Keanu on the meganet

During my pained task of performing no more than 30 seconds of research for any post, I decided to enter the phrase: Keanu Reeves into the "matrix" (get it? brilliant!!) of google.com.

Here are some interesting results:

1. Will Keanu Reeves kill a sci-fi classic?

- One would assume it's a rhetorical question.

2. Keanu Reeves goes way of the samurai in '47 Ronin'

- Money quote "Variety said the film would mix fantasy elements with gritty battle scenes similar to those in period epics such as "Gladiator.""

- Keanu plays a samurai, one wonders if he went way of the FBI Agent in Point Break.

3. Keanu Reeves would consider 'Speed 3'

- Is Sandra too busy making 'The Net 2'?

4. Keanu Reeves Network

- This site provides a "peek" into the man himself, no word yet on whether or not this includes his chest cavity.

5. Keanu Reeves at keanu.org

- Wait, this website, is amazing! It was updated in 2008 and prior to that 2003! Forward progress plus pictures of Keanu's chest. Years of non planned fun here.

6. KeanuConnection

- Honestly I felt dirty after viewing this site, and immediately took a shower. Needless to say the people have spoken, the question remains "Was anyone in the room?".

That should be enough Keanu-isms for the week, I know I'm tapped out and in need of an extended vacation.

The Duke of Ted Cannot Read; He Lacks Ideation

On his better days he achieves a functional illiteracy, which allows him to order from a menu and obey the more obvious traffic signals. But a dedicated follower of Richard Yates? Doubtful at best.

Also: Updike... really? Sure, Updike is responsible for the best written love letter to one's mulatto grandsons known in the the annals of American letters, but there's not much competition as far as that goes. Otherwise, he's only read by aging white dudes with suede patches over their arms. There's not much there for the rest of us.

But the truly disturbing bit of this interview is the notion that a conversation about literary fiction would inspire a round of high-fives. I weep for the day we fist bump for fractals.

Again, my central thesis: Keanu is dark, mechanical, and soulless.

Things I Didn't Know I Shared With Keanu

The quest for the perfect sandwich in Los Angeles, Keanu, buddy, tell me about it.

Details

I don't think Bay Cities is the answer though buddy, you could of just called and I would've told you. Honest.

Excerpt from the article:

No. It becomes clear after 30 seconds of watching Keanu pinball around the aisles of Book Soup that he approaches the printed word as both a glutton and a gourmand: He inhales a lot, and he's game to order off-menu. He tells me he just finished all of the novels in John Updike's Rabbit series. "So fantastic," he says with a reverent hush. I mention another work about suburban crisis, Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, and he rears back and slides the helmet onto his head so that he can free up his left hand. "Oh, YES!!!" he shouts. "Let's high-five on Revolutionary Road!" We slap palms. This prompts a rumination from Keanu on the primary characters in that book, Frank and April Wheeler, and "the identities that they're wearing—you know, their authentic self and then their external self and that dialogue that's going on."

I wish I could write prose that well.

Money quote:

"No, dude is an excellent word," Keanu says. "I won't take it personally. I had a great run with dude."

I believe him.

Are you smarter than the devil? Keanu is!

Having grown impatient to broach this topic, I am betraying any sense of linear chronology vis-a-vis Keanu's career. As much as I would like to tuck in to the hockey melodrama Youngblood, or the strangely blank regional drama Prince of Pennsylvania, or that idiotic After Hours-ripoff he did with Lori Laughlin... Friends, this particular film begs our immediate attention.

Oh yes, I am referring to Constantine. This movie defies logic. Not in terms of story or plot; the internal logic of this movie's story is so dumbed down a brain-dead laboratory ape would be insulted. The logic defied is: a movie that completely betrays the essence of an established character, and provides no original situations or interesting ideas, should not be so much fun to watch.

If any of you have read the first fifty or so issues of the comic Hellblazer, you know how smart, witty, and bewildering John Constantine can be. Even if you are too stuck up to admit to liking comics, you would have to admit he is a very engaging, intelligent character. A con man, second to none, who bows to no God, and trounces every demon solely with his wits and superior tactical abilities.

This describes nothing of the John Constantine in Constantine. Granted, this isn't really Keanu's fault, as the changes made to the character were likely the perspective of the director and the studio suits. Fighting demons by out thinking them probably doesn't make for many satisfying action sequences and cool explosions, the only current justification for a decently budgeted comic book adaptation. Perhaps if the filmmakers had totally divorced this movie from the source material I could feel good about liking Constantine.

But Keanu Reeves playing a character that can out think the Devil, much less ANYTHING?! Pah, I say. Double-Pah! I find it hard to believe that Keanu Reeves has the spiritual fortitude to remove a clog from a bathtub, much less a demon from a little girl.

This movie is purely emblematic of the deliberate enforcement of mediocrity in our culture. Why else would an illiterate cretin be chosen to portray the most cunning, intelligent character in a literary universe?

Unfortunately, I am no closer to figuring out why Constantine is enjoyable, despite every component of it being infuriatingly banal. Gavin Rossdale as a demon?