Movie Time! The Matrix Series: The Matrix Reloaded

This is going to be quite short, because I don’t have strong feelings about this film one way or another. It just simply...was.

First of all, nitpicks. It would have been humorous to have Morpheus and Gina Torres in a scene together, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be. No one mentions how Tank died, which annoyed me throughout this movie and the third, too. They talked about him a lot, why couldn’t they have mentioned his death?

I thought the twist in this movie was the overall twist for the entire series, so I was surprised when the Architect told Neo about the other ‘One’s’ that came before him. I also liked the talk about how the other matrix’s failed. The Twins were cool, and so was the Keymaker. I didn’t much like the Merovingian, and I admit that I kind of zoned out when he was on the screen, so I’m still not 100% on what his actual purpose was.

One major thing that did annoy me during this film was Kid and his love for Neo. Even after Neo and everyone else tells him that he saved himself, Kid doesn’t believe them, and ends up following them around like a lost puppy. I think it’s supposed to be adorable, but Neo is clearly not worth his adoration. I thought it would have been cool if it turned out that Kid was really The One, because unlike Neo, he woke himself up from the matrix. No one took the time to actually explain to Kid how or why he woke up. Neo just keeps saying that he saved himself; he doesn’t go into detail or anything. And since Neo is a shy guy Kid mistakes this as Neo being humble, so he goes on thinking that Neo is the bee’s knees.

The orgy/sex scene wasn’t as good as it could have been, and it went on a lot longer than it needed to. The same with the fight with Neo against all of the programs that Merovingian sent; it just went on too long.

I did like the overall theme of fate v choice; everyone made a choice that corresponded with fate. For some people, this is where it gets trippy, but I find that stuff easy to grasp, if hard to put into words. Like, fate is the choice that we all will make eventually. I wonder if Trinity would have made another choice if Neo told her he dreamt of her death. Probably not, but it would have made her choice to go into the matrix more self sacrificing.

It was good to see Morpheus actually doing something rather than just standing around for a change, and it was cool to see Neo save Trinity. I wish they had shown us a bit more of that relationship being built though. It felt quite forced, like neither of them were really into it, they were just going through the motions.

On a little side note: I love how Smith says “Mister Anderson”. It’s not so much, Mister Anderson, but Miss Teranderson. It’s an odd thing, but my insides get a little tingly when he says that.

So what does everyone else think? Am I being too harsh, or are my criticisms worthy? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Next up: The Matrix: Revolutions

Kathy

Movie Time! The Matrix Series: The Matrix

So, with a lot of time and no money on our hands, my roommates and I decided that the best way to pass the time was to watch movies. With so many to choose from, both from DVD collections and the video store across the street, this turned out to be a problem. We found that time passed more slowly when we’d stand in front of the DVDs and repeat “I don’t know what I feel like watching” over and over again. Although I’m sure once we spent half an hour doing this...

Anyway, a solution was found in the form of movie series. Many movies have spawned sequels and the like, so it wasn’t hard finding one. The best part was that the next two or three movies to watch was already figured out! This actually started way back in December last year, because we were looking for Christmas movies to watch. So naturally, we picked the Die Hard movies. It wasn’t until two or so weeks ago that we decided to pick it up again, this time with the Alien movies. I’d tried to watch the first one a while ago, but it was just too boring. And it’s true; it takes 45 minutes for something interesting to happen. Forty-five minutes is just slightly longer than an episode of TV, so you can forgive me for thinking that something should happen within this time frame. But I prevailed this second time, and I quiet enjoyed it. After all of the Alien movies, we moved, naturally, to the Predator franchise, then AvP 1 and 2, then Predators.

I won’t go into detail about them here, mostly because I’ve seen a new series since, and I would have forgotten most of the cool bits. But I do know that I feel sorry for the Aliens, being harangued and tortured by the Predators. All the Predators want is something to play with, like a squeaky toy one would give to a dog. Instead of creating squeaky toys, or creating AI to fight against/train with, they created space ships to capture less advanced but still sentient beings and forced to breed over and over again so they could kill the young. Not cool.

But onto The Matrix:

I’ve seen The Matrix before a heap of times. I really like this movie, and one of the reasons I hadn’t previously watched the sequels is because it is nicely self contained. Sure, the others touch on valid points within the life of the characters, but they weren’t really needed to make the first one any better, or to fill any gaping plot holes. At the end Neo has accepted his powers, and is going to help get people out of the matrix. This is nice, and kind of hopeful. The build up to the drama is really good, and the exposition is given in such a way that you’re not bored to tears or left with unanswered questions that ruin the plot. The effects are awesome, and it’s easy to get lost in the nostalgia of the peace. It was fun thinking back to a time when “I know kung-fu” wasn’t a renowned saying, or when there was only one ‘Neo’ online. I can’t help but giggle when thinking about the problem Morpheus would have encountered when looking for Neo nowadays. There’s got to be a billion Matrix fans who’ve taken the name as their own.

One thing I’ll always remember about the movie is when Mouse talks about the machines ability to synthesise the taste of food. How do they know what beef or eggs are chicken tastes like? It’s fascinating to think about, because we only know what beef tastes life because someone said “this is beef” when we were eating it. If we grew up being told that beef was chicken, then we would think that chicken tastes like beef. Make sense? Basically, what I’m trying to say is, that we give names to things because someone else gave them that name, first. Beef is beef because it’s beef.

One major downside to watching The Matrix was the fact that we had to borrow it from the video store. Half way through here were countless glitches and we had to start the disc from the beginning I don’t know how many times. I’ve seen it before, and so has Zeppy, but our other roommate hadn’t. There wasn’t much that was missed out due to the skips and glitches, but it must have been really annoying to work out what was happened, especially when it glitched through most of the end. But while that may have ruined the movie watching experience, it didn’t ruin the movie. 

Let me know your thoughts about The Matrix. Do you think we're all living in a machine? Post your comments below! 

Coming up next: The Animatrix.

Kathy

Everything I Learnt About Relationships I Learnt From TV

Part One, Work

Work relationships are no laughing matter, unless you’re living in a sitcom. If you’re lucky then you’ll have a job that you can tolerate coming too every weekday and get a reasonable pay out of it. If you’re super lucky, you’ll like the job and get the pay. If you’re unlucky, then you’ll either hate the job and get the big bucks, or love the job and get paid diddly squat. Some jobs naturally fall into the latter category, like being a lawyer for the down trodden or a doctor at a hospital.

But the one thing that is clear about all jobs is to tell truth. This can be a sticky situation, if you’re work resembles that of most sitcoms. If you don’t like the boss’s wife but keep being invited around to their place, then you will be in the bad books if you call her a bitch to the boss’s face, but coming up with an extravagant lie about why you can’t be there can blow up in your face, too. I’ve seen it in some shows where the characters make up a fatal illness so they can get out of dinner. This can backfire, ‘cause everyone will get worried and nosey.

If you want to get out of a dinner, use your family as an excuse. Wife, husband, same sex partner, children, mother, father, use any of them! After all, that’s what family is for. Tell your boss that you’re spending the night taking your wife out to a romantic dinner, or treating your partner to a show that they like. If you want, you can even make it happen.

Don’t put too many details into the lie, and don’t lie more to cover your tracks. If the boss suggests a double date, wink and say it’s a “private affair”. If he or she thinks you can both take your kids out, complain that the younglings don’t understand why you have to work so much, and they’ll think that it’s really a business thing rather than a parent-child thing.

If you’re going for a job interview or something goes wrong, be honest. But if you need to lie, use the KISS method: Keep It Simple Silly.

Kathy

Alien encounters

When people think about alien encounters, they think of being attacked during the night by a short, green creature with large eyes. They think of anal probes, mutilated cows, and memory erasure. These are the alien encounters of movies, and these generally involve a huge explosion at the end, with the humans the victors.

Zeppy himself described an alien encounter in this blog, along with a pretty scary image of a face in his parking garage. I’ve gotta admit, when I drive in late at night, that thing creeps the bajeesus outta me. Why is it here, what does it want, why does the face keep changing. Yes, okay, we know that’s it a water mark, but it’s a pretty scary water mark.

I’m not sure whether I believe in aliens or not. To rule them out seems pretty closed minded, and to say that they couldn’t exist at all is kind of offensive to your deity (if you believe in Christ, God, Allah, or Charles Darwin). But then again, we (humans) have found so many planets already, none of which could maintain sentient life in any capacity that we know. 500+ planets and nothing; the odds are not good.

So, yes, I’m not a staunch believer in either side, but something recently has been trying to make me change my mind. Once is a happening, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern, and these images are just three of the many, many times that strange triangular marks have appeared on my body. I’m not gonna tell you where they are, but here’s proof that they exist. 

 

I don’t know where they come from, or why they are always in a triangle shape, but there’s no denying that they’re there.

Does anybody else have any alien encounter stories that they’d like to share, thoughts on what the patterns might be, or tips as to how I can stop them? It could have happened to you or a “friend of a friend”, just put it in the comments.

Kathy 

Link: Pope's astronomer insists alien life 'would be part of God's creation'

Everything I Learnt About Men I Learnt From TV

Part Two, Sex Dreams

SEX!

It’s what men think about every five seconds. Click on Obama’s interview on The View. Every five seconds clap your hands, bang a gong, or yell sex, coz that’s what he’ll be thinking about.

In all seriousness, I asked a man about this, and he said that yes, men do think about sex roughly every five seconds out of the day, but not every five seconds on the dot. If they’re doing something important or are really busy, the brain will focus on that, and the sex thoughts will come through later, mostly when they’re asleep.

This is what I’m writing about today; men’s sex dreams, and their partner’s reaction to them. It cannot be a secret to any woman over the age of fourteen that every guy over the age of fourteen has sex dreams. Of course, as the men get older and their hormones balance out, the number of wet dreams will decrease, but the dreams will still have some sex in them. So if your guy wakes you up with his moaning or with, ahm, morning wood then don’t act shocked. If you’re sleeping with the guy then you should know enough about him (or men in general) to not be traumatized.

TV seems to accept this, but they rock the boat by asking too many questions. In sitcoms in particular, the same problem occurs time and time again; the guy is thinking about other women because, in his dream, his wife is dead.

Wifey takes this the wrong way, of course (otherwise there’d be no ‘com’ in ‘sitcom’), and hilarity ensures. She thinks that, if hubby had a choice, he’d get rid of her and shack up with this other woman. Hubby denies, saying that his brain conjures up other women but he doesn’t wanna cheat, so he makes the wife dead. In some circumstances, wife thinks he may actually kill her.

Learning from these esteemed TV women, I only have one piece of advice. Chill out! He’s sleeping in your bed, telling you about these things, that’s what you should be focusing on.

Men think visually, so they’re more turned on by visual stimuli. Maybe try saying, ‘instead of dreaming I’m dead, add me in there with the both of you’. I’m sure nothing would make him happier... except if the three-way were in real life.

If you have anything to say about sex and men's issues, comment below. You can be anonymous to hide from your parents or partner if you want.

Kathy

Everything I Learnt About Crime I Learnt From TV

Part One, Hostages And Car Chases

Crime doesn’t pay.

But, if you’re gonna go ahead and break the law anyone, learn from the mistakes of the many TV and movie criminals; don’t take hostages.

No matter which way you look at it, as soon as it becomes a hostage negotiation, your time is up. There is no way to win this. Put the guns down and raise your hands above your head.

Cops will never negotiate a free pass with anyone! They won’t let you get away scot free, cash in hand. You might, might, be able to reduce your sentence, if you’re lucky, and if you wait around till the TV crew gets there.

But then again, TV journalism can get manipulated, and you’ll always end up being the bad guy if you kill a hostage. The best thing to do is to cut your losses, hope for a lenient judge, and try again later.

Car chases, too, are a really bad idea. Unless you’re driving close to a border to a place that won’t extradite you, there’s no way out.

How will you get away? Can’t outdrive them, they’ll be following you with cameras in helicopters. If you have a full tank of petrol that’s great, but you’ll have to refuel at some point, considering the car will last that long.

Not to get into a political debate or anything, but there’s some people who disagree with car chases. They believe that the police should let the criminals do whatever they want without any repercussions. I’m of the opinion that the police should be able to do whatever they can to catch criminals. Remember, it’s the police who have superior driving training (including offensive driving), not the criminal

If you have an opinion on car chases, or you know a great way to get out of a hostage situation, comment below (it's okay, you can do it anonyously)

Kathy

Car Stickers

When he first started blogging, blogger Zeppy made a post about those annoying ‘My Family’ stickers on the backs of cars (post found HERE). I agree with his statement, that those stickers are stupid, distracting, and rage inducing.

However, I think I can go a bit further with my annoyance.

See, I don’t get those ‘baby on board’ stickers, either. Why are you announcing to the world that there is a baby in the car? Do you think it will make people around you drive safer? I would think that reckless drivers are going too fast to see a baby on board sign anyway, let alone slow down because there’s a kid in the vicinity.

Actually, having a sign that says you have a child on board is more dangerous than not. If a thief wants to take your car, they will take one with a baby in it, as a hostage that won’t fight back. This has happened countless times around the world by accident, but there’s no doubt that some people will target these cars to make sure they’re not hurt.

The same goes for those ‘my family’ stickers. I understand family pride, and it is pretty good I guess to introduce children to the different concepts of families, but it’s not just children who want or use them! I’ve seen some on the back of cars where it’s just two or so adults and their pets, and that’s it! Why would an adult want to put a sticker on their car that isn’t a parking permit?

Why not put those stickers on your child’s school bag or lunch box, and leave the road for serious things, like funny bumper stickers??

If you have another opinion on my family stickers or car thieves, comment below.

Kathy