The Keanu Reeves Project - Henry's Crime

 HENRY'S CRIME (2010) - Henry Torne

Wow, it's official, I've hit the 2010's in this project and I'm quickly coming to a close here with only about 15 movies to go including three of the best ones that will be in this filmography.  I'm guessing you can figure out which they are.

Working my way through Keanu's filmography, the next thing after "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" is actually a "TV series" called "Easy to Assemble," where Keanu appeared in one episode.  Curious, I looked this show up and found that it's actually a little watched web series on Youtube starring Illeana Douglas where she plays herself working at an Ikea (in LA I'm assuming) in between acting gigs.  Apparently a fair amount of A and B list celebrities have shown up on this, even though some of the episodes of this have literally less than 5,000 views on Youtube.  

Interestingly, Ikea is apparently a producer for this show, which wouldn't be the first time they got involved with some very serious product placement.

Does anyone out there remember this?

I assure you this was a real thing

That's right, it was the very short lived TV show, "Cavemen," based on....yes, a series of Geico Insurance commercials.  I barely remember the show (but the mere fact that I remember it exists has probably pushed some other important information out of my brain) but I do remember that at least one of the cavemen in it in fact worked at an Ikea.

Keanu is actually credited for being in two episodes of "Easy to Assemble," but I found both of them and he doesn't appear in either one.  Weird.  Digging deeper, I actually found the clip that his IMDB must be referring to, even though it doesn't appear to be an official episode of "Easy to Assemble."  Instead, it's a very short "documentary" about the fictional Swedish band Sparhusen who do appear in one of the episodes Keanu is credited in.  Might be a bit of a real deep find here, but here is the video for your enjoyment (and for those on mobile who my embedding isn't working, a link below):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cby1CnLn5Io

I'm also pretty sure that's "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's" own Glenn Howerton featured there as well.  All weird shit if you ask me.

But hey, I didn't come here to write about a web series you've never heard of today, no I came to write about a movie you've never heard of, the 2010 romantic comedy (?) "Henry's Crime." 

Again, spoiler warning ahead.

So, I suppose "Henry's Crime" is a combination rom-com/heist movie but unfortunately for anyone watching it's pretty light on the "rom", non-existent on the "com" and the "heist" is formulaic, pointless, and boring.

The movie opens with Keanu as the titular Henry finishing his night shift working at toll booth in Buffalo, New York (not to be confused with all the other Buffalos you might have been thinking).  He heads home where he has breakfast with his wife Debbie, played by a severely underutilized Judy Greer.

Debbie and Henry start having a conversation about having children (she wants them, he seems far less interested) when they are interrupted by a knock at the door.  It's Henry's old friend (?) Eddie, played by Fisher Stevens and his puking friend Joe played by an actor that I only know from the 1999 movie "Whiteboyz" which you certainly do not need to see.  

Eddie tells Henry that they are on the way to a softball game but Joe is sick and they need someone to fill in to play 1st base.  Henry agrees and they head out.  I should mention here that Keanu's performance throughout the movie is....understated to say the least.  He doesn't seem to care much about anything at all and is basically just floating through his life and through this movie.  I should also mention that it's really unclear what Henry and Eddie's relationship is, other than that they knew each other from high school, because Henry's reaction to seeing Eddie isn't exactly friendly.  If some dude I randomly knew showed up at my house at 9 AM after I just worked an overnight shift at the toll booth asking me to go play softball I'd probably tell him to fuck himself, but I guess that's why I'm me and Keanu is Henry.

Wanna have a catch?

On the way to the game, Eddie tells Keanu to pull over at the bank so he can get beer money for after the game.  Eddie, Joe, and one other nameless guy in the car get out and go in the bank, but not before putting on masks and taking out guns.  Henry doesn't notice this but he does notice the wires hanging out from under the dash and realizes he's been driving around a stolen car (how it took the entire trip to the bank to notice this is another story for another time).  

Unfortunately for Henry, as he's unknowingly waiting outside as the getaway driver, a bank guard spots the suspicious looking Henry and stops him.  Henry is arrested and quickly sentenced to three years in prison for armed robbery because he's either too stupid or never bothers to give the accurate (if unlikely to be believed) reason that he was in that car in the first place.

I'm not sure if any of this is supposed to be funny or not but I can assure you, I laughed a total of zero times while watching any of this.

Henry goes to jail where he meets his cellmate Max, played by James Caan.  Max says he's in for life (even though he apparently has had several meetings with the parole board) and shows Keanu the ropes in the apparent low to medium security prison.  Six months go by and Judy Greer shows up to visit, telling Henry that she's fallen in love with someone else.  Henry, just like every other part of this movie, seems to not particularly care and she leaves her meeting with him on happy terms.  Later, in a scene very reminiscent of the much more entertaining movie "Blow" Max asks Eddie what his dream is.  Unlike Johnny Depp's cellmate in that other movie, Eddie apparently loves prison, calls it his home, and seemingly has found his dream but tries to "inspire" Henry to figure his own.

My dream is that this movie was 60 minutes shorter

Another year passes and Henry is let out of prison.  

Fuck, I'm only about 20 minutes into this 2 hour long movie, and I haven't even gotten into the "romance" part because that is not between Keanu and James Caan although that would probably have made a more interesting movie.  I'll try to condense the rest of this.

So Henry returns home where he finds out that Judy Greer's new "love" is Joe from the robbery.  Oh and she's pregnant.  Henry, again, genuinely tells her he's happy for her and he takes all of the stuff she's packed up for him and moves into an apartment, but not before Joe attempts to sell him on a MLM business selling "Japanese tupperware."  Joe also mispronounces the word "paradigm" as "para-dig-em" which I think was supposed to be a hilarious joke but like everything else in this movie fell completely flat.  You know, maybe "Whiteboyz" was a better movie than this....

Henry, with no job and no aim heads back to the bank with the supposed idea to rob it for real because back in prison Max had told him that he had already done  the time so he might as well do the crime, which of course makes zero sense because if Henry gets caught trying to rob the bank, for real this time, he's still going to go back to jail.  

However, on his was into the bank he is hit by a car that's driven by Vera Farmiga as Julie.  Don't worry, Henry is fine and Julie helps him to a cafe across the street, where Henry sees an article in an old newspaper hung in the bathroom about some secret tunnel that connects the bank directly to the theater where Julie is starring in the upcoming Chekov play, The Cherry Orchard.

So now Henry gets the idea to use this tunnel to rob the bank, because we've never seen this device used in any movie ever.  But because he's also an idiot, he goes back to visit Max in jail and convinces him to tell the parole board what they want to hear next time so he can be released and help Henry rob the bank.

Sure, whatever.

Max gets out of jail and meets up with Henry in Buffalo.  The two of them begin to case the bank, followed by an exploration of the theater where they learn the old tunnel connects directly to one of the dressing rooms.  Max then uses his "confidence man" (as he calls himself) skills to get one of the actors to quit the show and Henry steps in to fill his place because apparently the director of the play can't be bothered to hold auditions with you know, actual actors and not ex-toll booth operators.  Besides, Henry has started to date Julie and one of the things they do for fun is read lines together.

One quick aside - the director is played by the returning Keanu Project actor Peter Stormare, last seen as the devil in "Constantine" and he might be the only entertaining part of "Henry's Crime" as an overbearing, abusive play director.

Returning champion Peter Stormare

Because Henry is a total fucking moron, he tells Julie all about his plan to rob the bank.  Max and Henry have a ton of dirt to dig out and realize they need help, so they recruit Joe to do it with them because Henry apparently holds no grudges for being sent to jail for three years in part because of this guy.  It's fucking asinine.

One night after digging, Henry, Joe and Max are confronted by the same bank guard who had stopped the robbery 2 years ago, who tells them he knows what they are up to and guess what?  He wants in!

The guard also happens to have some good intel, like the fact that once every few months the vault (which conveniently is directly above their tunnel) is holding anywhere from ten to twelve million dollars.  It also just so happens that he's retiring and the last time this money will be in the vault is on the opening night of the play, oh no!

Henry gets into an argument with Julie because he's going to have to bail right after opening night because he'll have just robbed the bank.  Who could care?  It's around this time that Fisher Stevens as Eddie shows back up - it turns out that Joe is also an idiot and blabbed about the robbery to him and now Eddie wants in as well.

So opening night comes and Keanu gets on stage to do the play while Eddie, Joe, Max and the bank guard all conspire to steal all the money from the vault.  

I am completely unfamiliar with "The Cherry Orchard" but I can only imagine it's better than "Henry's Crime"

After Henry exits the stage, he heads down to the tunnel where in the least surprising move in this project so far, Eddie pulls a gun and turns on his accomplices, claiming he's going to take all the money for himself.  There's a joke somewhere here about "Chekov's Gun" but I'm too uninspired by this movie to bother trying to make it.

During an ensuing melee, Henry is shot in the leg but Eddie is incapacitated and tied up and thrown in the tunnel.  Henry, Joe and Max escape in a car but Henry tells Max to stop driving so he can return to the theater where he interrupts the closing scene, jumps on stage and tries to convince Julie that he loves her and to stay with him (or something along those lines, the entire sequence is very, very dumb).

And that's it, the movie ends.

Generally speaking, this is not a good movie.  There are some serious pacing issues as two hours felt closer to four, and perhaps that's because this supposed light hearted "rom-com" has absolutely no jokes in it that I could discern.  This whole thing feels like it was rushed into production and could have used for some real script punch-ups.  The performances in it are fine, although Henry's total lack of direction or caring about anything really start to grate after the first hour.  Keanu's chemistry with Vera Farmiga is the one (minor) bright spot in the movie although it's impossible to say why a woman with dreams of moving to Hollywood and making it big as an actress is doing Chekov plays in Buffalo and falling for a man whose biggest ambition seems to be robbing a medium-sized regional bank.  

It's sad because somewhere here there was a better movie.  Not a good movie mind you, but something better.

My scattered side-notes:

*This is at least the second movie I know of that features Fisher Stevens and a tunnel to rob a bank.  I'm pretty sure I even mentioned this other movie in the previous post, "Little Buddha."  That movie?  Well of course it's "Short Circuit 2."

Fisher Stevens - still not Indian

*A few other recognizable faces in this one including David Costabile who you might know best as Gale from "Breaking Bad."  He plays the actor who is tricked into quitting the show in a very questionable scheme we don't actually see on screen.  James Caan apparently tricks him into thinking he's gotten a starring role in Death of a Salesman in London.  I don't know how Costabile's character could think this is even possible, being a no name actor in Buffalo and being randomly called to star in a play across an ocean seems unrealistic at best but I'm also of the belief that all the characters in "Henry's Crime" are brain dead idiots.

*You might also recognize the bank guard Frank, played by Bill Duke, who I really only know from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies "Predator" and "Commando" which are both, somehow, funnier than "Henry's Crime."

This guy.  No, not Jesse Ventura.  The other guy.

*I certainly know absolutely nothing about the Chekov play, The Cherry Orchard, but it's a major plot device used frequently in this movie.  I'm guessing that there are supposed to be some sort of parallels from the play to the movie but I don't know what, if any, they were supposed to be.  My guess is that the screenwriter tried to be clever but wherever it was is lost on me.  

Box Office Information: This movie made $100,000 on an unknown budget but I think it's safe to say it lost money.  It opened in a whopping two theaters and must have been seen by literally a couple of hundred people.  

Rotten Tomatoes: 41% Critic/25% Audience.  These both look about right to me.

My Movie Rating: 4/10.  It's just really sloppy and boring.  There are no jokes in this comedy, the tunneling into the bank has been done countless other times, all of which have been better than this.  That said, it's not unwatchable, I just wouldn't recommend it to anyone for any reason.  

IMDB: 6.0

Keanu Rating: 5/10.  He's just really bland in this but I blame the writing of his character for a lot of that.

Up Next: The 2012 movie "Generation Um..." Nope, not a clue what this is.  

The Keanu Reeves Project - The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE (2009) - Chris

As stated in at least one previous post, I understand that not all movies are made with me in mind as a target audience.  Because I do not believe myself to be the center of the universe, I am a-ok with this.  This is why when I hate movies that are clearly intended for middle-age white women looking for some escapism, I can appreciate that some people out there will like movies that I in turn will despise with every fiber of my being.

With that said, I have no clue who 2009's "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" is intended for.  Was it also made for suburban white women suffering a mid-life crisis?  I guess?  It's really hard to say because I don't know what the fuck the point of this movie was.  And while I did not hate this movie nearly as much as some of the other ones in this project (mainly do due a handful of really good performances), I really don't understand the point of it, what its message is or why it was made.

As always, full spoilers ahead but if you were to tell me that you're ever planning on watching this movie I would call you a damn dirty liar because I'm pretty certain that aside from close friends and relatives of the cast and crew of this movie, nobody has ever heard of this.

At the beginning of the movie we meet the titular Pippa Lee, played by Robin Wright as she sits around a dinner party with her friends and her much older husband Herb played by the always excellent Alan Arkin.  We learn a few things in the intro, most importantly that Pippa and Herb are moving out to a retirement community somewhere in Connecticut because Herb is tired of living in the city.  Plus he's like 75 years old and retiring from a very successful career in the publishing business.  He's also had a few heart attacks and really just needs to take it easy.

I don't want to stay on the opening scene for more than one more paragraph but just two quick things to note here.  First, Pippa's best friend Sandra is there and she is played by Winona Ryder in her third movie alongside Keanu (although they have zero scenes together).  Second, another Keanu Reeves Project returnee is at the table and it's not someone I expected to see in any other movies period let alone any other movies for this project.  Can you guess who?

What if I give you a hint?

It's someone else from "The Matrix" sequels.

How about another hint?

It's a famous African American man.

Did you guess Laurence Fishburne?  Well guess what?  You're fucking wrong.

It's motherfucking Cornel West!  Cornel West, who inexplicably showed up in both "Matrix" sequels, is at the goddamn dinner table!  How?  Why?  Cornel West, who I would listen to philosophize for hours on end is not an actor, he's a goddamn professor formerly from Harvard and Princeton and I have no fucking clue how he ended up in this movie.  At least in "The Matrix" sequels I found an article about how he ended up there but this one is a goddamn mystery especially as this was an indie that only found itself released in about three theaters.

My dude, what ARE you doing here?

And you know what else?  Cornel West isn't going to be the last cast member from "Matrix" sequels to show up in this movie!  If you can guess who the other person is, you win a prize!

From here to the end of the movie we start getting a lot of flashback sequences about Pippa Lee's life growing up so a lot of what a write from here on is probably not in order of how it's shown in the movie but I'm guessing that you don't care.

So we're treated to a scene of Pippa's birth, and it was around this time I started getting some "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" vibes but mercifully I was wrong and this movie did not go down that path.

So Pippa's mother is named Suky and she's played by Maria Bello and we learn early on that she's basically a 50's housewife/speed addict.  The character of Pippa is actually played by three different actresses - very young Pippa, teenage/20 something Pippa played by Blake Lively, and of course Robin Wright.

Back in the present, Pippa and Herb have moved off to the retirement community where she is the youngest person living there by at least a few decades.  She learns that one of her neighbors has a son that is going through some personal problems and temporarily moving in next door.  So Pippa heads over to the party that's being held as a welcoming of sorts for him which is when we meet our shirtless, tattooed hero, Keanu Reeves playing Chris.

I have the same exact Jesus tattoo, except mine is on my back

Oh also, something odd is going on at Pippa and Herb's house as she discovers someone (or something) has broken in at night and eaten a piece of cake.  She assumes it's Herb and that he probably has dementia, so they install a security camera and in a bit of an unexpected TWIST it turns out that it's actually Pippa who has begun sleepwalking and is potentially having a nervous breakdown.

Back in some flashbacks with Blake Lively, we learn more about her childhood and honestly, I couldn't really care about most of this.  It turns out that Pippa started getting into fights with her mother over her drug abuse and we're even treated to a scene reminiscent of the best thing that ever happened on "Saved by the Bell."

So Pippa runs away from home.  First, she moves in with her Aunt Trish who is a bit of a mystery.  Aunt Trish has a "roommate" named Kat played by Julianne more and surprise surprise, they're actually in a relationship together which comes as a real surprise to Pippa.  This is all fine and good until one day Trish goes off to work and Kat coerces Pippa into this weird erotic photo shoot with some of her friends.  Trish comes home early, sees what's going on and kicks Pippa out.

Back in the present, things are getting worse for Pippa.  She's not really enjoying her time living in the retirement community and continues to sleepwalk, winding up at the convenience store where Keanu is now working as a cashier.  She wakes up and he drives her home but she's clearly losing it.  During this time, her burgeoning "platonic" relationship with Keanu seems to be growing although it's pretty evident that she's interested in him a little bit beyond sleepwalking into his store because obviously, he's Keanu Reeves.  

We learn a little bit more about him around this time too - he's unable to tell a lie (because sure that's a character trait I guess) and the reason he left the west coast to move into his parent's retirement community is because he caught his wife cheating on him.  Also he was training to be a Jesuit priest at one point which I guess explains the huge Jesus tattoo on his chest?  Sure, whatever.

Back in another Blake Lively flashback we see how Pippa and Herb actually met: after being thrown out of Aunt Trish's house she starts hanging out with a bunch of transient hippies and there's a montage of her doing drugs and wandering around aimlessly.  I got a real Go Ask Alice vibe here although I don't think they ever turned that piece of propaganda into a movie.

You can't ask Alice anything anymore

Sidenote: when I was around 12 years old my mother had me read Go Ask Alice and I'm still unclear if she was having me read it as a warning against doing drugs, if she just thought it was a good book, or didn't realize it was complete anti-drug propaganda.  Maybe I'll ask her.

Anyway, Pippa and her crew are wandering around a beach one day where she meets Herb who is roughly 30 years older than her.  Herb invites her crew to a party where they all go and hang out and this is where we meet the other "Matrix" cast member who is playing Herb's second wife.  

Have you guessed who it is yet?

If you said Carrie Anne Moss you'd be wrong, it's the return of Monica Bellucci!  As far as I'm concerned, Monica Belluci can show up in all of the rest of the movies in this project (particularly the bad ones).

Oh, hi there

Anyway, we learn that Gigi (Monica Bellucci) is legit crazy and Herb wants out of this marriage.  So despite the fact that Pippa and Herb's relationship starts off as a friendship, it eventually turns sexual because duh, it's Blake Lively and Alan Arkin is apparently the most charming man on the planet.  I guess this part sort of made sense, Pippa is a young 20-something searching for purpose and she has now met a successful, older man in Herb and it just sort of makes sense for her.  I don't know and I don't care.

Sometime after they start carrying on their affair, Herb, his business partner, his wife Gigi and Pippa all have a lunch together where Gigi pulls out a gun, says she knows about the affair (in not so many words) and shoots herself in the head.

This was....unexpected.

Back in the present things are still not going great for Pippa.  After getting thrown out of a pottery class for talking shit to the instructor, Pippa goes to Herb's office which she had found for him early in the movie where she discovers that he's been cheating on her with her friend Sandra (Winona Ryder).  Look, I don't know what Herb has got going on because in this movie he's managed to bone down with Blake Lively/Robin Wright, Monica Bellucci and Winona Ryder.  I mean, I've never found Alan Arkin to be a particularly attractive man but he's certainly got some sort of magic with the ladies.  I suppose it doesn't hurt that in the context of the movie he's totally loaded.

So he blames the affair on Pippa for reasons I couldn't begin to remember or care about, so she uses this as a reason to go sneak into Keanu Reeves' bedroom and make out with him.

Shortly thereafter, Pippa discovers Herb unconscious on the kitchen floor as he's probably just had his third massive heart attack.  We wind up at the hospital where Herb lies on a bed, surrounded by his wife Pippa and their two kids who I haven't even mentioned yet because seriously, who could give a shit?  Oh, and Winona is out in the waiting room as well because she made an incredibly half-hearted attempt at suicide (don't worry, she'll be just fine).  

Don't worry, the movie is almost over

Herb is brain dead so the family makes the decision to take him off of life support and Herb dies.  Yay.

After Herb's death, Pippa meets back up with Keanu and they have sex.  No wait, he just fingers her in the back of a truck because sure, that's sexy I guess.

Back at her house, she tells her kids that she's "going on a trip" and they should organize the memorial service and sell whatever things they don't want to keep.  Herb's been cheating on her so she sure as shit isn't going to organize anything for him.  She hops in a truck with Keanu and they head west and the movie ends.

Generally speaking, I did not care for this movie but I'm also not the target audience.  I feel like it had a story to tell, I just don't really know what the point of it was or who it was for.  

Some scattered thoughts:

*Another movie featuring multiple May/December romances - this one has Alan Arkin and, well, everyone but it's also got Robin Wright and Keanu who also probably have about a 15 year age gap.  What's with Keanu playing the younger man?  This has now happened in this movie, "Something's Gotta Give," "Dangerous Liasons," and "The Prince of Pennsylvania."  Now that Keanu is in his 50's, if he keeps this up in the 2020's I'm worried we're going to find him in on-screen relationships with Judy Dench or Maggie Smith.  I don't want to watch that.  

*This actually makes the fourth movie that Monica Bellucci has appeared in with Keanu Reeves - "The Matrix Reloaded," "The Matrix Revolutions," "Bram Stoker's Dracula," and now this.  It's also the third movie with Wynona.  I don't know, I find this shit interesting.

*While this is clearly a vehicle for Robin Wright, I was pleasantly surprised at how much screen time Keanu had in this.  I had gone in with the assumption he wasn't going to be in this much but he's got his fair share of scenes and makes the most with what he's given.

*I'm getting a little tired about watching movies about charmed white people.  I don't think there are many if any left like this in Keanu's filmography, especially as we start making more of a transition to action films.

*At some point in the movie a dog is hit by a car (off-screen) and Keanu tries to save its life.  John Wick would have been proud.

Don't worry, not his dog and this movie has a real lack of Russian gangsters

Box Office Information: $337,000 on an unknown budget.  Like I said, this movie was not exactly a smash hit nor do I think it was meant to be.  With that said, I always wonder how movies like this get made on seemingly shoestring budgets with some high profile performers.  I mean, this thing has Robin Wright, Julianne Moore, Keanu, Alan Arkin, Maria Bello, Blake Lively and....Cornel West.  Seriously, what the fuck is Cornel West doing in this?

Rotten Tomatoes: 69% Critic/50% Audience.  I'm a little surprised that any critics even saw this thing in the first place given it's incredibly limited release.

My Movie Rating: 4.5/10.  I've already stated this movie was not made for me but it's not unwatchable or anything.  Plus, Monica Bellucci is in it.

One more picture of Monica Bellucci isn't going to hurt anyone

Keanu Rating: I barely discussed him in my recap.  While Keanu's presence in this movie was more than I expected, he barely registered an impression on me.  Once again, he plays a stoic character which is where he's often at his best and for that I'm going to give him a 7.

Up Next: A movie called "Henry's Crime," I don't know what this is either but hopefully the crime isn't making a shitty movie about entitled white people.

The Keanu Reeves Project - Bill and Ted Face the Music (Part 1)

 BILL AND TED FACE THE MUSIC (2020) - Ted "Theodore Logan

Well, I'm going to do my best to a) not include too many spoilers in this post while b) not writing 10,000 words.  In fact, I think I'm going to keep this brief and instead will revisit the movie when I come to the conclusion of this project, particularly since I'll be done within a few weeks and "Face the Music" seems like it will be a fitting ending (aside from the recap post I am already planning).

If you've been with me on this journey from the beginning (and I know unequivocally you most likely have NOT), then you would have already read both of my posts about "Excellent Adventure" and "Bogus Journey."  Since there's a good chance that anyone finding this post has probably not read those, let me just give a little personal history -

I grew up on the "Bill and Ted" movies and have seen each of them countless times.  There was a period in my youth where I could have recited both scripts from memory - this is not an exaggeration.  As a kid I did a lot of theater and would frequently memorize entire plays even if I only had a handful of lines, so knowing nearly all of the words to two of my favorite movies wasn't particularly difficult.

Needless to say, Bill and Ted have been a part of my life going on 30 years and rarely a few days go by where I don't find myself quoting something from one of the two movies.  I've got an "Excellent Adventure" poster up in the den, my screen name for various video games is "YesWayTed" and even my two idiot cats are named Bill and Ted.  

When I first heard that talks were in progress on a third movie over ten years ago, you could say I was just a little bit excited.  Of course, it was all talk and little action for a third movie for such a long time that I eventually lost hope that this movie would ever come out and had to live with watching "Excellent Adventure" and "Bogus Journey" a handful of times a year instead.  That was also okay, they are my comfort movies that I'll put on if I'm cooking or just trying to take a nap on the couch.  I've even gotten a chance to introduce my nephew to both of them and aside from a homophobic slur or two, I believe they still hold up even for a much younger generation.  

So, when Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter released this video last year announcing they were actually starting to film the new movie it was basically the best news anyone could have given me:

Unfortunately, unless you are a billionaire, 2020 has basically been a disaster.  I often think about the things that have been taken away from us and all things considered I've been pretty lucky.  But while a lot of things can be put on hold or replaced later, there are just certain experiences that you can't get back.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about the experiences that so many of us are losing, whether it is the class of 2020 who have now both been screwed by missing their last months of high school as well as their first year of college (at least for the responsible ones) or the weddings that have had to be canceled or postponed or the new babies that family members are unable to meet (including my new niece born earlier this week who I hope to be able to meet by 2023).  

For me, I had been so anticipating being able to see "Face the Music" in theaters that I've been excited about it since the movie's announcement last year.  Before COVID, I had planned on taking the day off from work and being at the first showing possible (and depending on how much I liked it potentially seeing it again that same evening).  However, the joke is now on me since a) I'm not currently employed due to the pandemic and b) there are no movie theaters near me that are actually operational and even if there were I would not be going to one right now.

Now that I've seen the movie twice in a 24 hour period (I watched it literally the second it came out at midnight and again the next evening), I have to admit that I'm so saddened by the fact that I wasn't able to see this in a crowded theater full of Bill and Ted fans for one simple reason: this movie was *GREAT*.

Look, I know it's hard to believe or trust me on this, I am after all what you might describe as just a little bit biased when it comes to Bill and Ted and Keanu Reeves in general.  The good news is, you don't have to trust just me, the movie currently has an 82% score on Rotten Tomatoes.  

You only get to experience a great movie for the first time once, and unfortunately my first time was watching it off of Amazon on my computer instead of with all of the other mega fans that would have been laughing their asses off alongside me in a theater.  I'm sure one day a place like the "Alamo Drafthouse" will show all three movies back to back to back, but even then it just won't be the same and for that, I just want to say that COVID can go fuck itself.

I really had expected "Face the Music" to be bad.  It's not a secret that when a sequel to a movie comes out more than a few years after the previous film, it's usually VERY bad.  There are more examples of this than I can think of but off the top of my head you've got "Dumb and Dumber To" (never seen - 30% score), "The Phantom Menace" (a generous 53%), The Godfather 3 and on and on and on....this is why I have very low expectations for the new "Coming to America" sequel.

This photo was literally all I knew going in

Somehow, I managed to avoid reading anything about "Face the Music" or watching a single trailer.  In fact, for the last two or so months as soon as a commercial has come on for the movie I've immediately hit the mute button and closed my eyes and despite the fact that my news feed has been tailored to give me anything Keanu related, I've avoided all articles and interviews as well.

So going in with no expectations and nearly no knowledge of the movie, I still can't believe how good this turned out and (aside from not being able to see it in a theater) what perfect timing it is as this is the movie we all need right now.  It's uplifting, it's positive, it's joyful, and I was smiling ear to ear nearly the entire movie, aside from the part where I literally cried (on both of my viewings).

The only thing I do want to say as an initial thought on the movie (VERY MINOR SPOILER AHEAD) is that Anthony Carrigan (who is also brilliant as NoHo Hank in HBO's "Barry") damn near steals this movie as a robot from the future.  Just an amazingly hilarious performance.  

No spoilers here, go rent the movie and enjoy yourself.  

My Movie Rating: 9.5/10

The Keanu Reeves Project - The Day the Earth Stood Still

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (2008) - KLAATU

Well in case you haven't been paying much attention to anything lately, the state of the world is a bit of a mess.  Beyond the pandemic that will potentially never go away while a party that doesn't believe in testing or science "leads" the way, we've also got more civil unrest that I can only imagine will continue for the foreseeable future.

So it's in this environment that I figure I better keep cranking out these posts, especially while I still have electricity!  I'll get to why that's a joke as I reach the end of the synopsis of the 2008 Keanu Reeves led movie, "The Day the Earth Stood Still."

One quick note that's non-specific to this movie - Blogspot recently changed their format and I've noticed that my embedded Youtube videos no longer show up on mobile devices.  I don't know why, I don't know how to fix it, and I'm annoyed because sometimes I like to throw in some really great content here and the only way to see this as it's supposed to be seen is now through a desktop computer.  So while I'll continue adding some Youtube embedding things when I want to, just know that if you're reading this on mobile there's a chance you might be missing out on just some great stuff.

Okay, on with the show and as you should know by now if you've read a single post to this point, full spoilers are ahead.

So "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is a remake of a classic movie from 1951 of the same name, and while I've never seen the original, my understanding is that there is very little overlap in plots aside from some very basic setup elements.

The movie opens with Keanu Reeves as an unnamed hiker in the mountains of India in the year 1921.  I'm not sure if he's supposed to be Indian or not because as you may or may not remember, he's already played an Indian once in the wretchedly boring movie, "Little Buddha."

Remember me?

The hiker notices a big glowing orb buried in the snow and starts hacking at it with a pickaxe, he's knocked out cold and awakes to find a scar on his hand.

The movie then cuts to present day where we meet Dr. Helen Benson, played by Jennifer Connelly, teaching some sort of astronomical biology course at a college.  I didn't quite catch what kind of scientist she is but I'm pretty sure it was something made up.

Anyway, she goes home to her stepson Jacob, played by an excruciatingly annoying Jaden Smith.  We quickly learn that his dad is dead and he doesn't appear to have much respect for his stepmother.

How can this movie be real if our eyes aren't real?

Helen is alarmed when a goddamn cavalcade of military and police vehicles show up at her house and sweep her off to an unknown location.  She's whisked off to some sort of military installation where Jon Hamm tells a roomful of scientists that some sort of large object is rapidly headed towards Manhattan and they only have about 90 minutes to figure out how to stop it.  Like, way to give us some time, the least you could have done was call Bruce Willis and a bunch of other off-shore riggers to try to stop this thing.

We're busy this time around

Rather than do anything to attempt to stop whatever is coming, they all head towards downtown Manhattan with a shitload of helicopters and other military vehicles, where inexplicably the object slows down as it enters orbit and slowly lands in the middle of Central Park.  It's this giant, glowing sphere and Helen's first instinct is to approach it, where a figure emerges and is immediately shot by an unknown person because that's probably exactly what we would do if this actually happened.

The object is also trailed by a gigantic robot/which is later named "GORT," who I will get to a bit more shortly.  The now shot figure is grabbed by the military and swept off to another location where a doctor attempts to perform surgery to remove the bullet/save its life.

Slowly, the "placenta" like material is stripped away from the creature and what finally emerges is our hero, Keanu Reeves, who looks like the hiker from the beginning of the movie because the aliens harvested his DNA so they can blend in on Earth.  

Nobody really knows what to make of this, but the Secretary of Defense, Kathy Bates as Regina Jackson, is alarmed.  Helen starts to talk to Keanu, who thankfully speaks and understands English.  We learn his name is Klaatu and he's come specifically to Manhattan in order to address all of the world's leaders at the United Nations.

Now if the name Klaatu rings a bell and you haven't seen either versions of this movie, it might be because a small part of the original film was borrowed in one of my favorite scenes in a much more entertaining movie, "Army of Darkness."

Well, Kathy Bates isn't having any of that shit and because Klaatu won't tell anyone what his intentions are, demands he be sedated and interrogated.  This is idiocy of course because clearly this alien is a far more advanced species than humans.  None of the scientists want to help out with this task and in the funniest if unintentional line of the movie, Jon Hamm declares, "As scientists we can't consent to this!"

Helen volunteers to administer the sedation, but swaps out whatever the military was planning on giving Klaatu with a harmless saline solution instead and warns Klaatu to run away.

I won't go much into the absurdness of the situation because it's a science fiction movie, but it never dawns on anyone in the room that this is an alien creature that might not react the same way as humans to anesthesia, saline, water, or anything else given or used on Klaatu upon his capture.

Anyway, Klaatu is brought into a room where he's essentially given a lie detector test and asked what the hell he's doing on Earth, but instead of answering the questions, Klaatu uses alien powers to crash the lie detector test and disable the proctor and all of the military guards outside the room.

"Do you willingly choose to star in mediocre movies?"

Oh, and he also steals the proctor's suit (thankfully they wear the same size), which he wears for the rest of the movie.

By now, it's all over the news that a fucking alien has landed in a ship, which everyone is now referring to as "The Central Park Sphere," not to be confused with the "Central Park Five," although Donald Trump probably wants the sphere executed as well.

Panic starts to grip the world at large, with millions of people in multiple cities trying to evacuate, to go where I'm not entirely sure.  GORT, who stands at something like 40 feet tall, is still hanging out in Central Park.  Kathy Bates makes a good point that whenever two civilizations meet each other for the first time, the one with inferior technology usually ends up on the wrong side of the stick.  There are many examples of this throughout the course of history and despite the fact that she knows that humans are probably fucked here, she orders the military to take out GORT in the park.

Of course, this attempt fails, and GORT is able to shoot down and destroy all the drones that are sent in to kill him.  I don't even know why they bothered with this plan, particularly because at this point Klaatu's intentions are still unknown to everyone.

By now, Klaatu has escaped and made it as far as Penn Station, where he notices he is injured and collapses on a bathroom floor.  He makes a call to Helen, who shows up at the station and picks him up and along with the most annoying child ever, head on the run.  It's at this point we learn about Klaatu's miracle cure, some sort of balm that when applied to his skin is able to heal all wounds.  He should be hawking this shit on late night television: Klaatu's Miracle Balm!  If only Trump knew about this he might have finally found his COVID miracle cure.  

Around this time, Klaatu tells Helen that he's come to "Save the Earth," but won't really elaborate, and in one of the most amazing product placements in movie history, has her drive him to a McDonald's.  Seriously, that is something that happens in this movie.

Supersize me

At McDonald's, Klaatu has a rendevous with an old Chinese man, played by James Hong, and they exchange words in Chinese despite the fact that they both speak English.  Perhaps they don't want anyone at this McDonald's overhearing their conversation and I guess that would make sense since they are both aliens talking about the destruction of Earth.  In any case, James Hong is also an alien who has been studying humans for over 70 years and basically says that they are all a lost cause.  They're killing the planet and the species is basically worthless, and you know what?  I can't really disagree with the man/alien.

Well, that about settles it for Klaatu.  He lets Helen know his real intentions for coming to Earth, it's not to save the humans, it's to save the Earth from humans.  See, Earth is one of the only planets in the entire universe capable of sustaining life and humans have gone and completely fucked it all up.  And once again, I can't really disagree with the man/alien.

So there you have the message of the movie, it's basically about climate change, how prophetic.

Despite the fact that everyone in the country is looking for them, Helen tells Klaatu she can convince him to not destroy all of humanity.  He tells her that it's already decided but she doesn't give up and instead drives him to one of her old professor's house.

They arrive and meet John Cleese and his chalkboard of mystery calculations, where Klaatu explains that his civilization had to change when they were also on the precipice of destruction.  Cleese replies that now that the humans know that they are also on the brink of destruction, they can change too.  I guess nobody told Klaatu about this great new fuel power, "Clean Coal."

Nails on a chalkboard

This fucking idiot

Meanwhile back at Central Park, the military has managed to capture GORT and brought him to some sort of underground bunker, where Coach Taylor himself explains that they've run all sorts of tests on it including an MRI and a PET, and I would still love to know where they found an MRI machine capable of running a scan on a 40 foot tall robot.

Clear eyes, full hearts!

Back at the professor's house, Jaden Smith has fucking ratted out Klaatu and his step-mom to the FBI, so they show up in helicopters and attempt to recapture Klaatu, but manage to only get Helen.  Klaatu and Jaden Smith run off while Helen tries to devise a plan to literally save the world.

It's at this point that GORT GOES BALLISTIC.  The orders are in and GORT starts disintegrating into some kind of gigantic alien locust swarm that explodes, taking the bunker and everyone in it with it.  Sorry Coach Taylor, you should have listened.

The locust swarm escapes the bunker and starts to destroy/erase everything in its path and humanity is doomed.  Around this time, various glowing orbs all around the world also start to appear and leave the planet, taking all varieties of life with it as Kathy Bates determines this is like Noah's biblical ark come to life so that when all the humans are dead and gone, the aliens can rehabilitate the planet without them.  Once again, I don't think this is a terrible plan.

As the locusts are destroying everything in their path, Klaatu and Jaden Smith meet up with Helen at the cemetery where her husband is buried.  The locust swarm, I should note, are incredibly reminiscent of the atrocious made for TV movie adaptation of Stephen King's The Langoliers although the CGI in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" is night and day better.

Trust me, there is no reason to ever watch this

Here's where things start falling apart for me - Klaatu witnesses the love that Helen has for her horribly annoying stepson and decides, hey, let's give the humans another chance!  I don't like nitpicking science fiction movies for logical flaws but this makes no sense.  Klaatu is right - human beings are a garbage species that have destroyed the planet, so why does this one scene of Helen and her kid make him change his mind?  I don't know, he never says and a movie that had previously been simply mediocre loses several points here.

Klaatu tells Helen he can reverse course, but humans will pay a price.  He navigates his way through the locust swarm and returns to his sphere and the power goes out (forever?) all over the world.  The sphere leaves the planet and the movie ends.

This leaves me with a ton of questions that aren't answered.  So humanity gets to live, but without electricity?  Is this going to repair all of the damage we've already done?  Is there any reason humans can't get electricity back?  What about the seemingly millions if not tens or hundreds of millions of people that have already died from the locusts or the people that are now going to die without a source of power?  

Fuck it, who cares.

Just a small amount of scattered thoughts on this one:

*We are told that John Cleese has won a Nobel Prize, or what the president would call a Noble Prize, in "Biological Altruism."  Yeah, I"m pretty sure that's not a thing.

*I'm just a bit curious how McDonald's came to be heavily featured in this movie, aside from an extremely long shot of the exterior of a McDonald's, there's also that long shot inside of it where it's determined to end humanity on Earth.  I guess McDonald's is as good a place as any to make that decision, especially if Klaatu ordered a filet-o-fish.  If only he'd gotten a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit perhaps he would have gone the other way.

The only thing to ever order at McDonald's

*Speaking of McDonald's product placement, I think I prefer this one (sorry if you're on mobile and I don't know how to fix Blogspot):

*There's a far shot of Times Square where we clearly see a gigantic advertisement for "The Soup" back when Joel Mchale hosted the show and wow did that make me long for the days of Joel Mchale hosting that show.

*I'm not sure the status, but as of a few days ago we learned there's a meteor headed towards Earth with about a .5% chance of hitting us.  Given how 2020 has gone so far, it wouldn't surprise me nor would I be particularly upset if it took us all out.

*The special effects in this movie are pretty good!  I especially liked when the locust swarm destroys the New York Giant's stadium, because fuck the Giants.

Box Office Information: $79 Million Domestic ($100 Million inflation adjusted)/$158 Million international for a total of $237 Million worldwide on a budget of $80 Million.  I had no idea this movie was this successful.  It was released in December of 2008 so it was just the 43rd highest grossing movie of the year but would have been higher had it not overlapped two calendar years.  

Rotten Tomatoes: 21% Critics/27% audience.  I'm a little surprised at these really low numbers, it's really not that bad.

IMDB: 5.5

My Movie Rating: 4.5 - I wouldn't recommend this to anyone and I even would have been willing to give it a half a point higher if not for the very stupid ending where Klaatu decides to save humanity for basically no reason in return for shutting down electricity forever.  You know what, just typing that sentence I'm revising my rating to a 4.  

Keanu Rating: Oof, this is a tough one.  Keanu is playing a very stoic, very robotic alien creature and I actually think he was cast pretty well for this type of character.  I don't want to let my feelings on this movie color my grade for him, so I'm going to give him a relatively generous 6.5

Up Next: Some movie called "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee."  I get the impression that he has a very small role in this a la "Thumbsucker," but you know what, if I watched that despite his minimal role then I guess I'll watch whatever the hell this is as well, assuming I can find it.

The Keanu Reeves Project - Street Kings

 STREET KINGS (2008) - Detective Tom Ludlow

I've once again found myself watching a Keanu Reeves starring movie that I've simply never heard of.  The movie was released in April of 2008 and it's possible I was too distracted with moving into a new apartment in Austin, TX around that time to even notice this movie had come out because on it's face, it appears to have been something I would have been interested in - crooked cop Keanu hunts down the killers of his former partner only to uncover even more crookedness.  Great, I'm on board.

Cut to 8/25/20, the date in which I actually watched this movie and I can safely say I did not make a mistake by missing out on this one initially.

As always, full and total spoilers ahead.

One of the more fun aspects of this project, particularly when I run into a less than stellar movie, is that it allows me to do some cursory research before sitting down and writing these posts.  About 30 minutes into "Street Kings," I started to think to myself, "Wow, this movie is like 'Training Day," but really stupid."

It was around that time that I hit the pause button to look up who made this thing.

Well it turns out that this was written by by David Ayer, who also happened to write a variety of other police dramas including: "SWAT," "Dark Blue," "End of Watch" and....what's that...yes, "Training Day."

KING KONG AIN'T GOT SHIT ON ME!

Well at least the dude ripped off himself, but in between writing "Training Day," a movie that I've seen a handful of times and writing "Street Kings," I think David Ayers might have been given a lobotomy.  

For some reason, I took a shitload of notes on this movie, but rather than bore you with a full and complete synopsis because there's no way you've seen this movie, I'll try to summarize as best as possible.

Keanu Reeves plays Detective Tom Ludlow, who works undercover for the vice squad in the LAPD.  Early in the movie we learn that he's got a drinking problem (all of his drinking is almost exclusively airplane size bottles of vodka) but this never really comes into play for any reason.  Oh, he's also just a tad bit racist.  Or, at least he is for the first 15 minutes of the movie, but then that aspect of his personality also goes away, never to affect any other part of this movie aside from an opening sequence where he murders a bunch of Korean dudes in order to save two kidnapped girls. 

That's right, Detective Keanu does not play by the rules! Of course, we learn pretty early on that seemingly, nobody in the LAPD is particularly clean, including everyone that works in Keanu's unit which is led by Forrest Whitaker as Captain Wander.  Actually, the entire corrupt LAPD might be the most believable part of this movie, and without getting into current events of police brutality (or, you know, events that have been happening at a pretty steady clip by law enforcement for the last 200 years), let's just say that Keanu and all of his colleagues seem to be just fine with doing a little (or a lot) of dirt on the job.

Detective Keanu, in his second recent movie as a police officer, learns early on from Captain Forrest that his former partner, Terrence Washington, played here by Terry Crews, is snitching on a lot of cops to Internal Affairs.  Keanu, being the lovable drunk he is (no seriously, despite ALL OF HIS DRINKING in this movie, he never appears drunk or under the influence of anything at all), follows Washington to a bodega which is immediately "robbed" and Washington is straight up riddled with dozens of bullets from automatic weapons by the two assailants.  In the ensuing melee, Keanu fires his own weapon in defense, but accidentally hits Washington in the back.

I use quotation marks on the robbery because it should be VERY evident to Detective Keanu that this was clearly a hit designed to take out Washington but for some reason he doesn't figure this out until the third act of this movie.  The two suspects come in blasting, steal nothing, and blatantly target Terry Crews.  You'd have to be an idiot to think anything else, but again, maybe Keanu was drunk.

Keanu's crew show up to the scene of the crime and Wander wants to know what Keanu was even doing following Washington in the first place despite being ordered to stay away from him.  In the most incredulous part of an incredulous movie, Keanu tells Wander that he was just going to beat up Terry Crews for snitching, not murder him.

In case you've forgotten, this is what Terry Crews looks like without a shirt on:

I'm giving Keanu 10,000:1 odds in this fight

Anyway, this inciting incident really leads to everything else that happens in the movie, which I'll really try to summarize in brief.

Keanu ends up teaming up with Detective "Disco" Diskant, played by a young Chris Evans, to solve the case as to who killed Washington despite the fact that Captain Wander and Sergeant Jay Mohr are seemingly doing everything they can to get Keanu to let sleeping dogs lie.  It is pretty obvious to anyone with half a brain that Wander, Mohr and Keanu's entire unit are up to no good beyond planting drugs and guns on Korean gangs who kidnap young women.  See, EVERYONE in the LAPD in this movie are up to no good, just to varying degrees.  Again, this might be the most accurate part of the movie.

Detective Keanu and Detective Disco go from lead to lead from a variety of "bad guys," many of which are played by recognizable faces, like Cedric the Entertainer, The Game and Noel Gugliemi.  I bet you're asking, "who the fuck is Noel Gugliemi?" But trust me, you know him, because for all of the 2000's whenever a movie needed a generic Latino gangster, this dude's agent got a call.  This guy has 210 acting credits and I'm willing to bet at least 150 of them are "East LA Gangster."  No really, here are some of his acting credits: "The X Files" - Gangbanger #1, "The Animal" - Gangster, "National Security" - Latino Convict, "Bruce Almighty" - Hood, and "Training Day," where he actually has a name, but is, wait for it...a gang member.

Noel Gugliemi as Generic Latino Ganger #1

All the while, Keanu is being followed around by the head of Internal Affairs, Captain Biggs, played by Hugh Laurie.

Not playing House

Keanu and Disco eventually find their way to meeting "Fremont" (another actor who is almost exclusively in David Ayers films) and "Coates," (played by Common in his first encounter with Keanu Reeves, stay tuned), who are the two responsible for gunning down Terry Crews.  After a short encounter at their hideout, Keanu kills both of them after they open fire, killing Disco.  Keanu pulls off a pretty slick move here, crushing Common with a fridge before shooting him in the face.  This won't be the last time that Keanu Reeves kills Common on screen.

I'll be seeing you soon, John

He flees the scene and heads to his girlfriend's house where he learns that "Fremont" and "Coates" were ALSO undercover cops who ALSO are incredibly dirty as they've been stealing heroin from evidence rooms and selling it.  Terry Crews had figured this out and was snitching on them to Internal Affairs, so of course he had to die.  Two of the other members of Keanu's unit find him at the house, tie him up and bring him to a house with the intention of executing him.  

Bake'em away, toys!

Of course, Keanu is able to kill both of them and escape, only after they explain the entire plan like a couple of low-rent Bond villains.  Keanu then goes to confront Captain Forrest Whitaker who is actually the big boss behind everything (duh).  Forrest Whitaker explains that he has dirt on literally everyone important in LA and plans to use this to become the chief of police but only if Keanu lets him get away with it.

So it comes as no surprise when Keanu, who apparently is sick of dealing with dirty cops, shoots Wander dead in his own kitchen.  Hugh Laurie shows up and is basically like, "hey good job" and the movie ends.

In general, this is a pretty silly and obvious movie but overall it's generally watchable even if it's not good.  My biggest gripes are the threads that are opened but lead to nowhere like Keanu's racism and drinking.  By the time he realizes that everyone around him is even dirtier than he is, it's hard to actually care.

There's some pretty over-the-top violence, particularly when Terry Crews is murdered but a handful of other scenes as well and the movie drags a bit while Keanu and Chris Evans go from street criminal to street criminal trying to solve a case nobody wants them to solve because it would incriminate just about the entire police department.  

A few side notes on this one:

*I've never actually seen the Ayers written film, "Dark  Blue," but it was released while I was in college and I feel like I saw commercials for it CONSTANTLY, leading me to often quote a hilarious Kurt Russell line from the trailer - "The only reason this city is here is because they built it WITH BULLETS!"  

*Hey, how about another thread that leads nowhere?  Late in the first act we learn that Keanu's wife died from a blood clot while she was cheating on him.  Does this matter at all to anything that happens in this movie?  Nope!  This all should have been left on the cutting room floor.

*Keanu kills a bunch of people in this movie and aside from the opening sequence where he murders some Korean gangsters, I believe they are ALL dirty cops.  I don't know, I feel like even if they are all dirty there's gotta be some kind of repercussions for this.  Maybe that's why they made a sequel to this, which went straight to video.  Of course, that movie literally has none of the same cast members so I'm guessing that doesn't tie anything together whatsoever. 

*There's a chase sequence where they bust through a house that happens to have "Flavor of Love" on the television.  I went through a long period in the 2000's when I was watching any and every reality dating show on VH1 so this part of the movie really spoke to me particularly because it also happened to one one of, if not, the most famous moments from the show.

I sincerely hope New York is living her best life right now

*At one point Detective Keanu shows up to Wander's house and Forrest Whitaker is just chilling in his silk pajamas.  I don't know, I thought it was funny.

Silky

*There's a pretty funny montage early on when Keanu gets reassigned after the Terry Crews shooting where he's responsible for intake of civilian complaints, almost all of which are about shitty police conduct and all of which seemed plausible.  I could have watched 45 more minutes of this, or I suppose I could just turn on the news.

"So I'd appreciate it if you stopped murdering black people."

Box Office Information: $26 Million ($33 Million inflation adjusted) domestic/$39 Million international for $65 Million worldwide on a $20 Million budget.  I guess that's pretty decent for a movie I've never heard of.

Rotten Tomatoes: 36% Critics/58% Audience.  These numbers make sense to me.

IMDB: 6.8

My Movie Rating: I'm a little conflicted on this as this is not a good movie, but it's totally watchable if you're drunk on the couch some night and I've been watching so many Keanu movies for this project that I'm starting to think of these in terms of how much or how little I'd want to watch this compared to others.  Given the fact that I gave "The Lake House" a 4.5 in my last post and the fact that I'd MUCH rather sit through "Street Kings" again than that, I'm going to just go ahead with a 5.

Keanu Rating: He is a little stiff in this one and I wish he even attempted to pretend like his character is affected at all by alcohol, considering he's constantly consuming it so he gets a 4.

Up Next: It's the remake of "The Day the Earth Stood Still."  I've also never seen this.

The Keanu Reeves Project - The Lake House

THE LAKE HOUSE (2006) - Alex Wyler

Like I said in my last post, let's see if we can't crank through the last 14 years of Keanu movies as fast as possible.  I know I've got some great ones coming up, some not so great ones, and even a handful of movies I've never even heard of.

At the start of this project, I was actually a little excited to get to a few of these later ones I'd never seen before and that actually includes the 2006 movie, "The Lake House."  I'd heard a little bit about it before, I know it's a time travel move, and I know it's a love story and hey, I like some time travel movies (notably "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure") but also some other ones like "Terminator" and "Looper," and I even like some romance movies, including "The Last of the Mohicans," which is a perfectly spectacular movie.  So what if my romances require a scalping or two?

The problem with a lot of time travel movies is that they make no sense and "The Lake House" is certainly no exception.  In fact, if I were to sit here and try to decipher exactly what is and is not happening in this movie in regards to time my brain might explode, so I'm going to do my best to avoid it, which might be difficult since "time travel" is sort of at the center of this movie.

As always, complete spoilers ahead while I attempt to explain this movie, which really isn't that complicated, but again, makes *no* sense.

Sometime in 2004 or 2005, someone apparently got the bright idea to reunite our hero Keanu Reeves with his on-screen counterpart from "Speed" but instead of putting them on a bus together for 90 minutes, they decided to separate them in time for two years, because sure, why not?  I imagine the pitch for this was something like "what if we redid You've got Mail but with a time traveling mailbox?"

The movie opens with Kate (Sandra Bullock) moving into her rented house on the lake, which for the record is made completely out of glass.  You know what they say about people who live in glass houses?  They can't take dumps in private.  But that's really okay because if you look at this house you might notice the absence of one important feature: a bathroom.

Just do your business in the woods.

We then cut to Keanu Reeves as Alex the architect, also moving into the same house (we learn later it was built by his father the architect), except it looks a little bit unused and rundown.  He checks the mailbox and gets a letter, which we hear in voice over from Sandra Bullock, and you better get used to voice over in this thing because it's used a lot.

The letter basically makes no sense to Keanu as it says something about forwarding her mail and apologizing for the "paw prints at the entrance and in the attic."  This makes no sense to Keanu as he doesn't see these footprints anywhere, but a scene or two later a dog shows up out of nowhere and gets muddy footprints all over the walkway and in the attic.

Two quick asides here - first, do you see that picture above?  Do you see a fucking attic anywhere?  No?  Me neither.  So I guess this glass house also has an invisible attic which we see Keanu crawling around in at various points.  Second, skipping ahead a bit to where we figure out that these two people are separated by exactly two years, did Keanu never bother to wash away the muddy footprints in two years?  Did it never rain?

Okay back to where I was - 

In the present, Kate has moved from the lake house to Chicago where she works as a doctor at a very busy hospital.  One day while eating lunch, she witnesses a man get hit by a bus and he dies while she's trying to resuscitate him.  Skipping way ahead once again, we later find out it was actually Keanu Reeves who was hit by the bus while on the way to meet her (I guess he was so excited to meet her after magic letter correspondence for years that he forgets to look both ways or just WAIT FOR THE FUCKING LIGHT) and despite the fact that they had in fact met prior to this accident, Kate apparently has no recollection of this and doesn't realize it's Keanu that's dead.

Like I said above, this movie makes no sense.

Anyway, the two of them start writing letters back and forth (lots and lots of voice over) and they eventually realize that somehow they are living exactly two years apart from one another.  This is all done through the magic mailbox in front of the house, for which we never really learn the rules of.  Does the mailbox only work with letters?  Can they send packages?  What happens if Keanu sticks his dick in the mailbox?

For some reason, neither one of them seems to be, you know, awed by the fact that one of them is communicating with one person in the future and the other the past and they essentially begin a pen pal relationship where they fall in love with each other because....well I'm not entirely sure why.  Keanu tells her that he's an architect and she tells him that she's a doctor and this is basically all either of them need to fall in love.  Sure.

This isn't even to mention that ostensibly, every time Kate needs to write back to Keanu she has to drive 45 minutes outside of the city to drop off a letter, I mean, what a pain in the ass!  Like, Sandy, you're pretty hot and you're a doctor, maybe find a nice guy that lives in the city and I don't know, is on the same literal timeline as you.

If you're reading this letter, it's not too late to pass on this movie

As for Keanu, rather than trying to start a relationship with a woman who lives two years in the future from you, I don't know, use the ability to know the future for personal gains.  Keanu apparently begins a life of celibacy as he's trying to "catch up" to Sandra Bullock even though it's literally impossible.  If I were him, I would have asked her for some stock tips or find out the endings to sporting events.  Hell, because she's two years in the future, he could just start leaving cash in the mailbox for her when he places gigantic bets on basketball games or continuously wins the lottery.  How is it that only Biff Tannen was able to figure this out?  "Hardball" Keanu Reeves would have been all over this shit!

Seriously Keanu, pull your head out of your ass

We eventually learn that Kate has a boyfriend in Keanu's timeline, a very nice man named Morgan who is head over heels in love with Kate, but for whom she is mostly "meh" about.  One day, Keanu's adopted dog gives chase and he ends up at Morgan's house where it dawns on him that he's Kate's boyfriend.  Morgan, apparently the nicest man in the universe, invites Keanu to a party that very night despite the fact that they literally just met.  Keanu eagerly accepts as he knows that Kate will be there as this is the woman that he's talking to two years in the future even if she doesn't know that yet.

So when Keanu shows up to the party, he's aware that he's been talking to the 2006 version of her but she's naturally clueless.  Outside the party, they dance and share a kiss and they're caught by Morgan who is just a bit stunned that his girlfriend is making out with this stranger that he invited to the party.  He doesn't even seem that mad about it!  Does any of this make sense?  No?  Great.

Thanks for coming to my surprise party and all but uh, who are you again?

Back in 2006, Kate realizes that she's actually met the guy she's been exchanging time traveling letters with yet it makes no sense how she hadn't figured this out before.  Like, you don't remember the guy you made out with at your surprise party that led to the end of your relationship with Morgan?  Fuck this movie makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

They continue their time traveling correspondence for a while and agree to meet on a specific date in 2006.  Keanu makes a reservation at this fancy restaurant, but when Kate shows up to meet him there, she ends up getting stood up, which they both think is a little weird.  Keanu claims that he must have gotten called into an important meeting or something but you'd think he'd drop everything to make this appointment in the future given everything that's already happened.  It doesn't dawn on either of them that he could be dead but that's just fine because this movie has already hoped that anyone watching it has lost their sense of reason by now.

A dog learning how to play chess would make more sense plot-wise than this movie

By the way, you'd think Keanu wouldn't be standing ANYONE up for a date anyway, given his treatment by Diane Keaton in the previously reviewed piece of shit movie, "Something's Gotta Give."

At this point, Kate basically calls off their relationship as it is never going to work (you think?) and she decides to get back together with Morgan, moving in with him in Chicago.  Amazingly nice lawyer man that lives in the present > impossible dream man who lives two years before you.  

Morgan, being the amazing guy he is, buys them a house in Chicago but it's a bit of a fixer upper so they hire an architecture firm run by Keanu's brother to redo the place.  At the firm, Kate sees a drawing of the lake house, made previously by Keanu and she learns that this is Keanu's brother and when she asks about him she learns that he's dead - once again shocking that she didn't recognize him as he was presumably dying in her arms.  

Have I mentioned that this movie makes NO FUCKING SENSE?

So she rushes off to drop a letter back in the mailbox basically saying, "hey don't come meet me because you're going to get hit by a bus and die," saving his life. 

Later, at the lake house (I'm honestly not even sure which timeline this is at this point nor do I care), Keanu and Kate meet (even though they already met once at the birthday party) and share a very awkward kiss.  It's been a while since I listened to this episode of "How Did This Get Made," but I'm fairly certain they spent about 15 minutes just talking about this:

The end.

I have to admit, while this movie barely made a lick of sense, I did not hate it.  Maybe at this point I've become desensitized to some really bad movies due to this project, but when I start thinking back on some of what I've watched already, I'd much rather be forced to watch this again than say, "Tune in Tomorrow," "The Matrix Revolutions," or a litany of others.  

Some scattered thoughts:

*Wow, I just wrote 500 or more words about "The Lake House," and didn't even touch on the subplot involving Keanu and his world famous architect father, played by Christopher Plummer.  I guess that goes to show how much of an impact it made on me.  That said, there is a scene where dad has a heart attack (and ends up in Kate's hospital), but is declared to be doing just fine.  That is, until Keanu shows up with a coffee for him, and dad takes a turn for the worse and dies.  Was the caffeinated coffee the cause of his death?  I don't know but I sure hope so.

*At one point after her shift at the hospital, Kate goes to the bar and her doctor friend shows up and declares that it's against social norms to drink alone after 10 PM.  First of all, I've never heard that and second of all if that's the case then I'm in a lot of trouble, particularly as we all continue to live through COVID19.

Yeah, maybe don't start trying to booze-shame me, I'm trying to have a relationship with a man from two years ago

*This is the second recent movie after "Something's Gotta Give" where the lead female protagonist really treats their boyfriend pretty shittily.  I won't rehash Diane Keaton's abysmal treatment of Keanu in that other movie, you can reread that post here if you want, but Sandra Bullock is pretty awful to Morgan in this one, leading him on for YEARS before eventually dumping him to go live in a lake house with no bathroom.

Oh Morgan, you poor bastard

*Seriously, who invites a literal stranger to a surprise birthday party for their girlfriend?  Of course, rather than be like "who the hell is this stranger at my party?" Sandy takes this opportunity to makeout with him, causing the first breakup with Morgan.

*I've heard for a long time that the movie "Primer" is a completely confusing and complicated time travel movie.  To anyone that has seen that movie and understands it, perhaps you can give me a call and explain "The Lake House" to me.

*The female dog in this movie owned both by Keanu and Kate is named "Jack," an apparent inside joke because that's Keanu's name in "Speed."  I'm yet to meet any woman ever named Jack.  Why not Jackie, or I don't know, Annie (Bullock's name in that movie)?

Box Office Information: $52 Million Domestic ($73 Million inflation adjusted)/$63 Million international for $114 Million worldwide on a budget of $40 Million.  That is frankly absurd.

Rotten Tomatoes: 35% Critic/73% audience, once again proving the fact that audiences are very stupid. 

IMDB Rating: 6.8

My Movie Rating: 4.5/10.  Like I said, I didn't completely hate this.  When I finally wrap up this project (hopefully in about a month or two) I plan on writing a long and drawn out post with all of my rankings combined along with some awards and scattered thoughts.  As such, the rating system is going to come down to movies I'd rather watch as compared to others which means there might need to be a few changes and tie-breakers and I would be ashamed of myself if "The Lake House" wasn't above at least a few dozen stinkers I've already watched and will probably be watching in the future.  

Keanu Rating: 4/10.  He's pretty bland in this and it doesn't help that he's forced to interact with his love interest via letters and voiceover.  There's also this sneeze:

Up Next: "Street Kings."  I have no idea what this is.