Twenty Eight Films of Summer

While the summer months should be spent outside enjoying the sun and getting a tan, others like watching movies. Anyhow, here is a brief review and ranking of all of the films I have watched this summer. It’s worth noting that such a variety of films are difficult to compare, so this is a blunt instrument. On a different day, they would’ve been ranked differently. Also, most of the films I watched were of high calibre and I’d have no trouble recommending at least the top 20 of them. If your favourite film isn’t near the top of the list, that’s more to the testament of the other films that anything against yours. There are some early summer films that I didn’t add to the list as I only started it in Mid June/ Early July (Sorry Toy Story 4) and some Summer Films I haven’t yet seen (Sorry OUATIH).

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Review: The Matrix

So guess what was on in the cinema last week…

From the opening green text on a black background, flying through the air to the last moments with a kick-ass song from Florence and the Machine, The Matrix is still very much a lesson in how to do Sci-fi correctly, still holding its own twenty years later. Did I care about the characters lacking depth? No. Did I care about the plot holes? No. Did I care that I would have to watch two allegedly bad sequels to get to the end of the story? Possibly.

Image result for Matrix bullet

For all of the flaws that plague the film and the genre, what the matrix does to make it a cult classic is to get the very basics right in a way that not many can. The world building is fantastic. You see some odd things, start to question them and then get thrown into this mind bending reality, which will leave you pondering it in the days, weeks and months to come. It hits you and lead character Neo head on from the moment he takes the red pill. The idea that you are merely in a simulation has been made iconic by this film. But what this film does is take it further, showing a dystopia where humans generate heat and energy for the artificial intelligence and are nothing more than batteries. If you knew this, would you rather have taken the blue pill and forgotten everything about it? This is the question that Matrix proposes to you. It makes you think. While there are clear morals set out, the decisions we could make are blurred by constant ambiguity.

Take the Red pill and read the rest of the review