One of the Twitch streamers I watch just completed her semi-annual review of the Matrix films, along with a readthrough of Begin Transmission by Tilly Bridges that breaks down and explains the context of the films in light of a transgender analogy. It’s an amazing experience, especially for a cis gal like me who completely missed that part of it the first few times around.
There are many layers you can get out of the Matrix movies, if you wanna think about them that way. At the time, I felt like there was an anti-capitalist, sort-of-leftist-if-you-squint slant to the original movie. (I didn’t fully understood it at the time and I couldn’t/wouldn’t have described it that way then, as I hadn’t had much exposure to leftist discourse yet, but I was working retail and the seeds of discontent with systems of oppression were already being sown. Some part of me still recognized those elements deep down inside, I think.) And, of course, it was stylistic in a way we hadn’t quite seen before (bullet time, etc.) so it got a lot of hype, and the “rebels-against-the-machine” idea was pretty popular even if people weren’t always sure what they should be rebelling against. (I still don’t understand how conservatives claim the movie speaks for them, but there are right-wing Trekkies too, so . )
The sequels were… less good, IMHO, but it brought the story to a conclusion… or so we thought. I loved the fourth movie, even if the critics scoffed. I’m a sucker for metatext, and the in-universe discussions of the series’ hype and reactions to it were just… >chef’s kiss.< Plus, I maintain that one layer of Resurrection’s subtext is a kind of midlife crisis: the hero looks back at their life with dissatisfaction, feeling like they’re so much less than they expected to be and wearily wondering if they still have the strength of body and mind to pursue their dreams again. (Of course, I’m kind of at that point myself so it ain’t exactly a huge stretch, but if it means anything, the streamer agreed with my take, so there may be some validity to it. ) IMHO, it’s a much more satisfying conclusion to the saga than the end of the third movie, or maybe I’m also a sucker for a happy, hopeful ending.
I really liked the first Matrix movie. It’s not high art, but it’s a fun movie. The second one I liked a little less, but I still enjoyed it. The third was pretty meh. I did not like the fourth one. At all. I thought the had an opportunity to fix some of what I thought they broke with the third film, but they didn’t.
My favourite is The Prestige. David Bowie doing Tesla is high camp and o find it hilarious. Also: magic.
Watching Oppenheimer I was laughing at the video game quest of meeting all the great physicists with their silly accents and collecting the XP on the way to the main quest. As for pretentious? Well I’ve said it before but Cillian Murphy at the communist party (har har) saying “I’m not a member but I liked that thing he said - ownership is theft?” two people correct him “property is theft” and he goes to show his erudition “oh, I read it in the original German”.
Why the fuck was Proudhon writing in German Oppie? I believe Marx did want to translate him and that’s part of how they fell out, but more importantly Marx wouldn’t have said that. In French, German, or English.
The middle movies established the idea that these things happened in cycles (like how in New Battlestar Galactica, “this has all happened before and it will all happen again”) until someone stands up to disrupt it and creates a new paradigm going forward. So I can kinda see how the fourth movie really didn’t “fix” anything from earlier movies, it just continued what had gone before, maybe with a better “endpoint” (or the establishment of a newer, more positive cycle, because the battle never really ends…)
Of course, whether or not it works for anybody is subjective opinion so I’m not at all saying you’re wrong or anything. I’m just trying to explain my feelings on it.
As a high schooler seeing The Matrix in a theater, it was amazing and unlike any movie I’d ever seen before. The special effects, the atmosphere, the action scenes, were all pretty unprecedented, at least to someone who wasn’t a huge movie buff already. For many of us, it was an experience of going to see a movie without really knowing what we’d be getting (it was hyped up in ads but kept fairly enigmatic) and seeing the characters do amazing things that felt impossible by film standards of the time. It hasn’t aged well, of course. Now that the effects and level of action are commonplace, even dated, all that’s left to focus on are the weakest aspects. Two horrible sequels and dozens of imitators and parodies haven’t helped either.
I have to admit, I was starting to lose faith that this long-promised sequel would ever actually happen. When this comes out in 2027 Brooks will be 100 years old and it will be Rick Moranis’ first return to film acting since his retirement in 1997. But I was wrong to ever question the mysterious ways of the Schwartz!
Just a mention of a film I saw earlier this year as it’s tangentially related. He was talking about the adaptation of Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress. I loved those books back when they came out and the film.
Walter Mosley is one of the interviewees in:
She taught his creative writing class when she came out of a relationship with a Tory and lost her money and house. I saw a review of it (Grauniad I think) saying “why was it about her life and diaries? The work is the thing”. No, the film is because she (the director) had unfettered access to her diaries. The work is the reason you make the film in the first place, it’s the reason she could live the life which is also interesting, it’s what she was and did. The diaries are also the work, the reverse of the page.
Someone said to me before it “that’s going to be a bit grim isn’t it? Ireland and misogyny and censorship and all that”. And I said why? She won. All the Irish little men who ran her down were utterly defeated in that battle. All of them were disgraced hypocrites who lost that round of history, decisively, and in their own lifetimes. They had to watch her being internationally successful while they were merely nationally briefly able to fight a rearguard action which achieved nothing but ignominious disgrace. Turns out I was wrong and it is a pretty downbeat story really. But the work triumphs.
I had the pleasure of seeing it at the first show in Dublin so the director was there and she had lots of funny and insightful background which we all enjoyed a great deal.
ETA
This review here talks a bit about Barbara Broccoli and isn’t it amazing she put money into a documentary. BB was a good friend of Edna’s. She got Edna to agree to a film, once that was decided it was “have the diaries. All of them. Do what you want. Barbara says it’s okay (as in art)”
I mean… i feel there is something else going on here we’re not being told about if you read between the lines. His regeneration at the end of the series was shot last minute and now the series is on hiatus which they are attributing to Disney losing some confidence in it? I just don’t know, it’s confusing.
Three stop-motion short features, all without understandable dialogue, but two with rodents.
Krysar aka The Pied Piper (Jirí Barta 1986)
Summary
The tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, set in a clockwork world whose inhabitants are greedy, gluttonous golems who learn too late the perils of not paying the, well, you know…
Based on Viktor Dyk’s Czech novel Rat-Catcher rather than the Brothers Grimm, this portrait of a venal society, which was evidently cursed even before the rats appeared, is a darker telling. Even the piper’s garb is no longer pied, multi-colored, instead being the same grayish-brown as the Caligariesque town. For those who like their fantasy leaning more toward horror.
In a phantasmagoric complex suspended in space, immortal beings distract themselves from the longueurs of eternity by condensing time itself into a physical substance, which they use to create obscure constructions. Until one aeon, a human arrives…
French experimental science fiction from a Polish expat. As detailed above, there is a slight narrative, but it’s really all about the trippy visuals and psychedelic score from Luc Ferrari. This is the second, 1988, cut of the film. The 15 minute longer original featured narration from Michael Lonsdale, although it is reportedly just as cryptic overall. Entrancing, if you’re in the right frame of mind. Winner of Best Children’s Film in the 1982 Fantafestival.
A rough translation of the film’s text prologue:
“There is insufficient evidence for the non-existence of the city of Chronopolis.
On the contrary, dreams and manuscripts agree that the history of the city is a story of eternity and desire.
Its inhabitants, hieratic and impassive, have as sole occupation and sole pleasure the composition of time.
Despite the monotony of immortality, they live in anticipation: an important event must occur during the encounter of a particular moment and a human being.
Now, this awaited moment is being prepared…"
Blood Tea and Red String (Christiane Cegavske 2006)
Summary
The aristocratic White Mice and the rustic Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak devote themselves to possessing a doll, which the Mice commissioned, the Creatures created, and all adore. There is theft, pursuit, conflict, birth and death.
Writer/director/animator Cegavske, who worked on it for 13 years, considers it a “fairy tale for adults.” Film academic Kier-La Janisse has classified it as folk horror. To me, with its bird/bat hybrid creatures, long pilgrimages on foot, psychedelic fruits, frog wizard, woman-headed spider, crucifixions, and the clearly symbolic (but of what?) red string, it reads as an ancient myth, perhaps as told by another non-human species, but the struggles over a feminine doll are not without contemporary relevance as well. Highly recommended.
What kind of click bait is that title? There’s nothing surprising revealed in that article.
Also, Disney is not involved in the production of Doctor Who. They only have the distribution rights. Now, if they aren’t happy with their ROI, that could obviously affect its future, but only the BBC could cancel the show.
I have to start with a couple terrible caveats. First: Doctor Who hasn’t been renewed yet for the next season yet. This is likely because the BBC needs to wait and find out if Disney still wants in on this partnership so they know how much money they can count on. Could the show just get flat-out cancelled? It always could, but the talk from showrunner Russell T. Davies suggests that it might just “pause” for a bit, which isn’t too much of shock given how little rest the series has had since it’s continuation in 2005.
There is a shed load of Disney money being pumped in to Doctor Who right now so if they pull the plug that will certainly affect it going forward and they’d have to scale back to the days when they didn’t have boat loads of cash to spend on it. The point is though, Gatwa’s exit was not originally planned until last minute.
But that’s not what the first article you posted said. In it, Gatwa said this was always the plan. And again, Disney and the BBC are not in a partnership in Doctor Who. I mean, in a generic use of the word partnership, I guess they are, but Disney’s role is just that they have the distribution rights, and they gave the BBC a ton of money for that. They are not partners in the production. It is not a Disney production. Now, if that goes away, obviously the financing changes, and a lot of things may change. I’m not convinced that this hiatus is any different that other breaks the show has had the last few years. They haven’t been airing a new series every year. There have been multiple year and a half, and two year long breaks since the show came back in 2005. So I’m not seeing how this is necessarily indicative of anything. I’m seeing a lot of rumor and speculation, and not much actual journalism here.
I know that’s not what the article says, but i’m saying that his last minute exit was not always the plan and what i’ve heard personally is that he fell out with RTD to the point where he bought out his contract and they had to hastily assemble a regen scene. My reading is that the hiatus is coming from that and not Disney because otherwise there would have been a publicised new Doctor long before now.
I’m not surprised he made that statement, as he probably had to make that statement?
I DO wonder if this is pressure from Disney to erase diversity in the Tardis and curry favor with the far right?
I think the “surprise” is that he’s not making any statements protesting his leaving and basically saying it was planned this way all along… I don’t know that that is what people believe. There is probably some conspiracy theories circulating among the lefty-leaning fans right now, since not only is Gatwa Black, he’s also queer. And not without reason, as it seems there was talk about one more season with him in the Tardis.
You’re right that it’s not a Disney production, but I have no doubt that they can put pressure on the BBC for whatever. sure, if disney drops it, they can go to whatever the current streaming service is for BBC productions (Brit Box?), but I’m guessing it doesn’t have as wide an audience as Disney+.
After all that Eccelston has said about his one season run with him, you gotta wonder about what’s going on with him, as a showrunner? I wonder if anyone who did Queer as Folk or any other show he worked on had issues with him.
He’s out already? It feels like the turnover for the role of the Doctor keeps getting shorter and shorter… yeah, they’ve all been in the role for a few years, but when only a tiny handful of episodes come out each of those years, it’s like we barely have time to get to know them before someone else is taking over. I haven’t even gotten around to watching any of his episodes yet past the Christmas special!
. )
