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Entries in Keanu Reeves (40)

Thursday
Jul092015

Women's Pictures - Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break

I have a confession to make: people have been telling me for years to watch Point Break, and I always blew them off. "Sure it's a great genre film," I thought, "but the genre is action and the film is about bank robbing surfers." Oh, Anne Marie. You did not give bank robbing surfers (who also skydive, by the way) enough credit. After having watched it (twice in a row), I confess that Point Break is quite possibly the perfect early 90s action flick: that brief bridge between the buffed up ridiculousness of 80s action movies, and the self-serious grittiness of later 90s action films.

It's a space and genre that Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron (who were married in 1989 and divorced in 1991, the same year Point Break came out) occupied gleefully. Point Break was a collaboration between the two writer/directors (though because of Writer's Guild rules, neither's name appears in the writing credits). Together, they created a spectacle-driven, tightly-plotted action movie that manages to both poke fun at, and take advantage of, the hyper-macho tropes of the genre. Action was, after all, the genre of Stallone and Schwarzenegger's muscles, as well as Willis and Gibson's swagger. A lot has been written about movie masculinity and homoeroticism in action films, but I believe that what makes Point Break so good, beyond the adrenaline-high sports scenes and the tense action, is the way director Kathryn Bigelow examines (with a thankfully very thorough lens) the men in her film.

Point Break is a film that improbably can have its beef-cake and eat it too.

Click to read more ...

Friday
Oct312014

Review: John Wick

Michael C here 

The screenplay for David Leitch and Chad Stahelski’s John Wick is so simplistic it rises above laziness until it reaches a kind of glorious absurdist joke. What “plot” there is (and I’m typing those quote marks as hard as I can) could be adapted into a book for beginning readers without much stretching:

See John Wick’s wife die. John sad.
John’s wife leaves John dog. John slightly less sad.
See Russian mobster kill John’s dog. John mad.
See John kill. Kill, John, kill!

To gripe about the thinness of the script is to miss the point. A movie like John Wick is all about getting to the good stuff. When the story is pared down to such a degree it’s a giftwrapped opportunity for filmmakers to show off their chops by filling all that empty space with creatively staged mayhem and wild, indulgent detours, two things for which I am always on board. On such occasions, I am more than willing to disengage higher brain function for 100 minutes, lean back in my seat and say “Show me what you got!” silly grin on my face, drool collecting on my popcorn...

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Oct262014

Box Office: Keanu & the Ouija Board

Amir here, reporting to box office duty. If there is one trend box office enthusiasts can always count on, it’s a double-figure, profitable opening for a mediocre horror film. Ouija didn’t disappoint its makers and despite the letters on the board spelling disaster, a fat $20m cheque was pocketed. Ouija had a comfortable lead over the weekend’s other big opening, John Wick. It’s an action flick starring cult hero Keanu Reeves as a man who goes after the heartless Russian criminals who kill his cute puppy. Quite a stretch, that premise! I refuse to believe good reviews for Keanu’s films until I see them, so it’s with a giant grain of salt that I inform you this one’s winning praise all around.

TOP TEN WIDE
01 OUIJA $20 NEW
02 JOHN WICK $14.1  NEW  
03 FURY $13 (cum. $46) Michael's Review
04 GONE GIRL $11.1  (cum. $124)  Jason's Review
05 THE BOOK OF LIFE $9.8 (cum. $29.9) Interview
06 ST. VINCENT $8 (cum. $9.1) Michael's Review
07 ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE... $7 (cum. $45.5)
08 THE BEST OF ME $4.7 (cum. $17.6) 
09 THE JUDGE $4.3 (cum. $34.3)
10 DRACULA UNTOLD $4.3 (cum. $48.3) 

Anyway, ‘tis the season of awards, so let’s look at how contenders did this week: Gone Girl continued its marginal drop and will become Fincher’s best selling film in the next couple of days, surpassing the multiple Oscar-nominee Benjamin Button. Alejandro Innaritu’s Birdman expanded from four screens to 50 and still maintained the weekend’s best per screen average. As I mentioned last week, I still have doubts about its wide potential, but the signs are definitely encouraging. Whiplash also expanded but has struggled to break the million dollar mark as of now. It strikes me as one of those films that we, in our relatively small cinephile blogosphere, have been talking about loudly for ages, but out there in the real world, I wonder how many people have heard about it at all. Finally, Citizenfour, as close to a shoe-in as we have in the documentary category at this point, opened to strong business on five screens. Expect to hear a lot more about it in the next couple of months.

As for myself, I’ve seen four films so far: Black Coal, Thin Ice; Maps to the Stars; Two Days, One Night; and Fury. I would rate them, respectively: A-, F, A-, B-. Now I’m off to see A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night and Force Majeure.

What have you watched this weekend?

Tuesday
Sep022014

Best Shot Season Finale: The Matrix (1999)

I'm not proud to say so but I'd probably take the blue pill. 

BEST SHOT

It's not that I reject reality so much as that I keep misplacing it. It's easy to forget about it you're drawn to the fantasy. My spirit animal is Cecilia in The Purple Rose of Cairo, what can I say?

So here we are completing another season of Hit Me With Your Best Shot and again I've scheduled the final episode for the very moment I'm about to leave the country giving me no time whatsoever to produce anything like a suitable Season Finale with enough pomp and circumstance. [Note to self: Season Six must end before the suitcase has come down from the shelf for the Toronto International Film Festival.] So I'll make it up to you with a little look back at Season 5 in a couple of days.

But that image above, more than any other... apart from the cascading green symbols as visual motif (remember when that screensaver was all the rage?), is what I think of when I think of The Matrix. It needs us to embrace utter fabrication and complicated fantasy for the film to work and yet, as its narrative throughline it demands that Neo completely reject the same for cold hard wet and slimy truth. Is this what the dystopian genre is inherently for, to present dark truths about humanity and our future in the comforting garb of the unreal while screaming "REALITY!" as it pretzels itself back into fantasy like the greatest of contortionists?

I think so. 

Here's what the 12 other Best Shot Participants chose as their defining image. 

THE MATRIX (1999) BEST SHOTS
click on the image for the corresponding article 

The Film's The ThingAntagony & EcstasyFilm ActuallyEntertainment JunkieSorta That GuyLam Chop ChopPop Culture CrazyVideo ValhallaCinematic CornerDancin' Dan on Film
Allison TooeyBest Shot in the DarkTeo Bugbee

What image defines The Matrix for you? Do you see it here?

 

Tuesday
Sep022014

50 Appropriate Ways to Celebrate Keanu Reeves Birthday!

In honor of Keanu Reeves' half-century mark today, 50 appropriate ways to celebrate the day. Please report back with the number you plan to accomplish today. Party on dudes!

01 Become a "cool breeze over the mountains" like his name (consider it an acting exercize)
02 Consider Beirut, Lebanon where Keanu was born
03 Find it on the map if you're not familiar 
03 Take the red pill
04 Join us tonight for "Best Shot" - we'll be choosing our favorite image from The Matrix
04 Be excellent to each other
05 Party on, dudes!
06 Watch Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
07 Play a game of hockey


08 Drive a motorcycle
09 or, a a bus
10 Wait. Those are both probably illegal without a special license so why not just take a bus and pretend your driver is Sandra Bullock)

11 ...or go surfing
12 The point is physical activity. Do lots of it. Keanu is always on the move.
13 Read our Team Experience anniversary piece on Point Break (1991)
14 Look amazing in a wetsuit
15 Get wet frequently today; It's a good look for you
 
(35 more ways to celebrate after the jump

Click to read more ...