FriendGuy255

So, I have this friend. Known him eleven, maybe twelve years. He’s the kind of guy who has strong opinions about everything, especially media, and one of the things he’s most passionate about is Lost. He loves it, effusively, and while it’s not his absolute favorite TV series, according to him “no series has ever touched the highs of it in my lifetime.” He also nitpicks it constantly. To the point where I wonder if he even likes it at all. Obviously, having been on the internet, I knew the usual complaints. It’s needlessly confusing. They made it up as they went along. It’s not as smart as it thinks it is. There’s no answers to any of the questions it raises. No pay off. Mystery Box? More li

The movie is a highly fictionalized telling of the life of William Shakespeare and his wife, Anne (named Agnes in the film). Specifically it's about the tragic death of their son, Hamnet, and the fallout of that death on the family. There's strong historical speculation that this event was the inspiration for Shakespeare's play "Hamlet," and the film (and the book it's based on) leans heavily on that assertion.

Besides the obvious parallel of parents losing a son, the film deals with very similar themes in that both Will and Agnes spiral into seemingly self-destructive pits of grief, one struggling desperately to hold their family together and make things work "in the real world," while the

Renoir is an fascinating character. The reams of discussion about him are evidence enough of that, to the point where a lot of people probably find it all a bit exhausting. However, I want to highlight a moment during the final battle that I don't think gets talked about enough beyond it's surface.

Whenever the topic of Renoir being "right" or not comes up, there's a quote that often lies at the heart of arguments in his favor.

"We must accept things as they ARE, not how we want them to be."

On the face of it that's a perfectly reasonable thing to say. Even admirable. The clear implication in him saying this, though, is that he (and later Verso, who repeats the line) believes that the way

Yeah, what the title says. We've all gotten the usual questions, the gawking, etc. I'm talking something really out there, something that caught you off guard.

One time I was at a meeting for a local writing group I'm a part of and we where welcoming new people who wanted to join. I was sitting down the whole time, and when the subject of my height came up and I mentioned how tall I was, one of the new guys growled. Like, full on, throaty, feral growl. We all paused and looked at him, and when he realized he'd put himself on the spot he kind of withdrew into himself and mumbled "sorry, I have a issue with tall people." Dude was real short and stocky and had a kind of nebbish, high pitched,

About ten years ago I worked at a movie theater, and on days when I was posted to take people's tickets I'd get bored pretty quickly just standing around and needed to find ways to entertain myself. Since this was the job that brought people closest to me, it's also when I would most often get asked what my height was.

Here's the game: every time someone asks your height, add one inch. For example, if your height is 6' 8" like mine is, you say 6' 9", then when the next person asks, you say 6' 10" and so on and so forth. Keep going until somebody overtly calls you on your bullshit. I don't mean someone saying "wow, really?" or "are you sure? My cousin is so-and-so and you look like you're th

Who exactly is the Merovingian and why does he hate the Oracle? What were the first and second versions of the Matrix like? What were the other "ones" like? Were they like Neo, or different? What made the Oracle want to end the cycle? What happened to some of the other side characters between Revolutions and Resurrections? What did the Analyst's purge look like? Are there other pockets of human activity besides Zion somewhere in the world? What is the exact nature of the Source?

The franchise is full of these spaces for the audience to fill in with their own interpretations. Some of them have answers that are alluded to or suggested in supplementary material of questionable canon, some are

Sticky, stagnant afternoons of August

give way to breezes from the bay

lightly salted, mingled with Potomac brine.

From the porch, across the road

above the din of muscle cars

and golf carts pumping disco tunes

the high tide crashes on boulder bulwarks

splashing millipedes, who dart between

the cracks and Adirondack wrecks.

Grammy slouches near me, hunched,

feet sloped and swollen in their slippers

finding purchase on familiar floorboards

beneath the groaning timbers

of an alabaster rocking chair.

Tremors betray her pensive stillness

where she stews in fading, fickle recollections,

eased only by these balmy latter-days shared

with seldom-gathered family.

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I've been a big fan of the series for ages, but with the fandom being dead as door nails finding anyone to talk with about the franchise (especially anything other than the first film) was a rare thing until last year. I didn't watch the trilogy until a few years after Revolutions came out, so I missed pretty much all the debates, discussion, and theory-crafting that defined online Matrix fandom. With how alive places like this sub were in the months before and the month after Resurrections came out I felt like I got to experience a bit of that heyday I missed. Now the movie has pretty much evaporated from the public consciousness and it's back to the way things were.

It was good while it l

A moment that really struck me while watching Resurrections was during the Analyst speech where he's talking about the new ways he's generating power by letting Neo and Trinity (and blue pills in general) get close but not close enough to actually "touch." There's the literal version of this with the Analyst keeping Neo and Trinity a few feet apart in the real world, but also the metaphorical one of having Neo and Trinity be allowed to interact in the Matrix, even have them get introduced by their handler programs, but never be allowed to truly connect because of the demands and circumstances of their lives. The agony and uncertainty this generates (being able to see what you "need" but not

I'm talking brief moments that maybe wouldn't register as much against the whole of the film, but maybe made you happy or excited or laugh.

For me:

• When Bugs is introducing Neo to the crew and the Synthiants and Neo nerds out for a moment over the Morpheus bot cloud thing and for a moment seems genuinely excited and happy.

• Seq nerding out over biosky.

• The nonchalant way Shepherd says "cool" when Neo confirms he was once able to fly.

• Trinity doing the scorpion kick again.

• Anything with Bug from Sense8 as the barista.

• Neo trying to do kung-fu in his apartment during the White Rabbit montage and failing.

• The crew briefly arguing over how tiny their escape mirror on the tra