SWOG #1 - The Matrix

SWOG? What the hell? Okay, a SWOG is a Staggering Work Of Genius. And, the first SWOG I'd like to talk about is... The Matrix, the 1999 film by the Wachowski Brothers.

1999 was a damn fine year for movies, perhaps the best single year for film ever (which is quite surprising, because 2000 was one of the worst years in film history). 1999 spawned American Beauty, Fight Club, The Matrix, Being John Malkovich, Toy Story 2, and The Sixth Sense, among lesser successes like The Straight Story and The Green Mile.

While I think that American Beauty was the best film of the year (and, actually, the best film of all time), The Matrix stood out in 1999 because it was truly excellent for so many different reasons:

- Story. Don't let the special effects and crazy premise fool you, this is a tightly-woven and smartly-constructed tale of discovery, fantasy, and heroism.

- Special Effects. While most advancements of the previous 5 years in special effects involved either more digital layers or more polygons and particles for fully CGI elements, the Matrix did something truly revolutionary with it's bullet-time technique. Not only that, but the effect actually fit into the story itself, because much of the story took place inside a computer simulation (but of course, you didn't know that until after you had seen bullet-time in action, and then it made sense).

- Cultural Significance. Where do I begin? I've seen bullet-time in TV ads for everything from nachos to bleach. Any TV program or film that parodies anything has snuck in the required Matrix parody by including some bullet-time moment. There are now more Matrix fan films on the Internet than Star Wars fan films - and Star Wars is the #1 film franchise of all time, both in box office receipts and worldwide awareness.

I'm afraid that our appreciation of The Matrix will be tainted by its silly, over-the-top sequels, but this is one of the most important films of the last few decades.