It sometimes happens that I wake up very early in the morning. I then get up, make coffee and sit on my couch, watching how the world outside slowly wakes up. I have a window open, so a breath of fresh air can wipe away last night’s rather musty dampness, evidence of yet another evening wasted on smoking weed and spanking it. It is at these calm, introspective moments, I start to wonder if this world is actually real.
Now, don’t get me wrong: although I am perfectly insane, asking yourself if the world is real is not as uncommon as you might think, nor is it a sign of an upcoming psychotic break, no! Lots of truckers do it! (I’m sorry. Since I’ve started writing for Ruthless my mind just randomly vomits these movie quotes into the …barely, I admit… conscious parts of my brain.) Great philosophers like the Swedish Nick Bostrom state that it’s a very real possibility that we all do indeed live in The Matrix. And if we know one thing about these Swedes, it’s that they make damn fine flat pack furniture and really safe cars, so if one of them says that you’re living in a dream-world, Neo, you’d better damn well listen. I mean, just look at him! He even looks like a Matrix-villain! Look at that head! It goes on forever! It’s a never-ending head!
Anyway. Asking oneself if the world is real is in fact as old as mankind itself. DE Upanishads do it, as does Plato in his cave allegories, and off course there’s the famous dream of the Taoist monk Zhuangzi, in which he dreams of being a butterfly. After waking up, he asks himself, “Am I Zhuangzi who dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he is Zhuangzi?” That sort of stuff, man! It makes your head spin when you think about it… Just imagine! We could all just be little farts in the highly inebriated imagination of an interdimensional squirrel-brain’s fever dream! Wouldn’t that be awesome? That would mean that all your little sorrows and pains, all your life’s highs and lows, they’re nothing more than… than… vapor! Nothingness! Ultimate emptiness on a scale so vast that your tiny little animal brain simply melts away just thinking about it..!
And we make movies about it. Lots and lots of movies, in fact. So many, it would be nigh impossible for a sane person like you to watch them all. Luckily, since I’m not burdened by the shackles of normality like most folks, I made you a list. So, here is, without much further ado: The Top Four of Fairly Randomly Selected Movies That Ask The Very Real and Important Question Whether This World Is, In Actual Fact, Also Real… Or Not
This movie is great. It features Kiefer Sutherland playing this creepy Nazi-doctor looking maniac that goes around at night injecting weird alien juice into people’s foreheads, thereby changing their entire life. When they wake up in the morning, they are completely different people! (What? No, I did not mean ‘juice made from aliens’! That would be weird. I meant ‘juice that was made by aliens’. By. Not from. Are we clear? Crystal.) Also, Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connelly and William Hurt are in this. Also, who names their kid ‘Rufus’? And you just KNOW that that kid was called ‘Rufus Sewage’, at the playground.
I can picture it clearly: a group of kids standing around, yelling ‘Ru-Fus! Se-Wage! Ru-Fus! Se-Wage!’ at the top of their lungs, and in the middle of that vicious mob, poor little Rufus: lying on the ground in fetal position, rocking back and forth, thinking: ‘you just wait! When I grow up, I’m going to be an average actor in forgettable movies that no one ever talks about in reviews, to eventually find myself in that very worst category of actors one can find himself in, the one in which people go: ‘oh yeah, that guy… where do I know him from? I should probably check Imdb to see what else this guy did, but I can’t really be bothered…’ And I like to shout to that kid: ‘no, Rufus! You WILL be remembered! Even if it is only by some insane drug-addict! Here’s to you, sewage!’
Kids are such monsters. Anyway, this movie is really cool. You should see it.
(On a more personal note: I previously stated that Nick Bostrom looked like a Matrix-villain. I like to apologize for that. That was unfair, and uncalled-for. I now state that Nick Bostrom looks like one of The Strangers, from this movie. Just look at this, and tell me it’s not the same man:)
The Thirteenth Floor
This movie was part of a slew of films that followed the release of The Matrix, covering the same sort of territory, but more often than not featuring lower budgets and lesser known actors. This one stars Craig Bierko as the main protagonist, another of those actors that fits perfectly in that ‘Oh, that guy’-categorie I mentioned earlier, who discovers that his world is not what it seems to be. And Armin Mueller-Stahl. Who? Yeah. Exactly. That guy…
Did you know that George Clooney is a big fan of Mr. Stahl and brought him coffee and cookies on the set of The Peacemaker? No? Well, you do now. Aren’t you glad you started reading this?
This movie is… alright, I guess. It’s one of those movies that if you, once seen, happen to come across again on some late, boring Sunday evening, while flipping channels, you might think: ‘oh yeah, this movie… Meh, I might watch it, but first let’s see what else is on…’ Why do I mention it here then, you might ask, if it’s just some mediocre flick? Because it’s my list, that’s why. If you want to make your own list and submit it to the ruthless scrutiny of our Lord Goat, go right ahead. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, though… ‘Cause I did. Just now. Now go away.
(On a more personal note: I previously stated that Nick Bostrom looked like one of The Strangers from Dark City. I would like to apologize for that. That was unfair, and uncalled-for. I now state that Nick Bostrom looks like Vincent D’Onofrio, who is also in this movie.)
Existenz
This movie is weird as shit. Which is exactly what you would expect from director David Cronenberg, who gave us masterpieces like The Fly and Videodrome. It stars Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the fabrication of a gun made of the entrails of animals that don’t exist. Among other things. Also, this guy is in it:
Now, wait just a darn minute. There’s something strange (in the neighborhood! Shut up, brain) going on here… Now, I might be insane [Editor’s Note: You are] but I started this piece as a total random collection of movies that ask if the world is real or not, but the more I look into it, the more it seems to be about movies that have a Nick Bostrom look-a-like in it… This is weird… Wait a minute… Let me think about this…
(a little elevator music, some rustling with papers, the intravenous injection of hard drugs)
Okay, I got it. This is not a movie review. At all! No, what this actually is, is that Nick Bostrom is the Earth name of the niece of that aforementioned interdimensional squirrel. She hit her head on the corner of a marble countertop while reaching down for some brightly colored marbles she lost earlier, and now she’s laying there, bleeding, dying, hallucinating… And it just so happens that her great-uncle, Mr. Maddison, was walking through the cracks that exist between all reality’s the other day and got a flyer stuck to the bottom of his shoe. A flyer about Nick Bostrom’s new book. Yeah. Sounds perfectly reasonable. That must be it.
Anyway…The Matrix
To conclude, of course. I saved this one for last because, really, what’s left to say about it? Except maybe this:
[Be sure to click the sound on at the bottom]
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