The mood of “September Rain” by The Brilliant Green matches up to the shifts in sunny and rainy weather at the moment… “I’m going away, it’s not that I want to. It’s just time to go. I swear that I’ll be back soon before falling leaves. The wind’s blowing change. It’s my turn to follow. I won’t forget you. Yes, I hope you know I never would. No, I never could if I tried…”

Dad came home Friday night after going to the cinema to watch The Pianist (his words: “It was a good film but I’m getting sick of those films about the holocaust that focus on the holocaust“). He didn’t really have much to say about the film and seemed to have more to say about the trailer for The Matrix Reloaded which played before the main feature. He was asking about the first movie (which he hasn’t seen yet) and was quite intrigued to watch it. I was surprised and unsurprised at the same time. Surprised, because my dad doesn’t really go for those sci-fi/action/martial-arts movies even if there is a storyline involved. Unsurprised, because let’s face it: the latest trailer is marvelous! I saw the latest trailer for the film when I went to see X-Men 2 at the start of the week and Chris summed it up best when he said “The trailer for The Matrix Reloaded was possibly even better than the whole of the X-Men 2 film.” Quite a controversial statement to make, but I can empathise even if it’s only a little bit.

I don’t think my dad even saw the latest The Matrix Reloaded trailer either, because he said that the version he saw was the one on the free preview DVD he picked up at the cinema (which we checked out after him handing it to me), which in no way compares to the impulsiveness of the latest one. On a side note the DVD also had a preview of The Animatrix DVD which is a collection of 9 animated shorts done by different maverick directors. Looks pretty amazing and I think I recognised a few of the animation styles on there. They have also included the CGI Matrix short The Final Flight of the Osiris, which looks like it was made by the same production team for the Final Fantasy movie. Definitely have to check that out upon release next month.

So, it seems like my dad would make an exception and go to see the film. He realises that it’s a sci-fi/action/martial-arts movie, but an extravagant one at that. He justifies his curiosity to go see it with “Sometimes you have to go watch films with amazing effects at the cinema.” I was explaining how the film maker created new techniques during the making of each of the films and this seemed to make him salivate for the film more (not literally of course).

My dad has been like this recently; more open-minded to new things and pop-culture in general. The other day I noticed he was watching either MTV or VH-1 while they were having a showcase of pop/rock bands from the 80s. Perhaps it’s his attempts to recapture moments from his youth but whatever it is, I love my new cool dad. It must have started that time a couple of years ago when he decided to get a fish tank and start up his childhood hobby of keeping tropical fish. Ever since that day he’s been more like a big kid, shedding aside that predominantly serious grown man who used to live inside of him.

Dad wanted to watch the first Matrix movie in preparation for the sequel so I set that up. I think he liked bits of the film but he said that it was a silly film, reminiscent of Japanese comic books and anime. True, and I guess most of the jargon, technophile, phreaking and cracker terminology was lost on him; a man who had trouble understanding root and folder hierarchy. I think deep down he did appreciate it for its special effects and pioneering camera techniques, but even I would agree that it’s just a good film storywise. Storywise there’s nothing much to it. It’s good but it’s not great. The 2 things that brings the film up are: 1. The slick choreography, and 2. The Morpheus monologues and one-liners (e.g. “How did I beat you?“). Oh, did I mention the Morpheus monologues and one-liners (e.g. “I’m trying to free your mind, Neo, but I can only show you the door, you’re the one that has to walk through it“)? The first time round I noticed that without a big budget, The Matrix could have just been a cheesy movie with Christopher Lambert playing Neo. If it had a budget of B-movie proportions and hence none of the stylish choreography, it would have just been another straight-to-video cast-off. The film is good, but it lacks something to make it great. It just didn’t flow because it spent a long time laying down the storyline, so by default the sequel has got to be better. The sequel doesn’t need to faff around and explain anything. It could just launch straight into zero-gravity culling and fight scenes with leather-trenchcoat-clad minxes wielding samurai swords. Wow, what a movie it could be if I had it my way.

Got a text from Yogi yesterday evening telling me to turn on my TV and catch a guy on a talk show who we used to know from Uni. He had always had suspicions that the guy was gay but never did ever find out. I wasn’t completely sure but I had a feeling (take the correct context of this) that the guy was gay but that didn’t stop Yogi from harbouring a bit of resentment for him (especially since the guy kept hanging around with Yogi’s love interest all the time, at the time). Well give it long enough and TV finally does give you the answer. It turns out that all this time the guy had really been gay! Yogi called me just as the guy appeared on TV with his boyfriend, discussing bedroom mannerisms and consequently doing a good job of making Yogi break into hysterics. Another mystery solved by the medium that is television.