The Matrix Resurrections (2021) Movie Review

“It is so much simpler to bury reality than it is to dispose of dreams.”

   When it was announced that there was going to be another Matrix sequel I was on the fence. I didn’t want just another conventional sequel that followed Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, and the rest of the crew. Then the trailer was released and then I became excited. It took some of the elements from the trilogy taking the concept we all know and breathing new life into it.

   To me I’ve always viewed the Matrix trilogy as a love story of Neo and Trinity. At its core it’s a love story. Of course, I loved the deep messages, the action, philosophy, special effects, and so on. The thing that always makes me revisit it so often is the love story. Love is the key to all the choices they make. I liked the idea that Neo and Trinity together equal the one. There is no Neo without Trinity. There is no Trinity without Neo. It’s nice to see they finally got the life they wanted.

    I quite like the idea that the design is a much more resourceful system where the Matrix isn’t a paradise or hell, but somehow in the middle. A system where people want to achieve something that’s almost within reach, but can never get it. It appears so close that they never give up trying, but in the end that was the purpose of the design. I find that a good commentary on our modern society where we are trapped unhappily, but nevertheless can’t see the alternative out. That’s why I liked Neil Patrick Harris as the Analyst. The Architect was an unfeeling software, but the Analyst was a social media algorithm that thrives on influencing people’s feelings and provoking engagement from negativity.

   Much like art, everyone will have a different takeaway from the film. To some it’s about politics, finding their sexuality, coping with middle age, and it’s all right to each person interpreting it. To me Lana Wachowski was trying to say that many people need to be encouraged to put themselves out there more and enjoy reality. People have convinced themselves that they have taken the red pill and they are in reality. The question is what is real? If someone puts all their life into a fantasy that fantasy becomes a reality to them. Escapism in moderation is fine, but for many people they use escapism way too much that it becomes reality to them. We need to do something new. Challenge ourselves to wake up and overcome the weight and complacency. Discover new things the world has to offer. Free your mind if you will. Of course, there will be endless interpretations of the film. 

    I truly enjoyed this film. I remember people hating the sequels Reloaded and Revolutions along with the Star Wars prequels, but are now loved by a majority now. In time, I believe, people will love this film. People have it in their minds what the sequel should be like and when it’s not how they imagined it they become mad or disappointed by it. When I first posted my rating, I received so many hateful comments on how I could enjoy a film like this. The internet is fueled by anger. So people who didn’t like it will let you know and boy did they let me know. You know who you are. It’s like they are looking for validation and to vent, but I simply don’t have to argue anything with you. I’ll just tell you I liked it because I did and I have a right to my own opinion just like you. It’s the reason why I waited so long to post this review.

    I can acknowledge that the action is lacking, but that’s because Yuen Woo-Ping didn’t return to choreograph the action sequences. Visually the film was very pleasing on the eyes. A nice change from the first three films. The acting was good. The new Agent Smith was fun as well as some of the new characters like Bugs. All-in-all I loved it.

4.9 out of 5

The Batman (2022) Movie Review

    I’ve been thinking about this film for a while now. I had to gather my thoughts before I wrote a review. I’ve been waiting for a Detective Batman film since I began reading the comics way way back. They’re either too campy or didn’t really feel like Batman to me. I loved the Dark Knight trilogy, but it wasn’t for Christian Bale. It was for the villains. Yes the Dark Knight is a masterpiece and so is Dark Knight Rises, but once again Joker and Bane stole the show for me. When I first saw the trailer to the film I was simply blown away. Was this the Batman I was waiting for? Robert Pattinson has been killing it lately with “The Lighthouse”, “Lost City of Z”, “Tenet”, and “Good Time” So he’s done enough to prove he’s no longer that Twilight actor, but would he be a great Batman. The answer is yes. HE IS BATMAN.

  The film opens on Halloween night playing the Nirvana’s song “Something in the Way” along with Batman’s narration. “We have a signal now for when I’m needed. When that light hits the sky. It’s just not a call. It’s a warning… to them. Fear is a tool. They think I’m hiding in the shadows. Watching. Waiting to strike, but I am the shadows.” I personally loved that. The BATMAN is cinema at it’s purest form. It’s dark, it’s gritty, and a beautiful psychological thriller film noir. It’s a refreshing outlook on Batman to be sure. It takes inspiration from many of the stories of Batman especially “The Long Halloween” (one of my personal favorite Batman stories). 

   First, I want to focus on the score. My god the score was beautiful! It was so heavenly to hear. The score has been on repeat since I saw the Fan Event. Michael Giacchino outdid himself. Second is Gotham City. Finally, we get the Gotham City we deserved. It’s either, once again, too campy or just doesn’t feel like Gotham to me. It’s more realized than ever before.  Cinematographer Greg Fraser and director Matt Reeves gave it a distinct Gothic look. Now onto the amazing cast of characters. Pattinson is my all-time favorite Batman. He’s Batman come to life. He is the near reflection of Gotham confined by an endless night. There’s hardly any Bruce Wayne screen time it’s mainly 90% of Batman, which is what I always wanted. He is livid, emotional, brooding, and in search of his identity during his early years as Batman. The film explores him in search of his identity and I believe it achieves this perfectly with the psychological exploration.  Paul Dano, every film’s secret weapon. The Riddler is like a mix of his characters from Prisoners and There Will Be Blood. Definitely better than Jim Carrey’s outrageous portrayal of the character. Dano’s version is more terrifying and he is a complete psychopath. I liked his monologue to Batman near the end of the film about orphans and how the society views people.  Collin Farrell is nearly unrecognizable as the Penguin. His role is small, but he steals many scenes. Can’t wait for his HBOMax spinoff series. Jeffrey Wright is amazing, per usual, wirth his role of Gordon. Zoe Kravitz was a good Catwoman. She’s no Julie Newmar or Eartha Kitt, though  but nevertheless a good Catwoman. Her motivations for what she does is much better than the last 3 film portrayals of her character. I loved Matt Reeves direction with this film. I can’t praise it enough.

   Now onto my complaints. Andy Serkis is a phenomenal actor there’s no denying that. He makes for a great Alfred in theory, but he was terribly underused and his presence isn’t as strong as it should have been. I personally loved how the Riddler was like the Zodiac killer, but those weird creepy hostage videos involving him were too much like the Joker in Dark Knight. Especially when his voice suddenly went deep like the Jokers. Then one of the last riddles near the end of the film I was like the Riddler wouldn’t be that clumsy with a riddle. Other than that the film is on the brink of near perfection. It may have my favorite Batman, but it’s not my favorite Batman film that goes to Dark Knight Rises, which I will always have fond memories of. 

 

 It’s a Batman film that is heavily character driven and you can feel that it was made with love and care. It was Se7en and Saw mixed with the Zodiac film disguising itself as a Superhero film. It’s unique and has a fresh take on the caped crusader. It’s nearly 3 hours long, but never once losing it’s pace. Although it did drag on one scene. With that being said, it definitely deserves to be seen in the cinema. I can’t wait to see the direction Matt Reeves takes on the trilogy. Maybe we will see the Court of Owls, maybe Mr. Freeze, or maybe even HUSH. Nevertheless, I’m excited to see what the future holds for my Batman.

4.8 out of 5

Memento (2000) Film Analysis

“I have to believe in a world outside my own mind. I have to believe that my actions still have meaning, even if I can't remember them. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world's still there. Do I believe the world's still there? Is it still out there?... Yeah. We all need mirrors to remind ourselves who we are. I'm no different.”

   When someone experiences an overwhelming trauma it can lead to a fragmented state of mind. The people force themselves to create an alternative reality to help conceal the hurt and sense of guilt. Three films come to mind on this subject matter. Those films being Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, and Christopher Nolan’s Memento. 

  Before I go into the plot of Memento. Let me bring up the Personal Identity theory the philosopher David Hume focused on. “He was entirely forgot the incidents of these days, that the present self is not the same person with the self of that time and by that means overturn all the most established notions of personal identity? In this view, therefore, memory does not so much produce as discover personal identity, by shewing us the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions. Memory produces entirely our personal identity, to give reason why we this extend our identity beyond our memory.” He went on to say that identity itself was an illusion. “We are a collection of fleeting impressions. What are we, since we are not?”

   After an attack, which his wife was murdered, Leonard suffers from anterograde amnesia. He wants revenge so he starts an investigation to hunt down his wife’s killer. He has a methodical system of notes, tattoos, and Polaroid photographs. Helping him search for the killer is a cop named Teddy. He takes his case mainly out of pity. The real challenge for Leonard is to unscramble his memory and mend it with the missing piece of his identity. 

    Memento is based off the classic film noir narrative patterns yet has a distorted storyline. The storyline is presented in reverse-chronological order, while smaller tidbits of the film are told chronologically. Christopher Nolan lets us as the viewer go inside the mind of the protagonist. Taking us on a backward journey through an unreliable deceptive memory where all the cast of characters appear from a haze. We too are just as lost as Leonard. Do we trust the people he intermingles with? Soon we are even asking if our narrator, Leonard himself, can be trusted. He is rather unreliable. 

   He focuses everything on his last memory he had. There are a series of scenes that leads us to question Leonard’s pre-injury memory. When he thinks back to his last memory, he is lying on the bathroom floor across from his wife who wrapped up in a shower curtain. He states that this last memory of his was of his wife dying. Yet upon a close-up on the face of his wife she blinks signifying that she is in fact still alive in his last memory. She was dying, yes; although, he has no recollection of her death, funeral, or her even surviving.  The only other reference to her potential post-attack was an altered flashback where Leonard experiences two alternatives to the same situation. 

(SPOILERS…) 

   The one thing that gets me is when Memento intentionally uses a subliminal image. Leonard is telling a story about Sammy Jenkins, who was a semi-retired accountant that got into a car accident, which caused permanent short-term memory loss. His wife wanted to test him by making him inject insulin into her, a lot of shots within an hour, in hopes he’d realize that he was giving her an overdose. He didn’t remember and his wife fell into a coma and died. Sammy couldn’t explain or understand what happened so he was committed into a hospital. When Sammy is sitting in a chair at the hospital, for 1/10 of a second you see Leonard in the chair instead of Sammy. Sammy Jenkins and Leonard Shelby are one of the same. Then there’s the scene where Teddy explains to Leonard that Sammy didn’t have a wife. That it was really Leonard who killed his wife by overdosing her with insulin. There are two alternatives to this scene. The first being Leonard giving his wife an insulin shot while she’s sitting on their bed. The other alternative being Leonard teasingly pinching her thigh.

   So were Leonard’s memories all fake? The memory of his wife’s attack was just a story that Teddy came up with so Leonard would murder people he wants dead or the attack really did happen, but she survived. Leonard/Sammy accidentally killed his wife and his amnesia won’t let him remember. Everything that happens in the black and white sections are true while the color sections are when people lie or manipulate both the audience and Leonard. The significance of Leonard seeming to appear as Sammy is because it's showing he is Sammy. As David Hume once wrote, “Even though my perceptions are fleeting and I am a bundle of different perceptions, I nevertheless have some idea of personal identity, and that must be accounted for.”

  The thing that makes the story strong is that Memento distinguishes that we all lie to ourselves. Christopher Nolan simply found a way to make the lie a major star of the film. Leonard’s not lying to himself about how handsome or rich he is. Leonard is lying to himself about his very identity and his anterograde amnesia allows him to continue this lie infinitely. He’s in an endless loop.

  Memento is a modern classic. It was Christopher Nolan’s second film and first major American release. The cast is great. Guy Pierce stole the show as Leonard. Both fresh off the Matrix film Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss offer great supporting characters that may or may not be using Leonard’s condition for their own twisted agenda. Back in 2017 the US Library of Congress added this film to the National Film Registry. Memento is for anyone passionate about film noir and cinema in general. Memento is a must-see masterpiece.

4.8 out of 5

Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift 2006 Review

Han: I have money. It's trust and character I need around me. You know, who you choose to be around you lets you know who you are. And one car in exchange for knowing what a man's made of, that's a price I can live with. Look at all those people down there. They follow the rules, for what? They're letting fear lead them.

Shawn: What happens if they don't?

Han: Life's simple. You make choices and you don't look back.

   Once upon a time before the franchise became silly and just plain dumb. Fast and Furious focused on illegal street racing. The cars were the stars that happened to be driven by Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Sung Kang, and Bow Wow (that’s a name I haven’t heard of in a very long time). The first three films in the long drawn out franchise actually dealt with cars and racing, which is hard to believe now seeing the trailer for the new film. Cars are occasionally in the films like when a submarine is chasing them or they drive off an airplane. When I saw the trailer for the newest film I shook my head at how ridiculous it was and thought to myself, “how the hell does this franchise make so much money?”

   I actually liked the first three films a lot, but out of the three my favorite is the one that is hated by most. That’s right it’s Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift. Fans of the franchise mostly hate it because there was no Paul Walker and very little of Vin Diesel. Tokyo Drift is probably the most street-race focused film in the entire series aside from the first one of course. It’s the purest film in the series too with a promise of adrenaline and nitrous-fuelled attitude not seen before and since.

   So the protagonist is played by Lucas Black who is supposed to be a teenager, but looks about 40. Looking back he’s actually the only character in the series that just wanted to race cars and not become a super criminal with a heart of gold. I’m sure the franchise will bring him back though and change that, but back to the 40 year old teenager. He gets caught up in the Yakuza cause ya know Japan and all then racing, drifting, cars, and all that! And it somehow becomes the Romeo and Juliet of the Fast and Furious franchise.

   Now onto what I liked about the film. The film actually has real engine sounds unlike the rest of the films that involve heavily edited engine sounds. There was actual drifting and no CGI. It’s more authentic, better-shot, and it's damn rewatchable for the drifts, skids, and slides. Hardly anything cringe worthy.  The dialogue is actually pretty decent. LIKABLE CHARACTERS! Not a spy thriller. No outrageous CGI moments. The film is actually about racing. The real drift king Keiichi Tsuchiya had a cameo in the film, which brings us to the last thing I liked about the film and that is the respect of car culture.

  Tokyo Drift did well at the box office, but opened up at number three behind Nacho Libre and another film dealing with cars… Pixar’s animated film Cars. Tokyo Drift is the financially least successful film of the franchise though, which is sad considering it’s the best. It’s not the best film of all time, just the best film in the franchise, which again isn’t saying much. If you hated the film when it first came out. Give it another chance. It may be a breath of fresh air compared to what you get now.

4 out of 5

Demonic Toys (1992) Review

“I can walk, I can talk, I can even shit my pants. Can you shit your pants?”

  Back in the day, Friday nights were my favorite. I either went to the cinema to see a new movie or my father and I stopped at the local video rental shop. This was before the take off of Internet and cellular phones were as big as a suitcase. Remember beepers anyone? So if you wanted to rent a good movie (that you haven’t seen before) you either had to ask the workers at the shop who were most likely movie enthusiasts or you simply went off by the cover art. This is how I found Charles Band’s Empire Pictures and Full Moon films. B-movies with fantastic covers for the most part. There were the Puppet Master films, Trancers, Subspecies, and Demonic Toys. The cover alone for Demonic Toys made me love the film. 

    I love films where toys or inanimate objects come to life and begin killing every person they come in contact with. The person who probably loves killer toys more than me is Charles Band. He’s reutilized the idea of killer inanimate objects over and over for his films. There’s Dolls (1987), Puppet Master (1989-now), Demonic Toys (1992), Ragdoll (1999), Blood Dolls (1999), Doll Graveyard (2005), and so many more films. You have to respect the man for that. He really wanted to make “killer toys” a sub-genre for horror. He succeeded I’d like to think.

   Demonic Toys is a rip-off of Band’s Dolls and Puppet Master with a mix of Child’s Play. The film is exactly what you’d think it would be like. A sting operation goes terribly wrong. A group of people get locked in a warehouse and this leads to a sixty-six year old demon bringing toys to life to do his bidding. The demon is looking for a new body to take a physical form on earth. Fortunately for him, the policewoman is pregnant. The toys start taking out everyone in the group one by one. It’s a pretty typical Full Moon Features film.

   There’s a killer stuffed bear, a robot that shoots lasers, a crazy looking Jack-in-the-box that loves to bite, and my favorite Baby Oopsy Daisy the foul mouthed doll that loves to go stabby stab. They don’t get as much screen time in the film as I would have liked. I was shocked how good the gore was. The effects are quite good considering it’s a Full Moon Features film, which means thirty dollars for the production and a Full Moon shirt for the people involved in the film.

   Charles Band is credited with the “original idea” for the film, but the script was written by none other than the man who has us nerds split, we either hate him or love him, yep you guessed it David S. Goyer. He’s credited for the Dark Knight trilogy, Blade trilogy, Man of Steel, Jumper, and the worst entry of the Terminator franchise Terminator: Dark Fate. He’s even directed the worst entry in the Blade trilogy. He’s been involved with television, comics, and video games. It’s nice to see him start with a Full Moon Features film.

    Demonic Toys is a fun film and in a way it’s sort of self-aware. It has a lot of campy charm. It’s one of those hidden gems I’m glad I got to enjoy when I was younger, now if you’re lucky it’s one of those hidden gems that you’d find in the bargain bins. The film definitely isn’t for everyone. It’s the type of film you’d watch with buddies while you eat some extremely cheesy pizza. A good time if you shut off your brain for a bit.

3 out of 5

Nostalgic factor 5 out of 5

Insidious (2011) Review

   It’s always hard to get a solid horror film. Of course they’re cheap to make and usually are guaranteed in box office returns. Lots of them nowadays simply rely on gore and CGI. That’s not the case for Insidious. It builds the suspense on piano notes, screeching violins, shadowy figures, slamming doors, and the scariest thing of all Tiny Tim’s Tip Toe Through the Tulips. That song is the stuff of nightmares.

   The film is about a family, Josh, Renai, and their three children, moving into a new home. Everything seems fine until some spirits come and ruin everything for the family. Their son is knocked unconscious and becomes comatose. The frightened parents turn to a ghost hunting team and a psychic for help. They discover that a spirit is hell bent on possessing the boy. So they have to stop the spirit before their son’s soul is lost to “the further”.

   Insidious is probably one of the few films that go into detail about ghost hunting and the reasons behind why it occurs. It was extremely creative and you can tell that someone really put a lot of thought into the mythology behind it. I don’t know why, but every time I watch the film I am reminded of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Probably because of the Black Lodge and the further are somewhat similar I suppose.

   To be honest, I only have one complaint about the film and that would be the film’s second half. It’s not able to live up to the high standards that were set by the first half, but that’s usual for most films actually. Imagine you’re watching Rambo and then midway through the film, it turns into a Hallmark Christmas TV movie. That’s a pretty drastic change right? That’s how Insidious felt to me.

  The film isn’t your typical horror film. First of all it’s PG-13. Usually a horror film being rated that turns me off, but it’s actually my favorite PG-13 horror film other than ‘The Sixth Sense’. It’s a horror film geared toward the more patient viewers in my opinion. Actually I believed that the film was going to be one of the few horror films that had a happy ending the way things were going. Silly of me to assume that.

    It’s reminiscent of the old-school horror flicks. Writer Leigh Whannell and director James Wan did put together a fun horror film, which spawned three sequels. Overall, ‘Insidious’ is a fun creepy film with great practical effects and a pretty decent ending.

4.2 out of 5 Black Lodge Dale Coopers

Fade to Black (1980) Review

“Mr. Berger, if you're firing me, I need to get my stuff out of there and my movie posters. My posters are valuable originals and I want them!”

   There are a few handful of films that about cinephiles such as ‘The Dreamers’, ‘Cinema Paradiso’, and ‘Hugo’, but for me my first film about a cinephile was ‘Fade to Black’. Essentially it’s a film about a cinephile whose obsession gets the better or him. It’s a film that both celebrates and condemns a deep love of film.

   The film centers on Eric. Everywhere he goes he is ridiculed, shunned, and ill-treated so he retreats into his movies as an escape. Black and White films are Eric’s refuge from a society that hates him. His aunt blames him for putting her in a wheelchair for something he had no control over. His boss of an advertising firm constantly calls him a fuck-up. His co-workers, who are cinephiles themselves, abuse him at work. Even strangers think he’s a creep. He has a substantial amount of movie knowledge, which he uses as pay back against his co-workers with trivia questions that they can’t answer (this is before Google and cellular phones). 

    ‘Fade to Black’ references many of the Golden Age films and many horror films as well. The film creates its very own monster as well… the cinephile pushed over the edge. Eric is a guy who thinks, lives, and breathes cinema. Then add that with his cynicism with life and he turns into morbid monster. It’s like a ‘Walter Mitty’ story gone wrong. His fantasies make him encouraged, unique, and they are also his coping mechanism to deal with a society that hurts him. When he coping mechanism goes full throttle and drives him into delusion… he starts to murder those who have done him wrong.

    The writer and director Vernon Zimmerman clearly knows what he’s talking about here, filling every scene with film references whether it’s in the dialogue, in the set decoration (there’s even a Tourist Trap poster at his workplace), and there are plenty of clips from some of the best Golden Age films even my favorite Cagney film. 

     Dennis Christopher played Eric. You actually feel sympathy for the guy. He just wants to escape from reality and watch his movies. When I first watched this film as a kid. I was so happy to see that there was someone like me; not the killing bit though, but that there was someone who loved the movies as much as I did. I didn’t feel that alone and knew there has to be another cinephile like me. Once again this was before social media. I actually still have the VHS somewhere. I wish they would release this film on Blu-ray already.

  All-in-all, this is an amazing and memorable experience for any cinephile. If you love film, Golden Age Hollywood, and horror this is the film for you. You can stream it on Shudder until we finally get a Blu-ray release.

5 out of 5 film reels