Normally I love to dissect movies after seeing them.  You can’t shut me up.  You have to oil my tongue every fifty miles.

But as I sat in the car after seeing Matrix Revolutions, I could only try to soothe my pounding head.  To try to will the pain away.  To feel human again.

Meanwhile, my friend chattered away: “But if the nature of the Matrix was like this, then Neo did this and this and this...”

Finally, I had to interject: “Look, you’re trying to come up with elaborate explanations to cover up the gaping holes in the plot.  The answer is simple...it’s bad writing.  It was a bad script.  It was a bad movie.”

“No no no, you don’t understand.  If the Matrix is like this, then you this and this and this.”

Finally, I managed to say my goodbyes and drive across the Bay Bridge to home.  I walked into my place and heaved a sigh of relief.  I could start to put the horrible movie behind me.  To let it fade into my past, like the time I lost my blanket in a New York Hotel.  (I was five.) Or the time I lost a spelling bee.  Or the time I didn’t ask out the French girl in college. 

(Actually, that last one is still with me a bit.)

My thoughts began to settle themselves, and I thought about the week ahead.  Another event to plan.  A press release to finish.  A white paper to research.  Discussions and meetings and emails.  I relaxed even further.  I was full of a zen-like peace.

Then my phone rang.  I picked it up.

My friend’s voice bleated at me: “Okay okay okay.  But if the Matrix was this, then you have to agree that this and this and this and this.”

My serenity was wiped away.  My peace was blown into smithereens.  I staggered into the raging thunderstorm, wind pelting my face, and I screamed to the heavens: “DAMN YOU WACHOWSKI BROTHERS.  You stole two hours of my life.  And you made my friend act like a dork.  I WILL NOT REST UNTIL YOU ARE DESTROYED!”

Of course, I had to take a moment to think about whether I meant that or not.  After all, you have to respect the sheer amount of gratuitous lesbian sex that the Wachowski brothers gave the world in their first movie, Bound.

But no, even that did not balance the scales.  “DESTROYED, I TELL YOU!”

And then I donned a pair of black sunglasses (although it was already pitch black outside), a trenchcoat, and I swooped into the heavens on my mission of pretentious, cliche-ridden vengeance.