Forgotten Enjoyment....

I've had a nice, long movie weekend. My sister and her family went to California on a family vacation, leaving me alone in the house.

Which means, I had the nice, big HDTV all to myself.

Oh yes, it was movie time.

Before I started watching movies here, however, I went to the dollar theater. Wall E has finally made it to the ultra cheap theater in Provo, so I HAD to go again. Love that movie. Amazing!

Since then, I have watched The Incredibles and the Matrix trilogy. I'm going to try to watch Sky High and maybe Equilibrium tomorrow before the family gets back. It has been a lot of fun, and has made me want to buy my own kind of large HDTV.

You know, when I get a job and have money again. So, next never.

Anyway, as I watched the original Matrix movie, I remembered just how much I really enjoy that movie. It has great action sequences, and it really makes you think, as well. Popular sentiment about the Matrix has radically shifted in the almost ten years since it came out. When it was released on the big screen, then on DVD, everyone was excited about it. If you hadn't seen it yet, you were seriously missing out on a wonderful experience. The current popular idea is that it is very uncool to let it be known that you actually like the Matrix.

I believe that part of the reason for this change is the influence that the Matrix has had on films released since then. It popularized the use of wire-work in US films. Wire-fu had been in use in Oriental films long before the Matrix came out, but it is now common-place to see actors flying across the screen, performing stunts no man can perform unassisted.

The Computer Generated Image special effects that were so advanced and innovative are now comparatively primitive, although I think they still hold up.

The follow-up films in the trilogy certainly lack the intelligence and heart of the first film. It kind of got away from them. I watched them this weekend, just to make sure I was remembering my response correctly. There are parts of the the follow-ups that I am impressed by, but overall, I think I prefer to believe that the story ended at the end of the first movie.

Maybe I am biased towards the first movie. It has themes and ideas that I relate to rather well. I distinctly remember wondering if life was a dream from which I would awake. If memory serves, I think I was about 10 when I started thinking about it.

It's a movie well worth watching if you never have. And if you have, it's well worth watching again. No matter what your friends think of you.