In just my last post about "Tune in Tomorrow...", I referred to movies lost to time. Well, if "Tune in Tomorrow..." was lost to time, then the 1991 movie "Providence" is a full on collective memory loss. "Providence" was supposed to be my next entry in the Keanu Reeves project but it's as close to never existing as is possible in the internet age.
"Providence" is on Keanu Reeves IMDB filmography although then things get a little bit weird.
First, it isn't available to watch anywhere. Forget mainstream services - they've never heard of it and the closest I found was the 1999 teen comedy "Outside Providence" starring a guy named Tommy Bone who clearly didn't see his calling in the adult film industry. I even checked a pirate site or two and the closest thing I found was horny divorcees looking to meet up, even in this time of COVID19!
A quick Google search comes up with very spurious results, there are almost zero still images from the movie and the only video available on Youtube that has about the same quality as the Zapruder film:
By the way, this was uploaded by some weird Russian account, and the only description of it is this:
Фильм "Провиденс" с 1991 года значится в фильмографии Киану Ривза, но этот фильм практически никто не видел. Есть только этот ролик, где мы можем минуту наблюдать за Эриком, персонажем, которого играет К. Ривз.
Now, I don't know what that translates to, but I'm going to take a guess:
Providence, 1991. Hahahaha, stupid Americans, don't you know that this movie has been smuggled off to Soviet Russia? You will never know the glory of the movie Providence!
There are only a handful of comments in here and most of them are Russian except for one English one that says if this was a Canadian movie then it might be available in libraries, in Canada I assume.
And while that's possible, it seems odd to me for this to be a Canadian movie. Keanu Reeves might not have been a household name or a megastar in 1991 but he was a known quantity at the time. He'd come off roles in some major movies by then including Parenthood, which grossed about $100 million dollars and his starring performance in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure which was the 31st highest grossing movie in 1989. My point is that I would find it hard to believe that Keanu Reeves would still be making low budget Canadian movies by the time 1990 rolled around. I suppose that Providence theoretically could have been filmed in 1985 or 1986 as a Canadian film and not released until 1991 but why would you shelve a low-budget CBC movie for five or six years? Maybe because now Keanu Reeves is a burgeoning movie star and you want to put your movie out? I suppose that could be true except even in the grainy footage pasted above Keanu is looking a little older.
The IMDB page is extremely limited on information with a grand total of zero user reviews and a 5.5 score of 137 viewers. I mean, there's not even a single insane Keanu Reeves fan trolling IMDB saying they saw this movie! Amazon has never heard of it, you can completely forget any of the mainstream streaming services.
As I fell down my rabbit hole I tried to find some answer to the question, "does this movie actually exist?" I even got on Ebay and my top hit for "Providence 1991" was this:
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| And these worthless Providene Friars cards could be yours for the low, low price of $2.95 |
This movie has fucking vanished. As far as I can tell, 137 people either saw this movie or pretended to see this movie and then it disappeared forever. That's weird, right?
Without launching a full scale investigation and calling in the FBI on this one, I decided it was time to give up. For whatever reason, someone very powerful out there wants us to forget this movie ever existed as it has been scrubbed from existence, if it ever existed at all. But that's okay, because speaking of the FBI, giving up on "Providence" led me to a movie I've been very excited to watch again as part of this series of blog posts that at most, four people will ever read - the 1991 action classic and one of the best Keanu movies, if not all movies, of all time: Point Break!
Where do I even begin? This is a movie I've seen so many times and could potentially be only third to Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey in my number of rewatches. Conservatively speaking, I've probably seen Point Break between 50-75 times.
Look, don't judge me. Here's just a small list of all the awesome aspects of Point Break:
Keanu Reeves!
Skydiving!
Surfing!
Bank Robberies!
Patrick Swayze!
The wisdom of Bodhi!
Gary Busey!
The Ex-Presidents!
I AM AN FBI AGENT!
"Point Break" has to be one of the top five or ten movies from the 90's and one of the best 50 movies of all time. I was shocked and appalled when they attempted to remake it several years ago and apparently turned it into some sort of stupid extreme sports movie instead of just allowing perfection to stand alone forever. Unfortunately, that remake has not been vanished but I guess if we're lucky then in 30 years nobody will have ever heard of that before either.
I'm not sure what it is about "Point Break" that makes it so goddamn special. First, you've got Patrick Swayze coming off of two mammoth performances. First for "Ghost," a movie that I had an odd fascination with as a child and was the top grossing film in 1990. But more importantly for the 1989 ass-kicking movie "Road House," which while not as big a blockbuster as "Ghost" has probably had a bigger impact on society as a whole. I mean, Swayze rips a dude's throat out in this movie and it is fucking awesome.
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| "I used to fuck guys like you in prison." - That is an ACTUAL LINE from this movie! |
Pile in a ridiculous FBI Director in John C. McGinley, Lori Petty and a splash of Red Hot Chili Peppers' front man Anthony Kiedis and you've got one great fucking early 90's action movie.
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| What I got I gotta give it to your moma |
But then, of course, you have Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah, one of the best movie names of all time. I'm just glad they didn't go with their second choice - Billy Mississippi. Would have changes his whole character.
I know I've already said it in previous posts, but Keanu Reeves is 100% fucking perfect for this roles. He exudes Johnny Utah. He is Johnny Utah.
"Point Break" also holds a bit of a special place in my heart as it was one of my closest friend's favorite movies and something we used to quote together ad nauseam. We even attended an absolutely amazing live performance by a touring show called "Point Break Live!" in DC about five years ago and I hope and pray they eventually start touring again one day as it's one of the funniest, most brilliant pieces of theater you could ever hope to see.
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| There's a picture somewhere of me on the Keanu face, where I truly belong. But this one is just as good. |
Look, I'm not going to do a synopsis of this one, but I will tell you that not only did I watch it again last night for the 60th or 70th time, but I also went through and watched all of the special features and a 45 minute documentary about the movie that mainly features a couple of dudes from Bodhi's gang that nobody has heard of and never acted again.
What I will do is tell you that "Point Break" is fucking awesome and if you've never seen it and you're somehow reading this blog post, cancel your plans for the rest of the day and go watch this movie. I truly believe that this one holds up and is certainly one of my favorites.
BEST PART: Impossible to choose just one, this movie is spectacular. If I had to choose, I'll just say the chase scene where Keanu is after Swayze through the streets of LA. The way it is shot is excellent.
WORST PART: N/A.
BEST PART: Impossible to choose just one, this movie is spectacular. If I had to choose, I'll just say the chase scene where Keanu is after Swayze through the streets of LA. The way it is shot is excellent.
WORST PART: N/A.
Box Office Mojo information: $43 Million Domestic, $83 Million Worldwide (26th highest grossing movie of 1991 on a $24 Million budget)
Rotten Tomatoes: 69% Critics, 79% Audience
IMDB: 7.3
My Movie Rating: 10/10. What, you don't think that I think this is a perfect movie?
Keanu Rating: 9/10. I'm only taking a point away for some ticky tack shit, like his hilarious delivery of the "I am an FBI agent" line but he's basically amazing as Johnny Utah. And if anyone can find this shirt anywhere and send it to me, that'd be great because I used to have one but literally wore it out.
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| Please send me this shirt |
Up next: The 1991 movie follow-up to Excellent Adventure, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. I could watch it or I could recite it for you by heart.
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