I think he's very good in the proper role.

Oh, yes. And I really did like The Lake House.

In other news, I went to see McFarland USA last night, despite my reservations, and was pleasantly surprised. It's a classic inspirational sports movie about underdogs making good, with Kevin Costner in the Gene Hackman role, but it goes a bit farther than most. The best thing about it is the way it really honestly deals with race and class and poverty, because the runners are all Latino kids who work in the fields with their parents, in a little hole of a town north of Bakersfield. There's some very nice work by Costner and others in which his middle-class white assumptions get neatly punctured.

Turns out the movie was directed by the woman who make The Whale Rider, Niki Caro.

Like I said: it's not amazing, but if you're in the mood for a feel-good sports movie based on a true story, and that isn't about a white savior finding the good in some poor brown kids--check it out.

Top Ten Keanu:
Speed
The Matrix
The Lake House
Parenthood
John Wick
A Walk in the Clouds
The Matrix Reloaded
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
My Own Private Idaho
River's Edge

Worst performance in a decent movie: Much Ado About Nothing
Worst performance in a bad movie: Bram Stoker's Dracula

47 Ronin wasn't nearly as bad as I feared.

Excellent.

My Shakespeare prof in college went up to the Stratford Festival to see their Hamlet one year, and Keanu happened to be a part of their group (friend of professor's friend, he was doing research before tackling the role in Manitoba). This prof, who was sweet and classically absent-minded and didn't really care about Hollywood, couldn't stop talking about how wonderful Keanu was, how he was clearly working so hard, how he would draw each person into conversation, and how much he actually understood the material. So, there's my Yay!Keanu moment.

Oh man, The Matrix! I'm really off my Keanu game today.

In other news, I went to see McFarland USA last night, despite my reservations, and was pleasantly surprised.

Oh, this is good to hear. There's nothing interesting out right now and I love a good sports movie.

Turns out the movie was directed by the woman who make The Whale Rider, Niki Caro.

Plus, I really want to support female-led films with my movie $$ this year.

I fell in love with Keanu when I heard how much money he gave the Matrix costume people when it did well, because he felt the costume (coat) was so essential to the success of the movie. I also LOVED Speed.

His physicality in Dangerous Liaisons is beautiful, and I think his performance in a historical movie really suffered because of Bill and Ted- possibly if I had never seen him in that I would not have minded his talking so much. But he and Uma were supposed to be all about young, beautiful, sensual physicality, and they were. I totally see whyhe was cast, athough I could not at the time.

He looked perfect for a young Jonathan Harker, too -- innocent, not very worldly, a little wide-eyed. Dracula was just a mess on a lot of levels, but so very pretty.

There's a movie that's in my top ten that probably nobody has seen--Cate Blanchett, Giovanni Ribisi, and Keanu, plus Greg Kinnear, Katie Holmes, Gary Cole, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons, Michael Jeter, Hilary Swank. It's called The Gift, c. 2000, and I have to rewatch every couple of years. Keanu is dead mean and menacing, nothing like any of his other characters.

Of course, once having watched The Gift, I have to rewatch Ribisi and Blanchett in Heaven, c. 2002--no Keanu in that one.

I vaguely remember The Gift. It was pretty good. I like Keanu, too. I've never refused to see a movie because it had Keanu Reeves in. I really liked Speed, and I liked Constantine too.

I loved The Gift! I actually had it on DVD at one point.