It was sweet of him to ask. For the record I did call people, but really, I've no compunctions about going to a movie alone.
This is the premier weekend for 2Fast 2Furious and Channel Seven said that since the movie had been shot mainly in South Florida, the cars used in the film had primarily local owners who were putting them on display outside the Muvico theater right down the street from me. Occasionally, my latent car fetishist surfaces, and I went to check them out before seeing The Matrix Reloaded again. Not exactly keeping with a theme, but I haven't seen The Fast and the Furious. Not that there would've been some grand plotline involved that I wouldn't understand, but still.
Anyhow, so Reloaded. The whole Neo-Smith dynamic is spine-tinglingly compelling, mostly thanks to the delicious Hugo Weaving. The way he contacts Neo at the beginning of the film. Watching him fight the other Agents. Getting god only knows how into the back door hallway. Can't wait for the big showdown in Revolutions, though how that'll happen I can't guess. Smith has no body, nothing corporeal to inhabit outside the Matrix, which has been effectively destroyed, no?
On a shallower note, watching Smith flirt with himself doesn't seem to lose any of its appeal even after repeated viewings. "My pleasure," indeed. And that voice:
"I think I wanted to crate a character that was human but not really, and I didn't want him to be robotic. I wanted him to sound a little like a newsreader would sound, a human being speaking but in a slightly strange way, not very conversational - just a quite purposeful and significant way of speaking."
-Hugo Weaving, Cinefantastique June/July 2003
Well, it works. I could listen to him say "Mr. Anderson" all day long.
Hm. According to a Maxim interview, Neil and Adrian were told by the Wachowskis that the Twins are actually "deleted programs that will wander the Matrix forever. Basically, we're able to use and abuse the Matrix to our own ends." (Neil) Hm. Well, this wouldn't make them typical deleted programs that seek exile as anomalies, would it? They don't seem to be hiding out, though there's probably no better place to be than under the protection of the Merovingian. And this ability to manipulate code? Totally called it. Rather atypical as well, of most any program, I'd venture.
However this will also, I fear, limit the possibilities within the canon I want to create. Shall see how judiciously I will manipulate these developments as they conflict. *g*
