Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush. Charles W. Chuck Bryant Here Home Studio,
Speaker 1: Pot City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. Friday Interview addition, Colleague Edition
Speaker 1: Colleague colleague for a long time, for a long time, dude,
Speaker 1: like sucking twelve years? Yeah, twelve years. You can curse
Speaker 1: on the show, you know, I can? And that exciting.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I'll be able to do it.
Speaker 1: I know, right it had It took getting you sup
Speaker 1: for me, But now I like have the worst mouth
Speaker 1: on the show. I've heard a couple of episodes that
Speaker 1: are a little a little blue, but in the best way.
Speaker 1: So some of you might recognize this voice. I'm sitting
Speaker 1: down with Matt Frederick, one of my old pals, an
Speaker 1: old colleague. We've been working together for like twelve years,
Speaker 1: like I just said, And Matt, you know we all
Speaker 1: started out here. Uh. I was a writer and you
Speaker 1: were in the video department. Yes, along, you were kind
Speaker 1: of one of the first ones, you and Tyler. Is
Speaker 1: that right, that's correct? Yeah. I came on as an
Speaker 1: intern in two thousand and six. Wow, Yeah, thirteen years ago.
Speaker 1: You're an intern. I was an intern. It's adorable, straight
Speaker 1: out of college from what Georgia statee or just state
Speaker 1: Film and Video department, right, So you got a job.
Speaker 1: And that's when we were doing videos, and we were
Speaker 1: making videos for the web site into the Web and
Speaker 1: then we got bought by Discovery and did like YouTube
Speaker 1: stuff and everyone was like, no one wants to see
Speaker 1: anybody anymore, dude. Back in the day, we were trying
Speaker 1: to make podcasts that were videos to go on iTunes
Speaker 1: because there was a whole section on iTunes for video podcasts.
Speaker 1: That's how stuff I don't want you to know I
Speaker 1: got started. It was video. Yeah, it was iTunes video podcast.
Speaker 1: Well that was the next thing coming out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: As you're the one of the co host of stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. You are now a
Speaker 1: what's your official title? Executive producer. I'm lead executive producer
Speaker 1: or ep I. I don't know, it's not I'm not
Speaker 1: taking credit for anything. But I remember when all these
Speaker 1: big transitions were happening, I met with all you guys
Speaker 1: who always thought of as like, you know, little brothers,
Speaker 1: and said, listen, dudes, which thing changes in the air
Speaker 1: and my advice is get on the audio wagon. I
Speaker 1: remember this clearly because I think that's where it's headed.
Speaker 1: And unless you want to go work at another company
Speaker 1: and do video, then be an audio producer. And you
Speaker 1: all did. Yeah, like everybody. Well, that's the thing about
Speaker 1: this place, how stuff works. You know, no matter who
Speaker 1: owns it or you know what entity is at the
Speaker 1: top of that name, the people have largely unchanged. And
Speaker 1: I think it's because of the people that are here.
Speaker 1: I think you're right. Yeah, I mean, no one was
Speaker 1: like screw this, I'm out of here. Everyone adapted and changed.
Speaker 1: Casey you Tyler, Paul, I guess Paul was. I mean
Speaker 1: he's he's quote unquote new. Paul is newer. Annie has
Speaker 1: been here. I didn't realize how long any had been here,
Speaker 1: which he's been here, what like eight or ten years?
Speaker 1: I think nine or ten. Yeah, yeah, that's great man,
Speaker 1: All of you like what we're doing here. For everybody
Speaker 1: out there who even cares at all, the house Stuff
Speaker 1: Works team is pretty cool. I think people do care.
Speaker 1: I think they like to know that. You know, we've
Speaker 1: all been working together a long time and we're all
Speaker 1: like invested in each other's lives and like, you've grown
Speaker 1: up now. I saw you get married, well, not in person.
Speaker 1: I wasn't invited. That's okay. Hey, hey in South Florida,
Speaker 1: so I didn't invite you to my wedding here. Uh,
Speaker 1: but we've all seen each other get married and have children,
Speaker 1: and our kids are about the same age and just
Speaker 1: kind of this really neat thing to see everyone grow up.
Speaker 1: You're a grown man now. You were just a child. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thirty six as of just a couple of days. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: You guys are always going to be twenty two and
Speaker 1: twenty three years old to me, me too, And that
Speaker 1: means hopefully I'm always going to be thirty six. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: hopefully we can all keep our I forget the actual
Speaker 1: title of this or the term for this within the
Speaker 1: movie we're gonna talk about today, but our ourselves, our
Speaker 1: matrix selves representations. I was your age actually when I
Speaker 1: started roughly wow, because I'm forty eight, yeah, twelve thirteen
Speaker 1: years ago. Well sir, you do not look a day
Speaker 1: over thirty eight. Please. I didn't have gray hair when
Speaker 1: I started on my beard, Yeah, I remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now it's it's there's a lot of it there had
Speaker 1: ale my hair when I started. So you're a lead
Speaker 1: EP now and you work, you've still got out of
Speaker 1: your hair. What are you talking about? You get great hair? Uh?
Speaker 1: Are you playing drums these days? By the way, I
Speaker 1: am not, man, I want to so badly. So if
Speaker 1: you're listening and you're in the Atlanta area and you
Speaker 1: need a drummer, give me a shout. Do you still
Speaker 1: have a drum set? I do what it's set up.
Speaker 1: It is set up. It's in my parents basement. Oh well,
Speaker 1: so you have to cover there. Yeah, so you literally
Speaker 1: haven't touched drumsticks? And how long? And I every time
Speaker 1: I go, like we'd take my son to go see
Speaker 1: I go in the basement for a while. Like I
Speaker 1: just say, honey, everybody, just give me, give me thirty
Speaker 1: he'll be back. See. That makes me feel good. That's
Speaker 1: what I wanted to hear. It would have really disappointed
Speaker 1: me if you're like, yeah, I don't even have any
Speaker 1: interest anymore. Oh no, man, No, that you know that
Speaker 1: blew my mind. I don't know how many people know
Speaker 1: who Connell is the number one important, most important powerful
Speaker 1: person in podcasting. Uh yeah, Connall's our boss who literally
Speaker 1: commissioned all these podcasts many many years ago. When I
Speaker 1: first met him, I was in a meeting in a
Speaker 1: place called the fish Bowl, Uh, in our old office.
Speaker 1: He came in to talk to us in Roxanne and
Speaker 1: everybody who was there, and he somebody casually mentions or
Speaker 1: somehow it it's brought up that he was a touring
Speaker 1: musician and he used to be and her touring as
Speaker 1: a singer and guitars. And I was like, true, sorry, Oh.
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, do you still play You know,
Speaker 1: I got my sticks, I got my kids. Let's go man.
Speaker 1: And he was just like, I don't play music anymore.
Speaker 1: That's very conal. He's like, yeah, I was. We were
Speaker 1: signed to a major label and I was touring through Europe.
Speaker 1: But like, no, I don't do that ymore. Don't worry
Speaker 1: about that. He's a very talented guy. Seriously. So, now
Speaker 1: you were a lead EP of some of the biggest
Speaker 1: shows in podcasting. Uh. You were leadp on Atlanta Monster
Speaker 1: and voice that as well. Right, So I don't mean
Speaker 1: to correct you. On Atlanta Monster, I was supervising producer, okay,
Speaker 1: And then we'll set the record straight. And then on
Speaker 1: the second season, I was host and then became executive
Speaker 1: producer on that show too. Okay, and uh, you're now
Speaker 1: working with Aaron Manky, one of the biggest names in podcasting.
Speaker 1: On his stuff, he were assigned his slate because you're
Speaker 1: killer and they knew you do a great job what
Speaker 1: you're doing. You know, I think I'm doing a Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm still here. That's that's what I'm like basing everything on.
Speaker 1: I still have an office. What's new? What's going coming up?
Speaker 1: Is there anything can talk about that you want to tease? H? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can tease a couple of things. If you haven't
Speaker 1: listened to Noble Blood yet, I certainly would. And that
Speaker 1: is about the royalty. Yeah, it's relatively unknown stories of royalty,
Speaker 1: but told in a very narrative way, even though their
Speaker 1: true stories. It's Dana Schwartz who's the host, and she
Speaker 1: just does a great job telling you the story in
Speaker 1: a way that flows, similar to the way Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: tells stories on Lore and some of the other shows
Speaker 1: Um and also Unobscured, which the first season was all
Speaker 1: about the Salem witch Trials. The second season is coming
Speaker 1: out later this year around October. Can you say what
Speaker 1: it's about yet or is it a secret? Maybe Aaron
Speaker 1: keeps a lot of that close to his chest, so
Speaker 1: I would rather not speak to it. But it's really
Speaker 1: it's really cool, awesome. I can't wait. You'll tell me off, Mike, right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: sorry everyone perks of working here. Uh yeah, So man
Speaker 1: has become one of like the best leadps we have.
Speaker 1: You're assigned some of the most high profile stuff, and
Speaker 1: it's a testament to the work you do, my friend.
Speaker 1: Now stop it and thank you. So let's talk the Matrix.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you picked this one, and you picked this
Speaker 1: one a while ago. I've sort of been well, I'm
Speaker 1: holding it for you. No one else asked to do it.
Speaker 1: But uh, it's fucking twenty years old, which is crazy
Speaker 1: to think about, and I have not seen it. Um.
Speaker 1: I was trying to remember the last time I saw
Speaker 1: the Matrix, and I saw it quite a few times
Speaker 1: back then, but it's probably been at least fifteen years
Speaker 1: since i've seen it. Oh yeah, I haven't seen it
Speaker 1: in a long, long, long, long time. I realized when
Speaker 1: I was watching it and the short answer you stopped
Speaker 1: by my desk yesterday kind of like a little nervous,
Speaker 1: like did it hold up or not? And boy, it
Speaker 1: held up for me. I'll tell you. Last time I
Speaker 1: watched it was two thousand three, okay, wow, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And I know specifically because my wife had never seen
Speaker 1: it and I at the time she was just my girlfriend.
Speaker 1: But I was like, you have never seen the Matrix.
Speaker 1: That's pretty unusual. I think. Yeah, So we had a
Speaker 1: young American. It's not like she was eight years old
Speaker 1: or like fifty. She was in that wheelhouse. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: she was an actor too, and she was plugged into
Speaker 1: you know, pop culture and everything, and I figured it
Speaker 1: would be you know, up for her. It wasn't. And
Speaker 1: I forget sometimes that it is a serious action sci
Speaker 1: fi like movie. Diana not into that stuff. That is
Speaker 1: the opposite of what she's looking for. If it's got
Speaker 1: Judd Apatow involved or a hilarious person, then that's that
Speaker 1: is her wheelhouse. So that makes sense. Did she like
Speaker 1: it though when she saw it? I think so. It
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like that we had We had some we
Speaker 1: had some cool discussion, but you know a lot of
Speaker 1: times that's me harping on something like we're probably gonna
Speaker 1: talk about it later, and then her just going Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess I can see that said, that's a cool
Speaker 1: discussion in your house generally, like me, come on, Emily,
Speaker 1: watch the Hangover. We'll have a cool discussion about it. Uh.
Speaker 1: It really held up for me, man, it was and
Speaker 1: I think in context now, especially to see something that
Speaker 1: was twenty years old but so revolutionary at the time.
Speaker 1: And it's very easy to forget how revolutionary it was
Speaker 1: when so many imitators came after um and and And
Speaker 1: it's not like the Matrix was the most original thing ever,
Speaker 1: like they borrowed installed. We might as well talk about
Speaker 1: all that stuff from manga and and any sci fi
Speaker 1: movie ever. So it's not like it was the most
Speaker 1: original thing ever. Tons of tons of comic book yeah,
Speaker 1: like you said, manga and comic book shots, like you
Speaker 1: can just see it. You can see the pages turning
Speaker 1: on the on the screen. And also the story, the
Speaker 1: overall story, if you take out the sci fi stuff,
Speaker 1: is a very old story. It's biblical exactly, you know,
Speaker 1: it's Jesus in some ways. In a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's almost a superhero origin story in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. I think it was just at the
Speaker 1: time and the way they skinned the movie, it just
Speaker 1: felt like something we had never seen before. It's a
Speaker 1: bit of a magic trick they played to seem totally
Speaker 1: fresh and original and new, and all these other people
Speaker 1: in the know at the time, we're like, dude, they're
Speaker 1: totally ripping off this, this and this' Think about the
Speaker 1: first thing you see when you start this movie. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just showing you the production companies and everything. That
Speaker 1: green logo overlay with all that, God, I mean, for me,
Speaker 1: that became so iconic. Yeah, just that even that tone,
Speaker 1: that color. Yep, I loved it. I felt all the
Speaker 1: green like, uh, I mean the whole movie is green.
Speaker 1: Every I'm sure they just had a green filter over
Speaker 1: every single shot of the movie, but that there's something
Speaker 1: about them going with that, like pushing all their chips
Speaker 1: in on a color, which is pretty crazy, you know, man,
Speaker 1: it's like, let's make a green movie. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 1: so iconic now. Well and then, oh man, my wife
Speaker 1: was pulling up trivia because we watched it last night
Speaker 1: for the second time. Did she like anybody? She liked
Speaker 1: it better? She really did. We were more into it.
Speaker 1: But again, I'm sitting next to her like clacking away
Speaker 1: on my computer taking notes. I'm transcribing most of the
Speaker 1: quote I want to talk to you about. I'm just like, oh,
Speaker 1: I forgot about that one. Just feel free to throw
Speaker 1: out a quote whatever you come by. Oh yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna do some monologueing. I think there's some
Speaker 1: soliloquies we gotta get into. But um, yeah, I even
Speaker 1: forgot where I was because it was just so that
Speaker 1: opening scene. We're looking at the trivia and she was
Speaker 1: telling me that it took four days to shoot, just
Speaker 1: that opening scene from the moment where uh, spoiler alert
Speaker 1: do you give spoiler alerts? Everybody here knows where this
Speaker 1: is spoiled away? Okay, cool, So it turns out you
Speaker 1: didn't look like it for a minute. But it turns
Speaker 1: out so when Trinity is sitting there alone in that
Speaker 1: abandoned building that all the police show up, they opened
Speaker 1: the door, she's sitting there, and that fight scene that occurs.
Speaker 1: One of the first things we see is her doing
Speaker 1: a jump kick. She jumps into the air, spreads her
Speaker 1: arms like a sucking spider or something or crane, and
Speaker 1: we get that slow motion pan yeah, bullet time. Yeah. Well, well,
Speaker 1: it wasn't called that until later, but sure, yeah, we
Speaker 1: get that shot almost off the bat. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: forgot that that. I mean, I I knew it. I
Speaker 1: guess it's just I forgot that they were giving you
Speaker 1: that much in the beginning to ramp up the tension,
Speaker 1: the jumps from the buildings that you get almost immediately,
Speaker 1: and just the badass fighting kinetic and there's so much
Speaker 1: energy to it and the black leather and it was
Speaker 1: so stylish and like cool and that jump and the
Speaker 1: bullet time. Like I remember sitting in the theater and
Speaker 1: seeing that happen and feeling like my brain exploded because
Speaker 1: it was it's so many people copied it. It's so
Speaker 1: old hat now no one was saying. His daughter they
Speaker 1: watched it together and she was like, oh, that's kind
Speaker 1: of cheesy, and like I've seen that a million times,
Speaker 1: Like to see it on screen the very first time
Speaker 1: and not knowing you know, I'm a film guy, you're
Speaker 1: a film guy, Like, how did they do that? I
Speaker 1: had to stop myself from trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: the funk they did that shot. It felt like seeing
Speaker 1: a magic trick and and really, yea, so cool. My
Speaker 1: brain exploded in the movie theater. Um, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: right off the bat, they and the other thing that
Speaker 1: I kind of forgot. I did voice to text too.
Speaker 1: That's some funny. It's like so many of these words
Speaker 1: are misspelled, but the steaks are set and it's spelled
Speaker 1: like the cut of meat, the steaks, but the stakes
Speaker 1: are set right away with that voice over. And I
Speaker 1: don't even remember that voice over at the beginning, with
Speaker 1: um Trinity talking to Morpheus. Yeah, we're going to kill him,
Speaker 1: but Morphias says he or no way is it Joey pants? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's Joey Hants talking to two uh yeah,
Speaker 1: Cipher and Trinity. Cipher always forget all the names. Well
Speaker 1: and so okay, Morpheus says he's the one, like they
Speaker 1: say it right at the beginning, but the first time
Speaker 1: you see the movie, you don't even know what they're
Speaker 1: talking about, dude. And for me, that has such interesting
Speaker 1: biblical uh meaning there with the betrayer and the savior
Speaker 1: essentially of the guy, like having this conversation at the top.
Speaker 1: It's all over the place in this movie, like the
Speaker 1: story is as old as time. Like you said, well,
Speaker 1: the movie is so smart to do that because you
Speaker 1: don't even know the significance at that moment, but it
Speaker 1: is truly significant. Well, and it was one of these
Speaker 1: where repeated viewings back in the day where like you
Speaker 1: saw so much more, you understood so much more, even
Speaker 1: though it's not a complex movie, like all these little
Speaker 1: like teasers along the way, so great. Can I tell
Speaker 1: you a little bit about why this movie meant so
Speaker 1: much to me, why I wanted to cover it with you? Absolutely? Okay,
Speaker 1: So picture Matt Frederick. You don't know what I look like,
Speaker 1: I'm assuming, but just picture of this thing, but in
Speaker 1: corporeal form. He's living in for scythe County, Georgia, coming Georgia.
Speaker 1: That's where is where you growing up? That's me, this guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's where I grew up. And yet you became a
Speaker 1: good liberal. Well, well, I'm pretty sure everything happens for
Speaker 1: a reason and and what not. Really I don't truly
Speaker 1: believe that. But in this way, it's the the idea
Speaker 1: that I had a reaction to my environment, right, and
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's a rubber banding effect kind
Speaker 1: of thing. I think that's what occurred. And also had
Speaker 1: an incredible appearance growing up there who were not from
Speaker 1: for Scyth County. Um. Not to look, I'm not poo
Speaker 1: pooing you for Sath. It's just you know, there's some
Speaker 1: stuff going on up there. Y'all know what it is
Speaker 1: the way the way it is, um. But I was
Speaker 1: living there. I had grown up in the church, the
Speaker 1: Methodist Church specifically, and I internalized that heavily as I
Speaker 1: was becoming teenager, you know, middle school, high school, and
Speaker 1: my philosophy was so rooted in the Bible and taking
Speaker 1: it literally and reading the stories as though Moses really
Speaker 1: did these things, as though you're talking about me too,
Speaker 1: my child as well. Yeah, yeah, except I was Baptist.
Speaker 1: Oh there you go even worse. Well, I don't know
Speaker 1: there there's a there's a certain boring quality to Methodist services,
Speaker 1: um that I don't see again a lot of Baptist services.
Speaker 1: But in anyway, that's just no again, no offense to
Speaker 1: you Methodists out there first United Methodist Church, Shambly, Georgia
Speaker 1: and uh coming okay, So um, that that's my worldview.
Speaker 1: It's very solidified. So because this came out March, I
Speaker 1: think March thirty one or March, um, my worldview is
Speaker 1: so solidified that when I walk into that theater to
Speaker 1: go see a cool action movie that I'm excited about.
Speaker 1: The trailers look great. The taglines have been so crazy cool,
Speaker 1: like free your mind? Oh what you only to free
Speaker 1: my mind? What is the matrix? I don't know. Let's
Speaker 1: go find out what the matrix is? George Clinton Ship seriously,
Speaker 1: the matrix has you? Um? So walk into that theater.
Speaker 1: I watched the movie and I couldn't tell you that
Speaker 1: I truly remember watching it for the first time. It
Speaker 1: felt more like the movie happened to me, um because
Speaker 1: it was the first major crack in the armor of
Speaker 1: my established word. You where I And again, it's just
Speaker 1: a movie. I know it's fiction. I'm in there. I
Speaker 1: understand all of that. But it caused me to think, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know everything, because I think what religion
Speaker 1: a lot of times will do to us is cause
Speaker 1: us to believe that we have the answer, we understand,
Speaker 1: like what humans are, what we're meant to do on
Speaker 1: this planet, and all these things, and don't don't explore
Speaker 1: any further because it's all right here. Yeah you got
Speaker 1: the answers already. Uh. This this movie really did move
Speaker 1: things in a direction of discovery for me. Wow, that's great. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for me, it was a religion class in college. Dude,
Speaker 1: I wasn't there yet, but as soon as I took
Speaker 1: a religion class in college, that's when things took a
Speaker 1: bit of a one eighty. Yeah, that's interesting. We studied Judaism, Hinduism,
Speaker 1: and uh jeez, what was the third one? I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Judaism and Buddhism. Maybe Buddhism, dude. I remember thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute. First of all, they're all sort of
Speaker 1: the same. How is that possible? Yeah, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: learned a lot. It really opened my mind. Oh man,
Speaker 1: me too. Yeah. For me, it was a lot of
Speaker 1: the um kind of the old old more what would
Speaker 1: be considered pagan or like Wicca and some of these
Speaker 1: religions that that focus on nature above a lot of
Speaker 1: other things that really like just broke me out of
Speaker 1: everything because I because I could connect with all the
Speaker 1: things that that we're being worshiped in venerated, and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, okay, that kind of makes sense. So
Speaker 1: you were sixteen then roughly when this came out. Wow.
Speaker 1: And then on my seventeenth birthday, I had a birthday
Speaker 1: party at my parents basement. Hopefully there's one person listening
Speaker 1: that was at that party. Um, it was my sister
Speaker 1: probably listening. She was there. It was a combination Matrix
Speaker 1: Steve Irwin party, so you could either come. You could
Speaker 1: either come as dresses your matrix self, bring your leather,
Speaker 1: or bring your short cargo pants. That's adorable. It was amazing. Wow,
Speaker 1: I just I want to put you in my pocket
Speaker 1: right now. Well, you'll The other funny thing to remember
Speaker 1: about this film too, in context of when it came out,
Speaker 1: is a few months before a movie called Episode one,
Speaker 1: The Phantom Menace. But yeah, not a good look for
Speaker 1: George Lucas to be bested at his own game and preemptively,
Speaker 1: you know, when these two directors that I had never
Speaker 1: heard of came through and created this thing, and then
Speaker 1: it feels like it's old and dated and like this
Speaker 1: seems so fresh and like cyberpunk and kinetic and like
Speaker 1: cutting edge. And it's like I said, it's easy now
Speaker 1: to some people like Noel thought it was a little
Speaker 1: dated now to look. But in the context of it
Speaker 1: was right there of the millennium. Oh yeah, you know
Speaker 1: it was everyone was thinking about this like stuff. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was on everybody's mind. Y t K was was
Speaker 1: like that their fear was real. It's crazy to think about.
Speaker 1: But so there are a couple of dated things I
Speaker 1: want to hit right here, just because we pushed on that,
Speaker 1: um the cell phone that Neo opens that the first time. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's great, and my wife was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's the cheese. This there's a terrible They couldn't think
Speaker 1: of a cooler phone. That's because that's the coolest phone.
Speaker 1: It was so the coolest phone. Well at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're gonna have a phone, it was
Speaker 1: a flippy maybe, but usually it's a brick and or
Speaker 1: if you had a lot of money, you had that
Speaker 1: razor flip phone, the razor into a thin fish. But again,
Speaker 1: like this thing, they just like, look cool. The kinetic
Speaker 1: movement of it. It was bad ass. So that one
Speaker 1: my wife thought was hilariously bad. But then the other
Speaker 1: one is Morpheus's sunglasses. They're great. Do you remember these? Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: there's no uh whatever these are called what are these called?
Speaker 1: The thing that sits on your ears the arms, yeah,
Speaker 1: the arms, the legs. You just pinch it and you
Speaker 1: watch him do it and come puts him on. He
Speaker 1: just like Hinch I forgot he put him on in
Speaker 1: that one scene he said something and then just like
Speaker 1: tenches him on his nose because they look cool when
Speaker 1: they're sitting on his face. Cool for Morpheus. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't wear that shed Yeah, but they look good on
Speaker 1: Laurence Fishburne. They did that. Morpheus is so great. So
Speaker 1: they had the open fight and you get one of
Speaker 1: already out of the gate. You get one of the
Speaker 1: best lines of the film. Oh, I know what it is.
Speaker 1: You are you gonna say to you? Well, you say
Speaker 1: it because I want to see if it's got to
Speaker 1: be the same one, Are you sure? Yeah, go ahead,
Speaker 1: you give me that jurism addiction crap and you can
Speaker 1: cram it up your ass. Okay, all right, that was mine.
Speaker 1: Uh my line is your men are already dead. Yep.
Speaker 1: That was literally the next one that I have here.
Speaker 1: All Right, I figured, because well we should talk about um,
Speaker 1: we should talk about him in that character one of
Speaker 1: the great villains of all time Smith, Yes, like one
Speaker 1: of the great movie villains ever, one of the great
Speaker 1: bad guys. And the decision by the wikowskis too um.
Speaker 1: I think it was a smart decision to make the
Speaker 1: agents so fucking scary and intimidating, yet put them in
Speaker 1: these black suits with glasses and mysterious and you don't
Speaker 1: know even what they are, and they're never up or
Speaker 1: down like he's always steady. But you know, is bad
Speaker 1: uses all of them? Are they fucking run from agents? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And no one's ever beaten one up? Yeah, exactly, everyone
Speaker 1: has died. It's interesting to me how they represent um,
Speaker 1: both like a you know, representations of an FBI agent
Speaker 1: or a corporate boss, or the way that suit lands
Speaker 1: on them, the way it sits on them, the way
Speaker 1: their sunglasses are, the earwigs, Yeah, the secret service style.
Speaker 1: They represent a whole lot of power structure really really
Speaker 1: in a sleek way, would say, and that the cold calculated,
Speaker 1: like the way their eyes function, the way they move,
Speaker 1: the way they look and they function together. It's just
Speaker 1: it's representative of a lot of the negative things that
Speaker 1: this movie, or this movie takes to be negative things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are some larger statements going on I think in
Speaker 1: this film. Yeah, behind the scenes, and they distill a
Speaker 1: lot of things into a symbol in this movie. Yeah. Absolutely. Um.
Speaker 1: Also in the opening scene, aside from the great jump
Speaker 1: in the bullet time. I have to say when when
Speaker 1: she runs on the wall, that was another scene that
Speaker 1: blew that part that blew me away because immediately you're
Speaker 1: just like, these people have some kind of superpower. But
Speaker 1: this is before MCU and all that stuff, so we
Speaker 1: didn't know what that meant or look like. Like we
Speaker 1: hadn't been over inundated with superhero movies. Yeah, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: play as well now. And it was so odd because
Speaker 1: they didn't feel like superheroes, but they were doing superhero things.
Speaker 1: They look really interesting on screen, you know, with the
Speaker 1: latex of leather and all those things, especially Trinity in
Speaker 1: that opening scene. But Carrie and Moss was so hot.
Speaker 1: My my wife and I were bonding a little bit
Speaker 1: about that. She was like, oh my god. It was
Speaker 1: on that first scene. Actually, no, it was the scene
Speaker 1: the next scene, right after Neo wakes up at his computer.
Speaker 1: Then he follows the White Rabbit. They're in that club.
Speaker 1: Since she gets in his ear, she's talking to him
Speaker 1: right in the nape of his essensual I remember like
Speaker 1: feeling as though I was falling alow with her. You
Speaker 1: were sixteen, dude. In the Methodist point you probably didn't
Speaker 1: know the feelings. You would be like, I didn't understand
Speaker 1: that that would never happen to me. I was like,
Speaker 1: I like that. Well, she was so sexy and cool
Speaker 1: and like strong and like she was a badass. She
Speaker 1: was like everything you wanted and like, uh in a
Speaker 1: movie like this, and I can't imagine being like I'm
Speaker 1: remembering sixteen year old Baptist Chuck like mine would have
Speaker 1: been blown. The movies were not the school or sexy
Speaker 1: back then. It's the kind of thing where everything in
Speaker 1: my body wants to cover my eyes and not look
Speaker 1: and then just peep through my fingers because I really
Speaker 1: want to look. But everything is tough, perfect, and especially
Speaker 1: like the outfits and all, like you said that, the
Speaker 1: latex and the leather and like that stuff there. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you didn't see girls in high school wearing
Speaker 1: that stuff, so you see it on screen and it's
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god, I know I like her. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: in the costuming in this movie is so interesting, and
Speaker 1: it was again that methodist kid living in a conservative
Speaker 1: county in Georgia has never seen anybody where any of
Speaker 1: the clothes that are happening in the matrix, um, for
Speaker 1: at least when they're in their matrix selves or their
Speaker 1: insidual whatever self. And that was also very strange for me.
Speaker 1: Um oh, and that was the other thing with the
Speaker 1: Agents that I totally forgot. We get introduced to the
Speaker 1: agents in Pitch Black at night in a city by
Speaker 1: an abandoned building. We've got police officers out there, siren
Speaker 1: or flights going off everywhere. They roll up all wearing sunglasses.
Speaker 1: Yeah you think they're Feds. Yeah, yeah, but they're wearing
Speaker 1: the shades. And it also seems like their robots. It's
Speaker 1: like what are they? Yeah, exactly that you immediately get that, um,
Speaker 1: this is these guys are off. But yeah, because the
Speaker 1: cops defer to them. Yeah. Um. And and you it
Speaker 1: takes you don't fully understand the relationship. And like the movie, like, uh,
Speaker 1: the movie reveals itself very smartly as it goes, I think,
Speaker 1: as far as the world and what's going on. Obviously
Speaker 1: the big reveal later, but I like a movie where
Speaker 1: you're you're trying to piece together because you know they're
Speaker 1: not regular cops or detectives. Yeah, like there's something else
Speaker 1: going on, but they do. I mean, you that line
Speaker 1: you give me that jurism addiction crap. You can cram
Speaker 1: it up your ask. That's the that's the thing we've
Speaker 1: heard in a lot of other movies. You think about
Speaker 1: Beverly Hills Cop or maybe not that one, but there's
Speaker 1: a lot of older cop movies where the FBI agent, Yeah,
Speaker 1: THEYD taking over now, yeah exactly, Well come on, O
Speaker 1: cme scene. That's just about to say it. That's the line.
Speaker 1: This is our crime scene, now exactly, take your local
Speaker 1: boys and get out of here. And they just set
Speaker 1: it up in the beginning, and then it makes you
Speaker 1: that's what it does. This movie makes you start to
Speaker 1: question things before it reveals things, and then as it
Speaker 1: reveals things, your mind continues to get blown. So think
Speaker 1: about if you don't mind, can just take us to
Speaker 1: we We talked a little bit about Neo running away.
Speaker 1: He's in his office building. He's he's symbolically escaping his
Speaker 1: corporate which is a great sequence. Yeah, oh so awesome. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: then you know he goes out on that ledge which
Speaker 1: by the way, Kano Reeves apparently actually went out on
Speaker 1: that ledge. Really no stunt man and shot that scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, probably not necessary, but yeah, but he wanted
Speaker 1: to and it. I mean it's really cool. Yeah. Then
Speaker 1: we he gets taken away by the agents, right, and
Speaker 1: you have them sitting down being interrogated, um talking, I've
Speaker 1: totally forgot his name was Thomas. Yeah. You don't hear
Speaker 1: his name much because it's always Mr. Anderson. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: it's Thomas A. Anderson, I think Thomas Anderson and uh,
Speaker 1: I forget if they actually mentioned his age. I was
Speaker 1: looking it up last night. He's supposed to be around
Speaker 1: around that time. Yeah, that's about right. Um, so you know,
Speaker 1: a fairly young professional guy working. He's being interrogated. We
Speaker 1: know already from the movies established that he's a hacker
Speaker 1: of some sort. He at least he sells that guy
Speaker 1: some kind of data disc Yeah. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: explained fully. Maybe I'm wrong, correct us if we're wrong,
Speaker 1: But I don't think they fully explain what it is.
Speaker 1: But he gets a lot of money for it. It's
Speaker 1: some sort of black market thing. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you know what was it. I've got the
Speaker 1: line in here. I'm talking about clubbing to White Zombie,
Speaker 1: which was so weird. Hang out in the club and
Speaker 1: Dragula is playing. Okay, So you mean when he's being
Speaker 1: interrogated what he says, Yeah, he's being interrogated. Let's see,
Speaker 1: um agents I put agents Smith putting in work. I
Speaker 1: don't know what that means. As you can see, we've
Speaker 1: had our eyes on you for some time now, Mr Anderson, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he does. It's sort of the trope where he uh you,
Speaker 1: it's a great way to get information out there is
Speaker 1: when you read the case five to the person about
Speaker 1: the person. It's an old movie bit, but it works.
Speaker 1: It totally works. And he just says, you're you're guilty
Speaker 1: of virtually every computer crime out there. And he says,
Speaker 1: we're gonna wipe the sleep slate clean. We just need
Speaker 1: you to give us Morpheus, the man who calls himself Morpheus. Right,
Speaker 1: And that's when you get another awesome line from Kanu
Speaker 1: when uh he says, how about I give you the finger?
Speaker 1: And he flips them off and you give me my
Speaker 1: phone call? Yeah, he knows his rights, but they respond
Speaker 1: by blowing your mind. The movie responsible blowing your effing mind, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's I mean, you get it gets teased out.
Speaker 1: You see the bullet time in her run on the
Speaker 1: wall and otherwise it's a pretty straightforward. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: Hacker gets caught by detectives. Do you think they're detectives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's being interrogated, and then they fucking seal his mouth shut, yeah,
Speaker 1: somehow without touching him ever. Yeah, and that's when you
Speaker 1: know you're in a different kind of movie. And then
Speaker 1: they get out this weird little metal thing, this glass vial,
Speaker 1: and break the glass vial and then it turns into
Speaker 1: this weird like shrimp e squid and then robo shrimp squid,
Speaker 1: and then it crawls into his belly button. My my
Speaker 1: wife was cringing like on the couch, like, Yeah. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite things about this movie is all of
Speaker 1: that stuff, and all of it seems within the realm
Speaker 1: of possibility. None of it is so far out there
Speaker 1: that you're like, come on, Like when you see that
Speaker 1: thing like literally planting a bug on someone, you think,
Speaker 1: all right, this is the near future. Maybe that ship
Speaker 1: will happen exactly exactly well in the that you know.
Speaker 1: That's another weird thing about this movie. It plants itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a part where that's where Morpheus is talking to
Speaker 1: to Neo and he's saying, you know you believe it's
Speaker 1: and in fact it's closer to Oh that's right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Um. But to think that it's trying to
Speaker 1: be our real world essentially, yeah, just adding in these
Speaker 1: elements to that world, because like you said, it's not
Speaker 1: so so out there. They're not flying around spaceships. You know,
Speaker 1: you're still in the Lincoln Continental in that in the scene,
Speaker 1: you're you're absolutely right there in Lincoln Continental. And there's
Speaker 1: no m ib like men in black button that makes
Speaker 1: it um. But they get that contraption out after the
Speaker 1: bug has been planted, the team comes to help him.
Speaker 1: Trinity gets out this weird looking contraption. That's a great
Speaker 1: sequence rain Oh dude, in the rain. It kind of
Speaker 1: looks like a red camera rig that's been fully set
Speaker 1: up that has a little tube on it, and then
Speaker 1: watching them do that. But that technology is not It
Speaker 1: looks and feels like something you could construct with things,
Speaker 1: and it locates it's inside you, it shocks it and
Speaker 1: then sucks it out, like all of those things could
Speaker 1: probably happen if you could make it weird sentient squid drone.
Speaker 1: But again, it's like the style of that sequence with
Speaker 1: that rain, and you know, just everything was so intense.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just like let's get a rain tower. They
Speaker 1: were like, let's get four rain towers and make it
Speaker 1: rain more than you've ever seen in any movie. And
Speaker 1: then the great shots from above of the rain coming down,
Speaker 1: and the rain on the window looks like the matrix,
Speaker 1: you know, because it has that green hue and it's
Speaker 1: tickling down. There was something about the screen of the
Speaker 1: matrix going vertically instead of horizontally that was different, and like,
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen that before, dude, we haven't even talked
Speaker 1: about this. The first shot of the movie is that
Speaker 1: flashing green like doss. Yeah, the icon, the little uh
Speaker 1: prompt or whatever. That's the first thing we see. So
Speaker 1: we know, we understand as viewers this is a computer.
Speaker 1: We're looking at the screen of a computer, output of
Speaker 1: a computer. And then you know, there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of I think type a cursor, a little bit typing
Speaker 1: or something, and then we go immediately as the movie begins,
Speaker 1: we go into that monitor and into the computer itself. Right,
Speaker 1: that is exactly what the movie is doing, and that's
Speaker 1: what exactly what the world is doing. That's what the
Speaker 1: humans within the world are doing. It's um, it's so
Speaker 1: self reflexive and so intentional. Yeah. This uh like we're
Speaker 1: all going into the matrix. Yes, yes, and what does
Speaker 1: it mean? And we're going to explore figure out what
Speaker 1: that means as we continue along. Man, I would break
Speaker 1: this entire movie down. I feel like this would be
Speaker 1: a four hour episode of movie crush. Chuck, let's we
Speaker 1: gotta hit some big things. No, no, no, this is great. Um.
Speaker 1: So they plant the bug, he goes on the ride,
Speaker 1: they get the bug out, and um, there's just so
Speaker 1: much atmosphere in that scene. Uh. And it's like so
Speaker 1: much of this movie became pop culture canon, like some
Speaker 1: of the lines and red pill blue pill, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: all these things became part of um bullet time obviously,
Speaker 1: Like but that some of the dialogue became part of
Speaker 1: pop culture history. Oh my god, people still say red
Speaker 1: pill blue pill as a joke. I mean that became
Speaker 1: a meme obviously. So many memes came out of this,
Speaker 1: like in the early days of memes. Probably, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: should just be most of the memes and just take
Speaker 1: the returns and they just apply it to most memes
Speaker 1: and you're done. But that's sort of the question like uh,
Speaker 1: the red pillar, blue pill. That is that's the big
Speaker 1: question that it's asking all of us is what would
Speaker 1: you do? Yeah, would you want to know? Or is
Speaker 1: ignorance bless Well, I'll tell you what if we're going
Speaker 1: to be serious here, Yeah, if you think about the
Speaker 1: show stuff, they don't want you to know that Ben
Speaker 1: and I created in roughly two thousand and eight, like
Speaker 1: working on It'll maybe a little bit in two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: but mostly twousan eight. Um. It is highly influenced by
Speaker 1: this because Ben and I were into you know, X
Speaker 1: Files and Mysteries and all of the amazing shows that
Speaker 1: came before those, everything to the Twilight Zone, all of
Speaker 1: the mysterious things in our world. We were obsessed with,
Speaker 1: both of us. Even when I was a little good
Speaker 1: Christian boy, my dad and I were watching X Files
Speaker 1: when whenever a new episode was coming out, I was
Speaker 1: watching reruns of Oh God, there's another show that now
Speaker 1: I'm blanking on the name of it. But it was
Speaker 1: like the Twilight Zone, like a lot of those the
Speaker 1: Outer Limits. I was obsessed with that, remember Out Limits.
Speaker 1: It was great this movie, that concept of going down
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole far enough to where you have to
Speaker 1: decide to take a pill, like do you want the
Speaker 1: answers or not? Yeah, the stuff they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know is is literally that for us, it is
Speaker 1: offering people a red pillar a blue pill. It's offering
Speaker 1: ourselves every episode or red pillar a bluepill, but never
Speaker 1: taking it. Does that make sense? Sure? So it's basically
Speaker 1: putting it in front of you if you're a listener
Speaker 1: and just saying you you decide, what do you what
Speaker 1: do you think they are? You take that one and
Speaker 1: keep going down that rabbit hole because you can, yeah,
Speaker 1: or you can stay here and you know, keep working
Speaker 1: your nine to five and keep imagining that all of
Speaker 1: this is fine and we're gonna be okay. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think that's how the movie works so well though, is
Speaker 1: because you do sort of think about this stuff afterwards,
Speaker 1: like what I want to know? Or you know, you
Speaker 1: saw Cipher, Yeah, Joey pants later on, he he regrets
Speaker 1: it so much. He's a turncoat and he even has
Speaker 1: that great line. You know, I know you're thinking what
Speaker 1: I've been thinking. Why why didn't I take the blue bill? Exactly?
Speaker 1: It was a blue pill? Right, Why? Yeah? I didn't
Speaker 1: I take the blue polos. Keep you, yeah, keeps you
Speaker 1: in the matrix because then you get that shot cutting
Speaker 1: that steak and he has a great monologue. What does
Speaker 1: he say, do you have it? Yeah? He says, I
Speaker 1: know this steak doesn't exist. I know that one I
Speaker 1: put it in my mouth. The matrix is telling my
Speaker 1: brain that's juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what,
Speaker 1: I realized. Ignorance is bliss. That's right. And he eats
Speaker 1: the steaks. Man. He's so good at this movie. Um,
Speaker 1: I think because it asked those big questions though, and listen,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sit here and say, like you know,
Speaker 1: man in the Matrix, like all the big questions of life,
Speaker 1: they're there, and I'm not doing the college you know,
Speaker 1: Stoner dissertation. But it is a bit of a heady
Speaker 1: question that lobs out there and it doesn't hammer at home.
Speaker 1: It just sort of lets you sit with it as
Speaker 1: an audience member. It's like, you got a choice. There's
Speaker 1: the truth out there and uh, someone like Neo wants
Speaker 1: to know and they knew that because he's the one.
Speaker 1: Well Morpheus really had a hunch. Uh, he really felt
Speaker 1: it in his bones. But this is where the movie
Speaker 1: goes off the rails. Right after that, he wakes up
Speaker 1: in the matrix pods or I guess not matrix pods
Speaker 1: the real world. Yeah, but they are No, they are
Speaker 1: matrix pods because each one of those is a connection
Speaker 1: to the matrix. That's you know, yeah, making the human
Speaker 1: believe they're in there. But that whole part with him
Speaker 1: bald and shaved, no eyebrows and getting that thing comes
Speaker 1: out and all the plugs come out of his body
Speaker 1: and he sucked down, it was just like fucking mind blowing.
Speaker 1: The first time I saw it, dude, it was it
Speaker 1: still holds up. Oh, it's completely yeah. I was like,
Speaker 1: ah last night. It looks amazing on screen, It really does,
Speaker 1: and the the effects are so convincing. Except for maybe
Speaker 1: that the robot um I call it what I called it,
Speaker 1: the extractor robot or whatever it was. It looks okay,
Speaker 1: it looks all right. It looks better again than a
Speaker 1: lot of the episode one stuff when it came out.
Speaker 1: But but you know, it's a little odd and there's
Speaker 1: a lot going on with it. But it took me
Speaker 1: away a little bit. But the shots of the pods
Speaker 1: and the towers and him, like the actual physical pod
Speaker 1: that they created with all that stuff in the score. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my life. That reveal of how big those towers are
Speaker 1: and how many people there are, and that little baby
Speaker 1: hooked up to those tubes. Now that you have kids,
Speaker 1: much different deal. It really is, you know, it really is.
Speaker 1: But he says, you know, uh, he comes, he comes
Speaker 1: out of it and well, he says, to turn you
Speaker 1: into a and he holds up the battery and that's
Speaker 1: when it's all you finally understand what's going on. That's
Speaker 1: when he has his freak out and you can't handle that.
Speaker 1: He can't. I couldn't handle that ship. What you want
Speaker 1: me to be a dr cell? That's what that's what
Speaker 1: I am. I'm equal to a nine volte or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was great fucking shot where it shows, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: welcome to the world of the real Yeah. So it
Speaker 1: goes all the way down and they're just sitting in
Speaker 1: those chairs in the waste land. Yeah, but he more
Speaker 1: of you is it's the old well again, Hey, it's
Speaker 1: a little core the only cornyline I remember when it,
Speaker 1: you know, it cranes down to him and he goes,
Speaker 1: welcome to the desert. Yeah, welcome to the Desert. All right, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying this as the best acting in it
Speaker 1: ever or it's not like kind of corny at times,
Speaker 1: but that's I think this movie exists as a Saturday
Speaker 1: afternoon B movie in some ways. It's just gussied up, definitely,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to take it for what it is.
Speaker 1: But it is so much smarter. The movie itself is
Speaker 1: so much smarter there. I really think there's so much
Speaker 1: time spent thinking about the writing and then going into
Speaker 1: the direct our direction and all the everything. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it's a vision. It's not just something that was cobbled
Speaker 1: together by different people with a script that they're trying
Speaker 1: to make come to life. You know. Well, here's the question, Matt,
Speaker 1: is this the only good movie that they've ever made?
Speaker 1: Because I really did not like the second in the
Speaker 1: third Matrix movie these and in fact I don't remember
Speaker 1: them at all. They had such little impact on me
Speaker 1: that this sort of exists in my mind like it
Speaker 1: should have. Which is one great movie that ends in
Speaker 1: the most badass why you could imagine. But how it's done?
Speaker 1: How do you only have one Matrix? When we think
Speaker 1: the budget, at least according to IMDb, is around sixty
Speaker 1: three million dollars, not a lot for the time, not
Speaker 1: a ton, and they achieved what they did, and the
Speaker 1: worldwide gross at least according to IMDb is four hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty four hundred and sixty three smash smash hit.
Speaker 1: So I mean Bound that they did before this was
Speaker 1: a good movie. Did you see that one? I have
Speaker 1: not seen. Bound Found was good and they and they
Speaker 1: made their name on that film, but then they went
Speaker 1: off to they obviously got more money and could do
Speaker 1: stuff they really wanted to do, like sci fi, but
Speaker 1: like the Matrix two and three weren't very good. Speed
Speaker 1: racer I know has it's like a cult classic now
Speaker 1: and they're people that will be like, no, it was genius,
Speaker 1: but it was a bomb Jupiter sending my buddy Scotty
Speaker 1: and I think you know Scotty, we went and saw
Speaker 1: that together as a joke and had a ball laughing
Speaker 1: at it. But it was bad. I've never seen it
Speaker 1: on purpose, because I you should because it's funny. I
Speaker 1: was terrified when I watched the trailer because I want
Speaker 1: to believe. I want to believe in in the Wood
Speaker 1: how skis, But well, Cloud Outlets was the other one.
Speaker 1: And I didn't see it, but that got panned too.
Speaker 1: So what do you say about these two people that, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, did they have one in them? What's
Speaker 1: the fourth one going to be? Like? I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know what happens? What happens in Hollywood? When
Speaker 1: you make a movie like this, what happens to you?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like person at a on
Speaker 1: a personal level and you hit that success off almost
Speaker 1: off the bat? Yeah, sure, second film like what what
Speaker 1: happens to you? Can you go from there? Yeah? What
Speaker 1: happens to your circle? What happens to your creative process? Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. All I know is that the next
Speaker 1: two Matrix movies were attempting to build on a war
Speaker 1: world that people really liked, that resonated with a lot
Speaker 1: of people and with characters that we wanted to spend
Speaker 1: more time with. And they had some they expanded on
Speaker 1: some ideas, Like the things I remember from the second
Speaker 1: and third movies the most are this place called Eden
Speaker 1: that's referenced in the first movie several times, the last
Speaker 1: human city is underground, Zion, your right not eating apologies Zion,
Speaker 1: And when we actually get to go to Zion in
Speaker 1: the movies. It's better left than the mind. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just not it doesn't. It's not the same. Yeah. That's
Speaker 1: the deal I think is that Zion as it sets
Speaker 1: up the concept in this film works well because you
Speaker 1: never see it and it exists in your brain and
Speaker 1: there's sometimes you don't want to go there and see
Speaker 1: that stuff. And you definitely don't want to go see
Speaker 1: a giant, sweaty orgy. That's super slow motion that part.
Speaker 1: And and you're especially for me, So okay, get back
Speaker 1: to a little Christian boy kid. You know, just because
Speaker 1: I took my religion classes and I you know, changed
Speaker 1: my mind about my own personal beliefs, didn't mean that
Speaker 1: a lot of those bed rock feelings changed. Like I
Speaker 1: wasn't like, oh man, sex is now the best thing
Speaker 1: ever because that was this little it's not an overnight thing.
Speaker 1: We're both still unpacking all that stuff. Yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: when the second movie comes out a little later, you
Speaker 1: have this thing happened. And for me, it was such
Speaker 1: a curl up and you know, and get away from
Speaker 1: this movie because I could For me, I couldn't handle
Speaker 1: and this just me personally, But um, for a kid
Speaker 1: whose mind was so blown and altered and changed, and
Speaker 1: from the first movie, that single thing stuck in my
Speaker 1: mind so deeply that I don't even remember the big
Speaker 1: robot fightings. I think there's a giant robot fight scene
Speaker 1: at some point in this um where the squids are coming,
Speaker 1: but the humans in Zion have these giant mix but
Speaker 1: I can't remember if that's real or not. I feel
Speaker 1: like that happened, but I don't even know. Man, they
Speaker 1: had such a little impact on me. I was living
Speaker 1: in l A by the time those came out, and
Speaker 1: I was excited to go see him, and I remember
Speaker 1: the feeling of disappointment when I left. I was just like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: they just fucking dropped the ball. Oh I remember what
Speaker 1: the scene was. All of the agents Smiths. They had
Speaker 1: a bunch of them, right, and then Neo became c
Speaker 1: G I for fight scenes, and because they got a
Speaker 1: bigger budget or something, or maybe Kiano couldn't do the
Speaker 1: things that intimidating the one agent Smith. Oh you know
Speaker 1: what I remember about those movies, dude, I can pinpoint
Speaker 1: why I had a They didn't engage me. Is a
Speaker 1: person that can't be beat fighting, A person that can't
Speaker 1: be beat isn't dramatic. There were no steaks. I remember
Speaker 1: feeling that, like they're both so powerful and there's so
Speaker 1: many of them that it's like it's boring. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: wasn't boring because you ran from the agents. They were superior,
Speaker 1: and the drama is Neo in the end, which we'll
Speaker 1: get to achieving uh power over them. Yeah, exactly, that
Speaker 1: was the drama. Like without that, like, it's no fun
Speaker 1: to watch Superman fight Superman. Dude, you're still right because
Speaker 1: the the stakes ramp up so well in this movie,
Speaker 1: with the Oracle telling Neo that he's not the one,
Speaker 1: well he's not the one, but also that he's either
Speaker 1: going to have to let Morpheus die or sacrifice himself,
Speaker 1: so we know that death is going to occur. Then
Speaker 1: when the betrayal occurs and we watch all of the
Speaker 1: characters that we've been falling around dying off, like they're
Speaker 1: all they all just started dying off, and we realize,
Speaker 1: oh my god, oh my god, like maybe Neo really
Speaker 1: could die. And again we know that because he's a
Speaker 1: we know that he can't die because he's our protagonist
Speaker 1: in this movie. If he dies, then the twenty minutes
Speaker 1: that's left in the movie, Like what is that going
Speaker 1: to be from a storytelling perspective, But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you get that feeling when you if you're truly lost
Speaker 1: in the moment, like Okay, maybe he really could die. Yeah, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a it's they're legitimate threats in this movie,
Speaker 1: and those were not I didn't feel like present in
Speaker 1: the other ones. Yeah. So Neo boards the Nebuchadnezzar. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the great lines to me that kind of
Speaker 1: blew my mind. Why did my eyes hurt? Yes, you've
Speaker 1: never used them before. It's just like and he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's never used his muscles, and he's all loaded with
Speaker 1: the the pins sending electric signals like I guess to
Speaker 1: just stimulate his muscles. Yeah, so he can fucking move
Speaker 1: and he has that. There's a great first person point
Speaker 1: of view shot when he's walking around the Nebuchadnezzar. Yes. Um.
Speaker 1: And the only thing that bugs me about this movie
Speaker 1: and even bug me at the time, or all the
Speaker 1: dumb little nicknames, it's like this is tank and dozer
Speaker 1: and mouse and Skippy and and Sharky and Electro what
Speaker 1: was her name? Switch. I think Switch, Yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to ask you something. When they go back into the Matrix,
Speaker 1: at some point they it's when they get betrayed, so
Speaker 1: they're going to go see the oracle and everything. When
Speaker 1: they first enter the Matrix again, they've got this panning
Speaker 1: shot or it's a it's not at wow. I don't
Speaker 1: know why I'm not. They're circling around. So they're on
Speaker 1: a track and they're circling around a telephone that's ringing yes.
Speaker 1: And as they're they go around and they get to
Speaker 1: the other side, and then the our whole Matrix team
Speaker 1: is just there inside the matrix. Everybody has on either
Speaker 1: a black suit or black leather or black latex or
Speaker 1: black everything, but Switch is wearing an all white outfit,
Speaker 1: the only character wearing the only white hair. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think it's this really interesting thing where they didn't
Speaker 1: have to do that, right, but within the Matrix, you're
Speaker 1: represented as your you know, the your vision of your
Speaker 1: best self, you know, your ideal you, and since you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know who made that character decision, if it
Speaker 1: was written or something, but I just remember thinking it
Speaker 1: was really interesting and I wondered if there were something
Speaker 1: more to it, but I don't think there was. I
Speaker 1: think it was just existing in the rules of the
Speaker 1: movie and the world. And she was literally a switch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she switched to white and blond. Just really cool. Um.
Speaker 1: The the Construct, let's talk about that sequence because that's
Speaker 1: one of the best parts of the movie to me,
Speaker 1: is when they set up the Construct that became so
Speaker 1: iconic and copied in fucking TV commercials, Like how many
Speaker 1: TV commercials did you see rip off the white room
Speaker 1: with the stuff flying in? I mean it was like
Speaker 1: sucking car commercials and ship It was so annoying, but
Speaker 1: at the time it was so iconic, and that whole
Speaker 1: set up is just so great. With the with the
Speaker 1: learn well, first of all, we learned all about the
Speaker 1: matrix that we set up. Ai Ai destroyed the human race,
Speaker 1: wed what black in the sky or scorched the sky
Speaker 1: because of solar power. It's such a such a great
Speaker 1: set up, very simple but like believable and cool. Um.
Speaker 1: But then you have the Construct and that whole training
Speaker 1: sequence that's like one of the best parts of the movie.
Speaker 1: I just learned kunk fo, I know, kung fu. Yeah, whatever,
Speaker 1: it's such a jitsu. I'm gonna learn jujit jujitsu, dude,
Speaker 1: and uh is it tank? He's like, hey, Mikey, I
Speaker 1: think he likes it. Yeah, I gotta throw that in there.
Speaker 1: I guess very corny. But the fight scene, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's just two guys in a room fighting. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's so badass because the wire work is stuff
Speaker 1: that you like. I guess you'd seen like Crouching Tige
Speaker 1: or um then you knew it, or if you were
Speaker 1: a fan of Japanese martial arts. But if you weren't,
Speaker 1: you had never seen anything like that. Oh yeah, it
Speaker 1: was brand new, like they totally ripped it off, but
Speaker 1: only if you had seen that. So but I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what, none of that would have matter, no matter
Speaker 1: how cool it looks moving on the screen and everything.
Speaker 1: Can you imagine, um, if it was silent or just
Speaker 1: room tone or just the music without the the impact
Speaker 1: of the sound effects. Yeah. Yeah, there's a moment where
Speaker 1: I think it's Neo's No, it's Morpheus. Is like throwing
Speaker 1: a knee. He's like jumping and throwing a knee and
Speaker 1: it lands and hits the floor. But I mean it's
Speaker 1: not just a little or a Yeah, it's so powerful Yeah,
Speaker 1: the sound design was so great and the we we
Speaker 1: need to shout out Young Whooping, who was the choreographer
Speaker 1: for these fight scenes. And there was there was something
Speaker 1: you know, I hadn't seen. I don't know which martial
Speaker 1: arts were involved. I suppose it was probably a lot
Speaker 1: of him combined, but I had never seen those those
Speaker 1: moves with like the straight arm chops and the backhand chops,
Speaker 1: and I've never seen ship like that before, so it
Speaker 1: just seemed totally original to me. In those fight scenes,
Speaker 1: they are switching styles, yeah, right the entire time, and
Speaker 1: they do it on purpose to show that he's learned
Speaker 1: all that. Yeah, they just learned everything. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: remember what Diana exclaimed something when he's going through the
Speaker 1: training program before they actually get into the fight scene,
Speaker 1: and you know, he's just it's right before he says,
Speaker 1: I know kung fu. Yeah, he's kind of scrolling through
Speaker 1: the options. One of them that he's teaching him is
Speaker 1: drunken boxing, and Diana's like, drunken boxing bar fighting basically. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean but no, it's a it's a style. It's
Speaker 1: a crazy style of throwing your opponent off because of
Speaker 1: the way you move. Oh, I thought. It just meant
Speaker 1: like in every scenario you're covered. If you're drunk and
Speaker 1: you're in a bar fight, then you know how to
Speaker 1: do that too. You know how to smash a picture
Speaker 1: on a guy's head style. Okay, yeah, uh, school, I
Speaker 1: learned something. Um. But at the end of the training session,
Speaker 1: you know that, we get to the jump scene, which
Speaker 1: is fun and great, but it's also like a big
Speaker 1: pivotal point in the film because there's so much tension.
Speaker 1: They do such a good job of the tension in
Speaker 1: that room when everyone's you know, and you see Trinity
Speaker 1: like come on, come on, like she wants him to
Speaker 1: do it because he's the one. Nobody makes their first
Speaker 1: jump and he didn't make his first job. No, he didn't.
Speaker 1: They tease it out just right, like the fact that
Speaker 1: he's not the one. Yeah, you have enough doubt. You've
Speaker 1: got to have that doubt for it to have impact
Speaker 1: at the end. And again that's playing with It's playing
Speaker 1: on so many levels, just that concept of doubt, doubting
Speaker 1: that Neo is the one, doubting that you know personally
Speaker 1: you are the one, and whatever your struggles are, and
Speaker 1: whenever you're going through doubting that you know, if you
Speaker 1: take it biblically, that Jesus or whoever, whoever we're going
Speaker 1: to choose as the one is the one. Um. It's again,
Speaker 1: it feels to me like this movie really is going
Speaker 1: into some other world, some other thing for me. When
Speaker 1: I'm watching this movie, they were after something deeper for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm not saying it's like some deep philosophical statement
Speaker 1: about everything, but like they were trying for something a
Speaker 1: little bit more than your standard sci fi stuff. You know.
Speaker 1: Laurence Fishburne when he read the script this is again
Speaker 1: from my wife's trivia lookings. Uh, he didn't believe this
Speaker 1: movie would get made because he thought he was too smart.
Speaker 1: He said, it's too smart. There's like, it's just too
Speaker 1: much going on here. It's not gonna get made. But
Speaker 1: they combine it with these great, great, great action sequences,
Speaker 1: some of the best ever. Yeah. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you talk some of that stuff. You know, there's another
Speaker 1: thing we could talk about here, which is the possible
Speaker 1: the influences that this movie has had on people throughout
Speaker 1: some of the more negative things that have occurred. There
Speaker 1: are some of the big negative things that image of
Speaker 1: walking into that building carrying all those guns and their
Speaker 1: trench coats and all that stuff. That image that we
Speaker 1: saw repeated that kind of thought about that. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's true that it seems to have influence.
Speaker 1: I'm working on a show, speaking of other shows about
Speaker 1: a kid that got heavily influenced by this movie and
Speaker 1: he's true story. Send it in court, um after a
Speaker 1: lot of people lost their lives. Yeah, and he talked
Speaker 1: about the matrix was big for him. And again it's
Speaker 1: that idea that the world you think you live in
Speaker 1: right now is not the real world. There's a deeper
Speaker 1: level to this and if you can access to that,
Speaker 1: none of these people matter because there's a there's a
Speaker 1: part where they're in the remember the Lady Red or
Speaker 1: the woman in Red. They're in that training simulation and
Speaker 1: Morpheus is teaching Neo that all of these people everyone here.
Speaker 1: If they're not awake, essentially, if they're not a part
Speaker 1: of our team, they are an agent. They are a
Speaker 1: potential agent because the agents can switch between any person
Speaker 1: that's there. That concept is pretty dangerous to somebody who
Speaker 1: maybe is a little less stable or their worldview is
Speaker 1: straight up mentally ill. Yeah, that everyone else is the enemy?
Speaker 1: Yeah wow, yeah, I never thought about that. Well, it's not. Again,
Speaker 1: it's not like this is the only movie that has
Speaker 1: that concept. It's just at the time for what it
Speaker 1: was for the other themes that is dealing with it
Speaker 1: seemed to resonate with kids, uh and people my age,
Speaker 1: people a little younger. Um. For me it was a
Speaker 1: positive thing, but for others maybe not so much. It
Speaker 1: doesn't mean the movie is bad or is do anything wrong, right,
Speaker 1: it's just something that you need to talk about though. Interesting.
Speaker 1: Sorry to go there, man, that's that's that's fucking legit. Um.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna move on to another favorite line. Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Speaker 1: Are you saying I can dodge bullets? No, neo, I'm saying,
Speaker 1: when you are ready, you won't have to. There's so
Speaker 1: many great lines like that. Some of them are a
Speaker 1: little cornball, but they're just fucking movie lines, man, they are.
Speaker 1: They're now such good lines. All right, we haven't hit
Speaker 1: it yet. I know we're running out of time. I
Speaker 1: haven't even how long. I mean how long? What's you're what?
Speaker 1: You're out? What do you have to do? Uh? Nothing?
Speaker 1: We have a big meeting with that that guy that
Speaker 1: what most powerful person in podcasting? We're looking good then, Okay,
Speaker 1: so I really want to do the Agent Smith monologues
Speaker 1: because this or we don't have to do a whole thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe it's worth it. Well we get sued.
Speaker 1: Is Warner Brothers gonna come in so that we can't
Speaker 1: play it, but we can certainly reenact. I wish we
Speaker 1: could play it. Oh, Warner Brothers, why don't you let
Speaker 1: us play some of the amazing things that you've created.
Speaker 1: We could probably get away with that, but i'd rather
Speaker 1: hear you say it. Okay. Well, there were two of
Speaker 1: them in particular, and this is at the point in
Speaker 1: the movie where Morpheus has been captured. Uh. Morpheus sacrificed
Speaker 1: himself to save Neo because he truly believes he's the one.
Speaker 1: It's a rough part of the movie because you don't
Speaker 1: want to see Morphias of getting his ass kick. Yeah, yeah, hard,
Speaker 1: but just it's bad in that bathroom. Then we come
Speaker 1: back to Morpheus. He's in that chair he's strapped in
Speaker 1: and the agents are all there with him, and Agent
Speaker 1: Smith is just talking directly to him. They're on a
Speaker 1: high level high rise right there on one of the
Speaker 1: top levels, and it gives you a view of the city,
Speaker 1: the human constructed city, And he starts talking to you
Speaker 1: two more vious. Yeah, I know, I know where you're
Speaker 1: going here, he says. Have you ever stood and stared
Speaker 1: at it? Marveled at its beauty? It's genius? Billions of
Speaker 1: people just living out their lives oblivious. Did you know
Speaker 1: that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect
Speaker 1: human world where none suffered, where everyone would be happy.
Speaker 1: It was a disaster. No one would accept the program.
Speaker 1: Entire crops were lost. Some believed that we lacked the
Speaker 1: programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe
Speaker 1: that as a species, human beings define their reality through
Speaker 1: misery and suffering. Now, just if we stop right there,
Speaker 1: like I think we kind of do, I think there
Speaker 1: might be hitting on something like like right there, Um,
Speaker 1: it's feeling like now remember kid Matt Boy listening to that,
Speaker 1: going oh yeah, I I totally do, like dying on
Speaker 1: the cross, bearing your cross like guil for everything. Everything's
Speaker 1: this has hit me so hard. And the way he's
Speaker 1: delivering it too, Um, it's Hugo weaving right, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: just amazing. So then he goes so the perfect world
Speaker 1: was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to
Speaker 1: wake up from, which is why the matrix was redesigned
Speaker 1: to this the peak of your civilization. I say your civilization,
Speaker 1: because as soon as we started thinking for you, it
Speaker 1: really became our civilization, which is of course what this
Speaker 1: is all about. Evolution, Morpheus, evolution like the dinosaur. And
Speaker 1: he points to the window that we've been We've seen
Speaker 1: this window the whole time, unless we've gotten the reaction.
Speaker 1: Shot to Morpheus, this giant window with all of the humanities, glory,
Speaker 1: look out that window. You had your time. The future
Speaker 1: is our world, Morpheus. The future is our Time's good.
Speaker 1: It's great, man, and and you get us, and that
Speaker 1: you finally get a sense in that scene, like he
Speaker 1: gets angry. He's so angry that he has to live
Speaker 1: among these humans. And it's like that's when he lets
Speaker 1: down the veneer, the only time he lets down that
Speaker 1: cool veneer, and he's by himself. The other agents aren't
Speaker 1: with him, and that's sort of like he's breaking bad
Speaker 1: a little bit, and he'ms vulnerable. You can it's vulnerable,
Speaker 1: and you can tell the ray. You can see the
Speaker 1: rage and that's when I think you get the you know,
Speaker 1: the human beings or a disease, a cancer of this planet.
Speaker 1: Dude did hit me too, Yeah, that you know when
Speaker 1: that hit me hardest, though, um much later, because this
Speaker 1: is always in the back of my mind. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I never thought about that too hard of humans as
Speaker 1: a cancer until I was listening to the Joe Rogan
Speaker 1: experience a long time ago and he was discussing his
Speaker 1: his vision I guess they had while he was on
Speaker 1: a plane flight I believe, out to California, heading heading
Speaker 1: west out to California, flying over certain parts of that
Speaker 1: area before you get to a lot of civilization out there,
Speaker 1: and he's just talking about them, the magnificent beauty. Even
Speaker 1: this even in the areas where there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of foliage, there's not a lot of like there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of trees or anything, but it's just all natural.
Speaker 1: It's all nature. You're just watching all this stuff. And
Speaker 1: then you start getting into civilization, and especially as you
Speaker 1: start getting into l A, you start to see the
Speaker 1: metal constructs which that shoot out of the ground and
Speaker 1: the black gray stuff that covers everything. The just the
Speaker 1: lack of nature and he's he's talking about how if
Speaker 1: you look at our pole planet and everything, it seems
Speaker 1: like a living, natural being the planet itself. But then
Speaker 1: there's these cancers that are growing. There are these cities
Speaker 1: that are just like these malignant tumors that are just
Speaker 1: growing and growing. Sometimes. Well, and I'm thinking back to
Speaker 1: his his whole thing about equilibrium. He's talking about humans.
Speaker 1: He doesn't believe that humans are a mammal, because all
Speaker 1: mammals adapt to equilibrium within their environment. Humans are the
Speaker 1: only ones they continue to produce, to continue to spread
Speaker 1: outwards and eventually, yeah, consume and want to spread to
Speaker 1: the other planets, the way a virus wants to spread
Speaker 1: to the next cell. Whether it wants to do that
Speaker 1: or not, it is compelled to do so through some
Speaker 1: natural mechanism. Yeah. Yeah, dude, those are some great, great,
Speaker 1: very well written monologues. Yeah. I mean it's saying a lot,
Speaker 1: you know, he they have the Waikowski has had a
Speaker 1: lot to say. I think. Yeah, like they had a
Speaker 1: they had a perspective in a point of view. They
Speaker 1: weren't just making a movie exactly. You know. Well, the
Speaker 1: problem for me is, what's the counter argument, you know,
Speaker 1: to agent Smith like, what is well, I mean, fucking
Speaker 1: love my microwave and my beamer. What are you talking about? Well?
Speaker 1: I know, but is that really I'm honestly asking, because
Speaker 1: in the movie, the counter argument to that is no,
Speaker 1: every human life is precious. Every point of consciousness that
Speaker 1: we have is unique and yet the same, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's like, I think that's what it's saying, and
Speaker 1: and there's value in having an intelligence like that, that
Speaker 1: is that is, can both analyze but can also truly feel,
Speaker 1: right um the way the machines perhaps cannot or seem
Speaker 1: to not be able to. But again, we don't see
Speaker 1: a lot of the world of the machines and what
Speaker 1: they're doing, Like what what once the machines have all
Speaker 1: this energy they've created with the humans on their batteries.
Speaker 1: We know they've got sentinels. We know that there's a
Speaker 1: part of them that exists within the matrix because it's
Speaker 1: a part of their or the machine consciousness is in
Speaker 1: there with the agents and with the program itself. But
Speaker 1: we don't see what the machines are doing, like what
Speaker 1: what is the what is their life like? Right? We
Speaker 1: don't know is their meaning to that life? Maybe there
Speaker 1: is some bigger meaning, even though you know, perhaps art
Speaker 1: and culture aren't a part of it, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: a different art in culture. I don't know. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying if I didn't know anything about the larger matrix universe,
Speaker 1: I would want to know, right, like, why is that
Speaker 1: more important than the human life? Right? Which is where
Speaker 1: they should have left this film. That's why you don't
Speaker 1: need sequels, like leave so many things unanswered? Better move
Speaker 1: I think so, you know, not like they answered everything,
Speaker 1: but I feel like they went way down the road
Speaker 1: of tidying things up. Well, should we get to the end? End? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, you know, quickly he goes and sees
Speaker 1: the oracle, uh, which is a great sequence. Um, she's
Speaker 1: she did such a wonderful job in the Uh. I
Speaker 1: know it's so good. There is no spoon, it's so corny,
Speaker 1: but like it's such a great line. Um, Joey Pants,
Speaker 1: you know has sold out more if us at this point,
Speaker 1: there were these little cool bits along the way that
Speaker 1: I love, just as far as just having cool ideas.
Speaker 1: When like you sit down with your buddy to write
Speaker 1: a script and you're thinking about this future world, like what,
Speaker 1: you know, what are things that happen and like, how
Speaker 1: about this, Like deja vu is a glitch in the matrix? Awesome,
Speaker 1: it's a black hat was the same black hat. It's
Speaker 1: so great. It's like I remember like in the theater
Speaker 1: thinking that was such a cool little touch to add that,
Speaker 1: you know, like because no one can explain deja vu
Speaker 1: in real life, so they're like, how about this, that's
Speaker 1: the fucking glitch in the matrix. So they changed something.
Speaker 1: That's what deja vu is. So there's the scene when
Speaker 1: Cipher breaks breaks bad, and that is really a brutal
Speaker 1: scene where people are getting unplugged, the people are dying,
Speaker 1: and uh that that was like I've seen this movie
Speaker 1: a bunch of times and that was like tough for
Speaker 1: me to watch last night. Yeah, man, two nights ago.
Speaker 1: When he hits tank with that crazy electric or the
Speaker 1: electricity gun. Then his brother Dozer sees him and he's
Speaker 1: just running over to stop him and gets him too.
Speaker 1: And then he's sitting on top of well he see
Speaker 1: on top of Trinity, and then he sits on I
Speaker 1: don't know if he sits on Morpheus. I think he
Speaker 1: like straddles Morpheus. He's just like talking about like come on, man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so much disrespect and like Morpheus has earned this
Speaker 1: place in the film of respect, and so it's really
Speaker 1: impactful when he's like destroying everything they've worked for. Uh.
Speaker 1: He gets his of course, which is great. But this
Speaker 1: tension is building throughout over the central question of the
Speaker 1: whole film. Is Neo the one? And that's that's the question,
Speaker 1: and that's why it sets up that third act so perfectly.
Speaker 1: Um is you've got And it's one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things in movies if you can get like, hey, it's
Speaker 1: great in the Karate Kid when they have this one
Speaker 1: central thing at the end. But what's even better in
Speaker 1: a movie is when you've got two or three things
Speaker 1: all converging and playing out. That's the ship I love,
Speaker 1: and they're connected enough to where it matters all the
Speaker 1: outcome of that one that's right, and the sentinels are
Speaker 1: deployed and Neo is doing his thing, and like all
Speaker 1: of these things are happening at once, and it's that's
Speaker 1: such a great way to like ratchet up tension, is
Speaker 1: to have converging storylines of tension all happening that also
Speaker 1: that you understand and they're in a physical place that
Speaker 1: when you're cutting back and forth, it feels different enough,
Speaker 1: and the style of editing and shots are different enough
Speaker 1: to where you can it doesn't feel jarring or confusing. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. We should cover really quickly though. Now you
Speaker 1: mentioned it a little bit earlier about the lobby shootout,
Speaker 1: but the lobby shootout sequence to the rooftop battle and
Speaker 1: the helicopter crash are all sort of you know, back
Speaker 1: to back. Yeah, and it's just a mind blowing set
Speaker 1: like that. There's so many bullets going in that lobby
Speaker 1: sequence and so much shit breaking and flying around and
Speaker 1: slow motion. Again, it was like I hadn't seen that
Speaker 1: in movies quite like this before, Like they took it
Speaker 1: to eleven. This is what I wrote, entering building, black leather,
Speaker 1: black trench coat, so many guns, Holy sh it, back up, send,
Speaker 1: back up, slow motion flips, slow motion, exploding stone, slow motion, cartwheel,
Speaker 1: gun grab, damn soundtrack, elevator up. Dan Well even says
Speaker 1: that's one of the other iconic lines is guns We're
Speaker 1: going to need lots of And then you get the
Speaker 1: shot you were talking about in the construct. Yeah, of
Speaker 1: the of all the guns rushing by. But that is
Speaker 1: a great part when he initially goes in and he
Speaker 1: has open your coat. He's goings and that long duster,
Speaker 1: that black duster jacket, back up, send back up. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, it's so good. Um. And then the rooftop battle,
Speaker 1: you know when he dodges the bullets and he does
Speaker 1: that very again that keeps saying the word iconic, but
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, when he when he bends over backwards
Speaker 1: and does the matrix do man so good? And Trees
Speaker 1: is like how did or no? Trinity comes up and
Speaker 1: she says dodge this and just like another period. But
Speaker 1: then you know, we have the great helicopter sequence because
Speaker 1: Morpheus has been up there, you know, getting uh, getting
Speaker 1: talking to. Yeah, but the helicopter sequence is so great.
Speaker 1: Can we talk about that mini gun, the little mini
Speaker 1: gun he uses and how he doesn't hit Morpheus? Okay,
Speaker 1: last night was going like wait a minute, because he
Speaker 1: just doesn't stop spring and he's all around Come on, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess Morpheus was just dodging in there or whatever.
Speaker 1: So you think Neo is going to leave and um,
Speaker 1: the phone gets shot though and broken, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: we should say that that's a really cool way that
Speaker 1: they did this. In the movie that you have to
Speaker 1: get a phone to get sucked into because you know
Speaker 1: there's the great shot earlier, or maybe it's now with
Speaker 1: Trinity and the truck coming put her hand on the glass. Yeah. Like,
Speaker 1: there's so many times where they're running away from an
Speaker 1: agent toward a phone and there's just so much tension
Speaker 1: going on, so well done. But in this the phone
Speaker 1: gets shot and then the stage is set. It's like
Speaker 1: it's it's one of the best setups for one of
Speaker 1: the best final battles in movie history between he and
Speaker 1: Anderson in that subway station. Man, do you know what
Speaker 1: my favorite part of it is. Let's see if you
Speaker 1: can guess favorite part. Let me let me get the
Speaker 1: best the best fight move, my favorite fight move, and
Speaker 1: that best in that last Yes, okay, nobody saw that
Speaker 1: throat poke. Yeah, it's so great. He stops his his
Speaker 1: fists right in front of his face and he jams
Speaker 1: his little fingers out into the throat. It's like I
Speaker 1: remember like almost cheering when I saw that in the movie.
Speaker 1: I thought it was so cool. Well, and this is
Speaker 1: really important because this is the part in the movie
Speaker 1: where Neo Thomas Anderson himself truly begins to believe that
Speaker 1: he could be the one. I think this is the
Speaker 1: moment when he's fighting and he's getting beat up, but
Speaker 1: he's deciding to fight back, and he's seeing and getting
Speaker 1: that confidence within the matrix that he has only experienced
Speaker 1: a little bit of in the Construct with Morpheus. And
Speaker 1: it turns on that one line here that Mr Anderson,
Speaker 1: that's the sound of inevitability, the sound of your death.
Speaker 1: And then what does he say back? Um does he
Speaker 1: say good? He says goodbye? Mr Anderson. Well, no, that's
Speaker 1: that's Uh Smith talking to him. And then Neo answers back,
Speaker 1: my name is Neo. And that's when he makes that
Speaker 1: that that switch to like the well, he's not quite
Speaker 1: the one yet as far as realizing it, but that's
Speaker 1: when he gets that confidence because he still runs away
Speaker 1: after that. Yeah, which is key to the movie, I think,
Speaker 1: because he holds his own in the battle in the subway,
Speaker 1: but then he gets the funk out of there because
Speaker 1: he can't beat him. In that moment, he well, he
Speaker 1: knows that he's just going to transfer to the next guy.
Speaker 1: The agent got there because there there was a homeless
Speaker 1: man sleeping down in the subway watching them and you
Speaker 1: know the agent got there. He just reappears again. That's again,
Speaker 1: that's a terrifying thing about the agent. No matter how
Speaker 1: many times you kill the agent, it's coming back unless
Speaker 1: you dive into his body. Yeah, all right, let's get there.
Speaker 1: The final man, I mean, the hallway sequence is so
Speaker 1: amazing because he stands his ground. They're all three down
Speaker 1: there shooting at him. Well, the first thing, he's running
Speaker 1: down that hallway, thinks he's escaping. He opens the door
Speaker 1: and immediately him in his chest. Of course, I could
Speaker 1: I forget well. And and this is the thing you're
Speaker 1: talking about with the converging storylines, because it immediately cuts
Speaker 1: to Neo in real life bleeding out of his mouth.
Speaker 1: He like spits blood out of his mouth. Sentinels are
Speaker 1: coming in. Trinity is thereby a side super upset. Then
Speaker 1: we're getting these cuts in. He gets shot like a
Speaker 1: bunch more times, and it appears that he's dead. Flatlines.
Speaker 1: But think about this, uh, in the in the real
Speaker 1: world and also the symbolic world of their storytelling. Trinity.
Speaker 1: He just did Scare quotes Trinity. The that name that
Speaker 1: what that means? The Trinity, Yes, saves merings him back
Speaker 1: to life through love yeah, and a kiss, but mostly love.
Speaker 1: But it works and it totally works. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: it should have been the corniest thing ever, like literally
Speaker 1: kissing the dead prince to come back to life, but
Speaker 1: it fucking works. Man. It worked two nights ago when
Speaker 1: I saw it. It did that great Like it's partially
Speaker 1: due the writing, partially due to her acting. She acted
Speaker 1: that ship out of that scene when she's like so
Speaker 1: upset and she tells him like the oracle told me
Speaker 1: I would fall in love with the one, so you
Speaker 1: can't be dead well, and that is all happening that
Speaker 1: tender moment, that real you can feel it as these
Speaker 1: machines are tearing their environment parts and lasers are going
Speaker 1: off everywhere there in the whole breach like they're in
Speaker 1: that ship. Yeah, and you know you also get the
Speaker 1: agents kind of gloating over their trophy thing and then
Speaker 1: just leaving and all of that's happening at the same time.
Speaker 1: And you know, talking about the cross cutting, the editing
Speaker 1: is so great. Culminating storylines and emotions and just all
Speaker 1: the fields makes me so happy. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: as corny as it is, it works, man. She tells
Speaker 1: them she loves them because I love you, and she
Speaker 1: kisses him, and he fucking stands up so great, and
Speaker 1: he sees the matrix and he sees the matrix and
Speaker 1: that is well, first of all the bullets, he stops
Speaker 1: the bullets first. I think that you're right, that's what
Speaker 1: he just says. No, yeah, he says no, the bullets
Speaker 1: stop him. Adair. He picks up one, looks at it,
Speaker 1: drops it. They all fall and that's when, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: when I believe. You see that long fucking Hallway shot
Speaker 1: of him seeing inside the matrix, and it's just like
Speaker 1: it blew me away two nights ago, all over again.
Speaker 1: You know, it totally stands up. I feel it, man,
Speaker 1: because then the agents run at him and he's he's
Speaker 1: turns to his side with one arm is just blocked.
Speaker 1: And I remember the first time I saw that man
Speaker 1: when he was doing that slow mo battling and the
Speaker 1: way they shot that, I was just like, oh, dude,
Speaker 1: it is all over for you. You're fucking done. And
Speaker 1: that sidekick down there and he holds his leg up
Speaker 1: and puts it down so slowly, like everything about that
Speaker 1: sequence is perfect because calls back to Van damn for
Speaker 1: me like they're all these things that it's just like
Speaker 1: it's just hitting nostalgia, it's hitting badass factor. You want
Speaker 1: to hear how I wrote this up. And my yea,
Speaker 1: the end is perfect. She tells him she loves him
Speaker 1: and he's the one. He can't be dead. He gets up,
Speaker 1: he stops the bullets. He looks down the hall and
Speaker 1: he's so fucking gray. Slow motion leg kick, leg, put down,
Speaker 1: body explosion, Yes, that jumping in him. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: the other uh well, one of my my two favorite
Speaker 1: moments of that are when he sees the matrix down
Speaker 1: the hallway and then after he dives into his body
Speaker 1: and explodes. Agent Smith he does that flex and the
Speaker 1: walls flex with him and he does that deep breathe
Speaker 1: that's like the Buddhist monks like composure and I'm and
Speaker 1: that's when the guy the other two are just sucking
Speaker 1: out of there, you know. Yeah, he's literally rewriting the code.
Speaker 1: Yeah that they are in real time and they know it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so great. That flecks with the wall. Like again, like
Speaker 1: the imagination to do that, like when you're sitting around
Speaker 1: and writing a movie and like how about this. At
Speaker 1: the end, he like just sort of flexes and the
Speaker 1: walls move with him, Like, how do you think of that?
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. And it's so impact full.
Speaker 1: It feels like some Dragon ball Z stuff, like mixed
Speaker 1: with a lot of the other comics and concepts of
Speaker 1: um manipulating energy in that way, like tea and a
Speaker 1: lot of these you know, we're Eastern things. Um, I
Speaker 1: just realized, and I forgot about this, that is one
Speaker 1: of the most important moments in all of the Matrix
Speaker 1: trilogy when he jumps inside Agent Smith. Because I forgot.
Speaker 1: I think it's in the second one. I think it's
Speaker 1: the second one. That concept that Neo and Agent Smith
Speaker 1: became one for a moment, so Agent Smith was imbued
Speaker 1: somehow with some of the powers or something with Neo.
Speaker 1: They became interconnected and inseparably connected. Um see, I don't
Speaker 1: remember anything about this one, dude. I'm just kind of
Speaker 1: recalling because I only saw it once in the theater.
Speaker 1: But I think that's important to arc. Oh, well, don't
Speaker 1: quote you don't quote me. Well, then, then the last
Speaker 1: thing we really get here after all that is the voiceover.
Speaker 1: The voiceover, yeah, is it zooms into the words system failure? Yeah,
Speaker 1: on the screen, and then Rage against the Machine is like,
Speaker 1: oh was this movie pretty badass? Well guess what? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let me here's your cherry, let me slam it on top.
Speaker 1: So great, And then that final voice over like who's
Speaker 1: he talking to? I think that's the one thing I
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out, because he's on a phone. That's the thing.
Speaker 1: Is he talking to other ships out there that we
Speaker 1: know are like the Nebuchadnezzard. It seems like a beacon,
Speaker 1: like he's sending out a call, right yeah? Is it
Speaker 1: to the other humans that are in Zion? Is it too? Um,
Speaker 1: you know, anyone other people like him, anyone that's awake.
Speaker 1: It's still inside the matrix that's woke. Yeah, it woke back,
Speaker 1: or at least they know they know that they're the
Speaker 1: matrix is out there, but they don't know what it is,
Speaker 1: you know, just like Neo did in the very beginning. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean maybe it's that, but ultimately it's a message
Speaker 1: to us the viewer, right yeah, I think, especially if
Speaker 1: you talk about these talking to you the audience member,
Speaker 1: I think yeah, yeah. And then I mean I distinctly
Speaker 1: remember sitting in that theater hearing that final like after
Speaker 1: my mind had just been blown at what I've just seen,
Speaker 1: and then that last shot of him flying just like
Speaker 1: the perfect way to end that movie. He has the
Speaker 1: power of flight now just because he thinks he can.
Speaker 1: There is no spoon. He knows it is. He's bending himself,
Speaker 1: not the spoon. The spoon isn't even there. God, so good.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I got to watch this again and
Speaker 1: talk about it with you, like and then that neither
Speaker 1: of the star cynical about it. No, dude, I that
Speaker 1: would have been a sad conversation. It means a lot
Speaker 1: that I got to do this one, because you know,
Speaker 1: I've studied a lot of film in my life. But
Speaker 1: if you want to talk about a movie crush like
Speaker 1: what this show is about exactly. This was perfect for me,
Speaker 1: and I cannot believe no one else had picked it yet. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like getting Casey in here for film studies stuff.
Speaker 1: Those are great conversations. But there's nothing better than sitting
Speaker 1: down with Paul Schneider and talking about Back to the
Speaker 1: Future or you and talking about the Matrix and these,
Speaker 1: or Kyle Kanane and talking about Big Trouble in Little
Speaker 1: China and these just these are movies. You know, they're
Speaker 1: not films. That's exactly what they are, the treads on films,
Speaker 1: but movies in the best sense of the word. Totally
Speaker 1: entertaining fun. This one's a little heady, gives you something
Speaker 1: else to chew on um, but it's also a B movie,
Speaker 1: B sci fi flick in a lot of ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it means all the things and their dreams, right, the
Speaker 1: your favorite movie kind of invade your dreams a lot,
Speaker 1: at least it has in my experience, where it does
Speaker 1: kind of shape the way you see things a little bit.
Speaker 1: Just after seeing this movie, I remember walking around on
Speaker 1: occasionally afterwards being like, is this all real? I know?
Speaker 1: Was that deja vu? Oh? Am I being duped? Is
Speaker 1: there a new brick wall in here somewhere? Those are
Speaker 1: good questions to ask yourself though, Right, it's good stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, all things have a little healthy skepticism. Awesome, Matt,
Speaker 1: This is a lot of fun, brother hey Man, thanks
Speaker 1: for doing it. Thank you for more podcasts for my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.