EXTREMELY excited

“What about the Twins?”
“I already mentioned Monica Belluci.”

Brilliant.

Don’t know if it’s just me, but I keep getting the problem that the file apparently is corrupt? Kinda sucks downloading twice – each time taking 15 minutes – to find out it’s not working :/

I downloaded the regular MP3 320 each time. Going to try another format…

Do not share your enthusiasm for Speed Racer. I think it is painfully overstuffed visually, and the story just isnt interesting or entertaining. It’s a drag for me getting through the mediocre plot, simplistic and boring dialog, meh acting and lack of stakes/substance. I don’t find watching a videogame/CGI fest with caricatures and bad humor a good time at the movies. The film is also waaay too long for its own good.

I can appreciate the ambition, but its still a misfire for me after three viewings.

You guys were pretty negative about the original Matrix, I realize you can only give your opinions but it still bummed me out.

Now it is time to do the Die Hard series!!!! Follow it up with Passenger 57 or Under Siege or Speed or……

I think Sean should definitely dress up as one of the twins. That would be amazing.

-James I think the point is it would be more interesting if the movie picked up with Neo arriving at Zion the very first time, so we could get an introduction to it through his eyes. It would especially be more powerful if Zion didn’t look like such a piece of shit.

I thought we talked a fair bit about why we liked the first movie. I will admit that mindlessly gushing over films is not always what we do best on this podcast but we mentioned that it was full of ideas, that the premise was brilliant and that the special effects were groundbreaking. However, the movie is also now dated and I don’t think any of us are quite as excited about it as we once were.

We appreciate you downloading the premium podcasts, Tony, but I have to admit, it worries me a little bit that you would equate the quality of the podcast to whether or not you agree with our opinions. Because if that’s the case, you’re probably setting yourself to be let down every time!

Popped on this.

Also, to Tony. The guys don’t need my defending them, but I had to respond.

Just because you are paying doesn’t mean they owe you anything beyond what they have given week in and week out for over 5 years. That is, good discussion about film whether or not you agree with their opinion on a specific film. They’ve never claimed that these podcasts would be special in any way beyond the movie selection.

At any rate, I’m confident in saying that they *always* give us a good discussion to listen to, up to and including this podcast. I think it is well worth the money to hear their opinions on these older films.

By the way, the ‘Weak sauce!! Fix up or GTFO…’ line is extremely rude and honestly makes you come off as a 13 year old troll, even if that’s not your intention. You might want to tone down your criticism in the future and try providing something constructive if the podcast really bothers you that much.

Personally the Matrix and Inception share a quality that keeps them both from being dated.

The innovative special effects are integrally tied into the plot. Bullet time has a reason to exist just as the landscape in Inception has a reason to shift.

Where as the films that copy the techniques do it only for the look and not for any reason beyond that.

also i will transfer $20 on paypal if sean promises that he and his son will dress up as the twins for halloween

Sean, thanks to you the Merovingian didn’t get a complete pass. The matrix-vision vagina shot is the worst moment in the series for me. It’s like an exclamation mark to how bad his scenes are. Everything he says annoys me. To contrast this, I’ll say after re-watching I love The Architect scene. Yes, the way he talks is a bit grating, but it’s not hard to understand what he’s saying. It’s a much-needed moment of wonder in the movie that intriguingly changes the mythology and raises the stakes, whereas the Merovingian stuff is just philosophical wankery.

Don’t mind that Tony dude guys, he’s clearly an ass. Cool episode, some funny shit. Frank is the man.

hey those condoms are hard to figure out.

Not that familiar with the original Speed Racer cartoon, but I looked it up, and Racer X’s true identity is, in fact, Rex. So anyone familiar with cartoon I’m sure was seeing the twist coming the whole time.

I think we owe Brittany a lot of love for sleeping with the retarded – they need love too

Most of the minor plot holes you guys were complaining about in the sequels seem to have answers if you paid any attention to the films. Don’t get me wrong, i respect the hell out of you guys but i’m wondering how it is that all four of you guys missed so many things.

bought Speedracer Blu last night for rewatch/celebration for $10 at BestBuy.

Amazing film, years ahead of its time, excited to see what the brothers do..

I have one point I wanted to get out there because I think it is important to discuss and would like others input if they feel the same way.

I think the best and worst parts of Speedracer happened very early in the development process and are key to both its flawed parts and “ahead of its time” parts.

The japanese anime inspired layering of foreground and background elements, using those elements for interesting and complex wipes, incredibly composed frames as individual pop art pieces, using exotic “bubble” photography for backgrounds are inspirational and a great example of special effects being tied to style / story.

The early idea to combine car racing with elements of skateparks, BMX, extreme games might look good ten years from now but it was just to over-the-top for current audiences. I think this film would have been a huge success if the brothers had realized they needed to dial it back. They loss the real drama and risk in racing. While watching it again, I also realized of all the active/mechanical things we see in action movies, driving is the most personal action audiences can identify with. Even children have an intimate understanding of automobile motion from a young age. What Im saying is The Wachowskis felt they needed to push racing to an unseen style but this decision robbed the film of the natural drama and personal connection the film already had.

I know this might not work with the over-the-top style of the film but there has to be a happier balance. It is the same problem that all modern animated films have – to much over-the-top action that becomes boring because its so separated from reality/human risk. Its my biggest problem with Tintin also. I wish someone would do a study of this issue like the one done regarding “the uncanny valley effect”.

Sean, I thought you would have understood the Matrix films better since you own books about them. I’ve just read some websites, which connected the dots. But I actually got it by watching the films since I was paying attention.

One example of something that I now understand:
At the end of the final battle with Smith, Neo purposefully lets his guard down and lets Smith assimilate him into another Smith-clone (i.e., they merge). Smith cannot comprehend why Neo would make that choice. He is confused and afraid. Neo and Smith are both one at that moment. Smith can no longer exist separate so he is defeated. It’s like a re-creation of Neo defeating Smith in first movie, except this time Neo sacrifices his life.

I don’t think the films are too complicated or explained too thinly. And I’m sure I’ve heard positive reviews from you guys about much more complicated movies than this that also didn’t spell everything out in the end. I do like part one best, but mainly because it is tightly paced, has an story beginning in our world from the point of view of the audience (we know as little as Neo does), and it has few characters on a single ship. I still give the sequels above average ratings though. I took a few points off of Revolutions after my re-watch because it seemed to start and stop a lot. The long scenes of dialogue or speeches may have told us something, but detracted from the pace. I didn’t mind that it was mostly in the “real world”- kind of the opposite of part 1, while Reloaded was 50/50. And shouldn’t we care about the real world since it’s real? I thought the fighting in the real world was fresh while the matrix fighting was getting repetitive.

I believe what I’ve heard that the Wachowski’s had a trilogy mapped out at the start, but wrote part 1 so it would also work as a stand-alone movie. They mentioned Zion and a war because they knew that’s where it was headed. I must be strange since I didn’t expect another movie about one ship and it’s crew. And that’s not what I wanted- why make the same movie again. Those are the worst sequels. It just sounded like when you saw a dirty cavernous industrial city in their depiction of Zion, you guys were so disappointed it wasn’t filled with solid gold skyscrapers that you decided to laugh over all the dialogue that made sense of a lot of things. Don’t get it the first time around? Well, then these movies have a lot of re-watch value. I haven’t listened to all of it, but from what I’ve heard the philosopher’s commentary track sounds very good.

I also discovered these web articles after Googling around, which really help explain things in the sequels, and why people didn’t like them:

http://www.wylfing.net/essays/matrix_revolutions.html
http://warp.povusers.org/HistoryAccordingToTheMatrix.html
http://warp.povusers.org/grrr/dissing_of_matrix_sequels.html

Read this section of this webpage and the one that follows it for insight on Sati:
http://www.wylfing.net/essays/matrix_revolutions.html#mobil
..and then the section at the very bottom of the page gives some insight on how Neo can manipulate things in the real world. This is the key part: “The Matrix is powered by human bio-electricity. What is that? It’s thoughts and feelings, impulses and urges of the body. Therefore, everything in the Matrix is the result of human emotion, or more accurately the ebb and flow of the aggregate emotion of the entire human race.Neo is genetically designed to tap into this aggregate bio-electrical circuit, and he focuses and amplifies that energy. The extent of that amplification is tied to his personal emotional level. In his previous incarnations, Neo’s generic feeling toward the rest of humanity afforded him a certain amount of power in the Matrix. But this time around, because of Trinity, the depth of his emotion is incredibly multiplied. As a result, so is his power in the Matrix.”