i think about the movie "the matrix" a lot. it is one of the films i have watched more than any other, and just re-watched it over two recent evenings.
the film came out when I was around 10. it released in theaters March 31st 1999, and, being rated R, it didn't really enter my radar until it was released on DVD, september 21st 1999.
i was in 4th grade. one of my best friends at the time, whose birthday is december 28th, was planning a birthday party for that year, and the Draw was going to be, he had a copy of the matrix on DVD (not to mention, he actually had a DVD player). being a bunch of 10 year olds and knowing it was action packed with bullets blood AND kungfu AND slow motion? we would do anything to see it. i remember a concentrated propaganda effort to convince my, and all of our, parents that even though it was rated R, it was just cuz it had some blood and some bullets, so there's really no problem here. (side note, columbine was earlier this same year. i am suprised we got away with this.) trivial side note, the matrix ended up being my 2nd r-rated film viewing. the first was "waterworld" at a neighbors house whenever that movie came out. sometime the year after my matrix experience was an all night sleepover for another friend's birthday party. we watched Blade, and The Big Lebowski, and i think I fell asleep during the third film. my friend had a strobelight. after watching blade we turned it on and I remember how freaky and fascinating it was to see myself and my hands move in slow motion. who needs drugs when you have a strobelight and loud music in your friend's basement living room. (i am pretty sure we listened to the prodigy's "fat of the land" while collectively absolutely losing our shit jumping off the the couch and the stairs from higher and higher and feeling like we were floating down to the ground. actually, i just remembered that i kind of had a panic attack. it was crazy!) most other r-rated films were Banned from being Blockbustered, but that's where friends came in.
of the complex plot, i don't really remember how much i absorbed from this initial viewing. (yes, the party went off without a hitch.) I remember I saw it again in the following spring, during an overnight stay at elementary school. not sure if this was common, but our afterschool program would host sleepovers a few times a year, with copious amounts of pop corn and ice cream sundaes, and movies projected in the auditorium. i have no idea why it was allowed but that year they too showed us the matrix. i guess the 90s were just crazy. i don't think a school would show their 4th graders the matrix in such an anarchic midnight environment these days. san francisco too, i guess, is at play here. i don't remember much from the 2nd viewing, either, except that there was a makeshift karaoke talent show on stage before the movie began. it was probably all backstreet boys and nsync. i also think there were lots of overnight activities going on around the school and the movie was just one of the things you could do at this adventure playground. really, it's crazy to think that our school just handed us the plot of "over the edge" on a silver platter and said "go fucking nuts, we don't care." what sort of reverse psychology were they trying to pull. anyway.
over the years, the matrix was a stalwart presence.
there was the "goddamn you cypher" site on You're The Man Now Dog. remember YTMND? you can still see it here. remember finding forrester? remember when america (by which i mean the snarky corners of the internet) was cynical and made fun of sean connery even though he was just being cute and earnest and following his heart? i miss those times. i think america needs a dark/sick sense of humor to survive, because we have a dark history, and present, and future, but the religious right and conservatives and all their permutations keep fucking it up for everyone. but even if, overnight, religions disappeared, new ones would naturally develop, it's human nature. same goes for capitalism. but the two have formed an unholy union slash feedback loop and that's REALLY what's fucking it up for everyone. or whatever, anyway:
there was that time Sophia Stewart filed a lawsuit claiming the wachowski's stole her short story concept and owed her a billion dollars. one night on youtube about 6 years ago I stumbled on a presentation/lecture/speech she gave. i tried to find it again to share in this post tonight, but no luck. if i do find it i will publish a P.S. but i can tell you she came across as crazy, and not in the, just crazy enough she might be right, kind of way. and there is plenty of other material out there if you do want to watch. and, the courts ruled that she could not provide, for whatever reason, strong enough evidence to prove her case. it may or may not be worth noting, that she did send a copy of her novella called "the third eye" to the wachowskis in 1993, i have not read it but the courts have, but that's literally all that is corroborating that i have been able to come across. if i had to guess her book is just based on some sort of spiritual awakening she had where she realized all the same things that Agent Smith talks about and the conflicts that drive the plot of the film, and since it was only a novella and Disillusionment is a Universal Concept, and i'm sure that there's no shared character or place names, that's why the case was tossed. (and it was so traumatic of a revelation for her that she ended up being tunnel-visioned in it for over a decade)
it is however interesting to note: due to a series of low-level Intern errors and the virality of such a claim, from 2004 to as recently as 2013 there have been many articles written online saying she won her billion dollar lawsuit.
the film is owned by warner brothers. i think it's the first time I saw their opening credit bit, with the fluctuating camera gaze over the rows of warehouses (studio lots) that is commonly bronze/sepia-toned, but was, for the matrix, neon green instead.
it was probably in 2014 or so a DJ acquaintance of mine, a notoriously cantankerous fellow no doubt, who frequented the record store, said something about Big Tech and the "surveillance matrix." at that point I don't think i had thought about the matrix in a while, and so my ears took a liking to the phrase, and I still pepper it into conversation when i get the chance.
in the film: the matrix isn't real.
THE MATRIX. ISN'T. REAL.
PUT. THE GLASSES. ON.
THE MATRIX ISN'T REAL.
but.... as we're watching, or after we've watched and we are sitting around and thinking, we realize that even though in the movie the matrix isn't real, the matrix looks an awful lot like our world. and even the things that are bad about the matrix, the things that agent smith hates, those are the things that when we're being really honest with ourselves, our kind of also the thing we hate about the matrix. uh, i mean, our lives.
so if the matrix isn't real but the matrix is like our life, is our life not real as well?
the dual layers of relatability present in the film and its ideas and its juxtaposition over real life are presented in such a literal way (that scene where Neo and the gang are in a limo, headed to meet the Oracle, and they drive past a restaurant and Neo remarks, Whoa... I used to eat there... knowing now that this recognition is occurring in a vegetative state as he dreams the matrix, he seems to chuckle in simulation as trinity gazes lovingly, mutely, from behind sunglasses, offering only a cheshire's curl of corner-lip as clue. and, of course, the classic, cream-of-wheat discourse. who wants to talk about morphemes and phonemes? why is red 'red', man, if i could call it 'blue'???) means that it is hard not to see it everywhere once you get turned on. this happens in all directions. there is pre and post matrix Experience. (there is pre and post drug-matrix experience, an act which is redundant as the movie IS drugs [all of this leads to a real Fractalized experience when in fact compounded] [and yeah, our life is also not real btw].) means that you see it everywhere behind you and can't help but notice it around you and are wary of it ahead of you.
this piece was put up in 1998 by Precita Eyes. it reads, "i was watching it - i couldn't look away, but part of me was watching myself watching, realizing that while i watched, i was being changed." i have taken many photographs of this piece over the years, it is near where i grew up and i remember a time before it was there and noticing it for the first time shortly after it went up. i like this one because it has a little heart someone added at the bottom. no mean feet, this is high up on a wall. anyway. there are other things about it that stuck with me. the fact that there is a me written inside the me, and watching it appears twice, and that the Z, perhaps representing sleep, perchance to dream sleeps the dreamer, morphs into the I below it. also that there is a phone number in the thought bubble (also how great is it that this is all a bunch of connected thought bubbles) asking you, what do you think ? it's a masterpiece, as far as i'm concerned. just like the matrix.
the film was so real that it caused shockwaves.
oh, and don't get me started on The Truman Show, which came out the year before the matrix. not sure when i first watched it, but around the same time. i remember several times watching it by myself and really being blown away by it. also because at the time i only knew jim carrey from the mask, a movie i loved then but was also kind of terrified by. i'm sure it all gave me a lot to think about.
hashtag also mandela effect cuz i'm sure it's in there somewhere. deja vu is a glitch in the matrix.
anyway. more to say about all this later, it's getting late and that's plenty for now. see ya later. ✌️
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