Four Play

Four film lovers revisit The Matrix (1999) for the first time in years.

 

The action still holds up. The philosophical ideas still land. But the script? That's where things get complicated. We break down the Hong Kong cinema influences Hollywood never credited, the Dark City and Invisibles connections, what Keanu Reeves actually brings to Neo, and whether the Wachowskis wrote a cyberpunk masterpiece or got carried by everyone around them.

 

Plus: our 10-point rating and the one scene that still divides the room.

 

Ready to stop paying more than you have to? New customers can make the switch today and, for a limited time, get unlimited premium wireless for just $15 per month! Switch now at https://mintmobile.com/FOURPLAY.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Was The Matrix the first film to ask whether our reality is manufactured? No! There are huge parallels between Dark City and The Matrix, with both films using some of the same themes, visuals, and even sets.
 
In this episode of Four Play, we dive into Dark City (1998): Alex Proyas’ noir-drenched sci-fi cult classic that arrived one year before The Matrix and explored memory, identity, and control in ways that still feel unsettlingly modern.
 
Is Dark City just a forgotten cyberpunk curiosity or is it one of the most important science fiction films of the 1990s?

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Four Play begins a brand-new Cyberpunk Arc with a deep dive into Blade Runner: one of the most influential science-fiction films ever made.
 
Released in 1982, Blade Runner didn’t just define cyberpunk aesthetics,  it also reshaped how cinema explores identity, consciousness, artificial intelligence, capitalism, and what it means to be human. Decades later, its themes feel more relevant than ever.
 
Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/FOURPLAY and use code FOURPLAY and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup!

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch is not an adaptation: it’s a psychological autopsy.
 
In this episode of Four Play, we dive deep into one of the most challenging films ever released by a major director: Cronenberg’s surreal, disturbing, and deeply personal interpretation of William S. Burroughs’ life and work.
 
Rather than translating Burroughs’ famously “unfilmable” novel to the screen, Naked Lunch fuses biography, addiction, sexuality, guilt, and creativity into a dream-logic nightmare that feels closer to a hallucination than a movie.
 
Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Mando and get 20% off + free shipping with promo code FOURPLAY at https://shopmando.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

THINGS TO DO IN DENVER WHEN YOU’RE DEAD (1995) is a time capsule of 1990s crime cinema: strange characters with even stranger nicknames who speak in impossibly slick slang.
 
 
Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Mando and get 20% off + free shipping with promo code FOURPLAY at https://shopmando.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.