I’m not in the category of people reclaiming The Matrix Reloaded or The Matrix Revolutions. I love the ideas; like many, I have particularly come around on the central twist of Reloaded, that Neo’s status as The One has actually been accounted for and incorporated into The System in order to improve it. Aside from tying into how capitalism tends to absorb its criticisms, I enjoy the way it ties into how the most effective use of conflict is self-improvement; you get into a fight, and whether or not you win or lose, you learn something (this is how I approach redrafts). I also enjoy many individual scenes – I’m one of those people defending the Burly Brawl (which is visually imaginative and spectacular) rather than the highway chase scene (which is like five times too long), and even better, the scene before it when Smith declares his intentions on Neo, slowly closing in on him.
But the two movies together are shaggy and often pointless; there’s one particularly galling scene smack bang in the middle of Reloaded, where Neo is cornered by a member of the Council who blathers on, then admits at the end he was dribbling shit – a complete waste of the audience’s time and not funny or weird enough to get away with it. If I want to listen to an old man ramble, there’s about ten bars within walking distance of me.
Notoriously, the Wachowski sisters only wanted to make one sequel to The Matrix and were asked to make two. I do think they bear far more responsibility for the story being stretched so thin than is usually claimed; nobody asked them to make a video game or a series of cartoon shorts expanding the universe. Regardless, their ideas were stretched somewhat thin, and the result is far less polished and dense than the original film. But this does lead to one moment I really like in Revolutions.
Plotwise, Trinity and Morpheus have been hunting for Neo, who has disappeared somewhere in the Matrix and is in a coma in reality. Their search has brought them back to the Merovingian, a rogue program, who is holding Neo hostage and will give him up provided they can get him something he always wanted: the eyes of the Oracle. Now, in the moment after he says that, I get this vision in my head. One of the Wachowskis is sitting at the computer, typing the script; the other is at her shoulder, looking over. They type the phrase “Bring me the eyes of the Oracle, and I will bring you your savior.”
Then they stop, look at each other, and ask “What the fuck are we doing?”
In the film, this is immediately followed by Trinity growling “I don’t have time for this shit.” Then she pulls out a gun and points it directly at the forehead of the Merovingian, causing everyone in the room to pull out their guns in an elaborate Mexican standoff, and she threatens to kill everyone right there, right then, to get Neo back. It’s a brutal moment of ownage that works because it’s fully in character; Trinity’s love for Neo is, at that point, the only thing motivating her, and it skips the plot right along without a question.
Now, the sensible thing as a writer would have been to go back over the script and rewrite it so you don’t go down a stupid wild goose chase, but I always loved this as a naked moment of writing, and indeed what I’m usually doing as a writer. I very rarely redraft as much as other writers because I always know where I’m going; I rewrite sentences, sometimes paragraphs, but at this point I know the overall structure well enough to know what I’m supposed to be doing right now.
With storytelling, the structure is “the character chases after what they want”, and in this moment, the Wachowskis realized that was not happening. There’s no way Trinity, of all people, would mess around with the Merovingian’s stupid games when Neo’s life was on the line. It’s a vivid and lively moment when she pulls her gun, risking everything to get him back; the first Matrix is one scene after another of this, and indeed this specific moment recalls when Neo did the same thing for Morpheus; choosing, despite the danger, to rescue his mentor.
This is what I aspire to in my own dramatic storytelling. Genre writers often assume scale of action and elaborate interconnected systems of worldbuilding and story construction; the fourth and fifth seasons of LOST successfully pull off this kind of storytelling. But generally, the greater power comes from following your characters as they make decisions chasing what they want. One thing I want is every scene I write to have the unbalancing effect of this scene, which requires leaving the direction of a scene up to the character.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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Department of
Conversation
I really liked the sequels when they came out. I have also not rewatched them since despite being able to at any time (before streaming we bought these and then never tore off the plastic). I think I would be better off leaving my memories intact of both intact. (I have of course seen the original a few more times, including when Resurrections came along. Now it’s Resurrections that I keep promising myself to rewatch.)
What did we watch?
Yellowjackets, Season One, Episodes One through Eight
Boyfriend decided to show me this, and I ended up enjoying it enough to power through a lot of it. It’s definitely a descendent of LOST, though interestingly it’s one of the few LOST-a-likes that deliberately has a slow burn approach to its mysteries (I don’t think a single one has been ‘solved’ by this point), which would be frustrating but it does have a strong sense of drama to make me care about these characters. This is very much a women’s show with a woman’s perspective; both the characters themselves (who are all girls and women I’ve known) and their relationships with men, who largely disappoint and frustrate them.
Juliette Lewis is the standout here, partly because she and Christina Ricci have the most flamboyant characters – any scene with adult Nat and Misty is the best – but all the cast are great. I really enjoy how the dynamics between the teen girls works as well; Misty in particular manages this bizarre thing where she’s a weirdo (affectionate) half the time, hyper competent slightly under half the time, and completely bugfuck insane the remainder, but I’m also getting really invested Taissa’s attempts to lead the girls. More to come.
Yellowjackets has always felt like the kind of thing I would like whether it’s good or not, and now that it’s apparently on Netflix, I should really check it out. I suspect that even if all I’m doing is hanging out with some weird characters, I’ll enjoy it.
MST3K, “Devil Doll” – One from the Syfy Era that I had missed till now, but I can’t say I missed much. This dreary and languidly paced movie proves to be too bad for effective riffing, with the same gags repeated too many times. (Doesn’t help that the bad guy in the movie commits rape, and when we get that level of darkness, the act of riffing feels almost gross to me.) The best I can say is that the sketches are really good.
The Practice, “The Defenders” – The Prime Video listing for this gives away the ending! What gives? Anyway, since I don’t avoid spoilers myself for older shows, yes, Lindsay and Bobby’s attempts to defend Edward Herrmann fail, but it’s not liek the merits of their case are that great. Meanwhile, Ellenor needs to be convinced that George Vogelman didn’t do it. Again, there is nothing here at all that lines up with later revelations he did do it. I wonder when Kelley decided this would be the case. Some good moments, and basically we are getting a meta-plot of “boy, these defense attorneys will do anything.” It’s going to get worse.
MASH, “Dear Peggy” – BJ writes home, though I distinctly recall his wife being called Peg most of the time. And like most “letters to home” episodes, a lot gets scattered about. The closest thing to a plot is Father Mulcahy gets a visit from his military superior, a more fiery Protestant minister played by Ned Beatty, who pushes our milquetoast priest to send a letter to an injured soldier’s family before the soldier is out of the woods. (Down the line, we get a much more focused and thoughtful version of this when Mulcahy is visited by a Cardinal.) This one is probably best remembered for Hawkeye teaching ROK soldiers to insult Frank. That’s really not how you teach anyone English, but it’s still pretty funny.
Frasier, “Rivals” – Twin misunderstandings from the brothers, both of whom start dating someone and think the other in interested in her and not the actual dates. Katie Finneran returns as station arts critic Poppy, who is not as vapid as she seems as she tries to date Niles (and I sort of wish she’d stuck around), and Frasier’s date (and new neighbor) is played by Gigi Rice, who a tiny number of us will remember as the sex worker and partial love interest from The John LaRoquette Show.
I’ve always felt like “Dear Peggy” pulls its punches a little too much by letting that patient live; it feels like other episodes would deal with the more wrenching outcome where Mulcahy lets himself be bullied into writing a hopeful letter home only to have the boy die. I love Mulcahy, so I’m happy for him that it doesn’t turn out as badly as it could, but it does feel less dramatically potent.
The Surfer – a recent Nic Cage effort in which he gets tormented by the residents of an Australian coastal town while trying to buy his dream house. It amused me how much this feels like a spiritual Wake in Fright sequel for the first hour or so. It goes in a different direction eventually but remains unusual and entertaining, not top-tier latter-day Cage by any means but still interesting and darkly fun.
Seinfeld, season 3 episodes – from “The Pen” through to “The Café”. All five of these episodes were excellent but it might be Philip Baker Hall turning up as a “library cop” in one episode that was my favourite moment, such a funny guest role. I would watch a spin-off series with him tracking down overdue books in a heartbeat. “The Parking Garage” seems to be one that pops up on “best episode” lists and it was very good indeed, but it’s a credit to the show that the rest of this batch of episodes made me laugh just as much.
Joe Pera Talks With You, first half of season 3 – on a revisit I’m finding this season to be considerably stronger than season 2, which was still pretty good. Joe and Sarah’s relationship is so well written, the episode where they go camping (because she thinks something terrible is about to happen) is lovely and the one where she drunkenly tells him about Wine Wednesday while struggling to eat hot food is hilarious. Every time Mark Borchardt pops up as the school janitor I think “I should watch American Movie again!” but it seems to be oddly hard to find anywhere, bah.
Oh, the other Seinfeld episodes make you laugh, huh? Are you some kind of joy boy?
Hall is fantastic, he truly believes in the library and punks like Seinfeld are the problem with the system!
“Ridiculously hard-boiled character in low-key profession” is one of my favourite comedy tropes, I suspect a lot of the later ones I’ve enjoyed are riffing on this!
Hall is so funny in that episode. I had watched the show before but this was the one that made me a Seinfeld fan.
I think “The Pony Remark” was the one that fully won me over but it definitely feels like the show has taken another step up in quality and consistency this season.
Babylon 5 — the season ends with a bang. And quite the cliffhanger!
Live music — local heaviness, some sold doomy metal from Benthic Realm and harder groove rock from 99 Shots opening for Black Helicopter, who mixed stuff from a forthcoming album with some old faves. A few technical issues were played through and the noise was fantastic, at one point hitting a wall of sound that steamrolled feedback. Always fun when other people in the crowd are getting hyped for depressing songs about drinking yourself to death in a motel, hell yeah.
The Long Walk — speaking of depressing! I am largely with the consensus here, the ending is biffed (and oddly cheap-looking) but the cast carries this, the lifeblood of the story is these kids and their interactions in an increasingly terrible scenario and the actors here nail the brief bits of humor along with the horror (although while Garrett Warering is good he looks like he was kicked out of a Newsies remake for being too much of a dreamboat and this is a pretty funny look for Stebbins). I think the larger issue is how making these kids against Society instead of the kids against the Walk actually circumscribes the story into something smaller, the book’s despair is overwhelming and beyond just “dictatorships suck.” But a lot of that story remains, as always it is fun to trainspot King dialogue in a movie and this has a good amount.
Hey hey, watch the Babylon 5 spoilers.
It’s been 30 years, at this point I think it’s common knowledge that Sylvester Stallone and John Lithgow show up.
I was surprised by how much King dialogue actually made it in!
My wife was immensely irritated that the guy they cast as Barkovitch feels like a dead ringer for book!Stebbins, to the point where we’d both been assuming from the trailers that that was obviously Stebbins, only to have this built Adonis be Stebbins instead. I do feel like it makes him less uncanny: Stebbins’s persistence despite not appearing physically fit was a key part of his book characterization! But mostly, I’m just amused at the probably unintentional Stebbins fakeout.
I laughed out loud at the Hunky Stebbins reveal! And yes, the Barkovitch guy could totally be Stebbins (although I think he works as is too). Stebbins in the movie is also a slight misfire, he doesn’t really act as the “rabbit” the way he does in the book so his big speech doesn’t really make sense.
Woooooo live heaviness!!
The Twilight Zone, “On Thursday We Leave for Home”
Serlingfest screening. In its fourth season, The Twilight Zone switched over to hour-long episodes, and while this famously didn’t work as well, the experiment still produced a handful of classics, and this science fiction tragedy is my personal favorite of the bunch. James Whitmore plays a man who’s spent most of his life holding a fragile colony together. They wanted to pioneer a grand future for humanity, and–with shades of Interstellar–found themselves on a desolate, inhospitable desert planet where they could just barely eke out ongoing survival. Tough, decisive Captain Benteen (Whitmore) was only fifteen when they landed (the title is a courtesy/description of his current role, not an indication that he actually brought them here), but he’s now one of the oldest colonists remaining; his romantic memories of the Earth they left behind lets him be a voice of hope, constantly reassuring his people that they’ll make it back someday.
But when rescue does arrive, Benteen’s visceral pleasure at it fades as he realizes that going back to Earth means losing the power and authority he’s had in this hellhole. He could keep people alive in austerity, maintaining a sense of community and hope, but he can’t hold them together in a land of plenty; he’s been thinking of them as children, and they turn out to want independent lives. In Grant’s Shield-ian terms, he’s a dramatic character whose priorities are revealed to actually be:
3. Return to a good life
2. Keep the community together
1. Maintain power
He thought he could have all three at once–so much so that he didn’t even hvae to think about or realize priority 1–and then, over the course of the episode, he gives up 3 to ensure 2 and 1, then gives up 2 to hold on to a ghost of 1, then realizes too late that he gave up on the only goal he ever could have actually attained.
Very well-plotted, with superb work from Whitmore.
The X-Files, “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat”
Serlingfest screening. As a comedy episode, this was especially fun to watch in a theater full of people who were very responsive to the jokes. Frank Spotnitz read Darin Morgan’s introduction to the episode, which was a heartfelt appreciation of Serling’s use of allegory and sense of political engagement in general.
Entertaining and clever. The Twilight Zone pastiche at the start is so obviously loving, with some terrific riffing on “Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?”, and the crowd was very appreciative of both that and Mulder’s incredulous, “Confuse The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits? Do you even know me?” This isn’t the best Darin Morgan episode I’ve seen–that still goes to “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”–but it’s the most Morgan one I’ve seen that works for me really, really well; openly comedic and skeptical, but in a way that feels of a piece with the show’s ethos. Great use of the Mandela effect, effective human resolution, unsettling implications for the larger world, and often very funny.
The Loner, “An Echo of Bugles”
Serlingfest screening. This was, regrettably, a little bit of a sour note to end Friday night on. It’s the first episode of The Loner, the Western series that was Serling’s follow-up to TZ–Lloyd Bridges, ex-Union soldier, travels through the West having one-off dramatic adventures–and it was picked because it was almost exactly the 60th anniversary of the premiere. All well and good, and there are some stellar episodes of The Loner. This isn’t one of them, though. Here, Serling’s compassion for beaten-down characters–usually a virtue–is deployed in a way that’s jarring, because we have Colton (Bridges) coming to the defense not only of an ex-Confederate soldier but of the flag the man fought under (making a guy who’d been trampling on it clean it up and hand it over).
It’s all dramatically well-constructed: honestly, if you take out the real history and make this a fake war, it’s a very strong episode, quickly defining Colton’s character and putting him in an intriguing situation. An in context, it feels like Colton extending compassion for a clear loser whose time is done (the guy is physically weak, freshly out of a prison camp, and vastly outnumbered by the people opposing him). But when you think about how much of that time is still with us, and what all that flag represented, it’s hard to stomach.
Of course, Serling’s genuine anger about racism and his attempts to do something about it both through screenwriting and off-screen political action are well-documented–one of the highlights of the weekend was a broadcast of his Library of Congress speech, where he rails against discriminatory housing practices in California, and asks how much good it does to valorize white men accepting Black soldiers at their backs overseas if they still won’t accept them living next door when they come home. “An Echo of Bugles” is interesting in light of that, I think; “Lost Cause” propaganda can be obvious, but the “well, it was really about states’ rights” idea (which I was taught in school by someone who I think really believed they had to repeat this to be technically accurate) is more insidious, and it preys on people’s better instincts, their desire not to be sore winners, to be empathetic, to recognize political complexity and humanity in their enemies, to allow rebuilding and reintegration. In general, “guy who will defend the honor of a fallen enemy” is a good guy–an archetypally good guy, even. But the specifics have to be taken into account here, and while Serling was pretty much unfailingly good at doing that in real life–and often very good at doing it in fiction–this pilot constitutes a slip-up. And I think that’s because post-Reconstruction America encouraged a lot of fuzziness about the real history in part so people’s admirable qualities (personal and storytelling-wise) would occasionally lead to things just like this.
Anyway, last year’s Serlingfest has a Loner double-feature of “One of the Wounded” and “The Homecoming of Lemuel Stove,” two episodes I like much more.
Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter
Uh, not Serlingfest. We were a little fried after the long drive home on Sunday, and we’d been listening to the Classic Hammer Horror Screen Draft in the car, so we picked this movie, which didn’t quite make the final draft cut. And while it’s not exactly good, it’s incredibly entertaining. Captain Kronos has a climactic swordfight with a vampire! More on Wednesday’s Streaming Shuffle.
Also a very good appearance in TZ by Tim O’Connor.
Yes, O’Connor’s very good in this. You can see how much effort his character exerts to be understanding and empathetic, and then you watch that slowly get drowned out by frustration–but he’s ethical enough that his emotions don’t change his actions, because he continues to offer Benteen exit opportunities even after his feelings for him have turned completely sour.
Serlingfest, nice! I’ve looked at Captain Kronos via Tubi and Shudder a few times and never taken the plunge, so I’m glad someone did.
The Lure – Doesn’t quite cohere entirely but as Polish synth musicals about cannibal mermaids go, this is probably high in the rankings! Good movie with catchy disco/pop songs befitting the era and I like all the subtext here about the Iron Curtain falling, sisterhood, and queerness, with one sister wanting to remain what she is and the other hoping to be “Part Of [Our] World” yet remaining on the outside. Stupid hot bass player!
THIEVES LIKE US– This is kind of an overlooked entry in Robert Altman’s canon, despite being well received at the time. It definitely has the panning shots and the zoom lenses, but the film is a lot less a meta-commentary on the ’30s rural gangster film (or it’s 1970s largely Roger Corman produced counterparts) than a loving, texturally authentic recreation of a time and place in the American South. It is also more character focused, as opposed to atmospherically manipulated, than other Altman movies of this size and scope, lending this story of love and theft a tragic, and moving gravity, buoyed by very strong central performances by Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall, giving some of their best work. Although it is a remake of Nicholas Ray’s poetically noirish “They Live by Night”, it succeeds as one of a series of ’70 films that took a more naturalistic view of the recent American pastoral past.
Didn’t know it was a remake of Live By Night, intriguing. You seen Milius’ Dillinger?
I have, and in it’s quieter moments there is more than a passing resemblance to DILLINGER. I’d say the tone, despite certain Altman touches, feels more like something that Bogdonavich or Demme would have done with the setting.
Somewhere in Time — I decided to revisit this 1980 time travel romance which I first saw a few years after it came out. Christopher Reeve is a playwright who falls in love with a 90-year-old photograph of gilded-age stage actress Jane Seymour and then uses self-hypnosis to travel back in time to meet her. The particulars are less important than the chemistry between the leads. And the casting really was a challenge here, because you needed a woman who was plausibly beautiful enough to make a man fall in love with her on the basis of a photograph, and a man handsome and dashing enough to make it believable that when confronted with a stage-door Johnny looming out at her from the woods she wouldn’t immediately have him arrested. Fortunately they nailed it.
It’s a light film but a sweet one with a fair amount of humor until the ending, which is both a big downer but also hopeful.
The Legend Of Boggy Creek – In the smaller media world of the late 70s Bigfoot mania was on with books and tv shows, like In Search Of…Boggy Creek could be credited with kicking it all off. So naturally, this movie scared the bejesus out of me when it was on two or three times a year on Saturday afternoons. As an adult I can see its deficiencies. Its influence on the found footage genre is greater than its artistic merits. But Charles Pierce creates a creepy and dank swampy atmosphere with all the nature footage and authentic locales. He gets more authenticity out of using locals around Fouke, Arkansas instead of trained actors. The docu-drama recreations felt real and true at the time but now feel like the dramatized recreations they are. But the final assault on the house did manage to send some nostalgic chills down my spine. It’s still a classic of cryptid cinema and the found footage genre despite the dramatized recreations.
This is one of the first found footage movies right? Similarly I wish I’d seen it as a kid because on a few beers watching it, I just got sleepy. Can appreciate its merits nevertheless. (Don’t watch the sequel unless its in MST3K format.)
What did we play?
I’ve been getting back into playing Super Smash Bros: Ultimate, and in fact it turned out to be the only thing I could really focus on when I was recovering from that flu – I ended up unlocking all the characters by systematically going through all of them in “All-Star Mode”. Something about a simple series of systematic tasks really boils my potatoes, coupled with the cartoonish fun of it all.
The Curse of Strahd’s journey to the past continues. Lots of opportunities for the characters to interact with long dead, long-reincarnated, and long-undead figures, though we cannot change anything. I have no idea how much any of this will be useful to us when we got home.
And no idea when we meet again. Between Jewish holidays, already overbooked schedules, and our DM getting an acting gig at a local haunted house, we might be on hold till after Halloween.
Hollow Knight: Silksong – got stuck on the “Last Judge” boss for literally several days and genuinely considered quitting the game, not just because of the difficulty but also because the vibe of all the areas I hadn’t totally exhausted was so oppressively bleak. But I persisted, beat that particular boss this morning (working on the assumption that I was more patient early on before my brain was tired) and now I’m into Act 2 and very much back in the groove. I do think there are some decisions in this game that are perhaps a little TOO cruel but at the same time I can’t stop going back, also finally winning the brutal boss sections after many attempts does feel GOOD.
Last Judge is such a motherfucker. Probably the single boss I had the most frustrations with, or at least close to it. But once you get past that there’s a lot more exploration in the Citadel, and exploration is usually fun.
I’m also realizing some parts of the game got nerfed recently; the environmental hazards seem to all do only 1 mask of damage now instead of 2, which is fine, I guess, although I got through Last Judge and a decent amount of Act 2 while they were still 2 masks.
Yeah I’m mostly enjoying the exploration now that things have opened back up again.
I feel like the damage could benefit from some subtle tweaks, maybe – it feels like I should take less damage from getting three pixels too close to a stunned boss than I do taking the full impact of a charge, for example. But I guess you can’t spell frustration without F-U-N!
Silksong – We’re into Act 3 now, and while a lot of the stuff is technically more difficult, having a whole array of skills and upgrades makes them easier than some of the challenges I encountered earlier in the game. I actually haven’t had too much trouble with most of the bosses in this act, although it usually takes me a few tries since I have to, you know, learn their moves.
I think I found Silksong’s equivalent of the Path of Pain, so, that’ll be fun.
DOOM on Nintendo Switch
Finished the first chapter, got killed and went to Hell, I think. Laughed out loud when that happened. Amazing level design. Spent a lot of time on the first secret level, more than on most of the other levels. Chapter two incorporates waypoints, which threaten to make the great level design even better.
The Simpsons (arcade), Tetris Attack (Game Boy) on a Retroarch handheld.
My brother-in-law was showing this to me. Pretty clean, impressive piece of hardware. The Simpsons game remains as great as ever, but I think it was my first time ever playing it on my own. Feels a bit off not playing it with someone else, though better than some other beat ’em ups. Tetris Attack is tough, fun and as addictive as ever on Game Boy, though I wonder what the performance ceiling is on the 8 bit portable, considering how even on Super Nintendo that game tended to break the system when I got my hands on it.
“Genre writers often assume scale of action and elaborate interconnected systems of worldbuilding and story construction; the fourth and fifth seasons of LOST successfully pull off this kind of storytelling. But generally, the greater power comes from following your characters as they make decisions chasing what they want” — aka the first John Wick movie vs. all subsequent ones.
100%.
I really never thought about that. Got so lost in the stunts and the weirdness of secret societies and Montreal pretending to be NYC that I missed this obvious flaw.
I don’t agree with the general point — I am absolutely a Reloaded defender (Revolutions admittedly doesn’t have enough plot to justify its runtime, but I think even it is better — certainly smarter — than its reputation. But the video game is great, the freeway chase is great, and, oh, half the Animatrix shorts are great. But more generally, they all build on the world of The Matrix, which makes it even more disheartening to learn that it’s all a work.
Also, just because Anthony Zerbe says he doesn’t have a point doesn’t mean his speech isn’t there for a reason. I think his point is pretty clear and foreshadows the emotional climax of the picture.
Such a waste of Anthony Zerbe. They don’t even explode his head or stretch his face to death.