Minute 119: “Help. Need a little help!”

Transcript

Transcribed automatically from the audio, and imperfect for it — names and punchlines suffer worst. Useful for finding a moment, not for quoting one.

0:00Welcome back to the Matrix Minute, a podcast where we discuss the first film one minute at a time, we analyze the first film one minute at a time, and we deconstruct the one minute at a time Matrix film. I'm Phil. Deconstruct the Matrix. And that was Jake. One minute at a time. Yeah. Yeah, that was Jake. And I'm Tim. Who are you guys? What do you guys do? While I sit here. Jake, you got something on your tooth there. Oh, really? Ew. Now everyone knows. You're revealed. Oh, well. Revealed.

0:40Are you getting back at me? From last episode? Yeah. Do people even know about that? No, they don't. So, whatever. It's cool. What a great conversation this is. I love it. Friday's awesome. Woo! Ghosts. Minute. And this is Minute 119. Hey, baby. Hey, baby. 119. Guess what? Nine episodes left. Do you want me to tell you that it's nine minutes left? I don't know why you keep saying these to these poor people. They'll give up. Yeah, I know. They're going to be sad. Phil likes to hype it up. Okay, I won't. I'll pretend nothing ever happened.

1:21And then we'll just stop. We'll pretend like this is Minute 3. Okay. I'll do Minute 3. Yeah. Yeah, and so I think, you know, the lighting in this is very, it's not dramatic, but it's, you know, it sort of evokes some kind of... There's a green warthog among us. Who cares? It's just annoying me. Okay. Well, let's just get into the Minute. You want to get into... I could get into the Minute. Yeah. Let's go. Let's pack our bags. Let's go to the Minute.

2:02Okay, let's do it. Ready? This is Minute 119. I know, Trinity. Don't worry. He's going to make it. Morpheus assures her. Neo steals a phone from a bystander and calls up Tank. He needs an exit. Tank found one at Wabash and Lake. As Neo runs, he's surprised to end up in a market. It's not looking good. Agents are appearing in the crowd out of nowhere, and Neo needs to run. They shoot at him, but Neo evades their attacks and safely gets through the panicking crowd. He gets to a dead end between two big apartment buildings. Help! Need a little help. The door! Neo goes through the door and runs up the stairs in the apartment building. The agents quickly catching up.

2:42In the putt-putt building. In the putt-putt building. Okay, so, this is a scene. This is a huge scene because this is where we've seen the most amount of people ever. I think. Extras. So many extras. Also, on a side note, you know what? As Phil was reading this out, I decided no more minimum effort. These guys have been here for 119 episodes. They don't deserve such a letdown. Look at that, Tim. Thank you. Just flush down a toilet. It's awesome. Now it's you, Tim. That means I can do minimum effort. Yeah, you can take up my mantle and just go absolutely minimum. Great.

3:22I don't want this podcast to go out on a whimper. Yeah. Okay, maybe I'll join you guys. Okay, good. So, let's get it back to it. Wait, wait, wait. Gotta get ready. Well, look. I think, look. Here's what helps. Guys, let me tell you a little secret. Whenever we do podcasts lately, I've always been standing. I've never been sitting. Taking drugs. That's probably a good idea. Yeah. I've always been standing when I was talking. Pretty good. Let's go. Okay, so we're back in the Nebuchadnezzar. And Morpheus says, I know Trinity. Don't worry. He's going to make it. And there's that little Matrix motif. And then we have the famous man. Yes, we have a cutaway to the man.

4:03The man. Let's talk about the man. Let's talk about the man. Let's give him a name. Okay. I think he looks sort of like a Richard. Oh, I'm going back to it. Maybe a. Maybe Flint. Richard Flynn. Dick Flynn. Richard Flynn. Dick Flynn. Yeah. He's a businessman probably. Right? Yep. Yep. Legal or illegal. Well, I thought he looked a little like the Merovingian. I think he's one of those guys, you know, who like does business. We're talking about the close-up of the guy who's going, one more post. I think that's what he says. But is he saying one more post? Like Facebook? Is he buying posts? No. Well, uh. Is he buying posts? Flat or post?

4:43I think he's meaning. Wait. What is he saying? Wait. What is he saying? What is he? I listened to it a couple of times. It's starting to sound like, not like real language. I was like, I'm pumped. Flat or post? Flat or post? Flat compost? What? He's dealing compost. Yeah. Yeah. He's a compost dealer. No, I think that in my opinion, he's probably one of those guys who gets into business, but he doesn't really know how to do business. So he's just sort of like getting by, but he thinks he's cool. Yelling at people? Yeah. He's got a red tie? Yeah. It's because the red tie and stuff and the Chinese tie. Do you know the red tie thing?

5:24No. Trump likes to put on a red tie because it gives you respect. It subconsciously shows you authority, like red tie. Like a stupid handshake thing. Yeah. That's part of that school. I think there's like one book that some douchebag wrote back in the day about- You make yourself more confident. Yeah. Yeah. More successful, confident, like aggressive, you know, be controlling of your future. Red tie. Well, I'm kind of looking for this actor on the internet. And I showed you a picture of him, but I don't think-

6:07So anyway, he's busy talking on the phone to someone, probably doing some kind of business deals. And behind him. That's him, right? Isn't it? Looks like him, man. Looks really like him. His name is Jeremy Ball. Mm-hmm. The actor's name. And he ran for- President. A green politician. Really? For mayor. And unfortunately, he died in 2014. Oh, no. Oh, sad. Sad. That is sad. He died, and it's sad because like he died in a car accident. What? Poor guy. That's sad. Never got to get his post. So- Yeah. As we get the- Yeah, so he went into politics. This is his only movie he was in.

6:47Jeremy Ball. No way. He's an extra- He's like a- Prominent extra. What do you call those? Speaking- What's the term? Speaking- I don't know. Speaking role. Speaking role. I guess. Upgrade extra. Yeah. Maybe he was- Maybe he was auditioned for this. Yeah. And right behind him comes racing in an angry Neo. Well, not an angry Neo, but he's just sort of determined. And he- He's tapping on the phone? He's tapping on the phone. Oh. Which, by the way, I'm pretty sure the phone he's holding- Yeah, he was deputy mayor of Longkistan in Tasmania. Mmm. Nice. Good for him. Longkistan. That is good. And I think the phone that he's holding has to be-

7:28Oh, the banana phone? Has- No. Has to be the Nokia. Uh-huh. Famous. Where is it? You know what I'm talking about? The 98 Nokia. This one. The Nokia N95. Mmm. I think- Sorry, no, no, no. Nokia 5110. That's the one. Nokia 5110. The classic. Oh, you mean like the one that we had? Yeah. Yeah. Our dad had. Yeah. Nokia 5110. Oh. Yeah, that does look like that, but- Don't you think? I think that might be it. Because the battery is shaped exactly like that. Yeah, and then you have the connectors as well at the bottom.

8:10And plus, remember, Nokia obviously sponsored. Yes. The film. Yeah, that's the phone. I'm looking at the connection because you have like the charging connector there and also some kind of weird like contact thing. I don't know what that was used for, like little plates as well. I'm not sure. I guess for like a quick charge. I don't know what that's for, like a connection or something. So that's it. Yeah, that's the Nokia. It looks like it. I really do believe that's the one. And then- And he says flat or post, I guess. Hmm, what does that mean? I imagine like, I always wonder maybe like flat, maybe it's a slang. For surface, you know, when you ship stuff, surface shipping. And then post is by plane. Maybe air or something. Yep, yep, yep.

8:50Maybe it's like ship or air. Yeah, but it's so funny how we got this close-up of this guy when it cuts away. And you see Neo in the background, like a scary- He's super scary. He's like a Terminator guy. Yeah, he swerves behind him and then just grabs his phone and runs off. And then he says an amazing line here as he turns around seeing Neo running away with his phone. What the shit? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So surprised. It's pretty funny. It made me laugh this time. It is pretty funny, especially when you have like the reverse shot of Neo going up trying to type in his phone. He's already turned into an agent. Yeah, yeah, that's just- He's doing the pointing. It just looks like he's doing disco dancing.

9:30Hugo Weaving is just doing a little- Like Agent Smith is just doing a little disco dance. Boogie. And then he does the Batman turn. Hugo Weaving does the Batman turn. He does. And an elephant roars somewhere in the background. An orchestral elephant roars in the background. Yeah. This shot is somewhere in Australia, in Sydney, somewhere downtown. There you go. But it's funny that back in the day when we used to see the entire transmorphation transformation from a normal person to an agent, it takes a while. It takes a couple of seconds. But these are instantaneous. They're just like whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. They're just like copy and pasting themselves all over these poor, poor suckers.

10:14Yeah, they wrote a script in the meantime. Yep. The machines were working hard overnight. They wrote a script so now it doesn't have to do that glitch. Yeah. It doesn't have to show us. Tank is like, oh, he's on the run. Neo's on the run. So he calls up the wizard. Tank. Is this another... Yeah, you want to talk about that? Is this another Wizard of Oz reference? Or what is this? Why are you calling the wizard? Mr. Wizard. I'll tell you real quick. I'm putting it on my iPad. Okay. It's actually called Mr. Wizard's World. And that's a show that's been going on from 1951 to 1965, the original run has.

10:58And it's educational. Show for kids. No way. Mr. Wizard is a guy who's explaining science to kids. It's like Bill Nye, but before Bill Nye. Okay. This is actually the precursor, Mr. Wizard. And the kids are like, what is it, Mr. Wizard? Well, this is what happens to, you know, different chemicals when they come together or, you know, the light refractions. You sound like... What's his face? Who? What's his face? Kevin Smith. No, no, no, no. Oh, the...

11:39I'm blanking out so hard right now. What's his face? The guy who did Cosmos. Oh, Carl Sagan. Yeah, you sounded like Carl Sagan there. Mr. Wizard. I totally blanked out there for a second. That'd be good to use in a business meeting. Yeah, so... So, revenue's up and I think it was... Carl. Can you imagine that? Like in a business... Like on the table. There's the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he does just this long pause. Perfect. I'm sorry, I'm blanking.

12:20Eyesbreaker, yeah. It's just blank, guys. Give me a second. So then Nia says, hey, Mr. Wizard, get me the hell out of here. And he's running. And then he stops running because he doesn't know where to run. Guys, guys. I'm wrong. What? I'm wrong. What are you wrong about? Mr. Wizard. It's not Mr. Wizard, the educational show. It's Mr. Wizard, a reference to the 1960s cartoon, Tudor Turtle. Because in each episode, Tudor would want to be something and he wasn't... So in each episode, Tudor the turtle would want to be something

13:03and he would ask Mr. Wizard, who is a lizard, to wave his magic wand and make him... Wow. Whatever. Whatever. Like, you know. Something else. Mr. Wizard, make me a police officer. Make me a scientist. And that's kind of like... Make me an agent. In the... In the... Yeah. And so... And so... And during the show, Tudor, the turtle, would get into trouble because he just wants... He wishes for something. And then he would call Mr. Wizard and be like, help Mr. Wizard. You know? Get me out of here. That's interesting. So they would say that too? Mm-hmm. Perfect. So it's like a perfect little quote. Yeah. Mr. Wizard, give me the... That's awesome. So it's... That's interesting that he has time to make jokes.

13:46You know, it's funny when you think about it. I think that a lot of times there's a lot of references in films that we don't even notice. And you really have to have like an encyclopedic film and TV memory to catch all the references. And also, you know, it's a lot of times just generational, you know? Maybe it's... True, true, true. If it's something, you know, that's closer to what was popular when we were kids, you probably know a bit more. And this is like old school. So let's talk about some of the people we see. Yeah, this is what I wanted to talk about. I've been waiting for this for such a long time, guys. What? Did you like interrupt Jake? Or are you going to talk about what you want to talk about? Who? Phil?

14:26Yes, yes, yes. Okay, good, good. I'm just looking at the location where it was filmed. Riveting. Waterloo? Maybe Waterloo? Maybe... Tune in to hear Phil think about... Waterloo, maybe? Maybe Waterloo? I don't know. Maybe Waterloo? As I keep scrolling down for information as I'm doing research on the fly. Could be great. Great content, riveting. Just stop. But look, I'm doing it, though. I'm doing it for the fans. For the fans. Are you Tom Cruise now? Just do it. Just do it. Just look at that IMDb. So, Nia runs and there's old people.

15:07There's... This woman in particular bugged me a lot. She has, like, all this black on, but she has this, like, beret as Nia walks in. Why does she bug you? Because she looks so suspicious. She looks like a spy. She is a spy. Do you see her, Tim? Do you see what I'm talking about? Yeah, she's a fashion woman. She's got her fashion on. She's like, oh, no. Look, she sees panic and she just, you know, picks up her pace. And then there's this one guy who's waving at the camera. I don't know. It's a woman. A woman. She's waving. Do you see that? Yeah. Behind Nia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or maybe she's not waving. She's like, oh, no. Go away, Nia. I think it's on Nia. They're coming. And there's this couple in the back that presumably was, like, making out. Let me see. Oh, no.

15:47Making out to each other. But who's that lady with a basket? Like, right in... The lady in the back? The old woman with a basket? What's she doing? Dealing drugs? Going grocery shopping. Hey, Nia. Nia, do you want drugs? Hey, Nia. Drugs for you? Drugs for you in my basket. And then what have we got? We got some budget people shopping. We got this big market. Now, I think that they've set this up for the movie. Yeah. There's Stephen Ballmer, or whatever his name is from Microsoft, pushing a cart. Let me see. Let me see. There he is. There's developers. Developers. Developers. Everything in a computer. Yeah. He's pushing a cart. And there's some other people. You can get onions, onions, onions, onions.

16:28Onions, onions, onions. You'd think this would be a great place for some of the crew to have some cameos, but I can't see anybody. Me neither, sadly. But now, look, this agent comes in. Agent Jones. Agent Jones is storming, and he's just, like, knocking people left and right. Did you see that? And one zoom and shot. Did you also realize that this whole sequence takes place in the daytime? Oh, yeah. And what's interesting about that is that we're seeing a lot of people. And it's just totally so different to the beginning of the film. Remember the beginning of the film? Oh, you're right. Dark. Yeah. Oh, you're right. Yeah. Kind of shoveled, destroyed. Very grimy. And look at this now. It's, like, not bad. Matrix is not a bad place. Exciting. You know? No. Because you're stated, look, you got all these oranges.

17:09You got bomber pushing carts. What more do you want? You can see the agent in the back running. As Nia's running in that handheld shot. Yep. There's a man chasing him. Looks like an agent. And he just pushes over lots of people. And then there's this poor innocent man with his groceries. The agent just decides to just throw him in slow motion. Into... Just hook him on a string. Yep. And there he goes. He's flying away. And then if you look at that woman in the red shirt and look at her... She does not care. She doesn't care at all. She just goes... She's like, is this over with?

17:50I'm going to keep walking. Yeah. I got to get my noodles. I'm good. I've been waiting three weeks for my noodles. And look at the amazing actor. The bald guy? The bald guy. The bald guy behind... He's doing acrobatics. He's just going away. He is. He's about to fall at the end. He got so into it. I have to say that... These are all stuntmen. Obviously. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Just actual people. And I love the sign that says bananas. This movie is bananas. One thing I like to point out specifically is that the sound of guns is very specific in this movie. That even though we're not in slow motion, we're not in bullet-time, you can still hear

18:32the trailing, that trailing of the bullet pretty loud, which you don't really do like that. Right, right. It's not just like, you know, which is less realistic, obviously, than what would you hear. But it's still pretty interesting that it's there. It gives you that nostalgia feeling. You recognize it as Matrix. And Agent Smith is holding this little girl, holding her hand. I love the transition, though, of him holding the basket. The basket. I can't remember how I said it. The bag. Yeah. The brown bag. And we cut and it's like, he puts the brown bag down and pulls out a gun and shoots. It's a great transition. And look, this little Asian girl's hand he's holding, right?

19:13Mm-hmm. Yep. And she does that, oh, gasp. That's classic. A little jokey joke. It's crazy. Everyone's turning into an Asian girl. And start shooting and then there's watermelons that are being exploded. Stop scrolling around so fast. I'm sorry. You'd think that the gunshots would make people a little bit more scared at this point. They're freaking out. Come on. There's a lady. Look at this woman in front of Neo. Yeah, yeah. She's freaking out. She thinks they're chasing her. Yeah. There's just a man in a hat. A 50s journalist. Yeah, there's a lot of people. There's also a 50s journalist. He's doing his own boogie dance. I was like, hey, hey, hey, there, fella. I got no beef with you. We can make a dip out of that guy. Yeah. Look at him. And then we can cut to Smith doing the disco.

19:56Let's make that. All right. Sounds good. Sounds like a good plan. And what else can we say the market? I have to say, guys, the agent. What's his name, Phil? Come on. Brown. Agent Brown is the least threatening agent. Yeah, he's not. He's like a little kid. He's a cutie. He's like he tries. Is he the one who tucks them in? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's the one who tucks them in. Man, if anybody remembers that. Yeah, that's some hardcore fanage. Yeah. Yeah, awesome. And Neo's running, running, running. And he's going into this alleyway and he's going back. I guess Wabash and Lake is the location of that hotel that we're going to again, where we began our film.

20:37Hey, let's look at the signage, the posters on. In the backwater alley? The album, Out Now. Yeah, I wonder what album that is. I wish we knew. There's another one called Bangarang. Bangarang. Bangarang? Bangarat. Bangarang. Bangarang. Well, if you're in the 4K one. Out Now. Yeah. I don't know what that is. I wish there were some little juicy nuggets. Not a lot of nuggets. But here's a nugget for you. So Neo runs into this alley and he's all confused and he's like, oh, little helpful. And then he says, the man, the wizard on the phone says, a door. Now watching this as a child, a child, I always thought that Tank magically hacked in the door

21:22there. Oh, really? Yeah. Only recently did I realize that it's like Neo's just not able to see it. I always, like, that was my canon, my head canon. Was that he hacks in a door. Because, you know, they hack, I don't know, they never hacked into stuff in there. But that's why I always thought he changes stuff. I mean, if the agents could do it. Yeah. Yeah. Because I always thought that when he runs in, you could see the clear shot that there's no door. But it is there. It's just that it's, you know, the camera doesn't pan all the way to the right. Also, it's interesting to mention that it's all handheld now. Very handheld. Shaky cam. Yeah. But it's actually very well done. Yeah, because it's wide. It's great.

22:02Not only that, but also because. Guys, I'm fine with shaky cam when it's wide. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, I want to say that it's good because you basically, it's working for the scene, which is supposed to be. Oh, yeah. You know, intense and running away and rushing. It's mimicking the heartbeat. No, I'm kidding. I don't know what I'm talking about. But look, that shot, you missed that wonderful shot. The 90 degree angle. It's one of the last 90 degree angles we're going to get. And it's all three agents running down the alley. And the camera is kind of moving down a little bit. It's really cool. Really cool. Really cool. So the agents come in. They start shooting at Neo and they just hit the side of the door.

22:46Yeah. And Neo breaks down the door and he's like, oh. He's got plot armor. And he runs and he gets even dustier. You see, it's Neo's goal to become very dusty. Yes. He's a fan of dust. Yeah. He's like attracted to dust. And he's walking up. He's walking up the stairs. And whoo, the agents are after him. Yeah. Look at them run. They're holding their guns up in the air. It's like there's some kind of cops or something. Well, they are cops. They're cops at the beach. That's right. And then there's a shot. Before the minute ends, there's this shot of Neo just kind of running up the stairs. And the camera's moving back. And it's like, it's very, how would you say it? Like, very, yeah, very.

23:29You gotta do that. I'm blanking out too. Who's the guy who directed 21 Days, 28 Days Letter? 28 Days Letter? Oh, Frankie Boyle? No, what is his name? Yeah, Danny Boyle. It's very Danny Boyle. Danny Boyle, Frankie. Yo, Frankie. By the way, he's doing the next James Bond movie. I heard. Ah. It's gonna be called... They should just... I know what they should do. A name in another film. The Supernova with another S. So we have like... What's the one that came out? Spectre. Before that. Spiritual. What's before Spectre? Skyfall. Yeah, so Skyfall, Spectre, another S film. Just confused everyone. Spitfire. Ooh, that's a good one. Ooh.

24:09Or maybe like... Snakes. James Bond snakes. James Bond. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Secret agent. Wow. Sausage. Circles. Like, circles confuse people. Like, you know, S, S. C. Oh, come on. C, S, S. C, S. Circles and triangles. That's a funny word to me. Like when somebody's like, oh, triangles are cool. It's trying. Triangle is a funny word. Tim sounds like he's shutting down. Yeah. Triangles. I like triangles. Hey, Jacob, why don't you put little pink brackets on the side of that title?

24:52That's some specific insider stuff. That's insider stuff I almost forgot about, but I remembered. Yeah, it looks cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's cool. It's the one. Okay, so, yeah, yeah. So, story time. We're in Northern Ireland. The day's over? I don't remember who did that. Yeah, we're in Northern Ireland. We're in Northern Ireland, and we were waiting for our plane, and our plane departs at six in the morning. So, we decided to pull an all-nighter, and Tim decided to pull an all-nighter with us. And as we were waiting for it to turn to six in the morning, as it was like three in the morning right now, we were designing an album cover for you and Jake's and mine band called Key to Progression. Jacob's kind of letting, you know, like trying to hide a smile.

25:32I like how you're always in the band. Yeah, I'm in the band. Yeah, yeah. So is there. Okay, yeah. And then, I was designing the cover. We took some photos just a couple of days before. That's a pretty good photo shoot. Yeah, thanks. And Tim started getting really sleepy, and he started spouting nonsense. And for some reason, we decided to do what he wished. I thought Tim was being serious. He's like, yeah, this is looking good. We're going to design it like that. I was probably being serious. I just don't remember. I feel good. Cool idea. And we just go make some extravaganza bonanza. Yes. Of album art. I think, yeah, that's cool. Let's do some pink, pink design elements.

26:13And then he put these, he told me to put pink brackets that were like echoing out of the center image, which was just you and Tim. And then the next day, we show it to him. He's like, I don't remember any of this. Yeah. Yeah, I was like, who the hell put this here? That was the story. That's stupid. That's the story. A great story for all of us. Cut back to Tim, three hours before. Yeah. This is the one. Uh-huh. I like this. And with that, a minute is done. This was one of the minutes I've been anticipating to talk about. Really? Well, anything to say? Anticipating? For a while. No, just because I thought we would have fun picking up the different background actors and see what they were doing. Yeah, there was all kinds of guys.

26:54Girls. There was a- I was hoping I could find out where they filmed the location, but hey. Ah. A mystery for- Ah. For another podcast. Waterloo date. Yeah. Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal Animal

27:35Thank you.