A Demon's Voice: The Matrix

Showing posts with label The Matrix. Show all posts

12 March 2017

A Kung Fu James Bond Movie

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Enter The Dragon is widely hailed as one of the best kung-fu movies ever because it includes Bruce motherfucking Lee and essentially stole the basic feel of a Bond movie. The Roger Moore Bond movies are interesting because half of them pretty much just stole from whatever was popular at the time. In the case of the mid-70's that included kung-fu movies, which is why you have all of that tacked-on martial arts stuff mid-way through The Man With The Golden Gun. In case you don't remember, it's the scene in which Bond defeats a school of fighters that have been training their entire life by surprise kicking one in the head and then promptly jumping out the fucking window. The interesting thing about both Enter The Dragon and The Man With The Golden Gun is that not only are they chasing each other like a circular human-centipede consisting of two limber gymnasts, but they both basically have the same ending too. In both cases the films end with the hero fighting the main villain in a fun-house type arena which consists predominately of mirrors. I guess that kind of set provides an interesting challenge for the camera-team and keeps the actors morale up as they get to spend the day looking at themselves and mentally masturbating.

Crazy As Hell

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There are two directors with similar names and who have had two very different careers. The first is Paul Thomas Anderson and the other is Paul W.S.Anderson. Paul Thomas Anderson is the man behind such masterpieces as There Will Be Blood and Magnolia whereas W.S. Anderson is responsible for such shite as AVP: Alien Vs. Predator and the ball-haemorrhagingly dull Resident Evil. Anyway, so if you too find it difficult to keep track of which is which, I have a handy little tip to help you remember. Just imagine that P.T stands for Pretty Terrific whereas as W.S stands for Wanky Shit. It works for me, so you're welcome! Anyway- bearing in mind that I know the poor fucker as Paul Wanky Shit Anderson, I was always curious about his 1997 sci-fi film Event Horizon. There really is no denying how crap his films are however this one seems to have become a bit of a cult hit and not just in a The Room style 'what-a-load-of-shite-that-is' way. Not only that but I listen to a lot of podcasts because they're easier to deal with than real friends and Empire Magazine's one bangs on about this film almost every week. I therefore decided to gamble an hour and a half of my life on their recommendation... Although fuck it, I'm single so it's not like I had anything better planned than tossing off and having a cry.

Love At First Bite

Contains spoilers...

In retrospect, maybe watching The Matrix for the first time at the age of 11 was a little too young. I don't have any moral reason for this except for the fact that the movie was just too good for my child-brain to comprehend. At that age, The Matrix was basically heroin to me, in that it provided a huge high, numbness, a skewed vision of reality and of course, addiction. Eager to see a bunch of leather clad super-gimps shoot the shit out of each other, I would race home from school each day and put the video on. For those who don't remember- videos are basically DVDs for grand-dad and are these days used for building houses, heavy doorstops, and silencing prostitutes. For about a month I watched that film every-single-day without fail and completely, from start to finish. For a child who had just discovered masturbation, finding two hours a day for a film really did show a huge level of dedication.

Again, however, like a drug addiction, the more I watched The Matrix, the further away I got from feeling the original high that it had brought me. Through almost over-dosing on its kung-fu goodness, my bullet-time tolerance was increasing daily and by the end of the month I knew something had to be done. In order to wean myself off the addiction, before I found myself performing with a double ended dildo in front of a group of fat men, I decided to go cold turkey. Because I'd over-watched it, my greedy 11 year old self had ruined it for me and so in the end I had to avoid that film for the next five years.

This taught me not to watch my favourite movies too often as, like repeatedly killing the same breed of tramp, it would eventually just get a little bit boring. When choosing a film to watch I therefore regularly go for things I just really like, with the residents of my top ten list being relegated to just once every year or so. One of these films that I must have seen eight or nine times since its release in 2007 is David Slades 30 Days of Night. In fact the last time I watched that movie was only yesterday and weirdly I noticed something is starting to happen- for some reason, I started to love that movie too.

The film starts off with Ben Foster wandering through the snow whilst looking like an even more paedo version of 'Worzel Gummidge'. Although we can't be sure, we're given the impression that Ben is a bad guy through certain subtle clues such as his scrawny hair, bad teeth and the scene in which he stabs the living fuck out of a couple of dogs. Because people tend to prefer strangers not to put knives into their pets, it's at this point that the local Policeman steps in to help sort this naughtiness out.

There are lots of reasons why this Policeman looks a lot like Josh Hartnett, but the main one has to be because that's exactly who it is. I'd therefore like to think that a lot of people came to 30 Days of Night mistakingly believing it to be a sequel to that classic rape-y comedy 40 Days and 40 Nights. For anyone who missed out on that crappy movie, it basically ends with Hartnett being tied up and forced to sleep with a girl who is ignoring his pleas for her to stop and get off. It's essentially the same joke that was used in Straw Dogs except because the gender roles are reversed the blatant sexual assault becomes much more acceptable to laugh at.

Anyway, so Josh Hartnett arrests Scrawny Worzel for dog stabbing and throws his probably shitty arse in prison. Considering that this film is set in Alaska, the day before the sun is about to set for the next month, you'd think that the residents would relish any visitors to help boost their tourism. Apparently though, beggars can be choosers as they express less than joy to the sudden arrival of Danny Huston and his gang of blood-thirsty, sightseeing, psychopaths.

30 Days of Night isn't the best vampire film since Twishite reignited interest in the fanged honkeys, as that honour clearly belongs to Let the Right One In. It is however one of the better ones simply because it's the exact opposite of the sparkly cocks that we're currently having waggled in our face all of the time. These days, when we think of vampires, we think of handsome men, romanticism and love. The market is, at the minute, flooded with pale faced, pretty boys who would rather go all glittery in the sun than savagely tear the shit out of somebodies throat. With films like Interview with the Vampire and Christopher Lee's Dracula, presenting the monsters as either being suave gentlemen or having faces like Brad Pitt, the finger of blame can't just be pointed at Twishite. However it is clearly the current popularity of that latter film which has helped reinforce this image of the average vampire being a dickless, punchable twonk.

It is therefore nice to see a film such as 30 Days of Night which features some fucking weird looking vampires. When looking at cinema's earliest blood-suckers, if 'Edward Cullen' has evolved from the dapper Bela Lugosi then the Vampires here are clearly much closer to the twisted, shadowy freak from Nosferatu. Unless you're a fan of large gaps between eyes and the soothing sound of a harsh clicking voice then chances are you aren't going to be seduced by these pale, bloodstained bastards.

Danny Huston and his gang have only one reason for visiting the darkened town and that's to murder and eat everyone in it. He's not interested in chatting or dating and so for the remaining running time we simply see him hunting for a meal whilst the humans quietly hold up in various buildings. The film is fundamentally a large game of hide and seek playing by the same rules as the 1942-1945 match between Anne Frank versus the Nazis. Josh Hartnett's team have to do their best to lie low for a month whilst the vampires have to keep slaughtering people until they can locate and kill them too.

Beyond its depiction of vampires, 30 Days of Night does have a lot to offer; it is suitably suspenseful; gory; intelligent; and thanks to director David Slade, it's also impressively stylish with a look that really does bring to life the comic book from which it's based. With the obvious dumbing down of Hollywood in the name of mass appeal, you know you're watching a horror movie with balls when you graphically see a young child get repeatedly axed until her head reluctantly and stubbornly detaches. It's not often that you see the brutal and gory murder of a child in a film and so it was a relief for me to discover that I'm not the kind of person who will watch this and then get an erection. Personalities aside, the cause of boners really are a reliable way to judge a persons moral leanings.

The film isn't perfect, with Hartnett and his estranged wife’s relationship being a little uninteresting. The duration of the story is also a bit dodgy, with days being randomly skipped and no reference to what happened during them. In fact it might almost have been better if it had just been set over a couple of days rather than thirty. Although considering how integral that aspect is, that's a bit like saying Titanic would have been better set on a plane or that The Queen would have been better if it wasn't about an irrelevant, outdated, scrounger.

So like I said, this film seems to have promoted itself from being one that I really like to one that I love. I think that this is because every time I've watched it I've found something new to like about it and slowly but surely I've invested more and more into the characters. The deaths are all satisfyingly creative with huge blenders, a fuck-off chainsaw on a tractor and Danny Huston literally getting punched through the face. The conclusion to Hartnett's character is supposed to be emotional, but until recently I considered it a fault of the film that his death left me feeling a little unarsed. On last viewing though, I did finally care when unlucky Slevin's skin turned into black confetti and peeled off him like a mouldy onion.

To go back to the drug analogy- if The Matrix is heroin, then a film like 30 Days of Night is the equivalent of smoking normal boring, not illegal cigarettes. You try one and don't really feel the difference, but keep on trying because it takes less balls than a proper suicide. A few months down the line you've gone from the occasional fag to stabbing yourself in the chest with a screwdriver just so that you can put the death-sticks in holes even closer to your lungs. One day you're coughing and spluttering because of the taste, the next you're craving one just to take your mind off the cancer. Like smoking, frequently watching a film you simply 'like', such as 30 Days of Night, will result in the kind of appreciation that, over time, just sneaks up on you.

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4 March 2012

Need For Speed!

Once upon a time, the Wachowskis told us to imagine that there is no spoon. Easy enough to do with a piece of cutlery I suppose but a lot harder to apply to the Matrix Sequels. I know that there are great scenes in Reloaded and Revolutions, but let's face it, they do slightly ruin the original a bit. In the first one, we hear all about the mysterious Zion. In the second, we're shown it to be a plastic looking disco cave complete with a bunch of semi naked gimps dancing like tits to bloody Barbie Girl or whatever.

The whole fucking rave is cheesier than a tramps foreskin and if that's what we're fighting for, then fuck it, plug me back in. I'd rather be a happy fucking battery than part of that jigging crowd of twonks. By expanding on the world of the original and making it look shit, you're basically giving wrong answers to questions that made the first film great. It's like getting to finger Angelina Jolie and finding a huge pair of hairy testicles down her knickers. On face value she still looks great but secretly you can't help but be thinking about what bollocks is under the surface.

Following The Matrix franchise however, the siblings have so far only done one other movie. Speed Racer is their 2008 follow up and tells the story of a young racing driver who must choose to either join a corrupt sponsorship or remain independent and come under attack from them. Filmed almost completely on green screen, the film looks like a living cartoon and uses more colours than actually exist in the world. After just a few minutes, you start to wonder if the bright red is the colour on screen or simply evidence that your eyes have started to bleed. I think that watching this whilst high could genuinely cause brain-bubbles followed by schizophrenia and a lifetime of gormless dribbling.

When it came out, for some reason the critics decided to give it a bit of a slating. Just because it's a little bit crap, two star reviews where being hurled at it like an angry retard throwing shit at a mirror. I mean- it's not the best film in the world, but it's not bad. Beyond the look of the film, the cast is also really likeable with Emile Hirsch whose head is two sizes too big for him, John Goodman looking like he's had a stroke, Christina Ricci sporting that season's anorexic look and Roger Allam doing an impression of Tim Curry inside Gilderoy Lockhart's skin.

The plot, for what it is, unfortunately suffers from Matrix Sequel Syndrome in that it's way too fucking complicated. We're watching what looks like a live action version of Mario Kart with a comedy chimp in a hat, but the story is a convoluted mess of sports corruption, the stock market and industrial takeovers. The look and humour of the film is clearly aiming for a young audience but the story is like watching a cross between Wall Street and Days of Thunder whilst on magic mushrooms.

Also, like The Matrix Sequels, it's way too fucking long. Again, if it's a kids film, it really shouldn't go on for much more than 90mins. This however drags itself out for around 2 hours and 15 minutes , the same time it takes a 2 legged dog to find a safe place to shit, without it getting matted into its fur. At that running time, most kids will have hit puberty and grown their first pube before the credits start rolling. Annoyingly, there are just a few too many long, misplaced scenes which play out a bit like watching a pantomime with a serious business meeting. Kind of like going to watch Jack and the Beanstalk and spending half an hour watching Jack haggle for the beans based on the current magical fruit exchange rate. You end up not giving a single shit.

Despite all that however, I do still really like it simply because I find it to be genuinely sweet and good hearted. Financial bullshit aside, it's about a family who love each other and are just doing their best to stick together. You could get rid of all the 'Gordon Gecko' greed-is-good shite, and in all honesty I'd probably like it even more. In fact the bits that get me the most are the stuff involving the death of 'Speeds' older brother 'Rex' and how the family deal with it. Contrary to its bubblegum exterior everyone in the “Racer” family play their parts completely straight with some fairly heavy things going on. Not only is 'Pop' mourning the loss of his son, he also has to deal with the fact that the last time they spoke he told him that if he leaves now then he can never come back. The only thing to slightly spoil this scene is that before 'Rex' steps through the door you half expect Goodman to shout, 'Over the line' and pull a gun on him.

The stuff between 'Speed' and his parents are, in my opinion, genuinely touching with John Goodman and Susan Sarandon doing more than just turning up for the money. If I've got any other niggle regarding these scenes it's simply that I find Sarandon to be a bit of a hypocrite whenever she's giving driving advice. I'm not being funny, but the last time I saw that ginger gilf in charge of a car, she drove it off a fucking cliff. I haven't actually seen Thelma and Louise but I'm assuming it's about the incompetence of woman drivers and so if I was 'Speed' I'd tell her to shut the fuck up and keep her shitty, suicidal advice to herself. Go find your headscarf and wear it in another room, bitch.

The other interesting character here is 'Racer X' who has, in my humble opinion, a genuinely touching backstory. He looks a bit like if X-men's 'Cyclops' decided he was into visiting dungeons and wearing bondage and is, I guess, this films equivalent of 'Morpheus'. He's dependable, honourable, cool, and in all honesty, the spine of the movie. If there is any reason to revisit this film, other than seeing Christina Ricci's general face and body, it's to watch him knowing exactly what you find out at the end. It's not exactly a 'we're the same person, he's a ghost and it was the cripple all along' kind of affair, but it certainly adds a bit of weight to the movie.

The Wachowskis are important film-makers and this forgettable CG acid trip is one example of why. It might be a bit crap, but at least it is original and not stuffed up its own arse with pretentiousness- like The Matrix Sequels were. The directors also deserve credit for making a film that couldn't be any more different to The Matrix if they had tried. It's so different in fact, that it's a bit like Spielberg following War Horse with a pornographic slasher film or if Michael Bay followed up Transformers 3 with- well, just any good film would do. It'll be nobody's favourite movie, but I recommend it simply because of how refreshingly un-cynical it is. Maybe Speed Racer's plot is a bit confusing, but seems as most people can't even work out what gender Larry/Lana Wachowski is, the fact that we understand as much as we do should be appreciated. Regardless of whether Lana's knob is between her legs or in a jam-jar on the mantle, I don't care. As long as they keep making films as individual as Speed Racer and The Matrix, then I'll be happy.