In the last two episodes of the show (apologies for bundling them together here, but it almost works out because both movies discussed in these episodes are from the same year) we continued to circle The Matrix by jumping back in time and examining some of the movies that may have inadvertently served as parts of the cultural template upon the Wachowski film that indubitably reshaped the blockbuster landscape.  

In fairness, the mid-to-late 90s were quite an interesting period in this regard and we will examine a bunch of movies from this era as part of our ‘Circling The Matrix’ series, a handful of which will feature in a Patreon-exclusive podcast you’ll be able to listen to come Christmas time. But before that happens we have a few other movies to get to, such as Hackers and Johnny Mnemonic. Now, I do have a nostalgic connection to both of these movies and come to think of it, it is a happy coincidence I am now sharing these two podcasts here together because they overlap quite a bit in terms of their aesthetic, aspirations and their eerie prescience. I’ll leave you to listen to the episodes and find out more about how these movies fit together, but for now I will only emphasize how much these movies mean to me. This era in filmmaking falls squarely into the time of my own cinematic awakening where, as a young lad, I would either go to the cinema or my local VHS rental place to pick movies just like these two every other day or so. Even though they are far from perfect and they’re best described as ‘adorable trash’, this is my kind of trash that also happened to get quite a few things right about where the world would end up thirty years later.

Tune in and enjoy!

And of course, look out for more of the upcoming episodes in the “Circling The Matrix” series, which will conclude in December with a big Patreon-exclusive episode as well!

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