The Matrix (1999)

I bunked college with Abhishek & Zaryab, shared a autorickshaw & went to Basant cinema to watch a new release. This was a very rare occasion, since bunking class is a once-in-a-blue-moon scenario for me. I didn't know anything about what the movie was about. I was just hoping it wasn't about matrices & differential calculus; I was just skiving a lecture to avoid that! Ah, it was a such a wonderful time; when I would watch movies without having any prior expectations from them at all. Nowadays, I can watch a trailer or teaser for a flick & cancel it off my list.
We were slightly late for the movie, & when we entered the cinema-hall the first scene I saw on the screen was Trinity running... & then leaping off a building & landing on one across the street. This was certainly not a Maths class!

What is the Matrix? The iconic green digital rain; bringing to life imaginations from cyberpunk and distopian fiction. The Greenish-Yellow lens filter gave it a very eerie effect, something that I had never seen before. & that was not the only first for this movie. There were so many influences for this movie; hardline phone teleportation, virtual reality, Alice in Wonderland, Buddhism, perpertual dreams, hairless rebirth in a gooey pod.
FedEx delivery with a Nokia mobile-phone. I still remember the Morpheus phone-call scene each time I see window-cleaners outside a skyscraper. The scenes are so memorable; Follow the white-rabbit; What good is a phone-call if you are unable to speak; The choice between the pills; Kansas is going byebye; I know KungFu !; there is no spoon!

I liked the seriousness of the movie; & I'm glad for the wonderful casting (Extremely happy that it's not Will Smith or Nicolas Cage playing Neo). & I liked the story being revealed through the eyes of Thomas A Anderson. It allows the viewers to connect better. I find Everything about this movie cool. Everything. the deep meaningful dialogues, the cool sunglasses, the push-button mobilephone, the Red chairs, the way Morpheus cross his arms behind his back, the structural designs adopted by the sentient machines, the Nebuchadnezzar (there's tonnes of biblical & religious references for hardcore fans) & its assorted crew. The Wachowski brothers made sure that people who really wanted to enjoy this movie would watch it repeatedly & hang onto each of it dialogues. I did. Multiple viewings later I'm still enjoying every single bit. The movie takes sci-fi to a different level; & provides tonnes of fodder for intellectually stimulating conversations. This was the first time when a director's imagination made me question the laws of physics and the self-induced handicap where humans limit ourselves to five senses. Bullet-time! fully-destructable-environments! there really is no spoon...

Alternate Ending: I have several grievances against the sequels; that's a different story. But only thing I didn't like in The Matrix is how little credit is given to Agent Brown and Agent Jones. That's a real pity.

First viewed: With friends at a cinema in Mumbai.

Die Hard (1988)

Take Roderick Thorp's novel about a single man's defiant stand in a hostage situation.
John McLane, a NY cop, out to visit his estranged wife & kids in LA, gets invited to her office Xmas party at Nakatomi Plaza. Trivia: Fox Towers (offices of the production company) was used as Nakatomi Plaza. & there are Xmas jingles playing at all the the right moments to remind us of the holiday setting.

Cue the entry for german-speaking bad-guys... Big courier truck filled with armed criminals (alongwith a computer-systems genius) party-crash to steal bearer bonds worth 640 million.

Walter Bruce Willis fresh from the success of witty Moonlighting TV series, fits into character perfectly. The witty one-liners, easy-to-understand plot, plenty of gun-fire'n'exploxions & a really die-hard hero to root for. That makes me rank Die Hard very high on my list. "Call me Roy", John McLane's manly sense of humour makes multiple viewings enjoyable each time. Personally, I'm terrified of crawling inside air-duct shafts. My heart palpitates each time I view those scenes. John's sole friend on the outside, Sergeant Al Powell, an LAPD officer provides the much needed appreciative moral support in desperate times.

The other deterent characters are just as important; the callous news-reporter, the oversmart office-colleague, the Deputy Chief of Police, Johnsons the FBI agents; all played vital memorable parts. I haven't read the book, but I have to commend director's John McTiernan ability to keep the thrills coming.

Fav scenes: Argyle's analysis of McLane's relationship; John talking to himself; all of John's interaction with Al; terrorist stealing a Nestle Crunch chocolate; the bazooka attack on the LAPD RV & the c4 explosion in the elevator shaft; Hans' demands; John & Hans' interaction; the music playing when the vault opens; the fist-fight with Karl; the roof explosion; Hans' face when he falls; song in the end.

Alternate Ending: No changes at all. It's the ideal guy-movie. Only things that didn't add up was the amount of ammunition John had; & how did Karl survive the choking & explosion? I have several grievances against all the sequels; that's a different story.

First viewed: Alone on TV at home in Mumbai.