Episode #425 - The Matrix: Revolutions

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss The Matrix Revolutions.

Stuart Wellington

[0:03] The movie that makes you say,

[0:05] I kind of wish I hadn't eaten that pill.

[0:30] Hey, everyone, and welcome to The Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[0:34] I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[0:35] Hey, I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:37] And I'm Elliot Kalin of The Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[0:40] I sort of tried to surprise you by coming in, like, really fast.

[0:43] Yeah, super hot.

[0:44] Take you off guard.

[0:44] Mm-hmm.

[0:45] So this is a slightly special episode in that we are talking about The Matrix Revolutions

[0:52] in part because I took part in this other podcast called The Novelizers,

[0:59] which has the comedic premise of he gets a bunch of comedy writers

[1:03] to novelize, quote-unquote, chapters of movies, like, a few minutes at a time.

[1:11] And so mine on The Matrix came out recently.

[1:13] Elliot and I were on doing some improv as characters who worked on The Matrix.

[1:19] Uh-huh.

[1:20] If you want to hear us do a sort of different thing than what we normally do.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23] We played the people whose job it was to hold up The Matrix actors

[1:28] when they did their stunts, and then we would be computer edited out of the final film.

[1:33] But our job is as almost human pillars.

[1:35] Very hard work.

Dan McCoy

[1:36] Yeah.

[1:37] So I'm actually not sure whether we're coming out first or they're coming out first,

[1:42] but look for that.

[1:43] And I hope we figure it out in time.

[1:47] But so we decided to tie in with that.

[1:52] We're going to do probably the least favorite of The Matrix movies generally.

[1:58] I would say, look, this is normally a podcast where we watch a bad movie and we talk about it.

[2:03] This is miles above the normal dreck we talk about, but it is a movie that disappointed a lot of people

[2:10] who had sort of been invested in these movies.

[2:13] Yeah.

[2:13] So it's kind of an interesting one to talk about.

Elliott Kalan

[2:16] Phew.

[2:17] Good thing we could rationalize that.

[2:18] Otherwise, we might have been burned at the stake for talking about the wrong kind of movie.

Stuart Wellington

[2:23] I mean, I feel like it'd be more appropriate if we got, like, kicked through a wall and then shot a bunch.

[2:27] Yeah, that's true.

Dan McCoy

[2:28] Grant, look, we will give our final.

[2:30] That would be a more Matrix-cution, yeah.

[2:32] We will give our final judgments on the movie later on where we sort of talk about how we personally feel.

[2:37] But I do think it's important to differentiate, like, the reasons we do different movies sometimes.

Stuart Wellington

[2:42] Before we jump into the plot of the third Matrix movie, do you guys have any particular, like, feelings toward the Matrix series as a whole?

[2:52] Do you have any experiences you want to talk about?

[2:55] I know I initially was fairly resistant to the first Matrix movie because I was, like, it felt like it was, at least for me, it felt like it was, like, a Western take on, like, taking, like, wushu kung fu movies.

[3:12] And, like, slapping it on this, like, techno rave club veneer.

[3:18] And so I didn't really give it much of a chance, and it wasn't until, like, years later when I became a little more chill that I would watch the Matrix and I'm like, oh, no, this is great.

[3:29] This is genuinely a classic.

[3:31] Featuring arguably, I would say, one of the best villain performances of the last, what, 30, 40 years?

Dan McCoy

[3:39] No, I mean, he's terrific, yes.

[3:41] One of the things I like the most about it.

[3:43] I came to the Matrix, not, like, late, late, but I saw it in a thing that used to exist, which is a second-run movie theater, and mostly they're gone now.

[3:53] But for, like, a couple of bucks, I saw the Matrix.

Elliott Kalan

[3:55] There's still one in Pasadena.

[3:57] If you ever want to see a second-run movie, Dan, just take a plane to Los Angeles.

Dan McCoy

[4:01] Exactly, a real money saver.

Stuart Wellington

[4:03] On the price break you get in the second-run theater, it's almost worth it.

[4:07] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[4:07] It's the movies cost, like, $3 sometimes, so.

Stuart Wellington

[4:09] Do you know how much movies cost nowadays when you add in your popcorn and your bagel bites and your cheese critters and your Frozones?

[4:20] Yeah, your Frozones.

[4:22] Your Incredibles.

[4:23] And your hat.

[4:25] Yeah, your Dermasil.

[4:26] And you're paying for an entire family of seven kids, so that's gonna, that just adds up.

Dan McCoy

[4:31] So go to the Sangerine Theater if you can.

[4:32] Yeah, worth the flight.

[4:34] The point of what I was saying was, I didn't see it so super late, but I did see it late enough that it had been really built up for me.

[4:41] And I had also already seen the Wachowski sisters' first movie, Bound, which I—

Stuart Wellington

[4:48] Yeah, Dan's seen Bound.

[4:50] Not a surprise.

[4:52] But it was a movie that—

[4:53] He's seen certain scenes from Bound.

Dan McCoy

[4:55] Dan had seen multiple times.

[4:56] Yeah.

[4:58] No, it's a movie that I love, and I, you know—

[5:03] Bound?

[5:03] Basically, to me, the Matrix—

[5:05] Bound, yeah, Bound rocks.

[5:06] I had the weird experience culturally of being like, oh, the Matrix is a real step down.

[5:10] It's kind of how I felt.

[5:12] Like, I did like it, but I think it was built up for me a lot.

[5:15] And I think it's—look, now I'm gonna get people mad at it.

[5:19] I think it's great, but I think it didn't hit me as hard as it hit a lot of people in the world, I guess.

Elliott Kalan

[5:25] That is—that would enrage people, your subjective experience with it.

[5:28] I have to—so, I have two Matrix experiences that I want to bring up.

[5:32] So, I—Stuart, I think the same reason that you were kind of like, blah, at first on The Matrix, was the thing I really liked about it.

[5:38] Is I liked—I remember seeing it when it first came out and really liking this mix of elements.

[5:43] That it was throwing all these things together.

[5:45] And I hadn't seen—you know, you just hadn't seen a movie that looked quite like this before.

[5:50] As much as I found all the sunglasses and leather jacket and rave stuff and leather pants, like, that doesn't do it for me.

[5:56] I find that that's kind of ridiculous.

[5:58] But just the way it was put together, I thought it was really cool.

[6:01] I remember the first time I saw it, the volume in the theater was way too high.

[6:06] So, me and the person I was with, we were shielding our ears the entire time because it was so loud because it's all gunshots.

[6:13] And even when he was clicking keyboard keys, it was too loud.

[6:17] And the second time—and I wanted to see it again, and my dad had kept hearing about it.

[6:20] So, we went to see it.

[6:22] And we went to see maybe the worst screening of The Matrix you could be in.

[6:25] There was a crying baby in it.

[6:26] It was 9 p.m., the screening.

[6:28] There was a baby there.

[6:29] The audience was really loud.

[6:31] And I just remember watching the movie and then afterwards spending longer than the runtime of the movie trying to explain to my dad what had happened in the movie that we had just watched.

[6:40] And he's like, so, Neo's superpower is that he can be in The Matrix and in the real world?

[6:46] And I'm like, no, everyone's in The Matrix and in the real world.

[6:49] Like, they're in the real world and they're hooked up into The Matrix.

[6:51] But he's more connected to The Matrix.

[6:53] Okay, okay, I think I understand.

[6:55] So, when he comes out of that pod, that's because he has like—the pod has given him special powers?

[7:03] No, that's—no, they're all in pods.

[7:05] Everybody's in pods.

[7:06] Everybody's a battery in a pod.

[7:08] It was very hard for him to wrap his minds around it.

[7:10] His minds.

[7:11] His three minds.

[7:12] His conscious, subconscious, and panacons.

Dan McCoy

[7:14] Oh, I have two bears and two wolves.

[7:17] That's a lot of minds.

[7:18] That's a lot of minds, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:19] There's two giraffes in each of us.

[7:21] One really big and one really little.

[7:22] Oh, your dad's Noah's Ark.

Dan McCoy

[7:24] Right, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[7:25] That's true.

[7:25] My dad, yeah, he was Noah's Ark.

[7:28] Now, that makes me want to see a line of biblical Transformers where it's like a guy who turns

[7:33] into Noah's Ark.

[7:34] There's a guy who turns into like the coat of many colors.

Dan McCoy

[7:37] Animals come out of his belly.

[7:38] Oh, yeah.

[7:40] Sounds great.

Elliott Kalan

[7:41] But then I remember seeing the second movie and being so incredibly disappointed by it.

[7:45] Just feeling like it had taken the movie that I liked and either repeated elements or added

[7:51] in elements that I was not interested in.

[7:52] Like all the Zion stuff and all the Council of Elders stuff was totally uninteresting to me.

Stuart Wellington

[7:58] So my only pushback on that is that like – so I was kind of lukewarm on the first one.

[8:03] But I liked the second one a lot because though it does like give you stuff that you're not going to care about,

[8:08] it does it with like action sequences that are nuts.

[8:14] Like stuff that you have never seen before.

[8:16] That's true.

[8:16] That highway –

[8:18] The highway sequence is so good.

Elliott Kalan

[8:20] But even – those sequences are really good.

[8:22] But I feel like even though that was new stuff, it didn't feel as new as what I had seen in the first Matrix.

[8:28] Right.

[8:28] Well, you can only break someone's brain the same way once.

[8:32] That's true.

Dan McCoy

[8:33] I will say that as much as I was – my problem with the Matrix compared to like being like really hyped up from Loving Bound is like I think Bound is a screenplay without an ounce of fat on it.

[8:43] Like it really cooks along.

[8:46] Whereas the Matrix, I think, kind of gets bogged down in some places.

[8:51] But visually, like imaginatively, it was sort of this amazing, mind-blowing thing to watch.

Stuart Wellington

[8:57] And then –

[8:58] And it helps that it has two great – the first Matrix has two incredible villain performances with Hugo Weaving and Joey Pants.

[9:06] Joey Pants.

Elliott Kalan

[9:06] But also like – like Lawrence Fisher was really good in that first one.

[9:10] It was the beginning of Keanu Reeves kind of I think being understood as what he can bring to a movie as a performer.

[9:16] Yeah.

[9:17] That the kind of blankness of him is an asset rather than something to be pushed against, you know?

[9:22] And Carrie Ann Moss is fine, you know?

[9:26] Oh, she is more than fine.

[9:28] Wow.

[9:30] She's really good.

[9:30] Maybe it was because in Matrix Revolutions I feel like she is not being used as well as she was used in the first Matrix.

[9:36] That watching this I was like, oh, I'm not – like I remember really liking Carrie Ann Moss after that first movie and Memento.

[9:42] And then in this one being like, oh, she's like – she just seems very, you know, empty and blank here.

[9:47] But they all do in Matrix Revolutions.

Dan McCoy

[9:49] Well, this movie loses our two main characters for a huge chunk of it, which is kind of the – I think the biggest problem it has.

[9:56] I mean like, well, the most obvious problem it has.

[9:59] I mean they're bigger like sort of structural things that we'll get into.

[10:03] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[10:03] Should we get into what happens in this movie?

[10:05] Should we recap?

[10:06] So the first two Matrix movies, in case you haven't seen them, I mean go see the first one.

[10:10] There's like –

Stuart Wellington

[10:11] I would argue go see the second one too.

[10:13] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[10:13] I mean why not?

[10:14] It's the future.

[10:15] There's like a computer – the robots have taken over.

[10:18] Everyone's jacked into a computer world all the time.

[10:20] And Keanu Reeves learns that –

[10:22] Oh, remind anybody of anything?

[10:25] Yeah, it really makes you think, doesn't it?

[10:28] And Keanu Reeves, he gets shown that the world he thinks is real is actually an illusion created by these computers.

[10:34] He takes a red pill, which allowed terrible people to have a metaphor for their shitty ideas many years later.

[10:41] And I do get – I do always get pleasure out of when someone on Twitter would be like – would make a Matrix reference to describe being like a Trump supporter.

[10:49] And one of the Wachowskis would be like, you don't understand the movie.

[10:52] Stop watching it.

[10:52] Like go to hell.

[10:55] And the – and they're fighting machines and stuff.

[10:58] And there's an evil program in the Matrix that I guess works for the Matrix.

[11:01] And then he gets bigger than his britches in this one.

[11:03] And then in the second movie, they find a bunch of other –

[11:07] It's actually the best description of what I would say.

[11:09] And the second one is just kind of like there's more computer programs and more worlds or whatever.

[11:14] But it feels like it doesn't – it's – by the end of the movie, Keanu Reeves' character Neo, he's like meets the guy who – the program that created the Matrix, I guess.

[11:23] And it doesn't really lead to very much of anything.

Stuart Wellington

[11:26] Yeah, I mean it's the – like the sci-fi staple of like you're not the first hero to go on this cycle.

[11:34] You're one of many.

[11:35] This cycle has happened many times.

[11:36] Yeah.

[11:37] So it's futile for you to do anything, you jerk.

[11:40] And as a movie – shut up.

Elliott Kalan

[11:41] And Neo has genuine superpowers by this point, not just within the computer world but in the real – physical meat space as well.

Dan McCoy

[11:48] And I know that we haven't gotten into the movie we're actually talking about yet.

[11:54] But since we're sort of talking about –

Elliott Kalan

[11:56] The Matrix New Year's resolutions, yeah.

[11:58] Yeah.

[12:01] I'm in this weird position of –

[12:03] Neo's like this year I resolved to be a better Christ figure.

[12:06] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[12:06] I'm in this weird position of like looking at these Matrix sequels and thinking like that I respect them for sort of not going the obvious sequel directions that these sorts of movies get.

[12:19] Like the sequels I think are interested in complicating the situation and undermining the mission or the reality that you thought was true of the mission in ways that a lot of sequels are just content to like give you more along the same story.

[12:38] So I admire that I think that these movies are up to something.

[12:43] But also I feel like their biggest problem for me is like the Matrix feels – even though it ends in a quote-unquote open-ended way, it feels like a real self-contained story.

[12:53] Mm-hmm.

[12:53] And these movies feel like they're trying to spin out ways to make it keep going.

[13:00] And the ways are interesting.

[13:01] Like they're different than the most obvious ways.

[13:05] But they – I don't know.

[13:07] They feel like –

[13:08] Well, it's like –

[13:08] They don't need to be.

Elliott Kalan

[13:09] No.

[13:10] In the first movie, what are the strengths of it?

[13:11] To me, the strengths are that feeling of you don't know what's real and what's not real for a lot of it.

[13:16] Someone having the scales pulled from their eyes and seeing a new level of reality and these amazing kind of kung fu action sequences.

[13:23] And there's a lot of gun fu stuff.

[13:25] But this one, as we'll see, it spends so much time on an enormous gun battle between guys in mech armor and flying robots.

[13:33] And there's no reality warp aspect of it.

[13:37] And it's also – the action in that sequence is not fun or interesting.

[13:39] It's just guns being fought.

[13:41] A guy yelling, knuckle up!

Dan McCoy

[13:44] And then he yells knuckle up so many times and just firing these big guns and things.

[13:48] And it takes forever.

Elliott Kalan

[13:49] And I was like, okay, well, this movie has really escaped the bonds that were making it interesting before.

Stuart Wellington

[13:54] It feels like, what, like asteroids or something?

[13:56] Like they're just shooting at swarms of Sentinels.

[14:01] And, you know, they're flying out.

Elliott Kalan

[14:02] And not the cool X-Men Sentinels who are like, mutant, you have five seconds to stop being a mutant.

Stuart Wellington

[14:07] I know, but I would argue that the Jeff Darrow design of the Sentinels is pretty slick.

[14:13] Oh, no, it's great design.

Elliott Kalan

[14:14] And I love that the Sentinels, the way they are with the tentacles, it mirrors the dreads that so many people in the Matrix, in the world of Zion seem to have.

[14:24] Like it is a cool design.

[14:26] I agree, it's a cool design.

[14:27] So anyway, it's just not as good as a big pink and purple man robot who can say, mutant, I'm going to shoot a tentacle out of my hand and wrap you in it so you can escape and blow me up.

Dan McCoy

[14:37] Oh, no, a fastball special.

[14:38] Yeah, oh, you sliced me up, Wolverine.

[14:40] My one weakness.

Elliott Kalan

[14:42] My one weakness, sharp knives.

[14:46] Anyway, so let's start with the Matrix revolutions.

[14:48] Now that we've talked for a long time about it, let's talk about it.

[14:51] So we start out, we're zooming in computer code and there's fractals and all these cities inside of a computer.

[14:56] And we see there's a bunch of serious guys.

[14:59] They're looking for some missing operatives.

[15:01] And Morpheus, Lawrence Fishburne, he wants to search the Matrix for Neo, Keanu Reeves, who's gone missing, even though Neo is not plugged in.

[15:08] His body is in a coma and they can't find his soul.

[15:11] And Morpheus believes it's somewhere in the Matrix.

[15:14] And meanwhile, the machines, the sentient machine bad guys, they're on their way to Zion, the secret headquarters hideout of the humans, which is just a grimy, industrial kind of like tunnel that everyone seems to live in.

[15:28] And it seems like if the future –

[15:31] They're shaming their corners, Ellie.

[15:34] It is one of those – like Joe Pantoliani in the first movie, he is a villain because he chooses the illusion of the Matrix over the reality of living in long underpants in a tunnel.

[15:44] And it's like, I don't know, dude.

[15:46] It seems better.

[15:47] It seems better to live in a world where you have the illusion of nature than to live in a grimy tunnel in the middle of nothing.

Dan McCoy

[15:53] Their clothes do seem to be mostly burlap, which I imagine is not the most comfortable thing to wear around.

Elliott Kalan

[16:00] I have to assume that Newsies is huge in the Matrix world.

[16:03] That's how that fashion trend really got started.

[16:06] So anyway –

Stuart Wellington

[16:07] They have access to much nicer clothes, but they want to wear the Newsies shit.

Elliott Kalan

[16:11] Yeah.

[16:11] I mean, everyone in these movies, they either wear long leather dusters or they're wearing Newsies clothes.

[16:17] Like that's pretty much it.

[16:18] Those are the only options.

[16:19] The machines are on their way to Zion and the Oracle wants to talk to Morpheus.

[16:23] We remember the Oracle, the elderly lady who tells the future or whatever.

[16:26] Meanwhile, Neo finds himself in the most –

[16:30] crazy, tripped out, just –

[16:33] you never imagine this type of space.

[16:35] An empty underground train station.

[16:37] Tunnels and tunnels.

[16:38] The whole movie's fucking tunnels.

[16:40] And he's talking to a little girl named Sati who says that she's going to go to the Matrix,

[16:45] but the train man does not want Neo to go to the Matrix.

[16:48] Guys, looks like we've got another new cool character coming up, the train man.

Stuart Wellington

[16:51] Played by famous character actor Bruce Spence.

[16:55] Not mad about that.

[16:56] Although I am mad that these scenes are in the movie at all because they're pointless.

[16:59] They're very pointless and very dull.

[17:01] Yes, that is true.

Dan McCoy

[17:02] I kept expecting it to feel like it meant something.

[17:06] But I think it's just a way to get out of where they put Neo at the end of the last movie.

Elliott Kalan

[17:11] At first it seems like a kind of a neat visual representation of a way station between programs,

[17:17] this kind of empty, semi-divine-seeming subway station.

[17:20] But he's just there for a long time.

[17:22] He's just – if you want to see a movie where the hero is hanging around waiting for a train,

[17:27] then watch the beginning of Once Upon a Time in the West where three bad guys sit for like eight minutes waiting for a train,

[17:33] and it is – you can't take your eyes off of it.

[17:36] I find it so incredibly captivating.

[17:38] But anyway.

Dan McCoy

[17:39] Well, also, I'm probably – it's weird when I decide to get like more literal-minded about it because often I'm just like –

[17:45] You're very inconsistent.

[17:47] Whatever movie, I'll go with it.

[17:49] But I do have more of a –

[17:51] Wait a minute.

Elliott Kalan

[17:52] A vacuum cleaner wouldn't pull her skirt and her shirt off.

[17:56] They're not connected.

[17:58] One or the other movie.

[18:00] And then you're like, oh, a giant gorilla that climbs off a skyscraper?

[18:03] Yeah, I'll buy it.

[18:04] Sure.

[18:04] Yum, yum.

[18:05] Give me some.

Dan McCoy

[18:05] No, I find it harder to deal with these sort of like liminal spaces within the Matrix where –

[18:15] I understand why the Matrix exists as it is.

[18:19] But why make the space between spaces, to borrow a phrase from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,

[18:26] why make those like places you can walk through like –

[18:30] Yeah.

[18:31] Like you're in disclosure and you're like – you're getting a file by opening a filing cabinet at the end of a long virtual like platform.

[18:39] Like it makes less sense to me.

Elliott Kalan

[18:41] I think that it's very – giving them the benefit of the doubt, I will say I think it's very hard for the human mind to conceive of non-physical spaces.

[18:49] Yeah.

[18:49] Where distance and physical presence don't exist.

[18:53] It reminds me of in like Don't Worry Darling where the programs were all chasing after her to stop her from reaching this physical space.

[18:59] And it's like, well, they're all in a computer.

[19:02] So just kind of like, I don't know, move her or delete her or just – why is there a physical space?

[19:07] From place to place.

[19:07] Yeah.

[19:08] Just move from – why do you have to run from point A to point B when this is not a real physical space?

[19:12] And I think it's hard for our minds to avoid mapping our experience as physical beings onto this kind of cyber world where distance doesn't exist.

Dan McCoy

[19:22] Well, that's why I'm like maybe just don't deal with that.

[19:24] Because again, I understand it in the matrix where it's built for humans to interact.

[19:29] To be an illusion, yeah.

[19:29] Why build it this way for programs to do things?

[19:32] Like just have them speak in their ones and zeros anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[19:37] I think because humans are interested in people.

[19:40] Because this is a movie for people.

[19:42] And so the –

Dan McCoy

[19:43] That was the slogan.

[19:44] Well, but it's the kind of thing that –

[19:45] A movie for people.

[19:46] Come in and have some breadsticks and watch The Matrix.

Elliott Kalan

[19:49] When I was working on this TV show House Broken, which was about animals, we would get notes sometimes where it's like,

[19:56] Animals are acting a little bit too much like people here.

[19:58] And often it was like, yeah, because the show is for people.

[20:01] Like the show is not for animals.

[20:02] Like we're not trying to do an accurate rendition of how a cat thinks.

[20:06] You know, we're using a cat to illustrate human life and human emotions because people watch this show.

[20:11] And I think it's easy sometimes to forget that when people get too literal.

Dan McCoy

[20:14] I wonder if like the people that made like Benji and shit got those same notes.

Stuart Wellington

[20:19] Like this dog is acting way too much like a human.

Dan McCoy

[20:22] This dog sounds too much like Chevy Chase right now.

Elliott Kalan

[20:24] What's going on?

[20:25] And sometimes it is true that like we would do things where it's like,

[20:28] okay, this animal is acting with a sense of agency that a person would have.

[20:31] But an animal can't – a pet can't just leave their house that easily.

[20:34] But there are other times when it's like,

[20:35] what this animal is saying just seems like you're talking about human things using animal terms.

[20:40] Yeah, well, we are.

[20:42] Welcome to the show.

[20:43] Welcome to human fiction.

[20:45] Anyway, so Morpheus and Trinity, they visit the Oracle.

[20:48] This is a different –

[20:49] It's a different –

[20:50] It's a different –

[20:51] Yeah.

[20:53] This is a different Oracle than in the previous movies or different actress.

[20:58] But the idea is that the Oracle has changed form and they've written that into the script.

[21:02] But she says that Neo is trapped –

Stuart Wellington

[21:04] I actually think this is a clever way to deal with the sad passing of an actor.

[21:10] Yes, I agree.

[21:10] I agree.

[21:11] Much better than like say the modern equivalent which is like,

[21:14] nah, let's just do a CGI.

[21:15] Like let's do a digital version of that person.

Elliott Kalan

[21:17] Stuart, Todd Vaziri might be listening right now.

Stuart Wellington

[21:20] Well, Todd Vaziri –

[21:22] Oh, no.

[21:23] He's editing me out.

[21:23] I'm constantly arguing for that.

Elliott Kalan

[21:25] Yeah.

[21:26] No, but I –

[21:26] But I agree with you.

[21:28] I like it more than trying to –

[21:30] Or the –

[21:31] There was that Sopranos episode after Nancy Marchand died where they kind of suck her head onto someone else's body.

[21:37] And it's like maybe you don't need this scene that badly.

[21:40] Yeah.

[21:40] But I think this is a good way to deal with it.

Dan McCoy

[21:41] I mean I like the idea that she has switched digital sins – skins rather.

[21:46] But like digital sins.

[21:47] Digital sins.

[21:48] That sounds like a great showtime.

[21:49] Digital sins.

[21:50] Yeah, or like that's a great series where people –

Elliott Kalan

[21:52] Someone is like, I'm the webmistress.

[21:55] Tell me –

[21:56] I seek the internet for the hottest stories.

[21:59] Why, here's one.

[22:00] Let's jack into this tale.

[22:02] And then it's just the same old story they always have.

Stuart Wellington

[22:05] Meet Larry.

[22:06] He wears a leisure suit.

Dan McCoy

[22:08] What in previous decades would have been a call-in sex line show then becomes –

[22:13] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[22:13] It's not like a Reddit page.

[22:16] No, sorry.

Dan McCoy

[22:17] The thing I was originally saying before I misspoke was –

Elliott Kalan

[22:20] What if there was a Reddit –

[22:21] This is the show I'll pitch to Cinemax.

[22:23] They still do these shows.

[22:24] It's called r slash sex and it's just a Reddit page that launches into stories, you know.

Dan McCoy

[22:30] I'm sure r slash sex is what –

[22:32] I'm sure it exists already.

[22:33] I don't know what it is.

[22:34] I've never been there and don't want to go.

[22:35] I would know.

[22:37] Have you guys checked out fear.com though?

[22:39] Seriously.

[22:40] I'm too busy on Dee Snider's Strangeland.

[22:42] Yeah.

[22:44] No, I like the idea that, you know, she switched looks within the Matrix.

[22:48] I find the reason for it to be like pretty like dumb, like trying to like cover for this idea.

[22:56] Like the idea that her punishment was that she had to switch the way she looked or whatever.

Elliott Kalan

[23:03] Yeah, I mean it's just kind of like a hand wavy type explanation, which is fine.

[23:07] She says Neo is trapped in a world between this world and the machine world and they've got to get to Neo before the train man does –

[23:14] The train man works for the Merovingian, this rogue program.

[23:18] Oh, heck yeah.

[23:19] That's basically just a crime boss.

[23:21] He's like a French program.

[23:22] He's a French program.

[23:23] They also call him the Frenchman.

[23:24] He's a French program.

[23:25] He's made of les uns and les zeros.

[23:28] Oh.

[23:31] And we –

[23:32] Eh, meh, banary.

[23:34] Oh, mon cher.

[23:35] You know, rogue.

[23:36] You and I, we –

[23:37] He's gamming out.

[23:38] That's a hate crime.

Dan McCoy

[23:39] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[23:42] Neo, he meets Sati's family, their programs.

[23:45] They say the train man that works for the Frenchman and he controls the transport between worlds and Sati is a program without a purpose.

[23:52] And so she has been marked for deletion.

[23:55] And her father asked the Merovingian to help him save her from being deleted.

[23:58] And he and Neo, they're both there because they love someone.

[24:02] And love is a theme that's going to run half-assedly through the movie at different points.

[24:09] The character of Seraph, we all remember him, right?

[24:12] He used to work for the Merovingian, right?

Stuart Wellington

[24:14] Originally supposed to be played by Jet Li, right?

[24:16] Yes.

[24:17] I read about that.

[24:18] There's that story where he was originally – they approached him, but part of the contract would be that they

[24:24] would be recording all of his moves and then digitally – that Warner Brothers or whatever would digitally own them.

[24:30] Oh, right.

[24:30] And he's like, yeah, those are my moves.

[24:32] That's my – like –

[24:34] To his great credit.

[24:35] That's my currency.

[24:35] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[24:36] He said, I don't need to do that, so I'm not going to do that, which I admire him enormously for that.

[24:41] Yeah.

[24:41] You know, Seraph, he leads Morpheus and Trinity onto a subway train, and they find a homeless guy who has a gun.

[24:49] It's the train man.

[24:50] He refuses to help them, and he runs off, shooting back at them and shouting.

[24:54] I'm not quite sure why he's mad.

[24:56] I'm not quite sure why they couldn't go, hey, wait, we want to ask you for something.

[25:00] Like, it's – anyway, the –

Dan McCoy

[25:02] I'm also not sure why the train man, like, with his job – like, why has he chosen to be this sort of crazed, like, I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[25:13] That's who he's programmed to be, I guess, that he's supposed to be like a vagrant.

Dan McCoy

[25:17] Vincent Stiavelli and Ghost kind of –

Elliott Kalan

[25:19] Yeah.

[25:20] And the train shows up at Neo's station, and we've been led to this point to be like, uh-oh, if the train man finds Neo, this is going to be bad.

[25:27] Because the train man works for the Merovingian, and the Merovingian has a price on Neo's head.

[25:31] The train shows up at Neo's station, and the train man goes, hey, Neo, you're not going anywhere, and punches him.

[25:36] And then Sati's family gets on the train, and they leave.

[25:38] And I was like, oh, so that's the long-awaited meetup between the train man and Neo, but not really much of anything.

[25:45] It's a lot of time spent building up the train man, a character who appears, I think, in one more scene in the background at the Merovingian's Club, and then not again for the rest of the movie.

[25:54] It's a real – it felt like an episode of the Matrix TV show rather than a movie sequence.

[26:00] Yeah, that he's the monster of the week.

[26:01] Yeah, exactly.

[26:02] He's the blank man of the week.

[26:05] I don't mean blank man, the hilarious character, but I mean the – so many of the characters are just blank and man as their name.

[26:13] Seraph, Morpheus, and Trinity, they kill their way into the Merovingian's Club.

[26:21] First, they go through the lobby where they have to fight some anti-gravity acrobat hitmen who decide to fight on the ceiling for no particular reason.

Stuart Wellington

[26:28] Which isn't enough to differentiate.

[26:31] Like, again, part of the thing that I liked about the second movie is that there seemed to be a genuine effort to be like, if we're going to put action sequences in here, it's going to be different.

[26:41] It's going to be something you haven't seen before.

[26:43] And I feel like this is one of many action sequences where I'm like, yeah, I kind of saw that.

Elliott Kalan

[26:48] Yeah, it feels like they're kind of going through the motions.

[26:50] And it's one of those where, like, the bad guys are on the ceiling, the good guys are on the floor, but it doesn't really affect what they're doing that much because they're just still kind of punching and kicking and shooting each other.

[26:59] There's just a lack of imagination in that moment.

[27:01] And it's hard to outdo yourself when you've made The Matrix.

[27:03] But still, they get into a leather rave where the Merovingian is there with mistress Monica Bellucci who has nothing to do in this other than sit there with her boobs spilling out of her top.

[27:14] And it feels like a real waste of Monica Bellucci.

[27:17] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[27:18] I mean, that said, put Monica Bellucci in every movie, I will never complain.

Elliott Kalan

[27:23] Well, I'm not going to complain about seeing Monica Bellucci.

[27:26] Certainly not.

[27:26] But it's just a, you know, if that's all you're going to give her to do.

[27:32] Yeah.

[27:32] That's fair.

[27:33] Well, I guess she got a paycheck out of it.

[27:34] That's fine.

[27:34] Maybe she was only there for, like, one shooting day.

[27:37] But she's capable of so much more than just being background wallpaper.

Dan McCoy

[27:40] Now, this leather club, it's not a leather club, but, like, a lot of people are wearing leather.

[27:47] It's pretty much a leather club.

[27:49] I mean, every rave.

[27:50] A leather club has a different kind of kind of.

[27:52] It has a different meaning.

Elliott Kalan

[27:53] I mean, I kind of assumed that was what was going on here, too.

[27:56] I mean, every place that you go to in the Matrix or in Zion or anywhere is two steps away from just becoming an S&M club.

[28:04] Yeah.

[28:04] Just for a moment.

[28:05] Or being the vampire raven blade where blood is just pouring out of the ceiling.

[28:09] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[28:09] These outfits are more sort of, like, kind of the next step along, like, slightly sexier than our heroes leather outfits.

[28:19] Yeah, that's true.

[28:20] Rather than being, like, bondage gear for the most part.

Elliott Kalan

[28:23] I guess what I'm saying is if it's supposed to be a super cool kind of almost a little intimidating club, it's got to be more intense than the club from the Super Mario Brothers movie.

[28:34] Sure.

[28:34] The original one, where that was one where I was like, this feels genuinely dangerous for these characters to be in.

[28:39] This is weird for these kids' characters to be in.

Dan McCoy

[28:42] I was bringing it up only because you've got me thinking about the clothes.

[28:46] And I think that I don't – I can't remember whether we talked about this on the show before and you were saying this, but the idea that, like, no one in the Matrix – like, everyone, when they go on this mission, agrees, like, okay, we're going to do leather dusters and sunglasses, right?

Elliott Kalan

[29:00] Little square or ocular sunglasses, yeah.

[29:03] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:03] No one's like, I want to be a cowboy, you know?

[29:06] Like, do me anything on these things.

[29:09] Like, why is everybody –

Elliott Kalan

[29:10] It would be so – it's like – I feel like when you're in a virtual reality space in the movies, it is so often that you are either in leather 1930s suits or, like, silver jumpsuits or whatever, like, Tron type stuff.

[29:24] And it would be fun, you're right, if someone's like, well, why can't I just dress like Dracula?

[29:28] Like, why can't I wear a furry suit?

Dan McCoy

[29:30] If we're going to go on this mission where I'm doing clearly impossible things, let's make it really fun.

Stuart Wellington

[29:37] Man, guys, you guys are asking to start a new RPG so badly.

Elliott Kalan

[29:41] Yeah, for sure.

[29:42] I mean, I think – I guess the thing is, like, the Matrix movies are still tied to an idea of, like, looking cool, which is a very – and a very kind of, like, cyberpunk-type cool look or 90s rave culture look.

[29:54] But on the internet – I'll break it to you guys.

[29:56] I'll just go on a limb.

[29:57] The internet is not cool.

[29:58] The internet is maybe the least cool place that anything can be.

[30:01] Interesting.

[30:01] And the internet is mostly people finding a place to –

[30:05] This exists on the internet.

[30:07] I mean, this podcast is the one cool thing.

[30:09] That's the thing.

[30:09] This is one cool podcast.

[30:10] But it's the place where people can go to do the uncool stuff that they don't get to do in real life, which is not – and I don't want to cast aspersions to say things like being a Jedi or a furry or anything is not cool.

[30:19] Because there's certainly a coolness to it in that you can be yourself.

[30:23] But that's what I would want to see.

[30:25] I would want to see the Matrix where, like, they're all in animal costumes or they're all dressed as, like, the characters they loved as kids or something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[30:31] Or that everybody kind of gets to do their own thing.

Elliott Kalan

[30:34] Yeah, exactly.

[30:34] For a movie that is so much ostensibly about individuality and not being part of a system, the fact that all the heroes dress the exact same way, act the exact same way, look, talk, behave the exact same way, that fights that idea.

[30:49] For sure.

Dan McCoy

[30:50] To minimize the number of at replies, I just want to say I did just remember that in the second movie there's, like, this implication that, you know, stuff like vampires and werewolves come out of, like, these sort of rogue programs in the Matrix or, like, people are, like, doing whatever they want to do.

[31:08] But it is a different thing than just being, like, yeah, you're, like, a big, funny Dracula guy running around.

[31:15] I want to be a cowboy.

Elliott Kalan

[31:16] Well, I mean, people don't have to dress up like Dracula.

[31:18] I don't mean Dracula literally.

[31:19] I just mean, like, other stuff, you know, other stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[31:22] I mean, they're not that far from Dracula's.

[31:23] I mean, when we would play Vampire the Masquerade when I was in high school, all of our character descriptions were basically Matrix characters.

[31:29] Just a thing I remember.

[31:30] That makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[31:30] Okay, that's fair.

[31:31] Okay, so anyway, but to get back to what we were talking about, I thought you were going to say, like, to avoid our at replies, furries are great.

[31:38] Because, again, I'm casting no aspersions on them.

[31:40] No, no, no.

[31:40] Yeah, dude, why are you talking shit?

[31:43] So anyway, they go to the club.

[31:45] They meet the Merovingian.

[31:46] Monica Bellucci is there, but she doesn't get to say anything.

[31:49] And he says, I'll trade you Neo for the eyes of the Oracle.

[31:54] And this seems like it's going to set up a sort of, like, uh-oh, what are they going to do?

[31:58] A little fetch quest or something?

[32:00] But instead, Trinity just pulls out a gun, and suddenly everyone has guns, and she goes, give me Neo, or everyone in this room is going to die from being shot by everybody else.

[32:09] And the next scene is Trinity just getting out of a subway train at that train station and getting Neo.

[32:14] And it's like, so that was what this was all leading up to?

[32:17] Like, it felt like such an anticlimax.

Stuart Wellington

[32:19] Yeah, this entire opening sequence, it could have just been trimmed.

[32:25] They could have had Neo show up and be like, wow, that was a crazy adventure we went on.

[32:28] Well, we don't really need to talk about it.

[32:30] Yeah.

[32:30] Like, you don't need all of this way to get him out of, like, the Matrix coma he's in at the end of the second one.

Dan McCoy

[32:38] Like, there's a quicker way.

[32:40] I mean, I do admire that, like, they, in a certain way, even though all of this is unnecessary, they don't extend it too much.

[32:51] On the other hand—

[32:52] I mean, if they extended it further, it would be the movie, in which case I would—

[32:55] Well, that's the thing.

[32:55] I'd be like, that'd be worth it.

[32:56] If they extended it more and then cut a lot of that middle stuff where it's just tentacle things shooting at each other, then maybe that would be a better movie.

Elliott Kalan

[33:04] Maybe.

[33:05] It feels very weird.

[33:06] It feels like they feel like they need to service the existence of the Merovingian, a character who doesn't really play any real role from that point on.

[33:13] Like, it's—

[33:14] It feels—

[33:14] I guess maybe that's my issue with this movie.

[33:16] It feels like the Matrix is super cool.

[33:18] The Matrix reloaded, which I didn't love, but it feels like it does open up the world quite a bit.

[33:22] And the Matrix revolution is like, okay, we've got this whole world to play in.

[33:27] Uh, do you guys have any ideas what we could do in this world?

[33:31] We set up all these cool characters.

[33:32] Anyway, Trinity gets Neo.

[33:34] Before Neo leaves the Matrix, he visits the Oracle, and they talk about Neo's power, and they've got to see this man-machine war end.

[33:41] They just need to see it end.

[33:42] It's the same kind of conversation they usually have where it's like, kind of cryptic, kind of information, kind of not.

[33:47] Yeah.

[33:47] And she makes it clear that Agent Smith is Neo's opposite, and soon Agent Smith will have the power to destroy all the worlds.

[33:55] And meanwhile, Bane, one of the guys on the spaceship, he wakes up from his coma in Zion World.

[34:03] I didn't remember this.

[34:03] Did Batman put him in the coma?

[34:05] Yeah, yeah.

[34:05] He was the guy who, uh, yeah.

[34:07] I picked up from context clues that he set off an EMP pulse in the last movie, but I didn't remember any of that.

[34:12] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[34:12] He was like, a fire rises.

Elliott Kalan

[34:16] Well, Neo, you think perhaps you don't need to be in the Matrix, but maybe you do have to be in the Matrix.

[34:22] Bane, I don't understand.

[34:23] What's your philosophy in this world?

[34:25] Well, even in the Batman movie, it wasn't that really airtight an ideology.

[34:30] I'm in here cosplaying as a vampire.

[34:34] Bleh, creatures of the night.

[34:35] It's always night here since there's big clouds over the sun.

[34:39] Remember, they talked about that in the first movie.

[34:42] Bleh, bleh.

[34:43] So one fun thing about this Bane guy.

[34:44] So are you Bane or are you Dracula?

[34:46] Well, it's kind of hard to say which character I am.

[34:49] Oh, is he a leprechaun now?

[34:50] Oh, God.

[34:52] It's, you know, I'm more going, it's here in the Matrix.

[34:54] We can be any character we want.

[34:56] So I'm just jumping from character to character.

[34:58] Wow.

[34:59] Especially if our voices are a little similar.

[35:01] Oh, man, he's left the fence now.

[35:02] It doesn't have to be similar.

[35:06] Yeah, see?

[35:07] Yeah.

[35:07] Here we are in the Matrix.

[35:08] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[35:08] No getting him to bed tonight.

Elliott Kalan

[35:17] So the thing about this Bane guy.

[35:18] Anyway, Goo Goo Gaga, reborn as a star child, and we're back.

[35:21] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[35:21] So Bane is a human who somehow got Agent Smith inside his head.

[35:28] Yes.

[35:29] So, and one thing that I think is-

[35:30] I mean, we all have Hugo Weaving inside our heads.

Elliott Kalan

[35:32] That guy, once he gets under your skin, he doesn't let go.

[35:34] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[35:35] I do think it's fun watching this actor do a Hugo Weaving impression.

[35:39] Yeah.

[35:39] Uh-huh.

[35:40] Even to the point where he's doing it and Neo's like, who are you?

[35:44] Well, that's the part that makes me crazy.

[35:46] He called you Mr. Anderson, dog.

[35:48] He's doing the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[35:48] Only one person calls you Mr. Anderson.

[35:50] It's like if a stranger just came up to me and was like, read to me, daddy, I'd be like,

[35:56] hmm, my child's mind might be in this other person's body because no one else calls me

[36:00] daddy or asks me to read to them.

[36:02] Well.

Dan McCoy

[36:03] Not for free, anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[36:04] Yeah, not for free.

[36:05] Yeah, no.

[36:06] Except to my OnlyFans where I read storybooks to people.

Stuart Wellington

[36:10] I think there's money in it.

[36:12] It's just, it's work.

[36:13] You got to dedicate yourself.

Elliott Kalan

[36:14] Yeah, yeah.

[36:15] OnlyFans Junior, it's called.

[36:16] Having trouble putting the kids to bed?

[36:18] Tired after a long day?

[36:19] Just put them in front of OnlyFans Junior.

[36:20] Pay me a few extra tips and I'll read them their favorite storybook.

[36:25] But I do it in a sexy way.

[36:26] That's the only way to do things on OnlyFans.

[36:28] Now you're mixing up missions.

Stuart Wellington

[36:30] Well, yes, I think that any way that Elliot reads a book,

[36:33] can be sexy.

[36:34] I think you've made it weird.

Elliott Kalan

[36:38] The night that Max made mischief of one kind and another,

[36:42] his mother called him Wild Thing and sent him to bed without any supper at all.

Dan McCoy

[36:48] Read it more like Kent Cattrall on Sex and the City.

Elliott Kalan

[36:52] So kind of pretty sassy.

[36:54] Yeah.

[36:55] Let the wild rumpus start.

[36:58] Yeah, it's where the wild things are that I'm reading.

[37:00] I skipped some words earlier.

[37:01] Yeah, that's fine.

Dan McCoy

[37:03] You ready?

[37:04] Yeah.

[37:04] For me to go.

[37:04] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[37:05] It seemed like Dan looked aside like he was researching something.

Dan McCoy

[37:08] No, I thought you were moving along.

Elliott Kalan

[37:11] No, I was trying to consider how much more of where the wild things are to say in a sexy manner.

Dan McCoy

[37:15] Yeah.

[37:16] With the magic trick of staring into all their eyes without blinking once.

Elliott Kalan

[37:22] And they called him the wildest thing of all.

[37:25] Anyway, so.

[37:26] So yeah.

[37:27] So we're talking.

[37:28] So anyway, they're dealing with more.

Stuart Wellington

[37:30] They're dealing with more like fallout from the end of the second movie.

[37:35] And for a movie that.

[37:37] I mean, this movie is only like just over two hours long.

[37:40] For some reason in my head, I built it up and I'm like this four hour epic of Matrix-y-ness.

[37:46] But I feel like they spend so much time just cleaning up everything.

[37:49] Kind of from the end of the last movie, kind of without that much trouble.

Elliott Kalan

[37:54] Yes, pretty easily.

[37:56] And then they spend.

[37:56] I mean, there's not a lot that happens in this movie.

[37:58] There's basically like four sequences.

[38:01] You could say.

[38:02] Like there's not a lot going on.

[38:03] Which is why it's funny that it's taking us so long.

Dan McCoy

[38:05] Honestly, I mean, I guess this is a final judgment-y thing to say.

[38:09] But who cares?

[38:09] That was like my main takeaway from this movie.

[38:11] Is it felt like they thought they needed to make a trilogy.

[38:15] But really they used most of it up in two movies.

[38:18] And then they're like, oh shit.

[38:19] Let's stretch this recipe.

[38:21] It does feel like they added a lot of extra.

Elliott Kalan

[38:24] A lot of xanthan gum to make things.

[38:27] So things would like kind of stretch out more.

Dan McCoy

[38:29] Yeah, maybe make two and a half movies rather than a full three.

[38:32] Yeah, can you do that?

[38:33] Yeah, half movies are very popular, Dan.

[38:34] You can just release that in theaters.

Elliott Kalan

[38:35] Just drop like a 30-minute movie.

[38:38] I mean, theaters would love it.

[38:39] They just get so many seatings.

[38:41] It's called Matrix Epilogue.

[38:42] It's 40 minutes long.

[38:43] You put it in the theaters.

[38:45] It's in 4D, which means that like robot tentacles slap you in the face while you're watching it.

[38:49] Brilliant.

[38:50] New idea.

[38:51] Yeah.

[38:51] So Seraph, he picks up Satie from the Oracle's apartment.

[38:54] But uh-oh, Agent Smith shows up with a bunch of other Agent Smiths.

[38:58] And he turns the Oracle into another Agent Smith who starts laughing.

[39:03] Agent Smith has the ability to just turn Matrix people into Agent Smiths.

[39:07] And we're on the speak.

Dan McCoy

[39:08] Turn the world on with his smile.

Elliott Kalan

[39:09] He does.

[39:10] You have a weaving smile.

[39:11] Hell yeah, buddy.

[39:12] So we're on this ship called the Hammer.

[39:15] And they're interrogating Bane.

[39:16] But then they locate another ship.

[39:17] And they go to investigate it.

[39:18] Hey, it's Niobe.

[39:20] Jada Pinkett Smith and her crew from the what?

[39:22] The Nebuchadnezzar, that was their ship, right?

[39:24] No.

[39:25] Nebuchadnezzar was-

[39:26] Oh, no, it's the Logos.

[39:27] Yeah.

[39:27] Which is which?

[39:28] Nebuchadnezzar was Morpheus' ship.

[39:29] Morpheus' ship.

[39:29] I couldn't keep track of-

[39:31] Maybe because I didn't care that much.

[39:33] I could not remember which ship was which.

[39:34] I know there's the Logos and the Hammer.

[39:36] And the Hammer is the one that the other guys are on.

[39:39] And Logos is Niobe's, I think.

[39:41] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[39:42] This really points up the difficulty of doing just this movie alone.

[39:47] Because it is so tied back to number two.

[39:51] Yeah.

[39:52] Sorry.

[39:53] You just started thinking about poop.

[39:55] I did.

[39:56] It is in a certain way tied to number two in some fans' minds as well.

[40:01] But yeah, it's hard to like-

[40:04] I'm not as familiar with what happened in the previous installment.

[40:08] So I forgot these characters completely from the second movie.

Elliott Kalan

[40:12] Again, it's been 20 years since I saw the second movie.

[40:15] Yeah.

[40:15] So, but it's like, okay, these are more Zion freedom fighters.

[40:18] Everyone's either a robot, a Mr. Smith, or a Zion freedom fighter.

[40:22] That's pretty much everybody.

[40:23] And the Council in Zion with, you know, Professor Cornel West,

[40:26] they hear the news that in 12 hours, the Sentinels,

[40:30] the robots that work for the Matrix,

[40:32] that are kind of like floating balls with a bunch of tentacles.

[40:34] They're like robot octopuses, right?

[40:36] They're going to fly.

[40:37] Yeah, the Sentinels, yeah.

[40:38] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[40:38] And I do love that when they're like communicating with each other,

[40:42] one of their tentacles turns into a little like radar dish.

Elliott Kalan

[40:45] Yes, yeah.

[40:46] And they have a, they're going to reach the city in 12 hours.

[40:49] Luckily, the army has a plan to fight back under,

[40:52] what, General Mifune has a plan to fight back,

[40:54] which is just to shoot them.

[40:56] So anyway, when they show up, shoot them a bunch.

[40:59] The other, so the characters in,

[41:01] some of the other characters that I guess were also in the previous movie,

[41:04] they're disagreeing of whether to evacuate the city or to fight.

[41:08] There's a character named Z whose boyfriend is on the Logos crew

[41:12] or the Hammer crew.

[41:13] I forget which.

[41:15] And they, and she's like-

Dan McCoy

[41:16] Is that Harold Perrineau?

Elliott Kalan

[41:18] Yes.

[41:19] And she's like, if I have to, I have to fight

[41:21] because otherwise I might not get to see him.

[41:23] And there's this, I guess a guy they keep saying is a teenager,

[41:25] but he looks like he's like 28 years old.

[41:27] And he wants to recruit.

[41:29] And they're like, you're too young to recruit.

[41:30] And I'm like, seriously?

[41:31] He looks like he should be mustered out at this point.

[41:33] Like, but, and he's-

Stuart Wellington

[41:35] Yeah, check out Natalie Portman in that movie,

[41:38] the May-December movie over here.

[41:39] He's like, oh, he looks old enough.

[41:41] He looks old enough to party.

Elliott Kalan

[41:42] I mean, he just doesn't look like a teenager.

[41:44] And they just, he doesn't have a name, this character.

[41:46] They just call him like the kid.

Stuart Wellington

[41:48] It's not like Squirrel or Tadpole or something.

[41:51] He doesn't have like a cool little Matrix call sign.

[41:53] Also diminutive.

Elliott Kalan

[41:54] But he manages to volunteer to fight.

[41:58] And the crew, he's going to be in the support role

[42:01] of delivering ammunition.

[42:02] So the crew of the, they re-energize Niobe's ship.

[42:06] And they're like, we got to get, stop these machines at Zion.

[42:09] And Neo goes, I need a ship.

[42:11] I'm going to go to the machine city where the Matrix lives

[42:14] because we're stealing from Empire Strikes Back right now.

[42:17] And I'm just going to take a ship and leave the rebellion

[42:19] and go on my own mission.

[42:20] And they're like, no ship has ever been to the machine city before.

[42:23] And Niobe's like, you can take my ship.

[42:24] That's okay.

[42:25] I believe in you.

[42:25] I'm faking you.

Dan McCoy

[42:26] This is one of these scenes where like,

[42:28] I feel like there was, like Roger Ebert would talk a lot about

[42:31] one of his least favorite types of characters was like

[42:35] the character that's in the movie just to be wrong about something.

[42:39] Yeah.

[42:39] And there's a lot of that in this.

[42:40] One captain who's just like arguing so much against Nioh taking the ship.

[42:45] I'm like, wow, man, you're really like turning around

[42:48] on this Matrix Messiah of yours.

[42:51] Well, and also that-

[42:52] He wants to take one ship and do a thing.

Elliott Kalan

[42:54] He's like, this is never going to work.

[42:55] And then as we see in the rest of the movie,

[42:57] if they had another ship with them, it wouldn't have mattered.

[42:59] It might have made things harder for them later on.

Stuart Wellington

[43:01] Certainly like, yeah.

[43:03] It's like I've been,

[43:05] Charlene and I have been watching that Good Wife spinoff,

[43:08] Elsbeth.

[43:08] And literally every single episode, Elsbeth is like,

[43:12] well, I don't think this was a cut and dry suicide.

[43:15] And everybody else is like, what?

[43:17] Get out of here, idiot.

[43:18] Shut up, Elsbeth.

[43:18] You're only right all the time.

[43:20] Like, if she does it six in a row,

[43:23] like after a while, you have to start believing in this.

[43:27] I mean, unless they throw out-

Elliott Kalan

[43:27] At the very least, you have to give credence to the things that she's saying.

[43:30] Be like, well, I'm not sure you're right,

[43:31] but you've been right before.

Stuart Wellington

[43:33] Unless there's like deleted Elsbeth episodes

[43:35] that aren't on the Paramount Plus app

[43:37] where they're like, oh no, she fucked up again?

[43:40] I mean-

Dan McCoy

[43:41] Seven people died because Elsbeth had a theory.

[43:44] I mean, I guess it's believable

[43:46] from a detective laziness perspective.

[43:49] Yeah.

[43:49] But it does get frustrating narratively.

Stuart Wellington

[43:52] That's the second least believable thing about the show.

[43:55] The most unbelievable thing is that she is in New York

[43:59] and her character's last name is Tassione

[44:01] and everybody acts like that is the craziest name they've ever heard.

[44:04] Really?

Dan McCoy

[44:05] You went to fucking school, the Vinnie Tassione.

[44:08] I don't think it's that, but they make a joke about,

[44:11] I have a awesome point.

[44:12] They make a joke about Elsbeth a lot.

[44:14] And I'm like, I guess.

[44:17] I mean, like if you've only ever heard-

[44:18] That is an out-of-the-ordinary name.

[44:19] Elizabeth, you're like, excuse me?

[44:22] But it is out-of-the-ordinary, but it's not like,

[44:26] it's a name.

[44:27] It's a name that many people have had over the years.

[44:29] Name one more.

[44:30] Name another.

[44:31] I don't know.

[44:32] Elsbeth Jones.

Elliott Kalan

[44:34] You're right.

[44:35] You proved me wrong.

[44:36] The name is Elsbeth Jones.

[44:37] All right, name one more, Dan.

[44:38] Can you name a third one?

Dan McCoy

[44:40] Elsbeth Smith.

Elliott Kalan

[44:41] I can do this all day.

[44:41] Oh, he did it again.

[44:42] He did it.

[44:43] Dan is unstoppable.

[44:43] Oh, man, he gave me stuff.

[44:45] We're living Elsbeth right now where you're Elsbeth,

[44:47] and I'm like, there's no way other people have that name,

[44:49] and you're just disproving me left and right.

[44:51] A real-life Elsbeth over here.

Dan McCoy

[44:52] I'm not saying it's not unusual.

[44:54] I'm saying it's not so unusual that, like,

[44:57] the show can make a running gag out of it.

[44:59] Yeah, that makes sense.

Elliott Kalan

[45:00] That makes sense, Dan.

[45:01] Just one more thing.

[45:02] Name another Elsbeth.

Dan McCoy

[45:05] Elsbeth Columbo.

[45:06] He did it.

[45:07] He did it.

[45:08] Wow.

Elliott Kalan

[45:08] Yeah, that was Mrs. Columbo's first name, Elsbeth.

[45:11] So back to the movie.

[45:13] Bane, he's still got an Agent Smith in his head.

[45:15] He kills the medic on board the ship.

[45:17] Neo and Trinity, they have a love moment

[45:19] where they affirm their trust in each other.

[45:21] She's going to go with him on his mission,

[45:23] and they say goodbye to the rest of the crew.

[45:25] Uh-oh.

[45:25] As soon as they take off, Bane is on their ship.

[45:28] Oh, no.

[45:29] He takes Trinity prisoner after a little bit of a fight.

[45:31] He gets the drop on Neo, and he's like,

[45:34] human meat is weak.

[45:36] We need to, I'm a computer program inside a human brain.

[45:38] And it takes Neo so long to realize that it's Agent Smith inside that head, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[45:42] Yeah.

[45:43] I mean, obviously, I feel like this is one of the, like, elements of the allegory of the Matrix that I,

[45:50] I mean, I feel like it's a little on the nose, but I also like it a lot that, like,

[45:54] Agent Smith is this computer program who is so, like, he so detests the body, like,

[46:00] the bodies that he's stuck with.

[46:03] Like, the idea that he's in this human body, and he hates the smells,

[46:06] and it doesn't behave the way he wants it.

[46:08] I like that aspect of it.

[46:09] I think that's all great.

Elliott Kalan

[46:10] Yeah.

[46:10] I think that's great.

[46:11] It reminds me, I just finished reading this book of short stories by Terry Bisson called

[46:14] Bears Discover Fire, and there's a story in it called They're Made of Meat, I think,

[46:18] where these two aliens are talking about humans, and they're like,

[46:20] they can't be made of meat.

[46:22] Yeah, they are.

[46:22] It's all meat.

[46:23] Like, we've probed all the way through.

[46:24] It's meat all the way through.

[46:26] Well, so they, how do they talk?

[46:27] You know that sound when meat just kind of flaps against a, you know, that's them.

[46:31] That's how they do it.

[46:32] It's just flapping meat.

[46:33] And it's a really fun short story.

[46:35] But I like that aspect of it, that he's like, I hate this.

[46:37] I hate the physical sensation of being in a body, you know?

[46:41] All teenagers can relate to that, right?

[46:43] And so they fight and talk about allegory.

[46:47] Bane, during the fight, blinds Neo.

[46:50] Uh-oh.

[46:50] Will this maybe allow him a greater sight?

[46:53] Maybe greater wisdom a la Odin, perhaps?

[46:56] Not a fan.

[46:57] Not a fan of this.

[46:58] Because Neo can still see him.

[47:00] Even though he's blind to the physical world, he can still see the soul inside machines or something.

[47:05] And Neo kills Bane.

[47:06] Anyway, Zion's prepping for the machine assault.

[47:08] Captain Mifune gives a pump-up speech to an army of mech soldiers.

[47:11] I need you guys' opinions of these mech soldiers, which are called APUs.

[47:14] They're like gun versions of the power loader from Aliens.

[47:18] That's exactly what they—

[47:20] I think they look ridiculous.

[47:21] What do you guys think?

Stuart Wellington

[47:22] Well, yeah, they're—I mean—

[47:25] They're so jiggly.

[47:26] When they're shooting things, the guns are just kind of jiggling around and wiggling around.

[47:30] Oh.

[47:30] And also, like—

[47:30] Like fan men, you know?

[47:31] I feel like the, like, robot suits, the mech suits, and, like, the Avatar movies is such a clear, like, similar thing, but improved upon.

[47:42] Also, the one has a giant robot-sized knife, which I think is cool.

Dan McCoy

[47:48] It's funny that you say that about the movement, Elliot.

[47:50] Like, I mean, to me, the look is pretty derivative, as you say, of, like, the loader in Aliens.

[47:57] But I liked the movement.

[47:59] I liked—I thought the movement was fun.

[48:01] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[48:02] It looks very silly to me.

[48:03] It just looks very, like, wiggly.

[48:06] And maybe that's part of, like, this is kind of, like, thrown-together stuff.

[48:10] Yeah.

[48:10] And maybe they—I'm sure they did real tests on the physics of recoil, and they would have it on, like—they would have it on shock-absorbing things rather than hard struts to absorb that recoil.

[48:20] But it looks—it just—the way that—it looks like a bunch of toddlers in suspenders, partly because of the way the ammo belts hang, just kind of waving guns in the air wildly, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[48:29] And one of the design elements, like, as you said, that it's thrown together, but you would think that they would be a little more unique or personalized.

[48:36] Yes.

[48:36] Certainly, they might place some kind of shielding over the pilot canopy since the monster—the Sentinels' only attack is just, like, whipping you with their dreadlocks.

Elliott Kalan

[48:45] It does seem a little poor thinking that there is absolutely no protection or shielding at all to the front of the—with the part of you that's facing the bad guy.

[48:55] But also, yeah, they—that they're—I mean, it's the thing that they do so well in Aliens, where, like, all their stuff is personalized.

[49:01] And it's a smaller group of people in that.

[49:03] But, like, you feel like, oh, this is their equipment that they use.

[49:06] And here, it just feels like a repeated CGI figure that they've kind of pasted into Rose.

Stuart Wellington

[49:11] I would have been way more into fewer of these suits, but they're, like, slightly more personalized and cool.

[49:17] There's a lot of them, too.

Elliott Kalan

[49:18] There's a lot of the—I was like, oh, this looks like a real army.

[49:20] I'm not that scared for them, you know?

Dan McCoy

[49:22] I do think, though, that, like, if this had been used judiciously, a lot of this stuff with—

[49:28] Or even Jewishly.

[49:30] I would have been okay with that.

[49:32] Yeah.

[49:32] Sure.

[49:33] It's called Zion, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[49:35] Anyway.

Dan McCoy

[49:36] The mech suits versus, like, tentacle, flying tentacle robots.

[49:41] Like, there are cool images in that within the sequence.

[49:45] It just gets so drowned out because it goes on for so long.

[49:48] And, like, there's not a lot of different stuff that happens.

[49:51] It's just more tentacle monsters swarming and being shot.

Elliott Kalan

[49:55] Yeah.

[49:56] It goes on for—it feels like it goes on for 17 hours.

[49:59] But it really is probably, like, cutting between this and the kind of the Hammer spaceship trying to outrun the Sentinels that are chasing it,

[50:06] this probably goes on for at least 35 minutes.

Stuart Wellington

[50:09] Like, it would have been fun if, like, initially the human—the, like, mech suits actually were, like, beating the Sentinels,

[50:15] and then the Sentinels had to, like, bring in some kind of, like, super Sentinel or, like, a Nimrod or something.

Elliott Kalan

[50:22] Something that escalates it.

[50:23] Yeah, but instead they have these big drilling machines, and they shoot those and blow them up.

[50:27] And then Z, the woman who stayed behind her—

Stuart Wellington

[50:30] I'm really disappointed that LA didn't take my bait to talk about Nimrod and the Super Sentinels.

Elliott Kalan

[50:34] I talked about Sentinel.

[50:35] Okay, if you want to.

[50:36] All right, so let's talk about if these were the X-Men Sentinels that were coming through.

[50:39] One, they would be using their hands to pull open the hole that the drilling machine put through.

[50:43] Already cool.

[50:44] If it's Nimrod, you know that they have the power to shapeshift into a blue-collar—what was he, a steelworker or something like that?

[50:49] I think so, yeah.

[50:49] Or a guy who works on the docks and lives with the family for some reason.

[50:53] Then you know Rachel Summers is going to get in there.

[50:55] But which Rachel Summers is it?

[50:56] Is it the hero or is it the hound, you know, who's working for Ahab?

[51:00] There's just so much stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[51:01] Then are they going to have to open up a Siege Perilous in Zion?

Elliott Kalan

[51:05] They'll go through the Siege Perilous.

[51:06] Colossus becomes a popular downtown New York painter.

[51:10] The comic book, for a while, it kind of forgets it's a superhero book.

[51:14] Yeah, I showed up.

[51:14] That's my favorite time.

[51:16] Yeah, for more see any episode of Cerebro.

[51:20] Anyway, X-Men 97 on Disney Plus now.

Stuart Wellington

[51:23] Everybody loves X-Men 97.

[51:24] We should be talking about it.

Dan McCoy

[51:26] We should be talking about it.

[51:27] We have to take our stand on it.

Elliott Kalan

[51:29] I just started watching it.

[51:31] It's a fun show.

[51:31] The animation looks great in it for the most part.

[51:33] But I just started watching it.

[51:34] I'm in the second episode.

[51:36] And they're like, Magneto is being put.

[51:38] Magneto, you're being arrested for your trial.

[51:40] And I'm like, oh, so maybe this is the story of the next couple episodes.

[51:42] It's the lead up to his trial.

[51:43] And then he's going to have the trial.

[51:44] We're going to build up to it.

[51:45] Next scene.

[51:46] He's on trial.

[51:47] I'm like, wow, they're moving fast on this show.

[51:49] This is done in one episode.

[51:50] Wow.

[51:51] Anyway, so there's a big drilling machine.

[51:54] It opens up a hole.

[51:56] Sentinels pour through.

[51:57] Blast, blast, blast.

[51:58] The commander Mifune shouts, knuckle up a lot.

[52:00] And I don't know what knuckle up means.

[52:01] What does that mean, guys?

[52:02] Like, stick your fingers into the Sentinels up to the knuckles?

[52:05] Like, what does it mean?

[52:06] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[52:08] I think it's that you're supposed to make fists and then raise your hands up in the sky.

[52:12] Oh, I see.

[52:13] I get it.

Elliott Kalan

[52:15] And Z and this friend of hers who was named Chara, who maybe she's in the previous ones also,

[52:21] they managed to blast the big digging machine with a bazooka or something.

[52:25] But then there's another digging machine.

[52:27] It just goes on forever.

[52:28] Meanwhile, the hammer is trying to escape a swarm of Sentinels.

[52:30] There's lots of spinning and shooting.

[52:32] And Jada Pinkett Smith saying stuff like, 80 degrees to starboard, 40% on shields.

[52:36] Come on, come on.

[52:37] And then the commander whose job is to say no and not believe in me being like, oh, she's

[52:41] better at driving than I thought she'd be.

[52:43] Like, that kind of stuff because she's piloting the ship.

[52:45] And the Sentinels tear off the radio antenna.

[52:47] This seems to be a problem, but it doesn't really seem to play into anything.

[52:51] It doesn't matter.

[52:52] Anyway, the thing is, the hammer, when it gets there, it can set off an EMP pulse that

[52:55] will stop the bots, but it will also shut down the dock's defenses.

[53:00] And the humans are having trouble opening the gate to get through.

[53:03] And the humans have to get the gate open for the ship.

[53:06] And thankfully, that teen recruit in his mid-20s is able to get into one of the mechs and shoot

[53:15] the chain holding the gate shut, I guess, so that it opens.

[53:21] And Zee helps defend the recruit.

[53:23] She's suddenly a character known.

[53:23] Niobe crashes the hammer through the gate.

[53:25] They set off the EMP, and they shut down all the machines.

[53:29] And Zion's dock is now machineless.

[53:32] And it's like, oh, they did it.

[53:33] They saved the day.

[53:34] Link, the guy from the ship whose girlfriend is Zee, they're reunited.

[53:39] And I had my notes say, can't help but assume they were set up in the last movie.

[53:43] Because Zee is just kind of dropped into the movie suddenly with no introduction or buildup.

[53:48] Anyway, the head of defense, he's mad.

[53:50] That EMP, it fried all their defenses.

[53:53] They just offered up the city on a silver platter, and there's a new swarm of robots coming.

Dan McCoy

[53:57] I'm the head of defense.

[53:59] You got rid of my defenses.

[54:00] I'm out of a job.

[54:02] What am I head of now?

[54:03] Nothing.

Elliott Kalan

[54:04] I'm just a head, and you don't mess with the head, or you'll be dead.

[54:09] Oh, man.

[54:10] Thank you.

[54:10] They blow up part of Zion to stop the robots.

[54:13] Anyway, let's get to Nioh and Trinity, the stars of the movie, who we have barely seen in this film, on their way to Machine City.

[54:19] So he's guiding her as she pilots the ship.

[54:23] Actually, that's all we see there.

[54:24] In Zion, wrecking Zion now.

[54:26] The Sentinels are building something.

[54:27] I don't know what it is.

[54:28] The commander tells the council that they all have to go to the temple, and they're going to make their final stand against the machines there.

[54:34] Nioh and Trinity, they're getting attacked by the Machine City's defenses.

[54:37] But Nioh blows them up with his mind.

[54:40] Uh-oh, but then more come.

[54:41] He's kind of knocking down Sentinels in his mind, but there's so many of them.

Stuart Wellington

[54:45] Guys, if the machines are so, like, practical and efficient, why do they have so many, like, giant flying robots?

[54:52] Because, like, there's not that many humans around.

[54:54] Like, why do they need so many defenses around?

Dan McCoy

[54:57] I mean, why does the U.S. need so much defense, man?

[55:00] Good point, Dan.

[55:01] Good point.

[55:01] Let's Chapo Traphouse this a little bit.

[55:03] The amount of money we spend on defense.

[55:05] I mean, my taxes.

[55:07] Properly for universal basic income.

[55:09] There's no reason to do it.

[55:11] No, there's no reason.

[55:11] I mean, I agree with you.

[55:13] I mean, I'm saying it as if I'm a crazy hippie, but I also agree.

[55:16] But you do believe that.

[55:17] I mean, yes, we all—

Elliott Kalan

[55:18] There's no reason for the United States to build tanks nobody wants and planes nobody wants.

[55:22] Although, a lot of those armaments are now being used by Ukraine, so maybe that buildup wasn't such a bad thing, Dan.

[55:28] I guess you never know the end of a story.

[55:30] I guess you got me, man.

[55:31] I did.

[55:32] I got you.

[55:32] Anyway, no, I agree.

[55:34] But anyway, maybe this is the heart of what I think is the emptiness at the center of the matrix, which is the matrix is a computer program that wants to destroy humans or harness them as a source of energy, right?

[55:51] Why?

[55:51] Yep.

[55:52] Like, why does the matrix want—what is the matrix going to do after it does that?

[55:55] Why does it exist and what's its goal?

[55:57] Like, if it's truly a conscious thing, then it has goals and some kind of need, even if that need is just what it's programmed to do.

[56:04] And what is it here?

[56:05] Because I don't—other than subjugate humanity and make the world just be bad.

[56:10] I don't understand.

[56:11] I mean, the matrix is nothing.

Dan McCoy

[56:13] But if it destroys—

Elliott Kalan

[56:14] Well, you know, the machine mind that controls the matrix.

[56:16] Okay.

[56:17] But let's say these computer programs succeed in destroying humanity.

[56:21] The machines win the machine-human war.

[56:24] Then what?

[56:25] What do they do?

Dan McCoy

[56:26] Oh, because they're out of their batteries that wouldn't work anyway is what you're saying.

Elliott Kalan

[56:29] But no, no.

[56:29] What I'm saying is why bother?

[56:31] Like, why are they fighting the humans in the first place?

[56:33] Well, that's—

[56:34] I mean—

[56:34] Why is this happening, basically?

Dan McCoy

[56:35] That doesn't bother me because it's basically that these are sentient machines.

[56:41] Machines became sentient, and then they have the same desire just to survive that other creatures do.

[56:48] And it's, you know, like they're purely—

[56:50] But I mean, humans have a desire—

Elliott Kalan

[56:50] But humans have a desire to survive, and it means that sometimes we fight wars over resources.

[56:57] But it doesn't mean that every human is constantly on a war footing.

[57:01] But also we have desires beyond pure survival.

[57:03] So if the machine—what is the machine's desire beyond staying alive, staying alive, ah, ah, ah, ah, staying alive?

[57:09] Like, what is it—

[57:09] Well, that's what I'm saying.

[57:10] I don't think it has to have one.

[57:12] I mean, like—

[57:12] So once it defeats the humans, what does it do?

[57:14] Just sit around forever?

[57:15] I think it's—

[57:16] But I guess—

[57:16] I'm really saying this because I think it's making these sentinels—

Dan McCoy

[57:17] Yeah, spark up a fucking fatty.

Elliott Kalan

[57:20] I think it's making these sentinels because it's got to—

[57:21] I mean, think about all that free time they would have then.

Dan McCoy

[57:23] They could finally read those books and stuff.

[57:24] Read some books.

[57:25] Damn, they're computers.

Elliott Kalan

[57:26] It takes them a moment to read the books.

[57:28] Oh, it's true.

[57:28] I guess they're making—my point is I think they're making the sentinels because they just got to do something.

[57:32] They need something to do, you know?

[57:34] There's—

[57:35] Yeah.

[57:35] Otherwise, it's just a big machine face that is like, oh, we need nothing.

[57:40] Okay, what do you need nothing for?

[57:41] Uh.

Stuart Wellington

[57:43] It was kind of cool when the giant, like, robot ships came flying out to stop Neo and they start shooting at them.

[57:50] I'm like, oh, shit, they're shooting guns and stuff at them.

[57:52] No, they're just shooting more sentinels.

Elliott Kalan

[57:55] It's all sentinels.

[57:56] But maybe—and this is—there's a—a sentient being desires more than just mere survival, right?

Dan McCoy

[58:04] Yeah, but survive—like, let's go to fucking Maslow's hierarchy of needs here.

[58:09] Yeah.

[58:09] Like, they're stuck on, like, you know, the safety and security stuff.

[58:12] Like, they're trying to control it so they can do—I mean, we don't see what the robots do in their spare time.

[58:17] Well, I want to see a little bit of that.

Elliott Kalan

[58:19] Even the humans at least throw raves every now and then.

[58:21] Honestly.

Dan McCoy

[58:22] Yeah, to know rave what they want.

Elliott Kalan

[58:25] And I think that's—I think it's part of the issue that if the machines are just a program that has overstepped its bounds, then I buy it.

[58:32] But once the machines have a personality, which they kind of do at the end of this movie, then you're like, what?

[58:37] It's the same way that, like, Ultron, the Avengers villain, makes sense to me when he is a robot whose programming is all screwed up so he wants to destroy humans.

[58:45] What the Ultron in the Avengers movie, who's a wisecracker, I'm like, well, once the robot can say sarcastic quips, I have to assume there's more going on in it than just destroy all humans.

Stuart Wellington

[58:54] Yeah, but in that case, he's just parroting what his father taught him.

[58:58] I will say—

[58:59] Yeah, that's fair.

[58:59] That's fair, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[59:00] I will say, Elliot, that I do think that the fact that they give the machines these personalities opens the door to the movie ending the way it does,

[59:10] which is, like, each side recognizing the other's right to exist, like, trying to figure out some way of both living in harmony.

[59:19] Because they have, at that point, made the robots, let's call them, even though that's not what they are, you know, more human.

Elliott Kalan

[59:28] Yeah, I think that's true, too.

[59:30] But, so anyway, the point is, the only way to escape them is to go up above the electrostorm clouds that were put in place, you know, in the past.

[59:39] And that shorts out all the sentinels, and they get a brief glimpse of that beautiful blue sky that's right above the clouds that no human has seen in untold generations.

[59:47] Planet Earth, baby.

[59:48] And Trinity's like, oh, it's so beautiful.

[59:51] And then their ship crashes back down because it's out of power, and Trinity suffers multiple impalings and tells Neo how much she loves him before she dies.

[59:59] And I think it is hard for me to see these characters as being in love.

[1:00:04] I feel like that is the thing the movie fails to communicate, that they have emotions for each other because they're so focused on their goals and they're so tough.

[1:00:11] Like, they're so tough.

[1:00:12] Yeah.

[1:00:12] And they're so unemotional the whole time that I'm like, if they aren't, I guess it happens a lot with characters in movies where it's like, other than kissing and having sex, I guess, how do they express this love to each other?

[1:00:23] Or watching each other's backs in a fight.

[1:00:24] But like, the same way that it's hard for me to imagine famous couples just sitting watching TV and hanging out, you know, like a regular couple does.

[1:00:31] Like, what do these characters do in their spare time that shows they love each other?

[1:00:34] You know?

Dan McCoy

[1:00:35] I get it.

[1:00:37] Like, I had a similar feeling where I'm like, yeah, I don't know that these two have the sort of, you know, love for the ages that the movie needs us to believe that they have.

[1:00:48] I'm not feeling that from them.

[1:00:49] But at the same time, I also feel like, well, I look around at my friends who are in love.

[1:00:53] I'm not like, wow, the chemistry is off the charts.

[1:00:57] Like, I'm just like, oh, they seem to like each other.

[1:00:59] You know?

[1:01:00] So.

[1:01:00] Fair.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:00] But these characters don't even seem to like each other.

[1:01:02] I guess they're so constantly cool, constantly, like, focused on the mission tough that they don't even seem to like being around each other very much.

[1:01:11] They don't get no pleasure from each other, it seems.

[1:01:13] So the Matrix movies, it is a world, and maybe it's because it's a world of nonstop warfare.

[1:01:18] It is a world with a total lack of pleasure aside from raves.

[1:01:22] And that's the only way that anyone seems to get any joy out of the world.

[1:01:25] Not pleasure.

[1:01:26] It's just raves.

[1:01:27] I mean, it's Maslow's hierarchy of pleasures.

[1:01:30] Raves is right at the top.

[1:01:31] And what?

[1:01:31] Raves and battling in the Matrix.

[1:01:33] Yep, and that's it.

[1:01:34] Yeah.

[1:01:34] So the Sentinels, they pause.

[1:01:36] Oh, we haven't got there yet.

[1:01:37] Sorry.

[1:01:37] She dies, and the machines are getting deeper into Zion as Neo walks into the Machine City, which to him is made out of lines of light.

[1:01:45] These kind of lay lines of light, a lattice work of light.

[1:01:47] And a giant, spiky robot eyeball that looks like a sun to him.

[1:01:51] It rises up and allows him to speak his piece.

[1:01:54] And all these Sentinels come together to make a big robot face that can, or a big face that can talk to him.

[1:01:59] It's like an old baby face.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:00] It's really funny.

[1:02:01] It's like a flying spiky baby.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:04] Yeah.

[1:02:04] And he says, it's like the sun from the Teletubbies, but like cyber, like the cyberpunk version of the sun from the Teletubbies.

[1:02:11] Cool, yeah.

[1:02:11] He says, Agent Smith is beyond the machine's control, but Neo can stop him in exchange for peace between the humans and machines.

[1:02:18] And this is one of the things where I'm like, okay, so Agent Smith, I guess, is the big bad guy.

[1:02:25] We've barely seen him in this movie.

[1:02:26] We don't really know what he's doing other than-

[1:02:28] I don't know.

[1:02:28] Every time we see him, there's like a million of them.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:30] So that's not barely.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:31] That's true.

[1:02:32] I guess considering every time we see him, there's a thousand of him, it's as if he's in a lot more scenes than he is.

[1:02:36] But it's one of those things where it feels like, it almost felt like the movie had evolved beyond Agent Smith because he seems so little by this point.

[1:02:43] And it seems like we're getting beyond him.

[1:02:44] And when Neo's like, Agent Smith is going to take over the Matrix, and then he'll take over all reality and destroy it.

[1:02:50] And I'm like, well, Agent Smith hasn't really given me much meaning to see this as a threat, necessarily.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:55] Yeah, I mean, I get what it's going for.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:57] Because we've spent so much time shooting Sentinel bots with mechs, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:00] Sure.

[1:03:01] But I get what it's going for.

[1:03:03] Like, if he can endlessly duplicate himself, he is essentially, he's the computer virus in the Matrix now.

[1:03:09] And in a way, it's kind of a smart screenwriting move, I feel like, in the sense that, like, the Matrix, the world that has been created, the Matrix, the robots, it's so powerful that to shift it to, like, okay, well, there's an external threat.

[1:03:25] This is how we can come together because you need me.

[1:03:28] Like, that makes sense.

[1:03:30] Oh, I think that makes sense.

[1:03:31] But it also feels like a device because we, you're right, we haven't spent so much time with Agent Smith.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:35] Well, it feels like, speaking of machines and gods, it feels like a deus ex machina.

[1:03:39] That, like, rather than defeating the machines and rather than taking the machines at their own level, there's something that, there's an outside threat.

[1:03:47] Exactly.

[1:03:47] They can make peace about.

[1:03:48] But it's very weird because it's like, it feels like this is a story about Neo and Agent Smith that, for some reason, has taken a long detour into the defense of Zion.

[1:03:59] As if, it's like the movie is, there's two different movies going on.

[1:04:02] Maybe that's my major problem with the movie.

[1:04:03] There's two different stories going on.

[1:04:05] There's Neo's Ascendance as a techno messiah and his fight with the virus Agent Smith.

[1:04:09] And there is the defense of Zion against waves of Sentinel robots.

[1:04:15] And they don't really mesh together well.

[1:04:16] And the one that I'm more interested in is the Neo story.

[1:04:19] And we get so much less of that in this movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:20] I feel like if they had made, if they had spent less time on the defense of Zion and instead tried to show that, like, people in Zion are, like, or whatever, going up in ships to, like, log into the Matrix to, like, rescue people.

[1:04:36] But it's getting harder and weirder because there's so many Agent Smiths around.

[1:04:40] Yeah.

[1:04:41] That was, I mean, that was ostensibly one of their main, like, goals, right, was to, like, wake as many people up in the Matrix.

[1:04:49] Yeah.

[1:04:49] And I feel like when they're just trying to defend themselves from Sentinels, it's less interesting.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:55] It's much less, or tie those stories together.

[1:04:57] Seinfeld it up.

[1:04:58] Have the two stories converge where, like, we've seen Agent Smith can take over a person's mind.

[1:05:02] Maybe they've woken someone up and they have Agent Smith in them and that's making it harder to defend Zion because you've got an Agent Smith running around in the meat world, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:10] Kind of what they did with the Bane guy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:12] Kind of what they did with Bane, but it never intersects with that other Zion storyline, you know.

[1:05:18] And it feels like you've got parallel tracks going on and it's very frustrating to me as a viewer who is not really interested in watching Max shoot Tendril robots forever.

[1:05:29] You know, a little bit of that goes a long way.

[1:05:31] Anyway, as I get older, we've talked about this before on the podcast, as I get older, certainly I'm less entertained by scenes of shooting violence and certainly the idea of

[1:05:39] bullet casings just piling up around the feet of mech robots.

[1:05:43] It's like, yeah, I only really need to see maybe like four minutes of that as opposed to 40 minutes of it, you know.

[1:05:49] Anyway, so the robots agree.

[1:05:53] The Sentinels pause in their assault on Zion and Morpheus and Niobe are like, Neo did it.

[1:05:58] He is a god king.

[1:06:00] And the machines tendrils plug Neo into the Matrix, which has become overrun with an endless army of Agent Smiths that just stand around in the rain.

[1:06:09] That's all they do.

[1:06:10] It's very rainy and they just stand around in it.

[1:06:12] That's it.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:12] There's not a lot to do in the Matrix, it seems like, at least not right then.

[1:06:16] No, I mean, it's all Smiths.

[1:06:17] There's nothing to do.

[1:06:18] Everyone else, yeah, has gone away.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:20] I mean, they say hell is other people, but if you're Agent Smith, hell is just hanging around with millions of yourself to stand in there.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:27] Oh, that should be the new phrase.

[1:06:29] That should be the new saying that everybody says.

[1:06:31] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:31] He should be like, and not one of us thought to bring an umbrella?

[1:06:36] And then he raises an eyebrow at the camera.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:38] Mr. Anderson, do you have an umbrella?

[1:06:41] And so Neo shows up, he confronts the one main Agent Smith.

[1:06:45] The Agent Smiths operate by ninja rules.

[1:06:47] Instead of all swarming Neo and killing him instantly, just the one goes up against him.

[1:06:52] They swarmed him in the last movie.

[1:06:53] But there's so much more of them now.

[1:06:55] But I kind of also like that there's like-

[1:06:56] At this point, all they have to do is-

[1:06:58] Like Smith Prime.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:59] Yeah, there's Smith Prime.

[1:07:00] And this is the Smith that took over the Oracle's body, as we'll later find out.

[1:07:04] Which one went to Washington?

[1:07:06] That's a good question.

[1:07:07] That was Mr. Smith, not Agent Smith.

[1:07:08] He wasn't an agent yet.

[1:07:09] And they're flying around, and this is like Hugo Weaving.

[1:07:12] You're like, I guess he would have been a pretty good Sinestro, right?

[1:07:16] And they're like blasting each other through buildings and stuff and smashing into the ground.

[1:07:20] And rain is flying everywhere.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:22] It's just, it feels like a, this feels like a retread, this whole fight to me.

[1:07:26] And there's no structure to it.

[1:07:29] It's just kind of like they're fighting, and then they stop, and they're fighting, and then they stop again.

[1:07:32] There's one part where Agent Smith flies into a building and just kind of zooms around in the air in a circle,

[1:07:38] and it looks so silly.

[1:07:39] It was very funny.

[1:07:40] Yeah, it's pretty silly.

[1:07:41] And Smith knocks Neo down, but Neo gets, he gets knocked down, but he gets up again.

[1:07:46] Nobody's going to keep him down.

[1:07:47] He gets to his feet, and Smith is like, why do you persist, Neo?

[1:07:51] Why do you keep doing this?

[1:07:52] Why?

[1:07:53] Love or this or freedom or peace?

[1:07:55] And Neo goes, because I choose to.

[1:07:58] And there's like a theme of choice, what you choose to do and the consequences of the choices and making those choices.

[1:08:03] That kind of runs through the movie, but there's also a strain of prophecy that runs through the movie.

[1:08:07] Yeah.

[1:08:07] And those, it's hard to reconcile those two things.

[1:08:09] They punch each other a lot more.

[1:08:11] It feels, to me, maybe you guys feel differently.

[1:08:12] How did you feel about this fight?

[1:08:13] It felt endless to me, and it felt anticlimactic to me.

[1:08:16] Yeah, I, here's, yes.

[1:08:20] Aside from that one silly moment where he flies around the room and he, and that was kind of like a balloon that just got, you know, that's losing its helium.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:29] There's nothing in this fight that's as cool as stuff in like one or two, you know.

[1:08:36] It's also done in the rain to make it as hard to watch as possible.

[1:08:42] And after endless tentacle shooting, like, I was just kind of done with, I mean, like.

[1:08:51] It's numbs you.

[1:08:52] It's a numbing movie.

[1:08:53] Yeah, I mean, like, look, the Wachowskis really know how to make a movie.

[1:08:56] Like, the action sequences are still, like, amazing compared to someone else doing this stuff.

[1:09:02] But I found these ones to be numbing because I just didn't care at this point.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:07] Yeah.

[1:09:08] I would so much rather be watching Speed Racer than this movie.

[1:09:11] Yeah.

[1:09:11] Where it's like.

[1:09:12] A great movie, yeah.

[1:09:13] Where it's like just colors and crazy things and, yeah.

[1:09:16] So, Smith knocks down Neo again and he kind of has deja vu and he quotes himself saying,

[1:09:22] when everything that has a beginning has an end and he gets frightened for some reason.

[1:09:26] And he's like, it's a trick.

[1:09:27] This is all a trick.

[1:09:29] And I, if I think about it, I can probably figure out why this was happening.

[1:09:32] But it was not particularly clear to me why he suddenly, this was a moment of weakness for him.

[1:09:37] What was going on?

[1:09:38] Tell me.

[1:09:38] So, you have to think about it.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:39] So, Smith has absorbed Neo, but, like, Neo's still hooked up to these things.

[1:09:46] I think that they're essentially, like, frying Agent Smith through.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:50] But he hasn't absorbed Neo yet at that point.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:53] Okay.

[1:09:53] Well, because he has, like, Oracle powers, but I feel like he, though he has the powers, he might not have the, like, confidence of the Oracle.

[1:10:01] Oh, sorry.

[1:10:02] Where he's like.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:02] So, it's, he's, at that moment, the Oracle is almost pushing through him.

[1:10:05] Like, he's saying it was a trick when the Oracle let him absorb her.

[1:10:08] Okay, that makes sense.

[1:10:09] Yeah.

[1:10:09] Because he punches Neo and he turns Neo into a Smith.

[1:10:12] But in the real world, Neo's all wiggling and there's light bursting out of him and stuff.

[1:10:16] And the Matrix, and in the Matrix, the new Agent Smith that was Neo explodes.

[1:10:20] And all the other Smiths explode and Prime Smith explodes.

[1:10:24] And it looks like something out of the.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:24] Like, they're able to, like, isolate the code or something of Smith and wipe them all out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:29] Something like, it looks like something out of the Keep, to be honest.

[1:10:31] The way that energy is just coming out of their eyes and mouths.

[1:10:33] I praise.

[1:10:35] I didn't, I mean, the Keep has some cool stuff in it, but it's, I don't think that's such a great movie either.

[1:10:39] But, and in the physical world, Neo gets detached, turns out, and it seems he's dead.

[1:10:43] And the machine mind goes, it is done.

[1:10:46] And then descends away.

[1:10:47] And in Zion, the machines all go away.

[1:10:49] And the young recruit runs over to the crowd and goes, the war is over.

[1:10:52] As if he did it.

[1:10:53] As if he, he was the one who did it.

[1:10:55] And everyone cheers.

[1:10:57] And Morpheus, he's like, I can't quite believe it.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:59] So you're saying, so what have you done to this war is over?

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:04] Yeah, yeah.

[1:11:05] Yeah, yeah, I guess so.

[1:11:06] Yeah.

[1:11:07] And exactly.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:08] I do like that the machines like carry Neo's body on, away on a little beer.

[1:11:12] Although part of me would have preferred if they were like, just shoveling the meat into a pile.

[1:11:18] Like, uninterested.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:19] But instead, they elevate him on this beer and he kind of is born into a sort of glowing lotus.

[1:11:25] You know, that represents.

[1:11:27] A glotus.

[1:11:28] Yeah, glotus.

[1:11:29] Thank you.

[1:11:30] As it's known in Buddhist literature, a glotus.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:33] Yeah, instead of like dumping him into a, like a reclamation tank or something where his body is broken down.

[1:11:39] Yeah, no.

[1:11:39] And then fed into the, like the feeding tubes of other human batteries.

[1:11:42] They go, more meat for the, more meat for the plate.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:45] Back on the menu tonight, boys.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:46] And some like, some like dystopia of human batteries where humans are eating humans like it's the cover of a fucking cattle decapitation record.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:54] I love it.

[1:11:55] This all sounds much better than what we got.

[1:11:58] And the Matrix gets rebooted.

[1:12:01] That little girl is still there with the Oracle.

[1:12:03] And the Oracle is on a park bench and the architect comes over.

[1:12:06] Remember this guy?

[1:12:07] Or that's his name, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:08] He's like a, yeah, he's like an evil Colonel Sanders.

[1:12:11] Yes.

[1:12:11] And they have this brief conversation.

[1:12:13] Unlike the real Colonel Sanders, who I'm sure was super cool.

[1:12:16] Yeah.

[1:12:17] I mean, he made fried chicken.

[1:12:19] Colonel for what side?

[1:12:19] But he made bad fried chicken.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:21] So, or substandard fried chicken.

[1:12:23] Anyway, there's a, but yeah, he dresses like a Confederate plantation owner.

[1:12:27] So he's probably a pretty awesome dude.

[1:12:29] Yeah.

[1:12:31] And so the architects, they have one of these conversations where it's, you know, how long do you think this piece will last?

[1:12:36] As long as it can.

[1:12:37] Thanks.

[1:12:38] Great.

[1:12:38] Can we end the movie all of a sudden?

[1:12:40] And the Oracle tells the girl, I suspect we'll see Neo again someday.

[1:12:45] And she goes, did you know this would happen?

[1:12:47] And he goes, she goes, no, but I believed.

[1:12:49] And the sunrise, the little girl somehow makes the sunrise over Central Park as a tribute to Neo.

[1:12:54] Yeah.

[1:12:55] And the movie's over.

[1:12:56] Yeah.

[1:12:56] The movie's over.

[1:12:57] The movie's over in a blaze of I don't care anymore.

[1:12:59] So.

[1:13:00] We'll see him again.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:01] We'll see him in part four.

[1:13:02] Which I haven't.

[1:13:03] Some sort of resurrection occurs.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:05] But you guys were telling me that part four is not that bad.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:08] Yeah.

[1:13:08] I mean, it's different.

[1:13:09] I like it.

[1:13:09] Yeah.

[1:13:09] I would say the action sequences are not as exciting as the rest of the series.

[1:13:14] But the, I think the other stuff is really interesting.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:17] The story, I felt, was way more focused and interesting than.

[1:13:21] Yeah.

[1:13:21] And it stays more human scale, which is what I was missing in this movie.

[1:13:26] In this one?

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:26] Yeah.

[1:13:27] In this one?

[1:13:27] You mean, you didn't like the human, the scale of giant mechs shooting flying robots.

[1:13:33] And also those Sentinel robots, I always forget how big they're supposed to be.

[1:13:36] Yeah.

[1:13:36] Because you usually see them from far away.

[1:13:37] So I think they're like six feet long.

[1:13:39] But they're really, what, like 20, 30 feet.

[1:13:41] It's like, there are a lot of dinosaurs.

[1:13:43] They're pretty.

[1:13:43] Where I'm like, yeah, that dinosaur is about 10 feet long.

[1:13:45] And it turns out it's 40 feet long.

[1:13:46] And I'm like, oh, these dinosaurs are much bigger than I realized.

[1:13:49] Why are you hanging out with these dinosaurs?

[1:13:51] You wish you knew.

[1:13:52] I'm not telling anybody.

[1:13:53] So scientists can't come and steal them.

[1:13:55] Or land developers can't turn it into a theme park.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:57] Lost world.

[1:13:58] Yeah.

[1:14:00] Okay.

[1:14:01] Let's do our final judgments.

[1:14:03] Whether this was a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie.

[1:14:05] Or a movie we kind of like.

[1:14:08] You know, after all this, look, I still kind of like this movie.

[1:14:12] It's a work of, you know, more.

[1:14:16] Fiction.

[1:14:17] Personal.

[1:14:19] Well, like, you know, for blockbusters, like, you know, the Matrix movies feels more interesting and personal than most.

[1:14:27] But I do find it really boring for huge swaths of it, especially compared to the other ones.

[1:14:36] And I also, I, geez, I spaced out.

[1:14:42] If you guys go and if I think of what I wanted to say, I'll.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:45] Sure.

[1:14:46] I'm going to say, I think this fills the space between kind of a bad, bad movie and a movie I kind of like.

[1:14:53] I don't think it is good, bad.

[1:14:55] I don't think it is fun to laugh at or goof on.

[1:14:58] I think some of it works and some of it doesn't.

[1:15:01] I like it more now than I did when it first came out, which I think part of it is that as an adult, I am learning to.

[1:15:10] I'm much more interested in, like, earnest entertainment.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:15] It is earnest.

[1:15:16] It's not ironic, which is funny because.

[1:15:18] Oh, God.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:18] I was so expecting you guys to do some Jim Varney bits on me.

[1:15:21] I set it up so easy.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:23] Being earnest.

[1:15:24] So I was going a little more highbrow than.

[1:15:26] Yeah, I was thinking about Ernst Sluppage.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:29] No, but I, okay, because the Matrix goes to camp.

[1:15:33] Anyway, so we did that.

[1:15:34] Yeah, so I learned that, like.

[1:15:35] It is not, for a movie that is, like, so intense on being cool, it does not feel ironic.

[1:15:40] It doesn't feel ironic or cynical, which is refreshing.

[1:15:42] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:43] Yeah, that it's, and it's cool to like stuff, guys.

[1:15:45] Did you know that?

[1:15:46] It's cool to like stuff.

[1:15:47] It is cool to like stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:47] I mean, I do like that it's not a quippy movie.

[1:15:50] There's not a level of irony between you and the film.

[1:15:53] But I, this is, for me, I agree with you, Stu.

[1:15:56] Like, that's kind of the ranking where I put it, except I really didn't like it.

[1:15:59] And it feels like what Dan was saying about the Matrix movies feeling personal for the Wachowskis.

[1:16:04] And it feels like the first two feel personal to me.

[1:16:07] And this one feels like, I wouldn't be surprised if I was found out later.

[1:16:11] This is the movie where the studio took it away from them and they weren't really involved in it.

[1:16:14] It feels like, it feels like someone else trying to make a Matrix movie, you know.

[1:16:19] Uh-huh.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:20] To me.

[1:16:20] Yeah, I have no idea about that.

[1:16:22] But I mean, I, it could have been a certain amount of pressure to like wrap it up, you know.

[1:16:27] I mean, it might be that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:28] I mean, I would be surprised if after two huge blockbusters, the studio said, we're taking this away from you.

[1:16:32] But maybe there was, maybe there was pressure on them to have like a wrap up conclusion ending.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:37] I feel like it was, they were certainly under a time crunch, right?

[1:16:40] Yes, I do recall.

[1:16:41] Weren't these released relatively short?

[1:16:43] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:43] It's always a mistake to announce the release date of your movie before you've made it.

[1:16:48] Don't do that.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:50] I remember what I was going to say before was just that like, you know, in the course of this,

[1:16:54] I feel like I've said a lot of like very nitpicky things about the workings of this world or whatever.

[1:17:00] And like the thing is, to be honest, if the movie was working, I wouldn't think about any of that stuff.

[1:17:07] Or I would have my more frequent attitude of, yeah, but it's a movie.

[1:17:11] Like that's part of the deal.

[1:17:12] Yeah, man.

[1:17:12] It's a movie.

[1:17:13] Just go with it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:14] Hey, check your brain at the door, dude.

[1:17:16] No, not check your brain at the door.

[1:17:18] Take the blue pill.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:19] The willing suspension of disbelief.

[1:17:21] And there's also like the willingness to take a narrative, you know, at its word, like to go with, you know, where it wants to go.

[1:17:28] The more that something isn't sort of, I don't know.

[1:17:35] In its purest sense, just entertaining or feels like it's working narratively, the easier it is to start picking these nits.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:43] Well, if you are captured by the characters and captivated by the feeling of the movie, then it doesn't really matter if the plot holds together super tightly or if the logic of the world is super tight.

[1:17:55] Like it doesn't matter because it's affecting you.

[1:17:57] It's casting its spell on you.

[1:17:59] But when it's a movie like this where the characters feel kind of like you're not engaging with them and the things they're doing are not captivating you or surprising you or enthralling you, then it's a lot easier to get caught up in the nuts and bolts and how they don't connect fully.

[1:18:16] There's so many movies where people are like, what about this loophole?

[1:18:19] And I'm like, I mean, I don't care because I'm having fun the whole time I'm watching the movie or because I'm falling in love with these characters or whatever.

[1:18:25] Like it doesn't matter to me that it's not a tightly constructed puzzle box, but this one, it kind of fails on that first level.

[1:18:33] Yeah.

[1:18:35] Actually, I'll put it this way.

[1:18:37] After my dad and I walked out of the first Matrix, he did not really understand the mechanics of what he had been watching, but he knew he had seen something cool.

[1:18:45] Like he was like, that was a cool movie.

[1:18:47] I just didn't understand it.

[1:18:48] And this movie fails to reach that cool so I don't need to understand it level.

[1:18:53] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:55] The Flophouse, the podcast you're listening to, is sponsored in part by Factor.

[1:19:02] Warmer, sunnier days are calling.

[1:19:05] I can hear them now.

[1:19:07] They're calling me down through the window, and I'm being told that I should fuel up for them with Factor's no preference.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:14] Wait, the thing that's calling you is telling you?

Dan McCoy

[1:19:17] No mass meals.

[1:19:18] No, no.

[1:19:18] Something else is telling you.

[1:19:19] Oh, okay.

[1:19:19] The point is, here's the premise of this, is that if I feel the allure of the world outside, I don't want to spend so much time inside cooking.

[1:19:31] You know what?

[1:19:32] No, sir.

[1:19:32] A good way to avoid that is with Factor.

[1:19:35] With 35 different meals and more than 60 add-ons to choose from every week, you will always have new flavors to explore.

[1:19:43] You can keep kitchen time to a minimum.

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[1:19:48] No shopping, prepping, cooking, or cleaning up is necessary.

[1:19:52] And you can enjoy effortless support for your lifestyle, whatever that may be.

[1:19:57] Choose from six menu preferences to help you manage calories, maximize protein intake, avoid meat, or simply eat in a well-balanced manner.

[1:20:09] I've had some of these Factor meals, and as someone who flatters himself that he knows a fair amount about food, I can sometimes be dubious about this sort of thing.

[1:20:22] And I was amazed at the consistent quality and how much I enjoyed these Factor meals.

[1:20:29] And I certainly enjoyed how easy they were.

[1:20:31] Head to factormeals.com slash flop50 and use code FLOP50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:53] Well done.

[1:20:54] Well done.

[1:20:55] We have a little bit of live show news.

[1:20:57] As this episode comes out, the day this episode comes out, it is the day after our Oxford shows, our first ever England shows, were yesterday as of this release date of this episode.

[1:21:07] Thanks so much to everyone who came.

[1:21:08] I'm sure we had a great time.

[1:21:10] I'm sure the shows were amazing.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:12] I'm sure everybody's arms are tired from hoisting us up and carrying us around town in celebration.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:19] It was such a surprise, but a pleasant one, that King Charles was there and knighted each of us at the end of the show.

[1:21:24] Wow.

[1:21:25] For our services to the British Empire.

[1:21:27] By bringing comedy to it.

[1:21:30] So you can't go to that show anymore.

[1:21:31] Sorry.

[1:21:32] It happened yesterday.

[1:21:33] But let's say you want to go to a show in not old England, but New England.

[1:21:38] That's right.

[1:21:38] We're doing a show in July in Boston, Massachusetts on July 26th.

[1:21:45] That's right.

[1:21:45] That's how they say it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:47] That's my heavy Boston accent in July.

[1:21:50] I won't even try anymore.

[1:21:51] Okay.

[1:21:52] So July 26th, we'll be in Boston.

[1:21:53] We're doing an all new show.

[1:21:55] It's going to be great at WBUR City Space.

[1:21:58] And we're going to do something really fun there.

[1:22:01] We don't know exactly what it is yet because we've been so busy prepping for these England shows that we haven't had time to figure out our new England show yet.

[1:22:09] But we will.

Stuart Wellington

[1:22:09] Elliot, I think we'll probably talk about a movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:12] Yeah.

[1:22:12] Oh, yeah.

[1:22:13] That sounds good.

[1:22:13] We'll probably each deliver a presentation of hilarity.

[1:22:16] Probably.

[1:22:16] Of jokes and information.

[1:22:18] Then we'll talk about a movie.

[1:22:19] And then we'll take questions from the audience.

[1:22:21] It's going to be so fun.

[1:22:22] If you want to go there, and I think you do, go to flophousepodcast.com slash events or flophousepodcast.com slash event slash the-flop-house-live-in-boston.

[1:22:36] I say just go to flophousepodcast.com slash events.

[1:22:39] Yeah, go to that first one.

[1:22:39] Probably.

[1:22:39] Yeah, and you'll see the link right there for info and ticks, and it'll take you right to the ticket page.

[1:22:45] We're very excited about it.

[1:22:46] We haven't been in Boston in years.

[1:22:47] It's been years since we performed in Boston.

[1:22:49] And the last time we were there, the city gave us such a warm welcome.

[1:22:52] Their arms got tired carrying us around.

[1:22:54] King Charles was there and knighted us afterwards for a service to Massachusetts.

[1:22:57] We were way out of your jurisdiction, sir.

[1:23:01] He wasn't even king yet at the time.

[1:23:02] That's the thing.

[1:23:03] He was going through a kind of psychic break.

[1:23:05] But anyway, it was really fun.

[1:23:07] So we're really looking forward to doing it again.

[1:23:09] That's July 26th.

[1:23:10] Pick up your tickets now because these tickets, they go fast.

[1:23:14] Tickets go pretty fast.

[1:23:15] You might want to stop and smell the roses and buy some.

S4

[1:23:17] In 1979, singer Mickey Matsubara cut Stay With Me, a love song that hit big in her home country of Japan.

[1:23:33] The song has almost half a billion plays on streaming apps.

Jordan Morris

[1:23:36] But Mickey Matsubara didn't get to enjoy all that renewed interest.

[1:23:40] She died in 2004.

[1:23:42] In fact, she had burned all of her music, and she literally asked everyone she knew to forget her.

S4

[1:23:47] I'm Christian Duenas.

[1:23:49] I'm Yosuke Kitazawa.

[1:23:50] On our new podcast, Primer, we celebrate unforgettable music from outside the English-speaking world, starting with Japanese City Pop.

Jordan Morris

[1:23:56] We'll cover Mickey's work and others in conversation with Devendra Vanhardt, Umi, Dame Funk, and more.

S4

[1:24:03] Get Primer on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Jordan Morris

[1:24:08] I'm Emily Fleming.

[1:24:10] And I'm Jordan Morris.

[1:24:11] We're real comedy writers.

[1:24:12] And real friends.

[1:24:14] And real fucking cheapskates.

[1:24:16] We say, why subscribe to expensive streaming services when you can stream tons of insane movies online for free?

[1:24:24] As long as you're fine with 25 randomly inserted super loud car insurance commercials.

[1:24:29] On our new podcast, Free With Ads, we review streaming movies from the darkest corner of the internet's bargain bin.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:37] From the good to the weird to the holy shit, look at Jean-Claude Van Damme's big ol' butt.

Jordan Morris

[1:24:42] Free With Ads, a free podcast about free movies that's worth the price of admission.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:46] Every Tuesday on MaximumFun.org or your favorite pod spot.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:52] Hey, why don't we take a couple letters from listeners?

[1:24:56] Where should we take them, Daniel?

[1:24:58] Like you, the listener.

[1:24:59] Take them.

[1:25:00] I will take them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:00] Take them to the river.

[1:25:03] Don't drop them in the water.

[1:25:04] Now that letter's wet now.

[1:25:08] Its ink is running.

[1:25:10] Can't read it.

[1:25:12] Take the letter out.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:14] Billy Big Mouth Bass with Elliot singing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:16] Hang it on a clothesline.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:18] So that I can buy it for my enemies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:20] Let it get dry.

[1:25:22] So we can read the letters.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:25] Oh, okay.

[1:25:26] Cool.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:27] The words are kind of runny.

[1:25:30] I think it says deer floaters, but it's probably floppers.

[1:25:35] Like I said, that's pretty runny.

[1:25:38] What does it really say, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[1:25:39] I don't like this at all.

[1:25:41] This is from Samantha Lasting with Held who writes, hello from Mexico.

[1:25:45] I've been listening.

[1:25:46] Samantha who?

[1:25:49] Perfect.

[1:25:49] That was a show, everybody.

[1:25:50] Perfect joke for those who remember that show.

[1:25:53] That was not well known.

[1:25:54] Those unlike me who remember that show.

[1:25:58] Hello from Mexico.

[1:25:59] I've been listening to the podcast for years now.

[1:26:03] And just the other day, I saw Tubi was available on my Amazon stick.

[1:26:06] So I thought I would try it out after hearing about it in your podcast.

[1:26:10] Tubi, it's time you sponsored the Flophouse.

[1:26:12] It certainly is Tubi.

[1:26:14] I was happy to see they had Whose Line Is It Anyway?

[1:26:18] a show I remember fondly from my teenage years.

[1:26:21] Imagine my surprise when I realized Tubi didn't have the episodes with Drew Carey as a host,

[1:26:26] but even older episodes from when the show was shot in England in the early 90s.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:29] It makes me feel very old that the show that she watched as a teenager was the Drew Carey version

[1:26:33] and not the Clive Anderson British version that I watched as a teenager.

[1:26:37] But continue, Daniel.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:37] It was all over Comedy Central.

[1:26:40] It's on Comedy Central all the time, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:41] It's where I first was introduced to the comedy of Greg Proops.

[1:26:44] Mm-hmm.

[1:26:45] And I never looked back.

[1:26:48] You're married now.

[1:26:49] Have you ever—

[1:26:50] Yeah, me and the Proopster, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:51] Have you ever discovered older episodes or older versions of media that you like?

[1:26:56] Maybe discovering a movie you like is actually a remake of a much older one.

[1:27:00] Samantha, last name withheld.

[1:27:02] Part of the reason I wanted to do this because something jumped to my mind right away,

[1:27:09] which was my dad, who was a big—

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:13] How your dad is a remake of his dad?

Dan McCoy

[1:27:15] Yeah.

[1:27:16] Oh, yeah.

[1:27:16] I mean, kind of that's how it works.

[1:27:19] Did you have the same name?

[1:27:20] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:21] And when you were born, he did devour you, and then your mom had to trick him into devouring

[1:27:28] a stone, too, just to get him to barf you out.

[1:27:30] He kept still here.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:32] The pictures in the McCoy photo album of his dad being handed the stone in Dan's swaddling

[1:27:37] clothes.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:39] Anyway, like many people who were alive during the 80s, he had a fondness for Mr. Burt Reynolds.

[1:27:48] Sure.

[1:27:49] Yeah.

[1:27:49] So, my first encounter with the front page slash His Girl Friday whole thing was through

[1:28:00] Switching Channels, a movie by Ted Kochif, who did First Blood, Waken Fright, and also

[1:28:08] Weakened Bernie's, a man with a very strange, checkered directorial career.

[1:28:13] He did this remake of—

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:14] I mean, Waken Fright and Weakened at Bernie's, they're kind of two sides of the same coin in

[1:28:18] some ways.

[1:28:18] Yeah, it's true.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:19] But this is a version of His Girl Friday, which is itself a rewritten version of the front

[1:28:27] page, and it's set in the modern world of cable news, and it's got Burt Reynolds, it's got

[1:28:36] Kathleen Turner, Christopher Reeves is in the Ralph Bellamy role, and look, it does not have

[1:28:45] a great reputation, I think mostly because it's not His Girl Friday.

[1:28:49] But it's kind of fun.

[1:28:51] It's a funny movie.

[1:28:53] Like, the stars are all charming.

[1:28:55] But I saw that way before I ever saw His Girl Friday, and I'm like, oh, this is a remake

[1:29:01] of that.

[1:29:02] And I don't think most people even remember that Switching Channels exists today.

[1:29:08] Check it out on Tubi.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:10] Yeah, I do have something.

[1:29:11] Yeah, I do have something.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:12] I am the—I am like the perfect age to have loved the soundtrack for the movie, The Crow.

[1:29:20] Anybody remember The Crow soundtrack?

[1:29:22] Sure.

[1:29:22] Sure, yeah.

[1:29:23] Big deal.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:23] It was attached to the movie The Crow.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:25] Back in the 90s, movies had soundtracks.

[1:29:27] Now I get it.

[1:29:28] Yeah.

[1:29:29] Now I get it.

[1:29:29] Makes a lot of sense, right?

[1:29:30] Yeah.

[1:29:31] And when you watch the movie, they'd play at least some of the songs that are on that

[1:29:35] soundtrack.

[1:29:35] Some of them are just kind of like inspired by the fives.

[1:29:36] Sometimes very few, yeah.

[1:29:38] Sometimes very few.

[1:29:39] Often it would be music—

[1:29:40] Sometimes the soundtrack is better than the movie itself.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:42] That's true.

[1:29:42] Often it would say music from and inspired by the need to put out a soundtrack for and then

[1:29:48] the name of the movie, yeah.

[1:29:49] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:49] And the 90s had some good ones.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:51] I mean, I remember—so everyone I knew seemed to own the Empire Records soundtrack, but—

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:56] At least that's a movie about records, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:58] It is, but they didn't really like the movie that much, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:01] Oh, okay, yeah.

[1:30:02] So The Crow, there is a song on there by Nine Inch Nails, which I found out later.

[1:30:09] The song is Dead Souls.

[1:30:10] And I remember being like, man, damn, this song rocks.

[1:30:13] And it wasn't until a few years later that I found out that it was a cover of a Joy Division

[1:30:17] song, and it kind of pushed me into exploring more music by Joy Division, and then movies

[1:30:25] like 24-Hour Party People, and, you know, it's just good stuff, you know?

[1:30:28] It's just good stuff all the way down.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:30] Yeah.

[1:30:31] That's happened to me a bunch of times with songs, yeah, where I don't realize something

[1:30:33] is a cover until later.

[1:30:36] But with movies, I think the biggest shock for me was when, as a young person, I discovered

[1:30:40] that Brewster's Millions is not just a remake, but like a remake of a remake.

[1:30:44] And that-

[1:30:45] Whoa.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:45] It's made like seven or eight times, right?

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:47] The first movie version, I mean, it goes back to a story, but the first movie version of

[1:30:51] it was a silent film, you know, was in the 20s.

[1:30:53] And just the idea that Brewster's Millions is this, is I guess one of the eternal-

[1:30:57] Time's tale, yeah.

[1:30:57] Yeah.

[1:30:58] Eternal stories that reverberates through human consciousness.

[1:31:01] But I actually had a, not exactly the same scenario, but a similar scenario.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:06] Wait, you were in a Brewster's Millions scenario?

[1:31:08] Yeah, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:09] Yeah.

[1:31:09] I had to spend $10 or else someone would realize I had stolen $10 from them.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:14] For a movie that like, is not that good, like it got played so much on television when we

[1:31:21] were younger.

[1:31:21] It was always on TV, yeah.

[1:31:22] That like, I feel like even now, as a cultural reference, like people our age, people are

[1:31:27] like, oh, it's like a Brewster's Millions scenario.

[1:31:29] Like everyone will know exactly what you're talking about.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:31] But it's one of those movies that was on all the time when we were kids, and now no one

[1:31:35] watches it.

[1:31:36] Exactly.

[1:31:36] Very much.

[1:31:36] Yeah.

[1:31:37] So the next generation will not know what that means for the most, although they never

[1:31:40] know.

[1:31:40] Oh no, not at all.

[1:31:40] Thank God, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:31:41] Hopefully it'll die out until they do a remake starring, I don't know, like Zac Efron or something.

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:46] Yeah, probably.

[1:31:47] Or like, they'll do a, they'll do, it'll be like a-

[1:31:51] It's a comedy.

[1:31:51] It's going to be Zac Efron.

[1:31:53] Okay, it'll be Zac Efron.

[1:31:54] But in the world of-

[1:31:55] Yeah, like that comedy, The Iron Claw.

[1:31:57] Hilarious.

[1:31:57] The world of crypto today.

[1:31:59] What family that happened to?

[1:32:00] Yeah, it'll be called Brewster's Crypto, and like, we've got to spend this money before

[1:32:03] it drops in value considerably.

Dan McCoy

[1:32:06] That's amazing, actually.

[1:32:07] Damn that shit.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:08] That is a great plot.

[1:32:09] We should pitch that.

[1:32:10] So, but two experiences that had kind of like this.

[1:32:12] There's a movie called Kill, a Japanese samurai movie that I love, and there's a samurai

[1:32:16] movie called Three Outlaw Samurai, and I saw Kill before Three Outlaw Samurai, and there's

[1:32:20] a whole sequence in Kill that is a parody of Three Outlaw Samurai, and I didn't realize

[1:32:25] that until I watched it.

[1:32:26] So I was like, wait a minute, have I seen this movie before?

[1:32:29] And it felt as if the character from Kill had stepped into this other movie and messed

[1:32:34] around with it.

[1:32:34] I knew that it was a take on another movie.

[1:32:37] But just last night-

Stuart Wellington

[1:32:38] It's like that Spaceballs and Aliens thing.

[1:32:41] I saw Spaceballs before I saw Alien.

[1:32:43] Oh.

[1:32:44] Yeah, yeah.

[1:32:44] And there's the whole bit with the xenomorph.

[1:32:47] Yeah.

[1:32:47] I just, I, for a second, I thought that was one movie.

[1:32:50] Spaceballs and Aliens.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:53] Yeah.

[1:32:53] But I, so I always knew-

[1:32:55] Call me.

[1:32:55] It's my idea, officially, TM.

[1:32:58] In some ways, I had kind of the reverse of the experience because, you know the movie

[1:33:01] Scarlet Street, the Fritz Lang movie with Energy Robinson, so-

Dan McCoy

[1:33:04] I am familiar with its existence.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:06] Okay.

[1:33:06] So I knew that that was a remake.

[1:33:08] I've seen that movie and I'm familiar with it.

[1:33:09] I knew that was a remake of Renoir's movie La Chienne, The Bitch.

[1:33:13] Uh-huh.

[1:33:13] But I had not seen La Chienne until last night.

[1:33:16] I watched it and I was like, oh, I knew this was a remake, but I didn't know.

[1:33:20] I didn't, I knew La Chienne was the original, but I didn't know how closely the story stuck

[1:33:24] in Scarlet Street, but also how different the tone of it is.

[1:33:28] And so it was crazy to see a movie that I had thought of as the original version of a

[1:33:32] story and see that it feels so different because it's not Fritz Lang making it, it's Jeanne

[1:33:37] Renoir making it.

[1:33:38] And so you walk away from it feeling something completely different about the same storyline.

[1:33:43] And so it was almost like I appreciated more both what a remake Scarlet Street was and

[1:33:48] how different it was as a remake.

[1:33:49] And I thought that was a really cool feeling.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:51] When I saw Sorcerer for the first time, I had never seen Wages of Fear, but somebody

[1:33:54] had described the plot to me and I think it was one of you guys.

[1:33:58] And so when I'm in the theater watching Sorcerer, I'm like, damn, I think I know this thing.

[1:34:02] Yeah.

[1:34:02] Am I just really good at anticipating movies?

[1:34:07] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:08] It's like I can see the future, but only when it comes to Sorcerer.

[1:34:11] Am I really good at movies?

Dan McCoy

[1:34:12] Yeah.

[1:34:13] This other letter is from Doug Lasting with Held, who writes,

[1:34:18] What's up, peaches?

[1:34:19] I was going through my SoundCloud account and clearing out some old stuff to make way for

[1:34:24] new things when I came across a song I recorded for the Flophouse.

[1:34:28] It's a letter to the show regarding episode 199, Jim and the Holograms from 2016.

[1:34:35] I don't remember if I ever emailed you about it at the time.

[1:34:38] Anyway, here it is.

[1:34:39] I don't think so because I don't think I heard it.

[1:34:41] Andy, Doug says, enjoy it.

[1:34:43] Play it on the show if you want and keep on flopping in the free world.

[1:34:46] You can download it straight from the SoundCloud page.

[1:34:51] And so I did download this.

[1:34:53] We'll put this at the end of the episode.

[1:34:57] The question itself was about what we would like to be made into a musical, which we've answered,

[1:35:03] I think, more than once on the show.

[1:35:05] So we don't need to address it.

[1:35:06] But I like the song so much that I did want to give it its moment in the sun.

[1:35:11] Because Elliot's given us so many letter songs.

[1:35:14] Why shouldn't a letter give a song back?

[1:35:17] Charitable giver, Elliot.

[1:35:20] He gives so much.

[1:35:24] He gives so much to us.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:25] Yeah, it's time to – I've been giving and it's time to start taking.

[1:35:28] Mm-hmm.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:30] Let's do our last segment, which is to recommend a movie that we saw.

[1:35:36] Yeah, let's do it.

[1:35:37] Recently that we might –

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:39] I'm going to go first because it's thematically tied in with The Matrix.

[1:35:44] Last night I went and saw I Saw the TV Glow, which is also a movie about –

[1:35:51] I mean on its surface –

[1:35:51] You didn't see the TV show Glow.

[1:35:53] I did, but that's not what I saw last night.

[1:35:56] So I saw the movie I Saw the TV Glow.

[1:35:58] And it is – on a surface level, it is about a kind of a weird young kid

[1:36:04] who meets another weird young woman and they start watching –

[1:36:09] they become fans of this like weird TV show together.

[1:36:14] And it is set in like the 90s in suburbia and it's very lonely and they bond over this

[1:36:21] and then they kind of go their separate ways and reconnect.

[1:36:25] But it is – it's so much a movie about –

[1:36:29] it captures like the loneliness of the suburbs in a way that very few movies can do.

[1:36:35] And it also touches on that idea of feeling that there is something wrong in the world

[1:36:42] and you don't know – either there's something wrong with you or there's something wrong in the world

[1:36:46] and you don't know how to fix it and you kind of latch on to something that you connect with

[1:36:51] but you don't know kind of how to interact with the world anymore.

[1:36:57] And it managed – like it is such a like bone-deep sad movie that is like –

[1:37:06] like I don't know.

[1:37:07] I just like – for the whole – most of the movie, I just felt this like deep ache.

[1:37:13] And it – yeah, it's amazing.

[1:37:17] It's another great movie this year and a year already filled with many great movies.

[1:37:23] But yeah, this is a movie that I – I haven't – I haven't had a movie make me feel this way,

[1:37:31] if not in a long time or ever.

[1:37:33] So it was great.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:36] And then getting that feeling again from Matrix Revolution must have been very strange.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:39] Well, that's the thing.

[1:37:40] Like part of me, I'm like – like I had kind of enough of an idea what this movie was going to be about

[1:37:45] that I'm like I really want to watch this before, you know, watching The Matrix again.

[1:37:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:54] I would like to – I teased in a previous episode that I was going to see hundreds of beavers.

[1:38:00] I've now seen hundreds of beavers.

[1:38:02] Not in person.

[1:38:03] I haven't seen hundreds of beavers in person.

[1:38:05] I've seen, you know –

[1:38:06] I mean we're talking about movies and not just things we see in the world, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:38:09] I think for context people can understand it's a movie called Hundreds of Beavers.

[1:38:12] I know that mine was slightly complicated because it did say I saw the TV glow and that got really confused.

[1:38:17] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:17] You have seen TV glow but also you saw I saw the TV glow.

[1:38:23] I – yeah.

[1:38:24] It's a lot of fun.

[1:38:26] It's a movie that's kind of like if Guy Madden along with like silent movies watched a bunch of Looney Tunes cartoons and also video games.

[1:38:43] It's a –

[1:38:44] Totally awesome video games?

Elliott Kalan

[1:38:47] Well, mostly guys where you like –

[1:38:47] It's a little Easter egg for the BOCO listeners.

Dan McCoy

[1:38:50] Grind along, you know, building up your stores, like figuring out new ways of solving problems.

[1:38:57] It's a movie that my one issue with it I guess would be that it's almost like too packed to the gills with stuff.

[1:39:06] Like none of the stuff is bad.

[1:39:08] All the stuff is funny.

[1:39:09] But after a certain point like watching so many inventive like visual gags gets a little tiring.

[1:39:17] But it is a delight.

[1:39:19] Less imagination says Dan McCoy.

[1:39:22] Save it for the sequel.

[1:39:24] I'm just saying like I did get a little tired at a certain point and then it jumped back up for a good finish.

[1:39:31] So yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:32] A lot of fun.

[1:39:32] I really want to see both of these movies that you've recommended.

[1:39:34] I'm disappointed that I haven't had a chance to.

[1:39:39] I'm going to recommend an older movie.

[1:39:42] Elliot doesn't get to see things in theaters very often.

[1:39:45] There's a director named Lizzie Borden who I've recommended to her other movies, Born in Flames and Working Girls.

[1:39:52] And I recently got to watch her first movie which is called Regrouping which is a documentary.

[1:39:57] But it's a very strangely kind of put together documentary where she was making a documentary in the 70s about a women's consciousness raising group.

[1:40:08] These four women artists who are in a women's group together.

[1:40:11] And somewhere during the process she had a falling out with those women.

[1:40:15] And she started making a documentary about the feelings of that falling out and started talking to another women's group.

[1:40:22] And she presents a lot of this to you very unclearly without facts.

[1:40:28] Showing you footage of one thing while playing the voice of another person.

[1:40:31] To create a connection in your mind between them but they're not necessarily connected.

[1:40:34] And what you get from it is this kind of collage gestalt feeling of what it's like to be in a group of women.

[1:40:43] You know what the experience of being a woman around women can be like.

[1:40:47] And the joys of that and also the disappointments of that.

[1:40:50] And I found it really kind of like eye-opening and very challenging from a narrative point of view.

[1:40:55] But very rewarding and like just really cool the way that it is.

[1:41:00] It's a documentary that is refusing to give you the things you expect from a documentary.

[1:41:04] And it's very much not a check your brain at the door movie.

[1:41:07] Like you kind of really have to pay attention and focus to kind of pick up what's going on and make your connections in it.

[1:41:14] But once I did that, I really liked a lot.

[1:41:19] And I found it really just like a glimpse of a world that's so close and yet so distant from me.

[1:41:25] The world of women.

[1:41:27] So anyway, that's regrouping.

Dan McCoy

[1:41:30] Well, great.

[1:41:32] It would be hard to…

[1:41:34] Thanks, Dan.

[1:41:35] It would be hard to overstate how much I need to pee right now.

[1:41:40] So I'm going to keep this short.

[1:41:42] I'm going to say thank you to our listeners.

[1:41:44] If you're dropping by because of the novelizers, please consider adding the Flophouse to your rotation if you enjoyed this.

[1:41:54] Everyone else, thank you for listening.

[1:41:56] If you'd care to leave us a nice review at iTunes, it always helps.

[1:41:59] Thank you to our producer, Alex Smith.

[1:42:02] He goes by Howell Doughty online.

[1:42:04] Thank you to Maximum Fun, our network.

[1:42:08] MaximumFun.org is where you can go for other great shows.

[1:42:11] But for now, I have been Dan McCoy.

[1:42:13] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:14] And I'm Elliot Kalin saying, hey, before we go, let's take a moment to remember all the people who got us where we are today.

[1:42:22] Starting with our parents and maybe their parents too.

[1:42:25] Dan, don't worry.

[1:42:26] I'll be done a little bit.

[1:42:27] Our teachers.

[1:42:28] Oh, so many teachers.

[1:42:28] Let me name them one by one.

[1:42:30] All the people who have taught me throughout the years.

[1:42:35] We can get to this later.

[1:42:36] I see that Dan's bladder is bursting through his body.

[1:42:39] Maybe we'll talk about it another time.

[1:42:41] Okay.

[1:42:42] Bye.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:51] That's something that comes up in the internet newsletter that's subscribed to that's just about stuff that happens on the internet is how there's a lot of videos from fake podcasts that are used to promote OnlyFans accounts or things like that.

[1:43:03] But it's just – all you have to do is get a microphone and sit behind it and you pretend you're on a podcast.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:08] Wait, you're telling me anyone can be a podcaster, Elliot?

[1:43:10] I don't think so.

[1:43:11] Not just can anyone be a podcaster.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:12] We went to school for this.

[1:43:13] Anyone can make a TikTok video that makes it appear as if they are on a podcast, which is even lazier than the little amount of work it takes to do a podcast.

[1:43:22] This takes a lot of work, this podcast, though.

[1:43:24] I've listened for a long time, but this is my first time writing a letter to the beaches.

S6

[1:43:46] If Elliot thinks Jam would work as his straight-up musical, here's what I would like to know.

[1:43:55] What films would you like to see adapted to the musical format?

[1:44:02] I would like to see a talking cat break out in a song and help his friends along with some advice and a sweet little melody.

[1:44:44] When you're making it up as you go along.

[1:44:50] That's how it works.

[1:44:53] That's how it works.

[1:44:55] And by the way, my name is Doug.

[1:45:00] Last name with help.

[1:45:01] My name is...

[1:45:03] Last name with help.

[1:45:10] Maximum Fun.

S4

[1:45:11] Maximum Fun.

[1:45:12] A worker-owned network.

[1:45:13] Of artist-owned shows.

[1:45:15] Supported.

[1:45:16] Directly.

[1:45:16] By you.

Episode #425 - The Matrix: Revolutions

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