the matrix Tagged Articles at Cinematical

We often tie our Tuesday Cinematical Seven picks with DVD releases, and this time, I was torn. On the one side, there was the out-to-lunch Hollywood science that allowed there to be identical cousins in The Patty Duke Show. But aside from the wonder of creating a girl with a crappy computer, a barbie, and some David Lee Roth personality, there wasn't much I felt could battle with cousins who look exactly alike. But then there's also the DVD release of the first two seasons of Felicia Day's famous web series, The Guild. Sold -- The Best Big-Screen Geek Girls.

Elisabeth's Geek Beat recently discussed what it means to be geek, and for the purposes of this list: It's on-screen characters who have smarts and delight in things that usual characters don't. They might love learnin', comics, computers, geek flicks, or even following around freaky people and collecting warped memorabilia. They're a little bit different, all sorts of kickass, and all sorts of worthy for the Best Big Screen Geek Girls. Check out the rundown after the jump and weigh in with your own picks!

Time hasn't necessarily been kind to the Wachowski Brothers sci-fi trilogy, The Matrix. Granted, most of the blame can be placed at the doorstep of the Wachowskis themselves, thanks to some rocky sequels, although, I know I'm in the minority when I say that I kind of liked the final installment, Revolutions. But that probably had more to do with a soft spot for William Gibson styled techno-babble than anything else. But for today's Scenes We Love, let's all think back to the the spring of 1999, when the world was new, and you didn't have a clue what the Matrix was.

Now, whether this comes down to my extraordinary powers of observation or I've just seen too many movies, I can usually spot a plot turn coming a mile off. But in a million years, I couldn't have guessed that when Keanu swallowed that red pill he was about to wake up in a pile of goo as a human battery in an A.I. ravaged world...so suffice to say, I never saw it coming. The movie might be full of philosophical gobbledygook and borrow from every anime and comic book you can think of, but I never cared, because The Matrix (whatever it's faults) wasn't just a tired rip-off, the Wachowskis distilled all that pop culture into a movie like no other.

The Wachowskis did the unthinkable (or at least the unthinkable to our spoiler-happy culture), they managed to keep a secret. The trailers let you see teases of all the kung fu, slo-mo bullets, and latex that was to come (we even got a trademark Reevesian 'whoah'), but all the shocks and surprises were kept until you were in that darkened theater and Morpheus (as played by Laurence Fishburne doing equal parts Yoda and Shaft) takes you down the rabbit hole...whoah, indeed.

After the jump; the red pill or the blue pill...

Earlier this week, fellow Cinematical scribe Scott Weinberg pointed me to a cool little video that I watched twice and then forgot. He reminded me again and the pattern was repeated -- or so I thought. Because that weird little piece of wild visual magic keeps popping up in my mind. I can't let it go. You can allow it to infect your brain by watching Carousel at Stink Digital (or down below). That's the same company that helped create the commercials in which 8 Mile and Die Hard were reimagined as 50s French classics.

So, going in, you know that Carousel is an advertisement, in this case for a technology product I can't possibly afford right now (a new model of television), though, again, it's not a hard sell. Of course, some of the most creative and jaw-dropping works are made as part of advertising campaigns. Just think back to Ridley Scott's startling 1984 ad for the Apple Macintosh: I don't remember anything about the Super Bowl game that surrounded the ad, but I definitely remember that woman tossing her hammer at Big Brother.

Directed by Adam Berg, Carousel inevitably brings to mind the amazing Bullet Time scenes in The Matrix, as applied to the opening title sequence of Watchmen, with a tip of the hat to The Dark Knight. The viewer is invited to take a "frozen moment" tour of a crime scene filled with guns, broken glass, and general carnage. I found it haunting and strangely beautiful.


Philips : Carousel from Sawacs on Vimeo.

(Thanks to @wlmager.)

We don't post many commercials on Cinematical unless there's a clear film connection, but this one is pretty damn cool and monumental in terms of effects work. It was created by Toshiba, it's being billed as the world's first "timesculpture" advertisement and it shows an evolution of the "bullet time" technique made famous by The Matrix. Here are a few other fun facts, courtesy of red6hosting:

• The TV ad was shot using 200 Toshiba Gigashot Cameras: the highest number of moving image cameras ever used in a film sequence
• This particular technique, viewing looping action in 360 degrees, has never been done before
• The time spent processing footage from 200 cameras was over four weeks - 24 hours a day seven days a week!
• In terms of data, this is one of the biggest jobs a post-production house has ever taken on - 20TB of data
• New offline and online editing software had to be specifically built for the job
• Soundtrack is provided by Crystal Castles
• Integrated campaign to promote Toshiba's new range of upscaling products – TV, DVD and laptops - that convert standard definition TV and DVD images to near high-definition quality

You can check out a video on the making of this advert after the jump. Whaddya think? Pretty cool stuff, huh?

[via Karsten]

Somehow I missed this on Thursday, but apparently so did everyone else, since I didn't see it linked anywhere. Roger Ebert was hanging out at a post-production studio in Chicago, watching the restored new print of The Godfather, when he was unexpectedly joined by Larry and Andy Wachowski, the famously inaccessible duo behind The Matrix, Speed Racer, and (people forget) Bound. Afterward, he got a chance to chat with them -- not in a conventional interview setting, complete with a hovering publicist (the brothers don't do that, remember?), but over a beer.

Ebert was impressed with the "zillionaires": "Nice people. Friendly. No Hollywood attitude." He writes that "[t]he blogosphere paints them as mysterious recluses, which may add to the legend but doesn't match the reality." But their being nice and friendly doesn't make them any less mysterious and reclusive: I'd wager that Ebert only ran the piece because of their reputation for not giving interviews or talking to anyone in the press.

Anyway, it's really interesting to "hear" them speak, though they mostly talk about the difficulties of keeping a moving 35 mm shot in focus and the brilliance of Coppola's Godfather shot selection. It's funny how keeping silent for a while will make such brief, mundane snippets into objects of arcane fascination. (Though since I think the Wachowskis are pretty formidable visual artists themselves, I find their perspective on that sort of thing interesting in its own right.)

No photo, of course; all you get is that old shot of the two admiring a Matrix comic book.

As far as hustling movie producer archetypes go, I tend to prefer Joel Silver over Harvey Weinstein. Sure, Weinstein played a role in some of the great American independent films from the last decade of the twentieth century, but Silver's production credits have more spice to them -- The Matrix, Predator, 48 Hrs. -- hinting at the zany force behind their existence. The movies he has produced don't always please everyone (consider those last two Matrix movies), and sometimes his productions run into unforeseeable setbacks (Joss Whedon's troublesome Wonder Woman script). But now, Silver's trying a radical maneuver that reaffirms his maverick abilities: He's shopping around Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla, which tells the story of a drama surrounding a stolen painting and stars Gerard Butler, to other studios despite the plan to release it through Warner Bros. in October.

According to Patrick Goldstein in The Los Angeles Times, Silver said he showed the movie to Lionsgate and Sony Pictures to get some advice on how to market the film. However, when Goldstein asked Warner Bros.' top executive Alan Horn about the situation, Horn called the movie "very English," not "broadly commercial," and said the studio "might not be willing to spend the marketing money he wants us to." So it follows that Silver probably wants to sell the movie to somebody else.

This kind of thing has happened before. Jonathan Levine's teen horror flick All the Boys Love Mandy Lane was set for a release through The Weinstein Company, but when it was determined that the distributor might not provide the best home for the film, it went to the more agreeable Senator Films (although Senator has yet to release it). What troubles me is Horn's assertion that RocknRolla is "very English." Yeah ... so?

As usual, I'm not going to pretend to understand the technologies behind modern home entertainment. And so, before I begin, I'd like to prematurely thank any commenters who choose to weigh in on things such as "selectable output control," "the analog hole" or any other terms I might misuse or incorrectly explain. The only thing I comprehend about those electronic doohickeys in my living room is that they each somehow connect to my antiquated analog television and through the magic of, well, I don't know, I'm able to watch the occasional classic movie and mindless cake design program.

Those familiar with this column should know that I'm not here to necessarily explain how threats to movie theaters work. I'm just here to yell, "the sky is falling!" from within the lobby of the local cinema and hope that you Henny Pennys and Goosey Looseys are listening to my rants and ramblings and at least try to go to the movies more often (and hopefully buy at least one thing at the concession stand). This time, however, I feel even less knowledgeable about the latest threat, and I feel even more fearful that this is the beginning of the end. The cinemapocalypse, if you will.

Remember serials? I don't, because I'm too young, and by the time I began going to the movies, it was already the practice for cinemas to stick to single, self-contained, feature-length fare. With the way screenings are arranged today, scheduled so that both theater owners and studios can get as much money from as many showings as possible, there's just no room for any accompanying shorts, especially the kind that don't end in a conclusive manner.

I'd probably be okay with being left out of that experience from the moviegoing past, but each time another Indiana Jones movie is released, I can't help but think I'm at least a little less appreciative of George Lucas' intent than some of the older folk in the audience. When Lucas thought up the original Raiders of the Lost Ark, he partly meant the film as homage to the serials he remembered from his childhood.

Yet Raiders didn't end with a cliffhanger, as most serials had on a weekly basis. And with the third sequel to that film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, arriving in theaters this week, I still wonder why at least two installments couldn't have been connected with the serializing device. Lucas had already somewhat shown us, through the uncertain ending of The Empire Stikes Back and continuation/resolution beginning of Return of the Jedi, that it could be done.

It's funny because I always thought that Collin Chou's (The Forbidden Kingdom) role as Seraph in The Matrix sequels was a teeny bit of a waste. I mean, he really didn't get to do all that much. But it looks like the Wachowski's are correcting that mistake and finally giving Chou a starring role. Sci Fi Wire recently spoke with Chou and confirmed that he will star in the Wachowski's new action flick, Ninja Assassin. So far the only other casting announcement for the film was the addition of the Korean pop star, Rain. James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) is expected to direct with the Wachowski's on board as producers.

Chou didn't have much information about the story or his role -- as most of the details about the film are being kept under lock and key. But he did tell Wire, "...this is a part that is built around me, they have wanted to have me in a larger part, and I was waiting and waiting for a long time for it to happen. I am one of four of the main characters in this movie. It is a great honor to be on board."

There had been some rumblings that Assassins was, in actuality, a live action remake of the classic anime Ninja Scroll. Judging from Chou's comments about the title of the film, "I don't know if that's [Ninja Assassin] the final name yet," there is a still a slim possibility that the rumors could be true. Assassin is expected to begin production this April or May, so hopefully by then we will have some clues as to what the movie will be about. At this point I would settle for an official title. Ninja Assassin is expected to arrive in theaters in 2009.

At some point before The Dark Knight hits theaters, an animated direct-to-DVD anthology film of six animated short films called Batman: Gotham Knight will hit shelves, with stories that will serve as a bridge between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight -- sort of like what The Animatrix did for The Matrix trilogy. A brand new behind-the-scenes featurette just hit the internets (which you can see above) featuring director Bruce Timm, as well as some of the DVD's writers and producers.

According to Wikipedia, "... the film's six segments are written by Josh Olson, David Goyer, Brian Azzarello, Greg Rucka, Jordan Goldberg, and Alan Burnett. Each segment has its own writing and artistic style, just as numerous artists work in the same DC Universe. Deadshot, Killer Croc, the Scarecrow and Man-Bat have all been confirmed to appear in the film." The animation looks ridiculous, and I gather this will be one DVD we'll have to pick up. Check out the featurette up top; it's a little long, but it's pretty cool to watch.

[via Slashfilm]