Things I've watched over the past weeks. I am incredibly "behind" on the new things because by and large I prefer to let the test of time dictate what I watch, because hype is so often unwarranted.
A compelling movie with a fascinating cinematography—gosh the yellows and the greens—but not so compelling that I would ever rewatch it in its entirety. Many good scenes of course, and great acting from our two main characters, which is why people praise this so highly, but Fletcher is such a toxic person that I would not want to spend two entire hours with this guy ever again.
There is a sort of implicit quantified and linear view of music with this movie which can make it feel a bit absurd at times. The question that one of Neiman's cousins asks, "isn't [music] subjective?" and thus how would a competition even be anything than the opinion of the judges, is brushed as a stupid one, and yet ... he kind of has a point. Not that music is entirely subjective of course. There is the technical prowess, accuracy and speed required to play well, the latter one being emphasized in the movie, probably because it is the most visible of the traits, and they're all necessary for good music. But by themselves they can be completely empty. I don't have an ear for jazz to really have a sophisticated opinion, but you could easily imagine a Neiman-like obsessive player who plays without any soul whatsoever. Someone with no sensitivity to musical finesse, and who mechanically plays the notes as if he were a machine instructed to do so.
Which is not that far from his chracter. Throughout the movie, Neiman cares about one and one thing only, which is Fletcher's approval. Even in the last scene, the audience is hardly given any attention, except when we see a short shot of the father sitting in it. So besides those two characters, there is essentially no one in Neiman's life, 1 and I guess that is the point: how far we will go just to impress a few people around him.
Nothing wrong with wanting to impress people though, especially if they themselves are impressive people. We all need role models, and our desire to impress is not necessarily a bad one. But as with everything in life, there is a difference between a sincere action born from one's conscious being, and a neurotic, restless need to fill a hole in ourselves.
Neiman does not become a better person through his craft, which is a good tell that his story won't end well. He treats everyone around him like a prop in the way for greatness, a very American (or at least how American movies portray Americans) way of looking at life.
In contrast, there is an Indian movie called The Disciple) where someone also sacrifices it all for their craft, but isn't very good at it, or at the very least doesn't find any outward success. I haven't seen the movie so I can't attest to even its plot, let alone its quality, but the general direction sounds far more realistic actually. If 'Whiplash' is about a dichotomy between a gentle, normal life of love, and the ruthless pursuit of mastery and greatness, then 'Anti-Whiplash', 2 embodied by 'The Disciple', would be about how pursuing greatness at all costs is unlikely to pay off, especially if you are pursuing greatness within a niche.
Not that there is anything inherently wrong with failure either. Or leading a short life, in the case of Charlie Parker who is frequently referred to in the movie. I think one notable aspect of maturity is preferring to fail on your own terms and pursuing your own path, rather than compromising and succeeding on someone else's terms.
All in all, life is about responsibility, consciously deciding what to do with your time, and then acceptance of whatever you cannot control. The problem I have with Whiplash is that it is a very narrow and destructive version of agency, alluded to the fact that Charie Parker died so young because of heroine addiction. Which is kind of the point of course, Fletcher is a sort of antagonist and also a mentor.
But the thing is that it is essentially impossible to follow a main character and not want to root for him, which is why there is an implicit toxicity you absorb from the movie, the sense that it is okay to be cruel to other people (for no good reason on top of that), or that sacrificing your entire life for one and one pursuit alone is worth it—even though the same sacrifices also end up compromising your very life, which then gets in the way of your art.
At the end of the day we make our choices and have to accept the consequences, but the first question to ask oneself is to examine to what extent one makes choices, or has choices made for them. Neiman is kind of a slave at the end of the story, albeit one who is great at drumming, but I wouldn't want this type of life.
A classic movie which I only watched recently, though the scenes are so iconic that I could basically assemble the plot in my head.
As far as I know, this is the first notable example of a big hit in modern media which deals with the idea of a false reality from which our main characters escape, an idea that we find in Neoplatonism. This is why the main character's name is Neo, and why he is called 'The One'. There are other references to adjacent belief systems, such as the names of 'Trinity' and 'Morpheus', which I don't think appear in Neoplatonism, but nonetheless the symbolism remains there of course.
Picking apart the details of a classic, especially its plot, is an affront I will not commit. As Voltaire said, "It is the privilege of true genius, and especially genius who opens up a new path, to make great mistakes with impunity".
The idea of machines which end up controlling mankind, of being stuck in a simulated reality, the aesthetics of the pods that grow humans, the insect-like machines, the viruses, and all of those cables that plug into our body, 3 all of those are easy to take for granted because they have become clichés, precisely because they are done so well here. Likewise with the action scenes, so ahead of their time, many of which have been parodied to death, move for move.
As far as I can tell, movies that blended this type of interesting introspection about reality and our own lives, as well as the action scenes of the second half, basically didn't exist. The Matrix was so unique for combining both the high-brow and the low-brow in a way that felt very cohesive, and we sort of take it for granted for now. Imagine in contrast if you added biblical themes in Fast and Furious to make the spectators question what exactly is the nature of family and whether it is healthy or not. It wouldn't exactly work would it.
I haven't watched the other movies and do not plan to. I watched the scene with the Architect in the second movie to get a sense of where the story was headed, and I was met with essentially 7 minutes of exposition with a character that presents itself as 'intelligent' for using unnecessarily verbose words for describing simple things. Okay so the One is essentially a bug in the code of the matrix, a manifestation of the impossibility of completely subjugating human beings, of removing their free will and love for another, which is why the rebellion is a controlled opposition and why they have to be destroyed frequently by the machines. Was that really as complicated as the Architect make it out to be?
The plot of the next movies is somewhat interesting to read about, but what made the Matrix great wasn't so much the plot, the various details that create the intricacy of what's happening, rather it was the sheer disorientation of the movie through its changes in aesthetics, and the sense of discovery: of what this simulated reality was about, who Trinity and Morpheus were and what their motivation was, whether Neo really was the One or not, and what motivated Cipher to do what he did.
Glancing at the summary of the other movies, it feels like they are geared up towards complication rather than this natural sense of discovery, which is why they keep adding more and more characters. Of course this is just speculation on my end, but I say all of this because it's very common for sequels. They take isolated aspects of what made the previous ones good, and amplify them as much as possible. Hence, more action scenes, more "plot twists", more screaming and crying, but less of any real, conscious quality, like a porn actress who emotes more and more but feels less and less.
There's also the fact that focusing on the struggle between humans and machines kind of takes away from the Neoplatonic theme of self-liberation. Instead of a journey about seeing through delusions, leading to a self-overcoming that allows you to let go of your false self, the movies seem to devolve into a contrived and generic power struggle between the goodies and the baddies. Again, more speculation on my end, because I do not find the direction of the next movies to be very appealing.
Simpler is better, and I think the best decision would have been to end the franchise after the first movie. Not that nothing else could be said after, but because nothing meaningful could be built on top of what was delivered. But that's not how Hollywod works of course, they always have to milk everything to death until nothing remains, because they are driven by profits. Hence, intriguing movies because the writing and acting start fresh, and then recycled and uninspired sequels.
Very crass at times, but also funny with some surprising message amidst all the gross humor. I wouldn't look for depth in this TV show however, but if you come at it with an open mind, there are moments in this absurd series that beam with surprising quality, but mostly it's cheap black comedy with cheap visuals, a way for the writers to have fun. And to be fair, the dialogues are fun and quite good.
We follow Xavier, an incredibly strange looking humanoid with a snake for one of his arms, a bird beak for his nose, legs that bend backwards, and as we find out, an eye in place of his penis. Supposedly what the latter detail means is that his third eye, what symbolizes insight and access to a higher consciousness, is down there, meaning he is ruled by his lower impulses rather than anything higher.
What we get from all of this is that he is, externally and internally, a mess. Even his snake-arm doesn't obey him and at times harms others. He draws from a wide variety of spiritual traditions but doesn't apply any of them well. This is a clear satyre on people who think of themselves as "eclectic" but really are just shallow dilettants, something we see even in the symbol of the show which is just an amalgam of many other symbols, without any harmony to bring the parts together, just like his own appearance.
Xavier wants to present himself as spiritually enlightened, a great mind in the quest of synthesizing from the great traditions, and one who could heal people from their ills, but in fact his pursuit of "spirituality" has only made his life, and those of the people around him, worse.
Xavier is not incompetent, he is worse than that, he is more like a mad, stupid God, with a misguided sense of morals. His abilities allow him to do things that no regular person can, but in essentially all situations he makes things worse for the people he tries to "help", without ever being confronted with the consequences.
This is why we can say that the show is cheap, because if this went on for too long it would clearly become infuriating. But this is helped by two things. First of all, the episodes are short, clocking in at around 10 minutes, and there are only 20 of them in total, which means it doesn't overstay its welcome. And second, while those instances are rare, there are moments where Xavier genuinely does the right thing. When, in the penultimate episode of the first season, he considers two paths in front of him, the one of the mind, which he foresees as leading to madness, and the other path of the heart, which he ends up choosing, even if it leads to his own death. 4
As I have said, don't look in this show for this type of moments, because mostly it's us laughing at the dialogues and at Xavier's antics. This is not high art, but not everything needs to be, although sometimes the sheer ridiculeness and pace of the jokes is enough to stand on its own. The show can sometimes string 5, 6 or 7 jokes within the span of a short interaction, without ever pausing to make any of them last, elevating the clever writing to its highest.
It's a good show because it knows its limitations, which allows its dialogues, by far its main strength, to be front and center. The plot is so incoherent probably because it got worked around so at to make room for the jokes that they thought about. More than likely, the writers had a general setup of what an episode would be about, such as a Christian doctor who thought he was being helped by God (when he was really helped by his son), or a parody of Burning Man, or Xavier having to interact with a wealthy spoiled child, and then they let the jokes sprout up, focused on them to polish them, and finally reworked the plot in accordance.
Moreover, some visuals are pretty impressive by themselves from time to time. The last episode of season 1 features an extended scene with psychedelic-like visuals, and whenever the show switches to a 2D animation style, I find that the art has a really slick and dynamic style. The creators probably learned a lot from making this, there are so many interesting ideas they went for in terms of animation and visuals.
Overall I think this series is a good remedy for the narcissistic self-importance that spirituality, particularly the New Age flavor of it, can imprint us with. People can be so desperate for meaning, and for pursuing something which personally resonates with them within the modern world, that they can adopt a persona of being a "seeker", or a "healer", and patch onto their personality suit a plethora of ridiculous badges. Xavier looks and sounds ridiculous because we all do when we take such a "spiritual" personality too seriously. It's a warning and also a funny glimpse at the type of person we can become if we let the mask become our life.
1 Even Nicole is kind of a "been there done that" for Neiman. Like he is checking out an item on his to-do list rather than being with someone he genuinely loves.
2 And 'Reverse Whiplash' would be about someone who is mediocre in basically everything they do, but who is happy nonetheless. What Neiman's dad wants for him.
3 The analogy with being a fetus inside a techno-womb is so great that it has also become used in many other places, such as the video game Scorn, and which I use frequently in my own (work-in-progress) philosophy. Also the green letters on a black background for the Matrix, the black glasses, the outfits, everything about this movie is so iconic.
4 Being eaten by people of all things, a reference to the body of Christ being eaten by his worshippers. In the story, there are multiple versions (or clones?) of Xavier so this is not very consequential, but point being, our main character is not a stupid selfish moron either.
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2026-04-11