I'm taking some time off this week -- sort of a "mental health" vacation -- and one of the things I'm hoping to do is to get caught up a little bit on my big old backlog of Stuff to Watch. Among other things, I went on something of a DVD-buying spree after I finally got my DVD machine (in fact, it's probably not entirely accurate to suggest that said spree is actually over), and I still have a bunch of DVDs I haven't watched yet. I was looking through them today and realized that, while I did watch my copy of The Matrix after I got it, I never did play the commentary track. So this was my main activity for today.

Honestly, I'm not 100% sure just why I felt compelled to buy this particular movie. Yes, visually it's really cool, and I do like stories that play with our notions of reality. But the movie never really impressed me quite as much as it apparently does most people. I think because it got so much praise -- and so much hype -- for being incredibly "original," when it isn't particularly. I mean, come on, "Life is but a dream (or even a computer simulation)" is far from a new idea. And I find the whole premise of the movie more than a little implausible. Yes, the idea of human beings being used as "batteries" and fed their own recycled dead as nutrients is wonderfully horrific, but thermodynamically, it just doesn't work. Is that too nitpicky of me, do you think?

I've been telling myself that the reason I bought the disc anyway, despite those objections, is because the action is, after all, very cool, and because it's been such an influential movie in a number of genres, and because its one of those rare and noteworthy examples of Keanu Reeves actually not sucking. But there is a sneaking suspicion, somewhere in the back of my mind, that the real reason I got the thing is because Farscape's Paul Goddard has a small role as one of the Agents, and I really am just that pathetically obsessive of a TV Sci-Fi fan. (The last time I watched it, the entire way through the movie I kept thinking of Weaving and Goddard as "Agent Elrond" and "Agent Stark." I was actually pretty sorry that I didn't know the guy playing the other Agent from anywhere, because I wanted a nickname for him, too, darn it. Nicknames or not, though, the Agents are cool. I think the Agents were probably one of the coolest things about the movie. Don't ask me why.)

Anyway. I don't have a lot to say about the commentary track (which featured the film editor, the head special effects guy, and actor Carrie-Ann Moss (who was oddly silent for a large chunk of the film)). It was pretty subdued, and not really terribly engaging, though I did find some of the stuff about how they created the visual FX, particularly the more subtle ones, very interesting.

I still haven't watched any of the other extras on the disc, but maybe I'll get around to it soon. Annoyingly, though, it looks like most of the cool stuff is meant to be played on a computer DVD-ROM drive, and I don't have a DVD-ROM drive. Grrr. I think I am forever doomed to be technologically one step behind...