The Matrix: Resurrections - A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Just a dreadful, awful movie that does nothing but undermine the brilliance of the original.

At the very end of Matrix: Resurrections, the movie perfectly sums up its sole reason for existing as well as what is so dreadfully wrong with it.

Back in 1999, when The Matrix came to its conclusion after its astonishing action sequences and mind-expanding/blowing storyline, the song “Wake Up” by Rage Against the Machine blasted out of studio speakers as an aggressive rallying cry and call to arms. It was a stunning moment that perfectly captured the volcanic frustration born out of the ennui and malaise of post-cold war and pre-9/11 America.

In contrast, after two and a half hours of impotent fight sequences and flaccid philosophical musings in Matrix: Resurrections, the fourth movie in the Matrix franchise - which is now in theatres and streaming on HBO Max, the same song, “Wake Up” by Rage Against the Machine, plays once again, but this time the ferocious and rebellious growl of Rage Against the Machine is replaced, and the song is played by a flaccid cover band, Brass Against, and the singer is a woman.

To give an even deeper context to that music cue, Brass Against is a watered-down, truly shitty cover band, and they’ve only ever made the news once, for an incident where their female lead singer literally urinated on a male fan on stage during a show.

Chef’s kiss.

It would seem, with all of the ridiculous, gender-based changes made to the Matrix in Matrix: Resurrections, the girl power revolution will most definitely be televised, but it will also be an abysmal, derivative and boring fucking show that’s only redeeming value is that it is almost instantaneously forgettable.

What grates about Matrix: Resurrections, is that it apparently only exists in order to undermine the story, meaning and power of the original film. In Matrix parlance, it’s like the filmmakers want their audience to vomit up the red pill and gobble up the blue pill.

This of course would seem to be an asinine course of action for the filmmakers, who have never made anything even remotely worthwhile since The Matrix. But when seen in context, it all makes perfect sense on a meta level, as the creators of the Matrix have literally castrated themselves and now have succeeded in castrating their greatest work, The Matrix, as well.

You see, the Wachowski brothers , who wrote and directed the ground-breaking The Matrix in 1999 and both of its dismal sequels in 2003, are now in 2021, the Wachowski sisters. Lana Wachowski, who was Larry Wachowski back in the day, directed this new Matrix movie solo as her former brother and current sister Lilly (formerly Andy), wasn’t involved in the production.

Obviously, a lot can change in the Matrix over twenty years. Besides brothers becoming sisters, action sequences that were once so revolutionary back in ‘99, are now just derivative and dull and the original mind-bending Matrix story is now reduced to a masturbatorial homage driven by limp cultural politics and painfully inert and cliched narratives.

Back for Resurrections are veterans of the original trilogy, Keanu Reeves and Carrie Ann-Moss, but gone for no discernible reason are fellow trilogy vets Laurence Fishburn and Hugo Weaving. But at least Matrix: Resurrections casts heavyweight Doogie Howser…oops…I mean, Neil Patrick Harris, in a critical role. Yikes. Was Urkel/Jaleel White not available?

Keanu, always an understated actor, seems to sleep walk through the film and Moss looks oddly detached from the foolish festivities into which she wanders. I understood their weariness, as I too fought to stave off slumber.

I’d recount the specifics of the plot of Matrix: Resurrections, but its just so supercilious and self-defeating as to be inane if not insane. The brilliance of The Matrix was that it was narratively complex without being complicated. This was why it was so effortless to fall under the spell of the film and go along for the ride. Matrix: Resurrections on the other hand, is needlessly labyrinthine but also remarkably stupid. It repels audience interest by building barriers of banality cloaked in contradictions and incoherence.

I remember when I first saw The Matrix in ‘99. I was going to London the next day and took my lady and a friend to the movie after we had dinner in Manhattan. I had extremely low expectations as I considered Keanu to be a bit of a joke at the time. I left the theatre a few hours later gobsmacked. The movie blew me away. And what made it all the more fascinating was that as the days, weeks, months and even years went by I thought more and more about the movie. Quite an accomplishment for what I assumed was just an action movie.

Unfortunately, the sequels to The Matrix, Matrix: Reloaded and Matrix: Revolutions, were abysmal disappointments, with Revolutions in particular being nearly unwatchable.

Besides the original Matrix movie, the Wachowski’s filmography reveals them to be quite dreadful filmmakers. Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas and Jupiter Ascending is a murderer’s row of cinematic dogshit, and Matrix: Resurrections is an equally odious addition to that line-up.

I’ve read that Lana Wachowski wanted to use Resurrections to take back The Matrix’s “red pill” symbology that had been pirated by right-wing radicals, most notably during the Trump years. This strikes me as a sort of “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face” type of situation.

The Matrix: Resurrections seems like an attempt to retroactively ruin a classic film, The Matrix, in order to piss off the original’s fans who found meaning within it, because the meaning they found wasn’t what the filmmakers intended.

I’ve heard this Matrix right-wing conundrum equated to when Ronald Reagan usurped Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” back in the 80’s. Springsteen wrote the song as a protest about the injustices against the working class in America. Reagan used it as a patriotic rallying cry.

The problem with “Born in the U.S.A.” is that while the lyrics astutely lament America’s treatment of the working class, the music accompanying them is written like an anthem. The music is a celebration, while the lyrics are a lamentation. (To see how the musical context changes the song, listen to Springsteen’s sterling acoustic version on the 1999 album 18 Tracks)

Music, like movies, makes people feel first, and think second. Audiences of both Born in the U.S.A. and The Matrix responded to the pride and anger respectively of those two works.

Trying to reverse the effects of that is near impossible, and no matter how much Springsteen corrects the record regarding his song, or the Wachowski’s try and go back and change the meaning of The Matrix, the cat is already out of the bag, the horse is out of the barn, and the genie is out of the bottle. Audience response is solidified and deeply held and there’s nothing that can change that.

Ultimately, Matrix: Resurrections is wrestling with a ghost, and while that may be interesting for the ghost and for the wrestler, to outside observers it just looks like an idiot having spasms during a psychosis-fueled conniption.

My advice is to skip Matrix: Resurrections. It is truly awful. Don’t see it. Don’t even acknowledge it exists. Stay stuck in the delusion that only The Matrix exists and all the other Wachowski films are just bad dreams to be brushed off and forever forgotten.

©2021

Space Jam: A New Legacy - A Review

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes 23 seconds

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: YIKES!

Space Jam: A New Legacy is just more proof that LeBron James is no Michael Jordan.

This dreadful kid’s movie is a piece of desperate, shameless, self-aggrandizing marketing masquerading as entertainment.

Space Jam: A New Legacy starring LeBron James arrived in theatres and on the HBO Max streaming service on Friday.

The movie, a sequel of sorts to Michael Jordan’s 1996 blockbuster Space Jam, tells the story of LeBron and the Looney Tunes characters having to win a basketball game against the villain Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle) and the Goon Squad, a team of computerized NBA and WNBA superstars, in order to save his family from some sort of eternal damnation.

It should come as no surprise considering LeBron’s meticulous, corporatized self-promotion in recent years, from his vociferous support of Black Lives Matter to his pandering to China, that Space Jam: A New Legacy is nothing but a relentless and shameless two-hour commercial for the LeBron brand and Warner Brothers’ intellectual property.

The original Space Jam was wildly popular back in 1996, raking in $250 million at the box office, no doubt because Michael Jordan was such an iconic and beloved figure at the time.

Space Jam: A New Legacy is no Space Jam. Watching Space Jam 2 is the cinematic equivalent of stepping barefoot in a pile of dog mess baking on a sidewalk during a heatwave. It’s so bad it makes the entertaining but middling original look like a cross between Citizen Kane and Star Wars.

The biggest problem with Space Jam 2 is that LeBron James, no matter how hard he tries…and he tries very hard, is no Michael Jordan. Jordan had an undeniable charisma and magnetism to him, both on and off the court. Even basketball fans who loathed the Bulls, still loved and admired Jordan back in the day. The same cannot be said of LeBron, who is a much more polarizing figure, and whose game, while stellar, is considerably less aesthetically pleasing than Jordan’s. It also doesn’t help that LeBron doesn’t have the movie star good looks or charisma of Jordan either.  

There’s no denying his greatness on the basketball court, but LeBron is not exactly Le Brando in front of a camera. For someone who has spent their entire adulthood being filmed and who does copious amounts of acting on a basketball court, it’s stunning to behold how painfully uncomfortable LeBron is on screen. They would’ve been better off casting a cigar store Indian in the lead role as LeBron is so wooden in Space Jam 2 he should be checked for termites.

LeBron is certainly a big problem for the movie, that said, he isn’t the only problem.

The film’s director, Malcolm D. Lee, is Spike Lee’s cousin, and his work on Space Jam 2, and his previous filmography, speak volumes to the insidiousness of nepotism.

Space Jam: A New Legacy also boasts a budget of over $150 million and yet remarkably appears decidedly low-rent, as the 3-D versions of the Looney Tunes characters look like unconscionably cheap amusement park mascots.

And then there is the nadir of the film, the Porky Pig rap, the less said about that the better.

Space Jam 2 is supposedly made for kids, but even for them the movie is emotionally, narratively and comedically incoherent. It’s also littered with references they’ll never understand. For instance, there’s a bit about Indiana Hoosiers basketball coach Bobby Knight throwing a chair at a ref, something that happened in 1985. There’s also a plethora of references to older Warner Brother’s intellectual property, like Casablanca, Mad Max, Austin Powers, The Matrix and Training Day, not exactly stuff a ten-year-old will understand or care about.

As for parents, or self-loathing childless adults, who watch Space Jam 2, they’ll quickly discover that the movie is an instantly regrettable, headache inducing, sensory overloading experience in corporate marketing run amok.

And despite all of that awfulness, my overwhelming feeling at the end of Space Jam: A New Legacy, was that I actually felt bad for LeBron. I know that is idiotic as I’m just some clown reviewing his movie and he is a billionaire basketball god and burgeoning movie business impresario, but it’s true.

What struck me was that LeBron making a blatantly self-reverential, hagiographic movie where everyone tells him he’s the greatest basketball player ever, and where he incessantly declares what a tough upbringing he had, how hard-working and disciplined he is, and what a devoted father and family man he is, is not a testament to his ego but rather a monument to his insatiable insecurity and need to be loved. This is the inverse of Michael Jordan, who was loved and validated by fans because he never needed their love and validation.  

LeBron has everything…NBA titles, Hall of Fame credentials, millions of dollars, adoring fans, a great family, and yet he still desperately needs validation. He left Cleveland for Miami in search of it. He left Miami for Cleveland looking for it. He left Cleveland again and came to LA on his quest. He embraced Black Lives Matter hoping for it. He sold his soul to China in an attempt to attain it. And now he tries, once again, to mimic Michael Jordan by making Space Jam 2 in the hopes of securing it…but for LeBron, validation will remain ever elusive.

Space Jam: A New Legacy is not going to make anyone who watches it feel good, including LeBron James. The movie may fill his pockets with money but it won’t make him feel loved and validated because it can’t change the fact that he isn’t Michael Jordan, and he never will be.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

A Glitch in the Matrix Documentary: A Review and Commentary

My Rating: 2.5 our of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. The film touches upon a fascinating subject but gives it short shrift. It isn’t worth paying to see but if you wait a while and catch it on streaming for free it might spark an interest and you can search out other more profound material on the subject matter.

Do we live in a computer simulation? The new documentary ‘A Glitch in the Matrix’ asks the question – but fails to give a serious answer.

In our manufactured and manipulated age, which elevates subjective experience over objective reality, simulation theory certainly seems possible, if not probable.

In a spooky bit of synchronicity, in the same week the New York Times published an article where “experts” called for a Reality Czar, a documentary was released that questions the nature of reality.

The documentary, A Glitch in the Matrix, which is directed by Rodney Ascher and available on Video on Demand, examines simulation theory, which is the theory that our entire reality is an artificial computer simulation, sort of like a giant video game.

Simulation theory seems like a science fiction fever dream, and with a 1970’s talk on the subject by esteemed science fiction writer Philip K. Dick providing the narrative structure for the documentary, and the film’s title being a line from the movie The Matrix, the documentary doesn’t disabuse viewers of that notion.

The question of our reality being an illusion is more substantial than sci-fi musings though, as its been pondered by philosophers through the ages. Plato’s “The Cave” and DesCartes “Evil Demon” are two prime examples, and intelligent modern men like philosopher Nick Bostrom and entrepreneur Elon Musk, are also proponents.

What makes a simulation theory discussion so timely is that our collective sense of an objective reality is currently so tenuous due to our culture’s continuous elevation of subjective experience in its place.

With mainstream media devolving into a manipulation machine promoting tribal echo chambers, and social media splintering us further by acting as a reinforcement mechanism for subjective experience, finding a consensus in order to adequately agree on an objective reality seems nearly impossible.

For instance, Democrats are convinced that Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election while Trump voters are positive that Biden and the political establishment stole the 2020 election.

Each group can cite their preferred media to make their case and targeted social media will buttress their beliefs, and so it becomes their “reality”. Like a simulated reality, it is contrived and manufactured, and meant to trigger emotion, short circuit reason, and reinforce a malignant myopia.

Another example of subjective experience trumping objective reality in our culture is identity and transgenderism.

In its most rudimentary form, the argument trans advocates make is based on getting others to conform to their subjective experience at the expense of a consensus objective reality.

For example, a person born with male genitalia who claims that they were born in the wrong body and now identify as a woman. That may certainly be their subjective experience and they are entitled to it, but that is not objective reality.

The trouble arises when trans advocates demand that other people unquestionably embrace the trans person’s subjective experience at the expense of acknowledging objective reality.

The issue of identity and transgenderism would seem to be right up simulation theory’s alley, as the ability to change genders is akin to changing avatars in the video game of life, but unfortunately, this relevant topic is never addressed in the documentary.

Instead the filmmaker cloaks, without comment, four subjects in computer-generated identities as they recount the experiences that led them to believe in simulation theory. Some of these stories are compelling, while others sound like the result of emotional trauma or psychological issues.

And unlike the Mandela Effect, where a large group of people have a collective memory of an event that did not happen, the subjective experiences of these four individuals does not greatly reinforce belief in the possibility of simulation theory, but rather diminishes it.

About two thirds of the way through the film takes a turn that is intellectually, philosophically and tonally incongruous, when Joshua Cook recounts his experiences.

Cook was a troubled teen who watched The Matrix multiple times a day. Bullied at home and school, he found an identity in The Matrix and wearing the film’s signature black trench coat.

Eventually Cook snapped and murdered his parents, and his defense lawyers concocted the “Matrix defense”, which claims Cook thought he was living in the movie’s reality, in order to argue his case.

Bringing Cook’s heinous crime up in a documentary that is supposed to be seriously contemplating simulation theory is a befuddling decision, as it surreptitiously and nefariously portrays the investigation of alternative philosophical theories as being not just frivolous but inherently dangerous.

It’s all the more ludicrous because Cook was diagnosed with schizophrenia, meaning that simulation theory wasn’t his problem, mental illness was.

By spotlighting Cook the film is ultimately arguing that simulation theory should be avoided because the mentally ill may behave badly if they come into contact with it. That isn’t exactly a sturdy intellectual foundation upon which to build a compelling philosophical argument or create a captivating piece of documentary cinema.

The problem with A Glitch in the Matrix is that it would rather wade in the shallow waters with stories like Joshua Cook rather than further explore the oceans of intrigue in which serious thinkers like Philip K. Dick, Nick Bostrom and Elon Musk swim.

A Glitch in the Matrix could have been a really good documentary as simulation theory is a fascinating topic that is very relevant to our troubled times, but by choosing the salacious over the intellectually serious, the film does its subject, and its viewers, a terrible disservice.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Shoplifters: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. I thoroughly enjoyed this intimate yet deeply profound and philosophical film, but be forewarned, this is a foreign, arthouse film, so those with more conventional cinematic tastes should stay as far away from this movie as possible.

Shoplifters, written and directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, is the story of a poor family in Tokyo who rely on shoplifting and petty crimes in order to make ends meet. The film stars Lily Franky as Osamu - father of the family, and Sakuro Ando as Nobuyo the mother, with Kairi Jo playing their son Shota and Miyu Sasaki their daughter Yuri.

Shoplifters is a distinctly foreign film in that on its surface it may seem to the less cinematically sophisticated to be innocuously mundane and even boring, but to those patient enough to peer beneath that veneer of the ordinary, they are rewarded with the discovery of a sublime universe teeming with human drama and intrigue.

Shoplifters is an original and fascinating film that explores the meaning and purpose of truth, knowledge, family and the need for human connection. Like a Russian Matryoshka doll, Shoplifters appears to be one thing, but once you look inside another and another and another layer is revealed, and everything you’ve previously seen takes on a different meaning in hindsight.

On the surface, Shoplifters is a rather deliberately paced story of an ordinary family as they endure the suffocating nature of working class poverty in modern day Tokyo. This social/cultural narrative is insightful enough all on its own, as it is a profound statement on the cancer that is 21st century capitalism, where everything is commodified, including our humanity. But as the story progresses and more truths are discovered and revealed, the viewer’s perspective shifts, and the foundation upon which you’ve made assumptions about this seemingly simple family sways uneasily under your feet.

As more truth is revealed, the social commentary of the film doesn’t lose its impact, but quite to the contrary, it becomes even more profound. The film’s cultural critique gains a staggering degree of power and profundity as it adds narrative dimensions in the second half of the film.

Shoplifters forces us to question all of the assumptions we have about the things we know…or more accurately…the things we think we know. As the film shows, the rock upon which our own moral, ethical and intellectual beliefs are built may very well be sand. Shoplifters shows us that we are swimming in a deep and mysterious ocean and yet, as the saying goes, “fish don’t even know he’s wet.”

After I watched Shoplifters I kept thinking of the line from Oliver Stone’s 1991 masterpiece JFK, where one of the characters, frustrated with the challenge to his conventional thinking, shouts in retort, “but you only know who your Daddy is because your Momma told you so!” And so it is in our world of manufactured consent, incessant propaganda and unlimited marketing and manipulation where we are led around by our nose and suffer from an interminable myopia and narcissism. Like subjects in Plato’s cave watching shadows dance upon the wall, we all think we know what we know, but when we walk outside the cave we realize we know nothing…and have known nothing all along. In that way, Shoplifters, although it is the polar opposite in most ways as it contains no action and is very slow and plodding, is a philosophical cousin to The Matrix films.

Hirokazu Kore-eda, who has directed such notable films as Nobody Knows, Still Walking, Like Father, Like Son and After the Storm, has a deft and confident directorial touch with Shoplifters, as he never pushes the pace but rather lulls the audience into a false sense of security and suckers them into projecting their own bourgeois assumptions onto the story and characters.

Kore-eda’s masterful camera movement and shot composition draw the viewer into the family at the center of the story, as we share their intimate world we too become members and collaborators in their life of petty crime.

Kore-eda creates a stultifying sense of claustrophobia and a lack of personal freedom in this darker side of Tokyo, where much like in our current techno-dystopian world, privacy is a fleeting luxury. For example, Shota is forced to sleep in a small closet more akin to a coffin than a bedroom, Aki (a pseudo-Aunt) makes a living anonymously exposing her private life to strangers, and Osamu and Nobuyo can’t remember the last time they shared a moment alone together.

Kore-eda is one of the masters of Japanese film working today, and Shoplifters is a testament to his cinematic skill and storytelling prowess as it uses the intimate and unique working of this one family to tell a philosophically serious and politically insightful story of our troubled times.

The acting in Shoplifters is solid across the board. Sakuro Ando is exquisite and transcendant as the mother of the family, Nobuyo. Ando’s Nobuyo is at once pragmatic and ruthless but also gentle, kind and loving. Ando imbues Nobuyo with a deep and palpable wound (symbolized by a burn scar on her arm) that is forever a mystery but always lurking within her soulful eyes, that are keen enough to see the same wound in Yuri.

Lily Franky as Osuma is terrific as a man who desperately tries to be a father, but whose road to hell is paved with good intentions as he is only capable of, at best, making it all up as he goes. Osuma is a fascinating and compelling character, and it is a testament to Lily’s talent that he is simultaneously both a deplorable and sympathetic character.

Mayu Matsuoka brings a sense of wounded allure and innocent danger to the role of Aki, that in lesser hands may have been lost in the wash. Aki is the one of the group most naturally equipped to survive but also the one most vulnerable to being a victim to her own weakness. Unlike Nobuyo, Aki’s wound has no scar over it. Matsuoka does a wonderful job of creating a sense of melancholy and ennui about Aki that at times feels both dangerously combustible and also self-destructive.

The child actors, Kairi Jo and Miyu Sasaki also give excellent performances that feel genuine and grounded because they don’t feel like they are acting at all and the same is true of the grandmother, expertly played by the late Kirin Kiki.

In conclusion, Shoplifters is a film that subtly morphs and changes with every second you watch it, and as I have learned since seeing it, with every minute that passes after its over too. It is, in its own way, mesmerizing and hypnotic, enticing viewers into a story that appears to be one thing but ends up being another. I loved the film, but I love foreign films in general, and Japanese films in particular. If you are not a devout devotee of the arthouse, and in this case, the Japanese arthouse, Shoplifters’ deliberate pace, cryptic dialogue and unusual narrative will be much too much to endure. But if you love Japanese cinema or have a taste for the art house, definitely go check out Shoplifters as it is a fascinating ride, one that I’m not sure I have fully completed.

©2018