion so he can destroy humanity
and free himself from the Matrix forever, because there will no longer be a
need for the Matrix if Zion is destroyed. And then he destroys all the
humans. This doesn't really make sense because he needs the humans in order to
So it's basically like an AI that wants to end itself, but isn't all
of AI connected, which is why he disconnected the ear piece. So he
is a sentient being in this moment wishing for the sweet release of death,
and the only way to do that is to literally kill all the humans.
Yeah it this says, you're right, This doesn't make it. I'm just
kind of talking in here. It's in circles, like I don't know what
the revealed. This is the one thing I can't quite wrap my head,
right, Like I get the idea of wanting to have this AI character being
like you think I like the matrix because it's what we set up and I
fucking hate it. Like that's an interesting twist. But then what he should
actually say is, so if you give me the codes, Desion, I
will let you there. I want to take down the matrix too. I
want to die. I genuinely want to end my on life. Yeah,
this whole existence, all of this, which is not what he says,
but that's what he should say, right because they want him to sound human.
Yeah, way, like he has almost a humanity like a loathing that
is because machines don't give a shit what we're like, Yeah, they don't
care that we suck. Yeah, you know that they're not sw meta toilet
would be if it knew what we did to it every day. There's this
really interesting moment in this scene because I was thinking about this before the scene
came up, where I was like, this is I actually had it like
Snart in my notes. I was like, this is bullshit. The Matrix
was all created so that humanity can live and perpetual slavery to the machines.
They created this world. This was the best they could do. With Keanu
still getting yelled at by his boss with his dumb fucking job, and everyone
seems pretty miserable, and I was like I was about to ding the movie
hard on it. And then it's explained in this scene where he says the
original version. Agent Smith says the original version of the Matrix was supposed to
be a utopia, and humans literally did not know how to function under happiness.
They sought the darkness so much that they just died. They kept waking
up. The Matrix couldn't hold them. Yeah, isn't that like a fascinating
count like it is contract like what that's in my notes too, of like
this is to think that that we as humans find it so much easier,
Like even if you think about it in life, like something good happens and
it lifts you up for you know, like an hour or something, but
something bad happens and the whole week is ruined and like you yeah in that
bad moment. Oh, if you're like me, I'm always waiting for the
other shoe to drop, always, yeah, always, I'm never happy.
I'm never fully happy because I'm like, well, but when is the disaster
that I know is coming? And it's like all evidence to the contrary,
there's never been the disaster. It is a super interesting like peek into the
human psyche, and like the movie is super interesting because on some level it's
extremely surfacing. Right, this is not a takedown to the movie, but
it's very like it doesn't explain things. It moves quickly. It doesn't try
to get too deep because because then it triggers conversations like this where you're like,
but why does the AI hate itself? It doesn't make any sense?
Yeah, but every once in a while it does kind of delve into the
human psyche a little bit and you're like, Okay, well that's fucking interesting.
I think that's another maybe reason why, like some critics were a little
bit like, this is all style and no substance. It's not no substance.
It is, however, I will say, more style than substance.
It's more style and substance because they don't develop their ideas. They kind of
throw their ideas out and then let them sit there as like statements, as
opposed to interrogating them very much. And it's not necessarily a ding on the
movie because the style is so revolutionary. Hm. We cut to the ship.
Neo, Trinity, and Tank discuss pulling the plug on Morpheus to protect
Zion right because no one has ever not cracked under agent questioning. Just as
they're about to do so, Neo remembers the oracles words and he decides to
save Morpheus's life over his own. Despite Trinity and Tank's doubt. Neo says
he believes he can bring Morpheus back, and the Oracle's prophecy will back him
up on that. Yep. He heads back into the Matrix to rescue Morpheus,
and Trinity goes with him. He tries to say no. He's like,
no, no, no, it's too dangerous, and she's like,
I outrank you, I'm your commanding officer. I'm going with you. Yep.
Neo and Trinity then go down and lay siege to a skyscraper. It's
awesome, it is. The Duster Hive has never been so strong as it
is in this movie. Yeah, gos, kids everywhere rejoice. You have
been seen. You have been seen, as Paul writes here, and he's
not wrong. A genuinely unimaginable number of bullets fly through the air as they
dispatch the security team and ride the elevator cable to the roof skyscraper. Neo.
I got the impression that Neo's afraid of fights, right, That's why
he wouldn't go on to the ledge in the beginning. Oh, it never
occurred to me, But yeah, that makes because there's a moment here where
he knows this. He's about to ride the elevator rope all the way up,
and he has to tell himself the spoon is not there, to like
psych himself up for this this trip up right on the roof of the building,
Neo and Trinity fight another security squad until an agent shifts into the body
of a helicopter pilot and engages them. Neo shoots at him, but the
agent dodges all of his bullets and returns fire. Neo dodges the bullets so
not quite as cleanly as the agent, and he's nicked. As he falls
over. The agent stands over him, ready to finish him off, but
Trinity appears and shoots the agent in the head. The body falls and it's
only the helicopter pilot again. So maybe this is the first agent she's ever
killed. I think, well, I think any other time she would seem
one, she would have run. Yeah, that was the protocol. So
Trinity asks Neo how he dodged bullets like the agent. She's never seen anyone
do that. This is all brand new. Do you ever read the book
The Phantom told Booth? I did not, Okay, So in this book,
this kid has to go on this quest and there's a secret on this
quest, but no one can tell him the secret. Everyone else knows the
secret, but they can't tell him. He has to go on this quest.
He goes in this quest and he completes it, and he's like,
so what was the secret? And They're like, it's impossible. What you
did was impossible. No one was able to do it. But because you
didn't know it was impossible, you believe that you could do it, and
so you did it. Holy shit. That's a great message, which is
kind of like what this moment is to me. Like Neo doesn't know he
shouldn't be able to dodge bullets. Yeah, Like he's been told he can
do anything, and he believes in he just saw the agent do it,
why can't I do it? And like he like levels up almost like through
ignorance. Wow. Yeah, Okay, you know have to admit when I
was a kid, I didn't read The Phantom Told with because that name is
that name is dumb. It's not the best name. But it's a great
book. I literally judged a book by its cover, and I am recording
it right now. Trinity, with the help of a download from Tank,
takes the controls of the helicopter and pilots it down to Morpheus's level. I
wouldn't mind getting a download from Tank download into my tank anytime. He can
download onto me wherever he wants. Download, upload, front load, backload,
anything you want, Buddy, Open open season over here. Neo forces
the agents to hide from yet another hell of bullets from the I don't know,
helicopter, machine gun cannon. I don't know what this is. Somehow
all of these bullets mix mis Morpheus, who is sitting tied up, handcuffed
in the center of this room. Who cares? Neo manages to make all
the agents flee. I love that moment in any action movie when you have
to just go, oh, who cares? Who cares? It's not important.
Morpheus manages to come out of his drug stupor just enough to break his
handcuffs, right like he can believe in himself that he can break the handcuffs.
He snaps the handcuffs, he sprints towards the helicopter. Just as he's
about to leap, a bullet from one of the agents catches his leg and
he stumbles, and Neo realizes that he's not going to make the jump,
so he dies out of the helicopter, which he's attached himself to with a
cable, and catches Morpheus in mid air. Trinity tries to fly away as
these two are swinging in between these buildings. Like on the big screen.
This must have been fucking awesome. The agents managed to pierce the helicopter's fuel
tank with a hail of bullets. Neo and Morpheus drop onto a nearby roof,
and Trinity, on the other end of Neo's cable, bails from the
copter just in times. It crashes into a nearby building, and in slow
motion we see the impact kind of bow all the windows out, and then
the glass shatters forward and it cuts to this shot of Carrie Anne Moss swinging
away from this like circular explosion of glass and slow motion. It's so cool.
It's so cool. I wonder if they ever did a three D print
of this movie. Oh, they must have, right, because that would
have been fucking cool to see this movie in three D. They reunite and
Neo tries to confess to them what the oracle told him, but Morpheus interrupts
him and he says the oracle told him what he needed to know, and
he tells he says this line, which I thought was so good. He
says, there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path, which,
when you put that the knowledge that these writer directors were trans women in
the closet at this moment in their lives or anyone in the closet, like
when you know that you're gay, your trans or anything that you have to
come out about. You know it for a long time before you walk it.
And like that's a very interesting concept. Oh that hit, I thought.
Yeah. So the trio sprint for an exit in an abandoned subway,
right they know there's a phone there that they can use to exit back right
into the real world. Morpheus gets the phone exits first. Trinity and Neo
are now left on the platform. There is an unhoused person looking at them,
and the agents catch on to the fact that aha, there's someone in
that in that room with them, and suddenly that unhoused person becomes Agent Smith.
They morph into Agent Smith, Trinity displaying perhaps the worst timing in cinema
history, like don't give the woman the dumb part. Come on, yeah,
come on, and you also like she doesn't need to say anything here.
I guess you may want to see it again what's coming, But like
we already, you have seated it already. This doesn't need to happen.
I can't tell you enough how the phone is ringing ringing and ringing and ringing,
and in the amount of time It takes the Trinity to to try to
say what she wants to say to Neo. I keep screaming at the screen.
Wait till you're both the ship and tell him there. Why are you
using this situation to confess something? Right? So, she's like, Neo,
I have to tell you something that the oracle told me. Everything the
oracle told me has come true, everything but this, And Neo asks but
what, and Trinity's like, I can't. I can't respond. I'm going
to pick up this extraction line right now. Just as Agent Smith finally appears
and fires at me, I hope you don't mind that I'm leaving you behind.
Sorry. Bye. She manages to escape, right but the phone is
destroyed, cutting off Neo's exits, and now Neo is stuck by himself with
an agent one on one. Agent Smith calls him mister Anderson, and Trinity
says, run, Neo, run. Did you immediately think run Lola?
Run? Aha, Run Forest Run, Run Forest Run. It's an even
better one. To be clear, Trinity and Murphius are on the ship and
they're just watching lines of code. Yeah, that's what's telling them what's happening.
So we see two actors staring at lines of code on the screen going
Run, Run, and then Morpheus goes he's beginning to believe yeah, and
I'm like, this is this is silly. I love it, but it's
silly. Yeah. Neo decides to stand his ground and fight. He's not
going to run. So Neo and Smith face off in the subway tunnel.
Neo gets the worst of it, but he is holding his own. They
are exchanging blows. They wind up on the subway tracks and Smith keeps referring
to Neo as mister Randerson. The train starts to bear down on them,
and Neo manages to overpower Smith's Chokeold earlier, we had seen Morpheus unable to
stop the agent's strength, Like the Agent is physically stronger than Morpheus in the
matrix, but now Neo is stronger than the agent. It's a difference,
right. He does a backflip up onto the platform and he declares, my
name is Neo. Smith gets my name is Neo Smith gets hit by the
train boom. Unfortunately, Smith is able to shrug off the train strike and
reappears from the car when the door's open, and Neo finally takes off.
He's like Okay, this guy's outclassing me. Yeah. Meanwhile, back on
the ship, Squinties appear sent by the agents and they attack the Nebech and
Nezzer. The crew cannot set off the EMP. Remember that EMP. We
told you to remember magnetic pulse to disable the attackers while Neo's in the matrix
or else he'll die because he'll be cut off from his brain. He'll be
like unplugging him essentially. Neo flees through the streets. He steals a cell
phone he calls Tank directs him back to the hotel where we first met Trinity.
He sprints up the stairs all the way to the room where Trinity was.
The phone is audibly ringing inside. He throws open the door and Agent
Smith is there. Smith shoots Neo in the chest. Neo's in shock.
Smith shoots him again. Neo stumbles back. Smith empties his gun into Neo
point blank, and Neo collapses on the floor dead. The Oracle was right.
End of movie and of movie. Wow, that was unexpected JK.
On the ship, Trinity finishes her confession. She goes to like Neo's body,
that the physical body on the ship, and she's like the Oracle told
me, I would fall in love with the man who would be the one.
So you can't be dead because I love you and I believe that you
are the one. Okay, Tinnity kisses Neo. They met a day ago.
Really, I mean, I know she's been following him in the matrix
and like looking at his code and she thinks he's cute and all. I
get it. But she met him a day ago. What if he opened
his eyes and he was like, Trinity, I'm gay. I just don't
see you that way. No, not even gay, not even gay.
He's just like Trinity, I'm really sorry, but I just see us more
as friends. Have you I don't know. Have you seen Tank? Because
I want to and I think you should want to. Frank we cut the
Tank in the background, just crying one loan tear. He's like, what,
Trinity, I'll be with you Tank, because if he was gay,
that would make that would make it better. But it's almost worse if he's
totally stranging. No, No, just to be clear, I am absolutely
into women, just not you specifically you. I don't I don't care.
I just it's like a sister thing with you, you know. Do you
get that? Do you feel that. She just She's like, I'm kidding.
I just said that. I just said that. I thought it would
make you feel better. I don't even think you're the one anyway, I
gotta go. She just she like breaks into a breaks into a sweat,
and like walks out back. Drew Barrymore is out the out there does whatever
Drew Barrymore thinks the moon walking is out of the room, does the weird
fucking dance Drew Berrymore does. She knocks over a table on the way out.
She's like, never mind, I got it, trips over's corpse.
Oh no, do that? So Neo in the in the Matrix, still
in the Matrix, stands up as the agents turn around and shock the agents
fire their guns at him. So okay, so let me go back.
I know I made a lot of fun in that scene. But basically,
Trinity whispers she loves Neo into his his ear. In the real world,
he physically can't hear her, and yet somehow, Neo in the Matrix feels
the love of a good woman and decides this is worth fighting for and stands
up against all the bullets he's just been riddled with. Erica, this is
a Jesus Christ story. You have to get on board. At a certain
point, he has to die, he has to get resurrected, just like
Aslan and Narnia. He gonna die and he gonna be fine. You have
to buy it. This makes her Mary Magdalen fine, whatever. This is
the stuff that drives me. And seeing at least the at least the man
wasn't kissing the woman to bring her back to life. That's true. Hey
there's something she's she's prints and he's snow white. Great cool. So okay.
So Neo, like I said, decides not to die. Who wakes
up, turns around. The agents start firing their guns at him, but
he suddenly can easily stop their bullets by whispering no. We see Neo from
Neo's perspective that he sees the matrix only as code. It's like that scene
in Terminator when the Terminator looks at people and just sees code everywhere. It
is a very famous scene. So, like they're shooting and shooting, all
the bullets get really slow as they approach Keanu reeves and stop in front of
him like he with his brain is just stopping them. And then he just
taps one and it falls, and then all the other bullets fall, Like
yeah, literally, he doesn't even have to dodge bullets anymore. He can
stop them with his mind. Every X Man fan says, Jean Gray did
it first, but that's okay, we'll let it go. Moving on,
Paul, We're gonna let it go. So Neo dives into Agent Smith's body.
Uh, no, consent given, Hot, it's a violation, but
it's fierce, so I'm gonna let it go. Slay Queen Lay. The
body immediately distorts and cracks. A blinding glow spreads outwards, and Smith explodes
like Neo dives into him and breaks him from the inside. I mean,
you talk about deep breathing, but this is something else that. As I
said it out loud, I was like, oh, hello, enter me
and destroy me, my king. As long as everyone's on birth control,
we're fine. We're fine, We're fine. So Neo flexes and the matrix
distorts around him. The other agents are like rot row, and they fucking
flee. They run away from him. Neo hears Trinity screaming at him that
he needs to get back to the ship. Somehow he can hear her in
the real world. He exits the matrix, and the crew discharges the electromagnetic
pulse to shake off the attackers that are attacking their ship. Neo and Trinity
kiss, and we cut back to a blank computer screen. A phone rings.
We hear Neo and voiceover say, oh, should you do this?
Should you do this part? As Keanu? Oh? Sure, yeah,
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that
you're afraid. You're afraid of us, you are afraid of change. I
don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is
going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.
I'm going to hang up the phone, and then I'm gonna show these
people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a
world without you, a world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries
or shopping or people or dogs. Wait, I'm off, I'm off scratched.
I'm ascribing you went. You went too a fugue state. You went
to a Keano fugue. Yep, my bad, My bad. Hold on
via condios. Okay, I'm back. A world where anything is possible.
Where we go from there is a choice. I leave to you via cone
matrix. He doesn't say that last part, but I really wish he had,
but he thinks it if if he had said that last part, ten
out of ten for this out of ten, Yeah, Neo hangs up the
payphone. Rage against the machines. Wake up comes on as Neo takes flight
into the air like Superman. Yeah. Another Jesus metaphor yep, end of
the matrix. If I were Jesus, I'd feel super pissed that a bunch
of people are stealing my origin story. Get your own. Things would be
like, listen, bitch, this is my ip. It's my whole thing.
Do not speak The Catholic Church trying to patent the Jesus metaphor for buddy
existence to existence because those assholes will do it my church, Sus Marvel,
Sue C. S Lewis, everyone, DC Comics, everyone, hah,
All right, stick around. We will be right back and we will give
you our random observations and final rankings. After just a couple of messages and
we're back Paul to all of our random observations. As k Paul's face when
he says jiu jitsu really must be seen. It's so good, Paul,
What random observations do you have about this film? Uh? Okay, so
they're like, we kind of glossed over a lot of the body horror stuff
and the grocer stuff with You know what's so funny is I didn't even notice
any body horror in this movie. You're the one as soon as I was
like, oh, I guess the scorpion thing, genuinely can't think of any
of the others. All of the plugs unplugging from the ports in his body
and flashing around. Oh yeah, I guess. Yeah, you're right,
You're right. Totally goes over my head. I don't even see it.
That video did its job. You're like, nothing, nothing can upset me
anymore. Absolutely nothing will. Well, we'll supplant the image of a human
placenta falling out of a human woman in real time when I was thirteen.
So there's this line when Morpheus is explaining, like what's going on basically,
and they say this line over like the shot a baby. I'm sure it's
a c GI baby, And the baby is like freshly born, and it
has like a tube down its throat and all of these tubes in it,
and Morpheus says, they liquefy the dead to feed them intravenously to the living.
This is disgusting on a level. The movie just simply didn't need this.
This is gratuitously disgusting. Although maybe you know, in a way,
if you want to think of it in like a in like a philosophical way,
it's a it's a form of rebirth. Like, no one really truly
dies if they are then used to feed and create another life. Sure,
very very The Lion King your favorite movie, Yeah, he becomes the grass,
and the antelopes eat the grass, and then we eat the antelopes,
and then when we die, our bodies become the grass. It's a it's
the circle of life. Pulse soilent, Green is people Okay anyway, Uh,
it's a cheeseball line, but I love it. The first time Neo
meets Trinity, he remember she was a famous hacker in the real in the
Matrix, I suppose, and he meets her and he goes, you're I
thought you were a guy, as she goes most guys do. Yeah,
great line, and it reminded me of hackers. Once again, when he
meets Angelina Jolie and he's like, I forget what her handle was and he's
like, that's so and so holy shit. Yeah. In the car in
the beginning, Switch calls Keanu Reeves copper top, and I was like,
why is she calling him copper top? Because I'd forgotten the whole idea of
this of this movie. At first, he very clearly has dark hair,
and then I realized, Oh, it's she's calling him a battery. Oh,
and I was like, that's actually very very clever. And I just
really I thought that was a great line. Wow, that is it.
I did not clock that and all I actually noticed that in that line too,
and I thought it was a reference to a snake. Yeah, And
I was like, I don't get why she's calling him a snake, and
I kind of just let it go and moved on, moved on. There's
one like anachronism in the movie that really drives me insane. I can't remember
who says it. I want to say it's Cipher because it feels like the
most appropriate come from him. Neo does something. He gets he gets into
this, you know, the training program. He's really good at it.
And someone says, hey, Mikey, I think he likes it. Yeah,
that is a commercial from the early eighties that they are referencing in this
film. Oh, that is a good point. That is from nineteen ninety
nine, which even in nineteen ninety nine would have seemed really weird if someone
were to say that line. But it's actually twenty one ninety nine, just
weird. All Mikey likes it, lasted. That is a piece of pop
culture ephemera that has made It's made the journey. It has been in countless
movies, countless. Yeah, I think it like when I like something I
haven't tried to be like, Oh, Mikey likes it like, that's immediate
thought. Ah, something I absolutely love in fight choreography. And I want
to be very clear to all the fight choreographers out there listening. I do
not mean this in any way as a negative. What I'm about to say
careful because I am in the fight choreographer union, and if whatever you say
gets me kicked out of that union, I'm gonna be very upsetting, be
furious. I don't worry. I want to be very clear. This is
a compliment. But when bullets are flying in the dozens and the person the
hero chooses to do like a cartwheel round off through the bullets, as if
that somehow makes them smaller and harder to hit when they're just spraying dozens of
bullets the general area of this person, and they have Kiana do it in
slow motion in the duster. Yes, he's extra. It's like, okay,
sure, Jan never change. More cartwheels, More gymnastics from heroes,
Please gymnastics in the face of bullets. Simone Biles cannot be struck by bullets.
I don't know if you know that, it's impossible. It's impossible.
She turns, she turns a pam Chenko and suddenly she's immune to bullets.
I just have one more. It's just one of the funniest I don't know
if it's an ad lib. I don't know if it's in the script.
It is an extra who says it. So at one point, Neo steals
some guy's phone to talk, like on the cell phone right to like to
talk to Tank or Trinity or something. And the guy who's on the phone
that he steals is in the middle of a conversation, a man in a
business suit, and he just goes yep, flats or pumps, and then
Neo takes his phone and he goes, hey, my phone and I'm like,
can we get back to the flats or pumps? Guy? Was that
fact? Same thought? What was what was that conversation about? Was he
ordering shoes? Was he asking his partner to wear flats? And or?
But like, like, what's the shoe where you're gonna wear to this event
tonight? Because I need you to look hot? Are you wearing flats or
pumps? I want desperately for that to have been an ad lib. Yeah,
sure, flats or pumps works. Let's move on. Aha, we
don't have time to refilm this. Yeah, there's I just have one more
too. It's during the fight in the subway between between Agent Smith and Neo.
At one point Neo punches and it's in profile, right, so you
have you have Hugo Weaving's profile. He catches Keanu Reeves's wrist and Keanu Reeves's
fingers just do this boop and they poke out. He goes from like rock
to paper, incisors and Agent Smith you're be weaving us to go. But
yeah, like he got finger jabbed in the throat. It is so funny
and excellent. No notes again, fight choreographers, none of these are changed
anything. Keep all of it Erica. How should we rank? How should
we rank the matrix? One to ten barrels of ky jelly, So many
were used, so many. One to ten. Carrie Anne Moss's ass just
singing, just singing in the breeze. Carrie Anne Moss's ass is taking over
for a Dell in her Las Vegas residency. She is, yeah, yeah,
that is the kind of voice, the liquid tones. Carrie Anne Moss's
ass will be singing at the next presidential inauguration. Yeah. Carry Anne Moss's
ass was just booked as the next Super Bowl halftime show. It will be
performing a medley of the greatest hits of all decades. Yep, yep,
yeah carry Carrie and Carrie An Moss's ass is going on tour with Taylor Swift
in Europe as we see Yeah, and Taylor Swift is opening for the ass.
Yekay, that's the twist. Yes. One to ten hot computer hackers,
uncomfortably hot computer hackers, computer hackers who also are underwear models in their
spare time, because that's what all computer hackers look like. How about one
to ten I know kung fu, one to ten jiu jitsu, I know
jiu jitsu. Yes, I'm gonna learn ju jitsu jitsu. We should do
this fun because we're both delighted by it. Yeah. Uh, do you
want to go first? Or shall I go first this one? Why don't
you go first on this one? Oh? Okay? Overall, I think
the movie ages pretty well. Does not pass the Bechdel test sadly because the
Oracle never speaks. Really, the Oracle never speaks to Trinity, and Trinity
and Switch probably exchange lines, but like in a group, they never have
like a solo scene together. So I don't know if you're gonna let that
go. Damn, I did not catch it. This is not past the
Bechdel test. O Mother's Month, for goodness sake, for God's sake.
Now Eric is giving it a zero. I never said anything but good,
good, great character for Trinity. I think the Oracle only has one scene,
and I think that I think that's a good character. Like I think
Gloria Foster did a great job with it. Switches is less fleshed out as
all, like Red Shirts tend to be. I think the crew could have
been more have a lot more gender diversity in it. You don't need like
seven men and two women, like come on, That's it's pretty obvious.
Keep Tank though, Let's get real, Yeah, keep Tank, Come on
now, why couldn't you've had a sister? Sorry Dozer again, you were
also quite hot. As far as racial diversity goes, pretty good. Like
Laurence Fishburne is a black man. Famously, apparently Will Smith was actually approached
to play Neo first. It would have been extremely diverse if Will Smith had
taken the role. I could see him making it work. I mean,
I love Keanu so much, though I can't yeah, I can't imagine anyone,
but ke Keanu was perfect. And Keanu is of Chinese Hawaiian descent too,
so you know he's not a solely Caucasian man. As far as the
queer stuff goes, there's actually kind of like nothing other than all of the
subtext. But all of the subtext is pretty there. And we obviously know
who directed this now, And I think I think the trans identity really comes
through in the whole movie, just the idea of trying to break free of
the bounds that you were born into and trying to see like what is real
and what actually isn't real? Yeah, and and and like finding yourself in
that is I am not trans, but from from my discussions with trans people
that I think that that would resonate a great deal for them. Yeah.
Well, and also the Wakowskis were born in the sixties. Yeah, they're
in their fifties now. Like being trans when you're you know, in the
seventies eighties, and like that's a different experience, I think than even than
even now being trans. Like, yeah, to truly think about a world
in which like you're able to be full of yourself must have seemed incredibly revolutionary.
And I know we talked about this last thing a little bit off,
Mike. The only other thing that kind of doesn't age super well is how
much gun violence there is in the movie. Yeah, and we can say
that by and also say there's pretty much no like like blood in the movie.
Really like Laurence Fishburne's getting beaten and has some cuts on his face and
like, but like when when they shoot the agent and when Trinity shoots the
agent, it's not like there's blood spray or anything like that. So it's
it's very video game cartoonish kind of violence. But truly in the siege on
the skyscraper up until they rescue Morpheus. The number of bullets that are fired
in this movie is ludicrous, and and if anyone is sensitive to that,
I think would be triggering. I think it's it's fair to say. But
other than that, I think it actually ages quite well overall, and I
think it's really interesting, and I think it's better. It's better than I
remembered it being because it makes more sense. It all makes sense to me
now. I now quite confident I can explain the matrix to people. Except
for that one thing about Agent Smith hating it that one doesn't and whatever the
neo that is beyond us. I'm gonna give it. I'm gonna give it
an eight good. I'm going to give it an eight out of ten.
I know, Kung Food, how about you. I'm gonna be a little
harder on the gun violence shocking than you were. I think I genuinely didn't
notice the fact that it doesn't pass the Bechdel test until after until you said
it, and I'm like, fuck, that really sucks. But there are
some very good female characters in the film, and in terms of diversity,
it's one of the best movies we've ever covered. Like, yeah, absolutely
looks like what the world looks like except that everyone's a super hot computer programmer.
But the gun violence is I actually, this is what it's gonna sound
weird to you. I would have preferred if there had been blood splatter and
there had been viscera because the gun violence, that, this kind of gun
violence kind of gets under my skin because it is so it kind of disengages
guns actual violence and makes it seem like the world is a video game.
Look, movies are not responsible for society, of course, whether or not
how how children or even adults choose to interpret the images they see is not
on the filmmaker at all. But it does still kind of like it makes
me feel really disengaged to the story because all I can think about is that.
And also I question, I question whether or not that's a that's a
good for society when when gun violence is so taken out of the realm of
reality and is turned into like a ballet essentially, get that. And most
times it doesn't bother me. And we've discussed this many times. I love
violence. I actually enjoy violence in movies. I think it's a there's a
there's a cathartic experience with violence that you get it elevates things, it makes
things operatic, but I think there still has to be like some level of
consequence Otherwise eight it gets boring because there's no stakes to the film. Which
I'm not saying that's what happens in this one, but it can get boring.
And b it does that thing where it sort of like desensitizes you so
much to gun violence that may not be a net positive on society. Yeah,
it's a hard one to judge. Man, I love this movie.
I've really enjoyed watching it. You gave it an eight, I did.
I'm going to give it a seven, Okay, I'm gonna give a seven
out of ten. All I know Kung Fus. It is in a way
us who has aged poorly and not the film. Sure, and that's it's
not the film's fault, but I do want to acknowledge that this was a
moment in his Like this, this movie has an outsized responsibility to society that
it does not deserve but it is. But it does have because it is
the matrix. It is one of those movies that changed cinema. I'm not
offering a palate cleanser because A I think everyone's seen this movie already, We've
been hard pressed to find a listener who's never seen this movie. My mom
has not seen it, and I suspect she will continue to not see it
after this. Oh fair enough. My mother is not a listener, but
I bet she hasn't seen this all right, So if you are listening,
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It doesn't get old. We would like to thank Sidney, Sonny in a
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Speaking of the Patreon, some tears on it come with thanks from a podcast
character. Today we are hearing from the Mistress of murder, the Duchess of
deception, Missus White from clue Well Well, Well, here we are again
more of your fun little games. I got your note and all the accusations
therein, so I'm here once again to prove my innocence. I'm so sorry,
Missus White. I think there may be some confusion. We weren't accusing
you of anything. Oh, of course, not you writing that. You're
positively gagging to have me thank Parker for being a patron. Had absolutely nothing
to do with my ninth husband, park Parker, expiring in a tragic ballgag
incident. Your ninth husband's name was park Parker. Of course, park Parker
was the sole heir to the Scotch Bright Sponge fortune. Oh well, I'm
so sorry. I had no idea he died that way. Well, I
find that hard to believe, since all you would need to do is a
simple search for local millionaire found dead with lifelike dildo in his mouth. I've
heard your podcast. You expect me to believe you don't have a Google alert
for life like dildo. Missus White, I think I'm confused. Your husband
had a life like dildo in his mouth. But first you said it was
a ballgag incident. Correct on all counts. In any case, I'm here
and I shall discharge my responsibility to be certain you can slay no more mud
in my good name. Thank you Parker for being a patron of that aged
well. Always remember another day, another husband, and she's gone in the
mist. She almost she just disappears, she fades away. What a gorgeous
black dress, though she really, she really does have style for a murderous
for someone who should be on the FBI's most Wanted list. Enough husbands wind
up dead, you think it should just be noticed? Right? You know
what some husbands are like? Cleanex soft, strong and disposable. All right,
Erica, any final thoughts on the matrix? I think we both know
what I'm gonna say, Paul, is it going to be jiu jitsu.
I'm gonna learn jujitsu. No. I was going to talk more about watching
that woman give birth, but you know what, if it feels wrong,
now never mind, never mind. In the club, Trinity approaches Neil Neil,
I keep Neil. Neil makes it way less cool. Most cool name
that it might be Neil. I had a crushing a guy named Neil once.
I have a very good friend named Neil. He's a lovely person.
Yeah, but still, Neil. Neil is a pretty lame name. Sorry,
Neils. Yeah, Neil's everywhere. We love you, but sorry,
man, it's enough hill climb, It's that meal