A frequently underused feature of my site is the Random link on the left menu bar. From time to time I browse through my older posts by repeatedly clicking on that link. I  reminisce until I have something better to do, or the guilt of not regularly updating in the best time of my life becomes overwhelming and I go back to browsing Engadget.

Among the facts interesting to me but probably few (if anyone ) else, is that there is simply an irrational number of posts about Spider-man.

Now, I haven’t read the comics since I had a paper route, and I never got caught up in the last two or three cartoon series. However, the movies directed by Sam Raimi and starring Toby Maguire have been the highlight of my lifelong Spider-man fandom.

Just to get some of my points out of the way, I will list them here so that I can (finally) get to the point of my post.

• Sam Raimi as director worried me until I learned that Spider-man was “his comic book” growing up. I then decided to keep an open mind and give him one chance to impress me.
• Toby Maguire as Peter Parker was genius casting, and was glad that production was delayed for 8-10 years because there had never been an actor better suited or the roll
• Kirsten Dunst is a horrible, horrible, horrible pick for Mary Jane. Horrible pick. Horrible.
• The third movie was the weakest. And it borders on bad. However, it has a higher rating on IMDB AND RottenTomatoes.com than this year’s Transformers 2, Twilight: New Moon, 2012, or Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 (which combined brought in over $1 billion). Anyone who wasted time on that predictably bad crap loses the privilege to criticize a movie consistently rated higher, like Spider-man 3.

So, in the end, I got what I wanted. The trilogy was not artwork, but they were three of the most fun movies I saw from 2000-2009. So you can imagine my elation when I heard that they were in pre-production for a 4th movie, or even a second trilogy. Hell, I was ecstatic when I read that Sam Raimi had stopped production because he thought the script was crap, and wanted to hold up production while it was fixed.

After all the complaints of films with awesome special effects, and sub-par scripts (read any critic’s column on why Avatar should NOT win the Oscar for Best Feature Film) it is upsetting to consider that there are powers in place who would rather take Sam Raimi and Toby Maguire off the film and reboot it with Mark Webb, the director of “(500) Days of Summer”.

Anyone who was upset by “Emo-Parker” from the third movie will not likely feel vindicated with a director like this. At first I doubted Sam Raimi, but was willing to give him a chance. So should I do so with Mark Webb? Perhaps.

But if Zooey Deschanel that kid from Third Rock From The Sun are the principle actors in the new Spider-man movie, then expect a very, very low rating on RottenTomatoes…

…though it may still bring in several hundred million dollars. Crap.

Still, I got what I wanted. I have the trilogy on DVD and will someday have it on Blu-ray. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Tobey. And of course, thanks, Stan. Excelsior!

Yeah, I bitched and moaned about having to cut the grass and rake the leaves for only five bucks a chore back when I was a teenager. Still, it’s amazing what several years of living in apartments will do to your wants and needs for a li’l piece of land to call my own.

This is also my least favourite, but that’s largely due to visual style. I’m not sure I can explain why, just that I find the abstraction of reality in the artist’s style to be too distracting. It’s an interesting story, but it’s also a bit of a throwaway film as a restult of it’s parallel storyline to the rest of the franchise.

There is a segment that reflects’ Neo’s own waking sequence, thus it’s well situated after the first film. However, the three I chose before and immediately after the first film seemed perfect. It just seemed reasonable to put three shorts each to precede the feature-length films.

Beyond:

From my least-favourite to my most-favourite. Again, this story sits parallel to the main storyline, but it’s helpful to have seen The Matrix Reloaded for a couple of reasons. The first is the Oracle’s speech on how everything in the Matrix has a program to govern how it works. Also, sometimes those programs aren’t working properly and that leads to a glitch.

Since this is situated in Japan  I have set it to Japanese dialogue with English subtitles. Even the walking signal music has significance. Listen to the commentary sometime to learn about it.

In this entry, some neighbourhood kids find an old house where a glitch is causing problems like screwed up gravity and time-dilation. Because the End of the War is coming, in combination with Agent Smith’s screwing around in the second film, it makes sense to watch this film between the second and third.

Wow. This is the first time I’m watching this short with surround sound. It’s completely a new film. The weirdness surrounds you like it does the characters.

Rain falling from a clear sky. A broken lightbulb lighting up. The errors in the code manifest themselves as they would in a haunted house.

I can’t say why I like this one so much. Maybe it’s because it’s the childlike wonder at the ways the Matrix can be manipulated. That can probably go some way to explaining why they don’t ‘free’ a mind once it’s reached a certain age.

Matriculated:

The final short is again a very solemn story. Again, probably one of the low ones on my list of favourites, but fits better as well as any between the second and third films. By the end, there’s a possibility of peace to be found between the humans and the robots. And while this involves humans in the Real World, it also proves to be a story showing a different philosophy on dealing with the war. As a result, they act independent of Zion and thus would not have been called back to defend the city.

I forgot to switch it back to English, but didn’t realize that until the 5-minute mark. There is no dialogue through the first act of this film. Still, I choose to watch the rest in English since this is done in the same style as the artists’ original seris, Aeon Flux. Unfortunately, the audio and subtitle buttons are locked out of the DVD programming. I have to make the switch from the menu, then navigate back into the short. Given my experience with DVD programming, and knowing the variety of languages and commentary tracks to deal with, I can’t blame the programmers of this DVD.

Back to the film, the next part of the film enters a sureal world where they try to help the machine that they’ve captured to see the ‘folly’ of its ways. I’ve never been a fan of surreal art and environments, so this movie already has an uphill battle in connecting with me. The whole thing is meant to feel like a dream, but I’m still not entirely sure of the point. In these cases, I wonder if there even is one, or if the artist is just creating something that looks and feels weird.

The Matrix Revolutions:

One point unrelated to the movie itself that I want to make is how the advertising missed a brilliant opportunity. The monochromatic tone of the first film’s campaign was blue. The second’s campaign was green. The third’s was… green again. They should have made the monochromatic tone red. Following the victory of the machines in the second film, the third could focus on the red, death-like eyes of the machines. The connection between all three campaigns could come from the tones being blue, green and red; the three colours that are used in computer monitors.

Well, no crying over spilt milk. Let’s start the movie.

Starting with another overture with green code, we see the disoriented crew trying to find why Neo is stuck in a coma. Neo, although he isn’t physically ‘jacked in’, he appears to be. He appears in a ‘train station’ named Mobil Ave… somewhere Matrix-like, but not in the Matrix itself.

Morpheus and Trinity meet with the Oracle… who is now played by a new actress. Here change of appearance is attributed to her ‘choice’ to help Neo. Sort of a rogue program Witness Relocation Program. The unfortunate truth being that the original actress died during production. It’s nicely tied up in spite of that lose end.

Storming the Merovingian’s club starts with a scene that clearly is inteded to be an ‘upgrade’ on the landmark Lobby Scene from the first movie. Since both sices bend the rules of the Matrix, gravity has very little effect. It’s pretty sweet. In the club, it’s a bit of a glamorized version of the the club in the first movie… though a little too sex-slave to make a prude like myself comfortable.

Bane – infected with Smith’s consciousness – awakens. For some reason, someone is throwing crap at him from off screen. I’m not too sure what that’s about, but whatever.

Wow. When Smith takes over the Oracle’s powers, he lets out the creepiest laugh I’ve ever heard outside anime. It’s so upsetting it even creeps out the other Smiths.

Trinity and Neo take one of the ships to the Machine City. But before they leave, they have a problem with the power. Send the woman, and “I’ll be right back”. *sigh*

Neo gets his eyes burned out, and I have to admit that I found that unexpected. It became quite apparent that with that injury that he was not going to survive the movie. I remember that adding a new level of tragedy to how this film will end. One downside to the movie is that is uses the first half of the movie to set up the final battle. While most stories would have more character development to do, this film obviously doesn’t Instead, it fills it with foreboding and suspense. While “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” was able to do this effectively, I think that’s one place where this film did not succeed.

Finally, the outer wall is breached, and the battle starts. The percussion of gunfire is constant, and over five or ten minutes becomes overwhelming. However, when looks like they’re starting to hold their own, a flood of sentinels fly in and make the attack much more one sided. The possibility that the humans might not win this war suddenly breaches our suspension of disbelief.

The crew gets back to Zion and fires the EMP, shorting out the first wave of sentinels. Precisely because things were looking so dark, you really feel the same relief once the first battle is over.

The story rejoins Neo and Trinity. Neo has reached that higher state of being that allows him to kick collective robot ass just by thinking it. However, they’re overwhelmed. Beautifully and tragically, Trinity is the first human in hundreds of years to see the Sun – the real Sun – just before she loses her life. The scene as she dies is sad.. but a little monologue-heavy… a little heavy on rhetoric. Still, it’s a powerful scene.

Neo stands at the center of the Machine City. Some weird construct appears in order to discuss the Smith program that is growing beyond the control of the machines. Back in Zion, there’s a temporary end to the violence as Neo re-enters the Matrix.

Once again, Neo and Smith show down. The fight takes on a flying-over-the-city view like we’ve seen in many anime movies. It’s strange, then, that this scene reminds me of the finale of Dark City more than any other movie. I find it strange because that movie was made as one of the very last, special-effects laden films before Computer Graphics took over all such post production. This film, on the other hand, is the pinnacle of a decade of computer effects as the status quo in mainstream movies.

I’m still not entirely sure how Neo becoming a Smith at the end conquers him, but there you have it. The literal Christ metaphor is a bit of a slap in the face of obviousness. At some point I’m going to watch with the commentary track on and find that out. For now, this is the ending the Wachowski brothers had in mind.

Program:

Along with A Detective Story, and the two parts of Second Renaissance, this was one of four films released online before the Animatrix was released. Perhaps it’s out-of-order to consider three of these films as perfect material to watch before the first movie, when their purpose was to drum up interest for the sequels.

I’ve chosen to watch it in Japanese with English subtitles. There is a mix of shorts that view better with Japanese dialogue and those that are better in English. I wish there was an option on the DVD menu that would sync the film with the original language the lip-syncing was done.

I’ll just have to remember to turn it back to English before the next film.

It’s a fascinating film, since it extrapolates what we’ve learned about the world of the Matrix films to include simulations not set in modern times. Setting the film in feudal Japan adds a sense of genuineness to the use of Anime.

This film sits well between the first and second films because it shows concepts that we’ve seen already – on-ship Matrix simulation, re-entering the Matrix, etc. The difference here is questioning what someone else in the same situation might do. It also fits better here because, by the end of the second film most of the ships and their crew have been destroyed.

Kid’s Story:

Certainly the most visually distinct film of the nine, and also the most melancholy.

It tells the Matrix escape story of one of the characters introduced in the second film. Chronologically, this is one of two no-brainers since “Neo” has already been revealed to be “The One”, but he has also escaped before The Matrix Reloaded.

However, if placed before the time of The Matrix, then a side-story could be told of how Neo is just a part of a larger underground movement of hackers who believe that the world we live in might not be real. We see Neo have these doubts in the first movie, so it’s not a stretch to think that there’s some underground group that believes the same.

While that’s a nice thought-experiment, that’s not the case. We see Neo at the end in “The Real World”. Still, I would like to see that reveal removed and allow the film to float in another layer of interpretation.

Final Flight of the Osiris:

The other no-brainer for placement in the chronology is the one the precedes The Matrix Reloaded by mere hours.

It uses the technology that was developed – and later bankrupted -  Squaresoft. Even by 3D standards today, it’s still the best, most realistic 3D technology available. the Final Fantasy movie that this technology was developed for really did an incredible job of jumping the Uncanny Valley.

The Matrix simulation fight sits in stark contrast to the one in Program. It’s very sexual in nature, both through the visuals and actions.

The segment that acts as a prologue for the first sequel is intense. With only seconds to go, the message is delivered to Zion that the machines are readying an attack. It’s a powerful film, and certainly the most entertaining to watch from a brain-candy perspective.

The Matrix Reloaded:

After waiting for years for the inevitable sequel to arrive in front of our eyes, the movie starts with an extended opening… an overture to the 4-5 hours left in the series.

We find that the first segments are simply Neo’s foreshadowing, prophetical dreams. So, it seems that a one-of-a-kind connection to the Matrix causes you to dream in green ASCII. I’ve had a dream with subtitles once and that was unsettling. It would suck to have all of your dreams in green, early 80’s technology. Although I guess having all my dreams in CGA would probably be worse.

The meeting of leather-clad captains is sort of like the club scene at the beginning of The Matrix, but without the kick-ass Rob Zombie remix music. Too bad, because the blah-blah-blah is unfortunate foreshadowing the the dialogue-heavy infighting amongst the humans through the rest of this film.

And then the first, kick-ass fight to a thumping soundtrack. Neo comments, “hmm. Upgrades”. Obviously referencing the better defensive abilities of the Agents, but subtly telling us that the fights are about to get a whole lot more interesting than they were in the last film.

Neo doing his “Superman Thing” suffers from a plunge into that Uncanny Valley. It’s really too bad, since the the Final Flight of the Osiris technology might have helped.

In the Real World, everyone goes by their hacker alias. I’m guessing that’s a reference to taking on a new name once being freed from slavery. However, I’m concerned that if I were similarly ‘freed’, that I would forever be known only as ‘theMediaman’, or worse, my gaming alias, “Bongo McFarlane”.

Either case would leave me in the Real World not doing much other than A/V work… or percussion. Given the upcoming rave scene, it would suck to be stuck up with the band during all that hot, sweaty rompin’.

Ew. Keanu bum.

Then we see the viral replication of Agent Smith, into a real human who then jumps back into the real world. It’s an interesting philosophical question – replacing a human brain with a computer program. But it’s not altogether unbelievable. There’s already technology that allows memories to be written to a mouse’s brain. Can it be that much further off to write a completely new, computer generated intelligence to the machines of a human brain? Well, for that we’re drifting into "”Ghost In The Shell” world.

Yet another philosophical question about who needs who more between the humans and the machines. While it is a symbiotic relationship they still war. A fact debated, but not fully discussed.  Perhaps the get-out-of-free card is how the old man says that he’s old and doesn’t have to make a point. Well, good, but there are a lot of brilliant philosophical questions raised in this film that don’t get answers.

One more philosophical discussion – this time with The Oracle. It has enough foreshadowing that it doesn’t let you completely fall asleep. Luckily the next scene involves an irrational number of Agent Smiths trying to beat the snot out of Neo.

Returning to the discussion on the Uncanny Valley, it would be very easy to screw up this scene with all of these Smiths. If the lighting on even one of a dozen of them were wrong, it would kick the viewer out of the action. Instead it does a fantastic job of creating a realistic, believable scene in spite of the unbelievable circumstances.

The introduction of rogue programs as other ‘people’ in the Matrix really stretches the metaphor, but it’s probably one of the most fun parts of the sequels. “Keymaker” is like a decryption algorithm. But making such a function into a cute, old Asian man. Turning code into something as unassuming a piece of chocolate cake is a stretch in everything but the Matrix.

Monica Bellucci’s Persephone is one of the most interesting characters not fully explored in this series. I know that she has a much more important role in the video game, “Enter The Matrix”, and that her scenes can be watched on the bonus disc for this entry to the series. However, aside from being drop dead gorgeous, her character than the actress’s performance are fascinating. Her husband, The Merovingian is the focus of the scene, but it’s Persephone that really steals the scene.

Now the weapons fight scene. I believe this was one of the first scenes filmed for the new movies. It doesn’t show in how it it’s filmed or performed. Very complex filming and quick shots. The fight has many stages and ranges all over the room.

One of the scenes from the trailer that really got me excited was Morpheus with a freakin’ Samurai sword. When the final scene comes up, it’s really one of the highlights of the whole series.

Just from the beginning, the ghost-like Twins are fun adaptations of that programming metaphor. The scene then starts using one of the new, redesigned Cadillac CTS’s as the chariot for the heroes. This is was Cadillac’s shot at getting into the youth market. I have to admit, it slooks like a slick vehicle, and was one of the first cars of the 2000’s decade that I actually thought looked pretty cool. 

Add on that the fact that they built a 3-mile stretch of highway JUST FOR THIS MOVIE and that just adds to how much fun this scene is. 

OOOooo, yeah. Freaking Samurai sword in bullet time.

The fight between Morpheus and the Agent on top of the truck is set up like a Street Fighter intro. The first time I watched this movie I expected two health bars to pop up and the word ‘FIGHT’  to show in large, red letters.

Fun Fact: The software that’s running on the computer systems at the power station is nmap, which is a popular hacker tool. Clearly, they did their research.

As with many landmark films, they can sometimes be eclipsed by satire. There is a scene in the opening of the MTV Video Awards where Will Farrell plays The Archetect. Now, when I watch this scene, it’s very revealing… but just not as purely entertaining as the satire. I think it’s on the extras disc, I’ll have to load it up after this.

Boy, he really does use a lot of multisyllabic and Latin vernacular.

We’re told that the Matrix had been reset six times before, but this is clearly something different from all times before. I would have chosen a much higher number – the altered Matrix takes into account the anomaly, but obviously doesn’t take into account an anomaly in the anomalies (Neo). I would expect that it would take more than six before someone like Neo comes along.

One more “Superman Thing” and he saves Trinity.

The ending is very dark and uncertain. In this way it follows the ‘trilogy’ rule of The Good Guys winning the first film, while The Bad Guys win the second.

Finish with a teaser trailer of the third movie and on to the last collection of films.

more to come…

A Prologue’s Prologue:

Most of my week’s vacation so far has been completing various handyman things (not to mention the more boring “chores”) around the house. One idea I’ve had for a long time is to split up the Animatrix episodes and distribute them into a sort of chronological order throughout the trilogy.

So, here it goes.

The Second Renaissance Part I:

Okay, so this was a no brainer. However, I remember that part I and II were released in the months leading up to The Matrix Reloaded. For that I actually considered going against convention and placing them between the first and second movie. However, there are at least two films that fit perfectly in that slot. If I could get a set of three Animatrix shorts before each film, I figure that would be best.

The first part of Second Renaissance covers the story up to the start of the war between humans and machines. The imagery of oppression and cruelty is very effectively done, mimicking past human genocides. It is absurd to the viewer since we still live in a world where machines are ‘objects’. However, it is also very effective because we have grown up in this generation seeing mass graves, gang violence and dictatorship-like oppression and for this short we only need to transpose a new victim into the picture.

The Second Renaissance Part II:

This is where you get to see the brutality of war, and the great lengths that each side is willing to go to. Although the imagery in the first part was very literal,, there seems to be more abstract imagery in the second. More about mythology and religion. Although both films start off with a Hindu-like goddess as the interface for the Zion database which acts as the narrator. 

The most brutal scene in all four movies is in this segment and a man is ripped out of his battle suit sans arms and legs. The effort is put on obliterating the humans with the same violence they were taught by their creators. The picture is not made more disturbing by the fact that our violence has been turned back on us by something cold, calculating and unfeeling, but simply because we are the victims.

Side note:

I program DVDs for a living. I think it’s very clever how they splice the end credits on to each short when watched individually. Yeah, I know how it’s done, but that is not my point. Yeah, it turns a ten minute short into a 17 minute piece with credits for all nine films, but that’s mot my concern either. The issue is that theres NO CHAPTER JUMP!

A Detective Story:

There are a lot of lists out there suggesting the order in which to watch these movies. Most will have you sitting through most of them before you even watch The Matrix. Yet this film is often excluded until the break between the second and third movies citing that “Trinity hasn’t been introduced yet”. But it is for that reason I think it is a perfect lead-in for the first film. It introduces her character without revealing too much. She keeps her slick, PVC-friendly mysterious self until the big movie starts. Trinity is in the first scene of the landmark 1998 film, so it makes a perfect prologue.

The film is an interesting mash-up between The Matrix and Dark City, questioning which reality is the REAL reality. The Alice In Wonderland metaphor used sparingly in The Matrix becomes a central theme here. It becomes clear that Trinity is really obsessed with the metaphor, or that it’s her way of dealing with the dichotomy of living in the Matrix and in the real world.

But that assumes that I’ve watched the first film… which I haven’t, yet.

The structure of this short is probably my favourite of the bunch. Unfortunately, my favourite to watch isn’t until the third segment…

The Matrix:

OOOoooo…  digital green Warner Brothers logo. I remember that this was the first movie that screwed around with the logo, then everyone started doing it as one of the many, many ways the Matrix was copied in subsequent years.

I considered buying the Blu-ray copies of the movies, as they’re only twenty bucks each. A 46” screen and upsampling PS3 do a wonderful job of ensuring that Carrie-Anne Moss is still impossibly hot.

The continuation of the agents hunting down the “Hacker” Trinity is continued here, and it seems I was right in assuming that A Detective Story is as perfect a lead-in for the the first movie as Final Flight of the Osiris is for the second.

‘Mesculine’? WTF is that anyway, besides something that makes you not sure “if you’re awake or still dreaming”?

Ah, the goth club scene. This always brings me back to Club Abstract. Same music, same outfits, same dork over in the corner. One of the few places someone as dorky as Keanu can be approached by someone as hot as Trinity.

Useless trivia break: The two window washers outside the office when Mr. Anderson is being chewed out by his boss are the Wachowski Brothers.

Hold on a sec.. The cat just rolled over on the remote and ejected the disc.

Interesting. Now we see the tracer that’s injected in Neo and with the help of the Animatrix short, I the viewer know what it is. That’s a mystery that doesn’t lose any power just because I know what the Agents are doing.

Hmm.. The Cadillac that he gets in looks like a hardtop version of the one used during the intro to “Entourage”.

“You’ve been down there before. You know that road. You know exactly where it ends”. That metaphor is taken a bit too literally when you are shown the actual street. It’s never explained what is meant if that line does have a literal interpretation, so it can be chalked up to a cut scene, inaccurate direction of photography, or just bad writing.

In the game “The Path Of Neo” you get to make the journey that Neo does through all three movies in his shoes, including the Red Pill/Blue Pill question. You can even choose the Blue Pill, but it makes for a boring game because “…the story ends, you wake up and believe whatever you want to believe.”

I always wanted glasses without arms like Morpheus has. As it stands, I have a difficult time finding a pair that sits on my wonky nose WITH arms. Ten years later and I’ve just settled on polarized lenses to make me feel kewl.

There’s a great article that addresses the weak plot device on how the machines use humans as a power source. I can’t find it right now, but it suggests that they should have written that the machines use humans as CPU power. It makes sense, since there was a lot of talk in the late 90’s about bioengineering. In fact, bio-computing was a popular topic for a long time until recently, when quantum computing proved somewhat possible.

“If you’re killed in the Matrix”, you die in the real world. I get that. If you land on the pavement, you spit up blood. I don’t get that.

Those freaking cool modified Nokia 8110 phones. I remember that’s how I learned that different parts of the world have different cell phone technologies – even if I bought and imported one then it wouldn’t work here. About four or five years ago I looked into finding one again so I could wrap the large shell around a slim phone. It never happened. The 8110’s and even the 7110 have retained their value over time.

When the door first opens to the Oracle’s apartment, it looks like he’s going into a brothel.

Once in, you see children levitating building blocks… AND GIANT BUNNIES RUNNING AMOK THROUGH A NEIGHBOURHOOD ON THE TV SCREEN! I guess people are so infatuated with telekinetic abilities they don’t notice GIANT BUNNIES RUNNING AMOK THROUGH A NEIGHBOURHOOD ON THE TV SCREEN!

Morpheus’ head hits a toilet bowl and the bowl breaks from the impact. There’s a lot of bullets and bloody parts in this movie, but nothing looks as painful as that one shot.

The first thing I load up whenever I get new speakers, a new DVD player or a new TV screen is the Lobby Scene from The Matrix. As time has gone on, I’ve found that it’s not the ideal scene for audio/visual benchmarking, but it’s still pretty freaking cool.

Just a refresher on “Bullet Time”. I haven’t looked up the Wikipedia entry on it, but I’ve never felt altogether comfortable using that as an absolute reference – especially on pop culture topics where opinions can be varied… and loud.

Simply put, bullet time is a slowed down, multi-camera shot. Just slow-mo, or a still shot with CG rotoscoping doesn’t count. Both have to be present. However, individually they are cheap and constituted the vast majority of fight scenes in post-Matrix action films. Still, while many efforts have been made to improve on the technology, the first fist-fight between Neo and Agent Smith was one of those moments that changed the genre.

The exit that Neo’s running for is in the same building where we first meet Trinity at the beginning. I never kept track of the room number (303), but that’s the same one that Neo goes to. It kind of explains why Agent Smith was waiting in the room for him when Neo arrived… he clearly knew where the exit was.

One time of the many dozens that I’ve seen this film, I watched simply to observe Keanu’s performance. There really are a number of spots where he takes the scene down a notch. That said, he’s still the perfect actor to cast as someone who’s just a couple of plot points behind the rest of the characters (see: Bill & Ted, Point Break, Speed, etc.).

I always got the feeling that the flying thing Neo does at the end was written in to show how evolved he’s become. I’ve also always had the feeling that they then had to shoehorn that ability into the sequels. But that’s for another time.

It’s midnight, and I have tomorrow to complete the second and third segments to this marathon, starting with my Animatrix selections for bridging the first and second movies.

more to come…

I have a selection of “zen films” that put me in a relaxed state-of-mind when I need it most. They serve slightly different purposes depending the circumstances of my stress, but the all are peaceful, introspective films.

Movies my past time and my career. I’ll stop short of saying they’re my life since that’s really kind of pathetic. However, they do play an important part in how I spend my time. A couple of years ago, I really needed these films. As things became better in my life, they’ve been collecting dust. Over the last year – when I moved my worklife downtown and away from the import DVDs of First Markham Place – I’ve been watching a lot fewer melancholy Asian dramas.

As a result, I haven’t added any such movies to my collection for a while. I wasn’t sure if I should add “One Week” just because my opinions as skewed, having authored the Blu-ray. I wasn’t sure if it was just that my pride was taking over an emotional decision. However, after watching the film with Simone I had to agree that it is a peaceful film filled with some of the most beautiful Canadian scenery.

While it warms you with visuals it also gives you some light psychiatry. I didn’t feel that I had a lot in common with Ben, but a well written story doesn’t need you to relate to the protagonist. The fact that he was overwhelmed with the information in his life, and that he removes himself physically from it all is something I was able to connect with.

Again, something I haven’t had to do  for a while is “just drive north”. When living in Toronto becomes just a bit too much, then I remove myself physically from the city and “reboot”. When I don’t have the time or resources to do that for a few hours… well… I put in a movie like One Week.

One Week won’t give you purpose in your life, but it is a good film to balance your mind. On a superficial level, the scenery and excessive (but very good) Canadian Indie rock lulls you into a state of complacency. The larger message doesn’t hit you like a ton of bricks. You’re ready to reach a zen state on that surfboard along with Ben.

A bit of an annoyingly excestential analysis of the movie, I admit. However, that’s what makes this movie so likeable. It’s a solid message, without being heavy-handed.

I suggest picking it up. If you get the Blu-ray, I’ll even autograph it.

This week I finally watched Passchendaele – one of the most gruesome, realistic depictions of the old adage, “War is Hell”. It also was the last of three of my most proud projects for me to finally sit down and watch.

Young People Fucking was one of my first projects that I worked on after joining Juice Productions last year. Passchendaele was a brilliant piece of Canadian film. Like YPF, I did some of the preliminary programming. One Week, another excellent film that any Canadian should have in their collection, was programmed (Blu-ray, at least) by me with only a little code-borrowing from other projects. 

I’ve programmed dozens of DVDs in Scenarist, many from scratch. I’ve also programmed other Blu-ray projects, but these three are my most proud achievements.

It’s still a strange feeling to see something that I made sitting on the shelf at HMV. However, it’s an even stranger feeling to have it sitting on my shelf downstairs with all the DVD’s I’ve collected since 2001. I’ve made DVDs in the past, but corporate promotional material that was added to my collection purely as portfolio pieces. To be a part of putting some great films into the marketplace like Sunshine Cleaning, Man On Wire, and even Knowing (in spite of my opinions on Nicholas Cage) is fun.

I know I’ve already written an entry on this state of mind. Closing in on one year at Juice, I find my work perforating the marketplace, and that feeling is still there – if not stronger than it was before.

Next month is TIFF, and I keep bugging them for business cards. I’ve never been so driven to network before, but now I can’t wait. I’ve been practising with “Tweet-ups” although that’s not as targeted towards any specific industry (besides “New Media”, which is pretty general).

My first year as a Blu-ray & DVD Author has been a blast. I can’t wait to see what happens next year!

Sitting in front of my 46” TV with surround sound and watching “Species” in HD on my PS3, there are limits to how far I can go to building my perfect Home Theatre. While most of the electronics are there, including a hardwire to the server so that I can stream TV shows and movies.

However, we’re still living in boxes, to some extent. With the garbage strike in full effect for over one month now, I’m limited to how much I can clean up, throw in the garbage, and generally just get rid of.

I have successfully installed my DVD shelves, and made accommodations for Blu-ray storage and my gaming systems. However, there is a box of anime and import DVDs that are completely lost. I swear I’ve checked every box in every room two or three times, but they’re still MIA.

Right now, one wall is yellow, two are a dark blue, and the carpet is a purpley-maroon. From what I’ve been reading, the optimal set up is neutral tones so that a sharp colour scheme doesn’t effect the image. I already have some plans for decor which will help emulate a movie theatre look, including 70’s-80’s era Stinson-esque paint job and theatre lighting.

So, the plans are there. I just have to wait until someone gives up sick days, or agrees to a moderate salary increase in a time of economic turmoil in order for me to get this crap out of my basement.

As my mom has said, “I think Stephen’s going ‘Right’ on us”, referring to the fact that I do not agree with three out of the three municipal strikes I have had to deal with since moving to Toronto – the first two being wholly irresponsible ‘wildcat’ strikes by the TTC. But I see VIA rail and the LCBO workers come to an agreement mere hours after going on strike, and I am still collecting my stuff in a big box of garbage in my basement.

If it’s wrong to want my perfect home theatre, I don’t mind being “Right”.

To understand my complete absence of even a minor status update over the last few… er… several months, one might simply look to my previous post, “I’m a Twit”. Quite simply, my efforts of late have been to sum up my thoughts in small, concise, 140-character chunks.

The challenge, of course, is to omit sometimes relevant information painting a more illustrious canvas. However, multi-syllabic words and serial commas take their own toll. I have been searching for a way over the last year to encourage myself to reduce the length of my sometimes essay-length blogs. Fixing myself to one, short sentence at a time seemed to help.

In addition to the simplified mode of narcissism that Twitter grants over any blog, I joined in order to push my campaign to win a 2010 Nissan Cube. My subsequent long-form writing was limited to a micro-site focussed on other contestants.

My posting can once again resume, as it seems that I’ve failed in my endeavour to win a new car using the Internets. I won’t extend this post much longer, but I will say that new writing will be much, much easier thanks to my Acer netbook, Windows 7, and a new program from Microsoft allowing me to write locally and publish to Wordpress.

Dammit… more serial commas.

However, Simone says I tend to over-describe things, so maybe this is a good way to start getting my blog entries down from thousand-word essays on nothing in particular.

Just for that, I’m going to state that if I win one more Roll-Up-The-Rim coffee this month then I’m even odds with winning the 6/49. EOM.