Year Released: 1999
Directed by: The Wachowski Brothers
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano
(R, 136 min.)
Genre: Science Fiction, Action

“You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” –Morpheus

This 1999 sci fi classic still has legs. It’s sprinted into our current lingo just as that classic from 50 years earlier, Gaslight (1944), has. Do you want the red pill or the blue one?

When a beautiful stranger leads computer hacker Neo to a forbidding underworld, he discovers the shocking truth--the life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber-intelligence.

Neo and his fellow cyberpunk rebel warriors are decidedly low tech in a way, though, having to escape back to their bucket of bolts Nebuchadnezzar by jumping into a phone booth like Superman.

***

The Matrix remains relevant, and perhaps even more so today. It asks that time old existential question, “What is the difference between truth and illusion.?” The same question Lewis Carroll asked in 1865, as well as countless playwrights such as Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee.

“Truth or illusion? You don’t know the difference.” – Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966)

It’s a question still nibbling at our brains today, especially as recent revelations about alien spacecraft make us skeptics or true believers, both assumptions rising from distrust in authority.

Are we all a little like Keanu Reeves’ Neo as Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) sees it?

Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. –Morpheus to Neo

That splinter is in our minds as well as we once again question authority figures and the possible web of lies they feed us. Are we really free or are we slaves, even if we only feel it in our bones? How many of us have a nameless dread that is just below the surface?

Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the wool that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

Instead of the Matrix, we have our ubiquitous smart phones, and now even our smart homes. Recently, one man was locked out of his smart home features for over a week because an Amazon delivery guy misheard his automated doorbell address him in a supposedly “racist” way. In reality, the home’s owner was not even there at the residence and the doorbell merely said something bland like, “May I help you?”

Right here in Texas smart thermostats now automatically adjust themselves when temperatures are hot, edging settings up several degrees without any homeowner input.

Censors decide what we can see on social media, quick to label skepticism of official narratives as “misinformation” or even “hate speech.”

No, we don’t currently have a shape shifting agent Smith in his dark glasses, but he doesn’t look so different from some federal officers who also wear dark suits and shades, does he?

Almost a quarter of a century after this film’s release, it still is a splinter in our brains. Watch it again to warn us of mankind’s reliance on a tepid illusion sucking the life out of us versus the brave choice to seek the truth that “shall make us free.”

Take the red pill.

–Kathy Borich
🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁 🥁

Trailer

Film-Loving Foodie

Morpheus takes Neil to meet the Oracle, a very homey and friendly woman unlike what any of us might expect. She is in the midst of baking cookies when he arrives. After she gives him one, the Oracle tells him he will be as “right as rain” after he eats it.

Several interpret this as a subtle way to enhance Neo with a “code” upgrade, which seems a little convoluted to me, but several groove on it, complete with a lot puns based on what we now call “cookies” on our computers.

Whatever you might think about the significance of these cookies, though, they definitely look delicious, and Neo himself bites right in.

What better treat to enhance you viewing of this science fiction classic than these delicious Oracle Chocolate Chip Cookies? Come to think about it, maybe there is some significance in the word “chip,” too. Now I’m getting sucked into the Matrix myself.

Enjoy.

The Oracle’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

· 2 ¼ cups Gold Medal™ all-purpose flour

· 1 teaspoon baking soda

· 1/2 teaspoon salt

· 1 cup butter, softened

· 3/4 cup granulated sugar

· 3/4 cup packed brown sugar

· 1 egg

· 1 teaspoon vanilla

· 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

· 1 cup coarsely chopped nuts, if desired·

Directions

Heat oven to 375°F. In small bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

In large bowl, beat softened butter and sugars with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon about 1 minute or until fluffy, scraping side of bowl occasionally.

Beat in egg and vanilla until smooth. Stir in flour mixture just until blended (dough will be stiff). Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Onto ungreased cookie sheets, drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool 2 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 30 minutes. Store covered in airtight container.

Betty Crocker.com