The Matrix: Bringing people together "I've seen a lot of community-building efforts in my day. I've seen families and clubs and organizations, and philosophies and churches and governments. I've seen online forums and blogs and mailing lists strive in their own unique ways to bring us together with shared experiences and unifying themes. "I've never seen anything like "The Matrix" for getting people to talk to each other."
And no, this wasn't the forum referenced. There were only two threads about it here, which is way below the national norm Posted by beatnix19 (Member # 5836) on :
i had this same discussion with a friend yesterday. We didn't agree about how good/bad the movie was but we agreed that it had us talking and that must be worth something.
Of course here at Hatrack, all I've really done is piss people off. I'm new and not making any friends on the matrix review thread. Posted by ae (Member # 3291) on :
Ha! That's a wonderful column! The "so completely, utterly wrong and stupid and smelly and a terrorist and a typical American filmgoer and fat" bit is particularly inspired.
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
HaHa, I prefered "the feasibility of sneaking up on an opponent while wearing vinyl" line.
Posted by Toretha (Member # 2233) on :
*laughs*
I LOVE reading your articles. That one was great!
Posted by Megachirops (Member # 4325) on :
quote:I felt like I had just strolled in between Israeli and Palestinian forces and playfully fired off a cap gun.
Posted by T_Smith (Member # 3734) on :
Forget about talking to people after the movie, I've met a great deal of people just by standing in lines waiting for it.
First showing, I met a guy from SLC who went straight from a party at 10:00 the night before to wait in line for the 7:00 AM showing. He talked to me about politics (mostly due to the new elections and his view on Rocky), philosophy, religion, etc etc. Then, he whipped out his portable DVD player and we watched the first Matrix and discussed the philosophy so to speak.
One of the kids there, was with his step father. His step father was a flight attendant, who's opinion on Boise is: "not much to do, but they sure do know how to run their clubs there." They were planning to sneak in McDonalds. The kid was a snow boarder, very anti-skiing, who said he was passing up beating someone up to see the Matrix, thats just how important it was to him.
Second showing, I met a guy who works for a dollar theater, who tried to talk me into buying an XBox for KOTOR, and also stated that he thought David Spade was a great actor, but Dickie Roberts was a waste of his talent, which I agree to to a certain extent. He is going to go see RotK 5 times.
Also at the second showing, there were 2 girls who confessed to us guys talking that they were recently "out of the closet geeks." Used to keep it hidden, but apparently had too hard of a time with that. One of the girls admitted to planning to go to RotK dressed as Legolas, due to her long blonde hair. Last year, she said, she only WATCHED people who had dressed up, and was disappointed that no one at the Matrix was dressed up very creatively.
Third showing, I had a date, so naturally I talked to her more than the person behind us, who's topic of conversation was Eddie Murphy's acting career. I found out a good deal about this girl in the 1 hour we were waiting in line.
Fourth showing, I went with a friend. While waiting until we figured would be a good time to get in line, we walked around the mall and talked about why people would choose to live in the Matrix. Since I had just writen an essay about this for English (Matrix: an English life saver) I had an easy time talking about it. While in line we talked about that with the people in front of us, who were curious where my friend had gotten his jacket.
We then talked about England and Monty Python (which is just as much of a social standard as Matrix).
Anyway, line waiting is a great way to meet random people you will more than likely never see anywhere else, except for another line waiting place, more than likely the sequel.
Oh, and great article, Chris.
[ November 12, 2003, 11:57 AM: Message edited by: T_Smith ]
Posted by asQmh (Member # 4590) on :
This has become my favorite article/commentary on the Matrix.
Chris Bridges
Q.
Posted by Eruve Nandiriel (Member # 5677) on :
quote: They were still better than the Star Wars prequels.
That was a great article CB! Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
"Waiting for George Carlin to show up in a phone booth" OWTTE
Yeah. Sheesh. Of course, in my circles there is a lot of discussion about how after the first movie was so great and was only Rated R due to them gleefully shooting dozens of cops and had better language than the average PG-13 movie (There wasn't even profanity by Jewish standards, I don't think) then they had to louse up the sequels with sexual content.
Like my brother in law was totally psyched about the second one, but he had made a big stink about "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon"'s nudity so if he did see Reloaded, he didn't tell any of us about it.
Now if we are so opposed to R rated movies, why did my whole family see "The Matrix" to begin with? My aunt gave it to my Mom for Christmas. I relate this because I think it's funny how we are, not to say that this is the way people should be.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"I relate this because I think it's funny how we are, not to say that this is the way people should be."
It's actually a pretty good example, IMO, of how people should NOT be. Posted by JonnyNotSoBravo (Member # 5715) on :
I can understand the other two being thought of as "B" movies even though they were well produced, but the first one does not deserve that! (No, I don't have any of the movies on DVD and have only watched the movies once in the theater)
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Yeah, well my parents did have to travel out of state to get married, so it's not surprising we are all so screwed up. :grumbles: I mean, I really shouldn't even exist. Thanks for taking my self consciousness and tickling it until it wets its pants.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Chris, funny as always.
pooka, could you explain what you meant by this please?
quote: There wasn't even profanity by Jewish standards, I don't think
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Meaning, they didn't ever say "G-d d--m" I don't think. But several people said "Jesus" in moments of stress.
Posted by pooka (Member # 5003) on :
Speaking of content and the Matrix, did anyone catch it when it was Broadcast on Fox? A couple of deletions that really puzzled me were when white rabbit girl says "definitely" (to "should we bring him (neo) along") and when the Oracle says "You're cute". I decided it must be that in the commercial interrupted format, they wanted to reduce the run time, of course, but also reduce references that would detract from the conclusion. I know the first time I saw it I was like "what is going on?" But on review, there are many many clues of that relationship.
SPOILER
Meaning that Trinity is in love with Neo.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Huh? Now I'm more confused. Damnation is not a Jewish concept -- or is that what you meant?
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