Tonight:

It’s just fucking perfect guys what do you want from me.

They blow our fucking minds with action in the first 6 minutes but most importantly creates the question: HOW. The next Kung fu doesn’t happen until 49 minutes. The intermittent 43 minutes are devoted to answering that how.

This time around this is my favorite scene of the movie.

It really is incredible how every shot in this movie is doing something. Nothing is coverage. Nothing is just information. Nothing is wasted. I would love to know how many setups they averaged a day.

Honestly I might write a god damn book about The Matrix before I’m dead.

Hugo Weaving’s choice on how to perform Smith. In a conversation this week someone brought up that we’re all so used to it we kind of take for granted how profoundly crazy-yet-of-course-it-has-to-be-that it is. Watching this time, it’s so true. What a fucking choice.

Switch calls him “coppertop” because he’s just a battery until he’s free. That’s never explicitly explained. The Wachowskis just dropping bricks of gold because they know how rich the material is.

Here’s a thought I’ve never had in all of my rewatching but am having extremely strongly right now:

I want this chair.

It’s called a Chesterfield Wingback Armchair and I’m fucking buying one.

Useless, useless fact. In MOTHER/ANDROID, a character says “you did all this?” because I wanted a line from the Matrix in my movie.

We never see anyone else go through the red pill/rebirth process in the franchise.

“Why do my eyes hurt?” “You’ve never used them before.”

It’s wonderful dialogue because we are getting the answers we’ve been craving, but the specific context is still a mystery. It’s why the incredible exposition that is about to happen works so well.

“This will feel a little weird” is also great dialogue because for all the mumbo-jumbo, sometimes you don’t need to dress it up.

I’ve been told this scene was written by the wachowskis out of frustration towards executives asking questions about the world. It’s a masterful display of exposition and it works because we’re lock-step with Neo in terms of what we understand.

There’s just a hint of Col. Kurtz here. Old drafts of the script had Morpheus much more framed as a fanatic (something that came back with a vengeance in the sequels.)

I just paused the movie to watch a shot of Tank’s fingers uploading Neo into jiujitsu training. They shoot typing the same way they shoot fight scenes. Its so easy to overlook this shit and it’s so hard to do.

I very much want to know why Tank, a character born outside of the matrix, references 1972 Life cereal commercials.

Absolutely everything about this scene is perfect on a technical, story, and emotional level. It’s the ultimate catharsis. You’ve listened to philosophy for 40 minutes. This is your reward.

I need to count setups on this one.

The colors on this transfer are much better than any other I’ve seen. Thank you @hbomax.

“I want to be someone important... like an actor” tells you everything you need to know about Cypher.

This is it. This is the best piece of writing in the entire movie.

“What’s really going to bake your noodle later on is.... would you still have broken it is I hadn’t said anything.”

“But... you already know what I’m going to tell you.”

Astounding. Astounding.

It’s still amazing how much fighting the cast did themselves. This bathroom fight with Morpheus and Smith is pretty brutal and close quarters and there’s just no hiding it. That’s them.

@joshfagen

Hurts. Hurts hurts hurts.

I’ve always thought the SWAT guy in the lobby scene who yells “Freeze” looks like Clint Howard.

By the third act, Smiths relationship to Agent Johnson and Agent Brown has taken on a kind of Mean Girls vibe, I’ve felt this my entire life but am only able to articulate it after seeing the movie 100+ times.

If you’ve made it this far, haven’t been following me for very long and are now asking “what’s this guys deal” I’ll leave you with this article I wrote on why I religiously watch this film. https://www.talkhouse.com/the-matrix-has-you/

This viewing unlocked some new stuff for me I can’t talk about

The final frame of this masterpiece never ceases to charm me.