I greatly enjoyed my day off today. (The first day I've had off work in over a week.) Most of it was spent indulging in my almost all-consuming Matrix obsession, which is just fine with me.

Salon's Matrix Reloaded article (which I avoided reading until after I had seen the movie) is most insightful. A few fair use quotes...

On the whole, the Matrix saga seems to be moving in the direction of doubt rather than quasi-religious certainty, toward becoming a metaphysical puzzler rather than a clear-cut fable of salvation and redemption.... It's a sadder, wiser, more grown-up movie than its predecessor. It was made, one might almost say, for a sadder, wiser, more grown-up world....

One of the marks of genuine genius in the Matrix films, I think, is the way the Wachowskis manage to have it both ways so much of the time: They can make a box-office-busting action spectacular that is also an explicit critique of media-age capitalism and a lefty-Christian parable....

Predictably, the major media coverage of the [original] film, in 1999 and subsequently, has focused on its technological marvels and understood its more radical, even dialectical dimension as some kind of smug, ironic gamesmanship. The Wachowskis' real innovations, conventional wisdom holds, came in the "Bullet Time" sequence or in their appropriation and expansion of John Woo's action-movie vocabulary. The apparently contradictory fact that this same big-budget action movie, distributed by a gigantic infotainment conglomerate, suggested that our entire culture was an illusion and that we had been hopelessly enslaved and cut off from real life by our own technology was conveniently overlooked...

I've lost all sympathy for the flocks of chicken-robots who will gather around this franchise trying to peck holes in it, complaining about this or that problematic stunt scene or red-herring character. They are the agents of the Matrix; ignore them. Finally I understand that the Matrix movies are striving for a massively contradictory epic about love and hope, a grand and maybe impossible vision of living in a world of technology and escaping it at the same time, of being truly alive in a dead or dying society. They kick major ass, and they show us a future worth fighting for.

Reading an article like that makes me glad I'm not the only one who sometimes feels compelled to babble endlessly about the cultural and symbolic significance of The Matrix.

I spent most of the afternoon today in holy communion with my GameCube, learning how to fight through The Matrix as Niobe. Having fought my way through the post office, gone on a wild car chase, and encountered (but not defeated) my first agent, I think I've learned the basics.

The gameplay of Enter the Matrix is unique and fun in a couple of regards. 1) The "focus time" (i.e. bullet time) feature, which allows you to hit a button to put the action into slow-mo. When you are in Focus Time, not only does everything slow down, but you also get to use special more powerful moves (i.e. longer jumps, cooler kicks, running up walls, etc). But Focus Time must be used somewhat sparingly; every time you send the game into Focus Time, the Focus meter gets drained, and it takes precious time for it to rechange.

But really, there is nothing cooler than being in the middle of a brawl, where you find yourself getting surrounded and overwhelmed by a bunch of guards, and then jamming on the Focus button, which brings the whole scene to a near-halt as your character leaps into the air and spin-kicks the hell out of baddies in three directions while punching in another, subdueing the entire pack of villainous thugs before the action whips back up into normal speed.

2) Range fighting vs close hand to hand combat. Most FPS games that I've seen (and since I'm not a hardcore gamer, I may have missed a few that don't follow this rule) assume that range weapons are prefered, and only when you run out of ammo do you resort to hand-to-hand combat, usually with some wimpy knife or club which does minimal damage. Not so here.

In Enter The Matrix, there are guns, lots of them, and they are useful. But there is also an inherent advantage to close-range fighting. This is partly due to the good solid, assured damage of a punch or kick, while bullets often miss. It's also because if you're surrounded, you can use Matrix-style moves to take out a several at once, whereas gunfire can only aim at a single target at a time.

So anyway, I am quite impressed with this game so far. I haven't played long enough to see much of the story, but the much-publicized word is that the plot intertwines with and compliments that of The Matrix Reloaded. A marketing person's dream? Yes. But also a really cool idea. Much better than just cloning everything that happened in the movie.

More fun for everyone.

As planned, I journied to the theater at 1700, where I found myself near the front of the line for the 1900 show. I picked the right time to come, because minutes after I sat down, a sizable queue formed behind me. I played F-Zero on my gameboy to pass the time.

I was joined by the legendary scottgalvin.com, who arrived ahead of schedule. Always a fun guy to hang out with, we talked about the movies and other random stuff. scottgalvin.com, having heard about the possible job I might get selling newspapers, imparted great words of wisdom regarding the essence of being successful at sales, or something like that.

We were joined by Jaeger and Kiesa shortly before the auditorium doors opened for the eager masses to enter. At one point, Jaeger was sighted sitting several seats away from Kiesa. This prompted rampant speculation in the media questioning whether it might signal clouds of doubt forming in the long term prospects of their highly publicized and as-of-yet seemingly too good to be true relationship. (Ha ha ha. Shouts out go to Zan Lynx!)

Zan Lynx did indeed arrive to join the group. And joy and merriment followed wherever his Zaurus went.

scottgalvin.com left for a while, and returned with less people than initially expected from his contingent.

Surprisingly, the show was not sold out. Though there was a healthy crowd occupying almost all of the stadium section, the nose bleed seats up front were totally vacant. After all this advance buying to make sure we had tickets, there were empty seats! Better safe than sorry though.

Then, we did witness this most spectacular feat of cinematic excellence. And, from the understatement department, it was good.

Afterwards, Zan Lynx, Jaeger, Kiesa, and I walked across the parking lot to Subway, where Zan Lynx and I got sandwiches, and the four of us discussed the movie. We barely touched the surface of possible subject areas, but there was much curious uncertainty regarding the meaning of some of The Architect's words, and what they might imply. I think it would be safe to say that we're all going to be seeing this film again.

(The only shortcoming I could find in the movie: They should have done a bullet time shot for the sex scene. Even though it didn't take place in The Matrix, it would have been cool. Jaeger pointed out that Fight Club has already done that, more or less. But I still say the Wachowski's could have done it better. A certain memorable scene from Bound comes to mind, except it would be Neo and Trinity instead of Corky and Violet, and in bullet time. Actually... I could mention that Neo and Trinity were posed in a very similar configuration, but the camera.... well, maybe someday they will release an NC-17 version of the Matrix trilogy too. Ha ha, yeah right.)

After our discussion, the group split up, I bought gas on the way home, and now I'm sitting here, and it's past tonight's bedtime.

I need to get to work earlier tomorrow, so I'm going to need some sleep. 11:30. Eeek. Funny that that seems early, but I usually don't leave the house until after noon. On the bright side, I'll be getting out earlier in the evening too.

Anyway, sleep calls. I'm already short on it due to last night's DVD reviewing excesses, followed by this morning's job prospects and joy shopping. So before I pass out... Over and out.