February 5, 2003

The Year of The Matrix has begun…

Tuesday night, Warner Bros. dumped a load of money into the most unusual of premieres… for a short and a video game.  But they weren’t just any old short or video game (“Pluto Nash: Road To Bankruptcy,” coming to a Sega Genesis near you), these were pieces of the Matrix puzzle.  And, as Joel Silver’s front-n-center role in the evening would suggest, they are serious about the additional pieces of the Matrix pie.

Seems to be that there is a clear game plan for the film.  Just as Lord of the Rings has pushed past the standard of Harry Potter each of the last two years on this level, it’s already clear that Silver and the WB team plan on pushing right past Lord of the Rings. 

While LOTR has had video launches and extended video launches, the focus of the enterprise has been the three films.  But The Amimatrix, a series of nine animated films highlighting various parts of the Matrix universe not featured in the films, launched its first film online yesterday.  One of the films, The Final Flight of the Osiris, will premiere as an opening short attached to Larry Kasden’s Dreamcatcher in March. (That’s the film we saw tonight.)

The first of the series, The Second Renaissance, Pt. 1 (http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/index_anime.html) launched just yesterday.  The film covers the early creation of thinking machines to the first machine murder of a human to the Million Machine March until just before The Matrix.

Meanwhile, they have teamed up with Atari to make a Matrix videogame that pushes the envelope in the gamers‘ realm.   The game should premiere in a few months, though we were able to play the game at the premiere party this evening. 

All this leads to the release of The Matrix: Reloaded in May.  I can’t wait to see what they come up with for the long months between Reloaded and the November release of The Matrix: Revolutions.

The Final Flight of the Osiris is simply the most advanced CG film, in terms of bringing humans to life, I have ever seen.  It really makes you consider the possibilities of the form in future.  The story is a slice of Matrix history, as the Osiris fights to distract The Matrix from finding Zion, one member of the crew goes into The Matrix to deliver a package.  The film opens with a sword battle inside the ship’s construct, between two characters that manage to fight and flirt aggressively at the same time.  This is good old R-rated flirting.  As the characters are slowly stripped of clothing, the advances in CG become clearer - there is more natural skin, more complex muscle structure and many surprising subtleties. 

The videogame is also groundbreaking, using lots of original footage created by the actors in the movies and building in all kinds of new ideas into the game.  Of course, in the end, it’s a game and you start with the choice of a driving game, a flying game or one of two running/shooting/fighting games.  By design, the game is easy enough for a game ignoramus like myself to have a good time kicking butt.  But I realized that there was style and strategy that I wasn’t even touching. 

The event was well supported by both cast and crew.  One of the surprising elements was the aggressive laughter of Laurence Fishburne.  As he worked his way down the press line, one would hear this massive cackle every few minutes.  And then, when looking on line this evening, I found this in Page Six:  “Laurence Fishburne with his wife at "Frankie and Johnny," drawing attention to himself with his unusually loud laugh.”  And so the question - is Fishburne making a concerted effort to seem more jovial, laughing heartily whenever given the chance or has he changed one element of his style or is he just a happier, more open man than he was before?  I don’t know the answer – nor did I ask – but it bares some thought.

But back to my point… The Matrix series is already breaking filmmaking and distribution ground. But will its improvements on the formula for making multiple movies at once, and looking at the marketing as an opportunity to innovate change, the way all movies are marketed?  Is the era of selling a movie and nothing else at an end?  I cannot tell you.  You will have to see for yourself.

READER OF THE DAY:  KNEELING IN PARADISE writes:  “For the love of God, you have to comment on this one.  Does Scorsese deserve the directing Oscar this year?  Maybe not.  I myself don't think anyone far and away deserves it over him, but that's not the point.

You KNOW Goldman has written fewer great screenplays than the number of great Scorsese films.  You KNOW Goldman is one of the primo hacks in Hollywood who has worked on so many worthless films, he has NO RIGHT to be pointing fingers at anyone.  For all of Gangs' flaws, it was made with passion.   At it contained more great stuff than anything in all of Goldman's scripts put together.  Does he actually think HE is still relevant?  For his Libby Gelman-Waxner columns in Premiere?  For adapting Stephen King novels?

(EDITOR’S NOTE:  Screenwriter Paul Rudnick is Libby Gelman-Waxner, not Goldman. Goldman did write a column for Premiere, but under his own name.)

I ask you, how many of the Oscars are deserved any year?  Like, I don't know, the year Goldman won for Butch Cassidy?  How many times do people get awarded for past omissions (think Denzel just last year)?  I'm not saying give Scorsese a pity Oscar, but don't you think he did a better job on Gangs than Paul Newman did in The Color of Money?  Or Russell Crowe in Gladiator?

With all the fucked up things the Academy does every year, it infuriates me that Goldman would single this out BEFORE IT EVEN HAPPENS!  Criticize the decision afterwards if that's how he feels.  But who the hell is he to try and persuade the voters on this?  It's so wrong!  Is this the future of the Oscar season, where we have critics and washed-up veterans on the sidelines seeing who can scream the loudest and have the biggest influence?  Why not take out an ad?  "FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:  Please do NOT vote for Martin Scorsese, because as great as he is, he doesn't deserve it"

Maybe Goldman is writing a screenplay for Rob Marshall's next project.   But it couldn't be something as sad as that, huh?

What do you think?”

E ME:  I’m writing about this tomorrow.  But what do YOU think?