Keanuthon

7:25am – “Devil’s Advocate,” 1997

Wondering how many more days we will continue to advocate to the devil. Hope we won’t have to stretch this movie any more. But it is reeaaaaaalll long. It might take us 3 or 4 days.

Is this movie all about choices? Excesses? Who we are? What we decide to be (even if he are DevilSpawn)? Is this allegroical? Or is it all about creepy devilsexwithyoursister? Not sure I’m qualified to answer, but I do wish I knew.

Your father was the little, creepy devil waiter there. Trying to slap the pulse out of her.

At times, I think the ‘Thon is all about balance. What I mean is, we can’t always get to watch the great movies. There isn’t always going to be a “The Night Before” on the schedule. And there shouldn’t be. If there were, then we’d never have a chance to pee or eat or sleep. Thanks to movie like “Devil’s Advocate” we can have a break, we don’t have to really watch. Then I snap back to reality and remember we’d be better off without this. Fuck balance. I respect the middle way, but that isn’t what the ‘Thon is really about (how is watching 17 hours a day of movies, even if they are good, balance?). Why are we watching “Bam Stroker’s Dracula” again? OK, OK, because Keanu chose this project (& actually chose to make the movie) so it does have meritous qualities (at least 1) and that is why we are here. That is why we watch. Whew. I’m better. I’ve calmed down now. I think the onscreen insanity was infecting my thoughts. Based on that, not sure what effect the Matrix will have on me. Maybe I’ll start wearing a cool trench coat.

He’s in his prime. Brickless family man. Dance Toymaster! Dance!

This is no “Breakfast with Bill & Ted” This is no Johnny Mnemonic. Only seem to be able to identify what this is not.

Keanucino! Noooooooooooo! So it was all about the bathroom. All about those decisions we make while peeing. Stuff we think about while washing our hands. Weird tongue stuff.

11:33pm – “The Devil’s Advocate,” 1997

“I don’t care how many years it has been since we’ve seen this. It is an unmitigated turd.” – Matt

OK, maybe that was a bit of an overstatement but only a very little bit. Everyone agrees “Bam Stroker’s Dracula” is far more of a turd. Just this one would be better if it were an hour & 45 minutes.

Recall Lomax. Lomax? Lomax? Are you there? Keanu in glasses, looking sharp.

11:43 – dance montage (likely the only clothes-on grinding moments we’ll see in this movie) moment

Tony award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson spotted tempting Keanu to the big city (where he last met up with Uma and will be tempted further with the old “sex with your sister” offer in this movie). Too bad Ruby couldn’t be on the good guys side (not that we have a “good” side represented), but then he wouldn’t get any screen time. Still, this fabulous actor is thoroughly wasted playing guy standing to the left of Jeffrey Jones.

Saaaaaaataaaaan! or is it Paaaaciiinooooo!

You don’t really want to go back to Florida though, do you? But I’m wearing a toooooooopee & 2 inch heels. Why would you ever want to leave?

Delroy Lindo is Keanu’s first defendent. Yes, that’s right. Back-to-back Delroy. Does it get better? Well, yes, because this movie sucks.

“Are you the oracle?” – Carla

Instead of cutting her hair, I think Charlize (AKA academy Award winner Charlize Theron) should just take her fucking wig off. But what do I know, I liked the room the first fucking green color.

PCKPL: “So, you’re devil spawn too?”

12:36am – Nip

Oh. Yes. Oh. Yes. Oh yes. They both. Oh yes they both. Oh yes they both reached for. The gun. The gun. Oh yes they both reached for the gun. for the gun. What we really need is a good dose of Dobber. And less of this fucking tongue thing.

“What are you playing with?” You are playing with my uterus. Stop playing with my uterus.

This movie makes me feel like I’ve been overspelunked. (which I’m pretty sure is not even possible) He’s the son of the devil – he needs no cab, he just runs, runs, runs, runs, runs, runs, runs. Run! DevilSpawnBoy! Run!

1:20am – Sleepy sleep time. This movie has lasted too long as it is, and I can handle no more of Al’s weird tongue stuff. Good night.

9:50pm – “Feeling Minnesota,” 1996

I have seen this movie two times. Well, I have seen it once in the theaters and I “saw” it once last year at Keanuthon. We actually fast forwarded through almost all of the movie last year because we were crunched for time and this movie was just so bad to us. We have decided to watch the entire movie this year, as we are going back to the purity of the event. The only part of this movie that I even remember is when Cameron Diaz is riding Keanu and asks, “Did you cum for me?” to which Keanu responds “I don’t even know you.”

So far this round, the movie has started off very well with “Ring of Fire” by Johnny Cash and then another good song as the real action starts to begin.

Dan Ackroyd makes an appearance as a Blues Brother playing pinball in an arcade. Bet you didn’t expect that! I think he plays a pimp, but it is not too obvious. Bet you didn’t expect THAT!

Our man enters sitting at the back of a bus, wiping the condensation off of the inside of the windows. He flips a cigarette into his mouth and lights up. My hero, Keanu. Big question: will he get the girl in this one? Will it be because of some intense experience? Who knows? I bet Danny DeVito would know, considering he produced the movie.

Cameron displays a moment of sheer brilliance when she dispenses on us the theory that everyone is dying: she used to be 7; she used to be unborn; she used to be 14; and tomorrow she will be 40 and 50. Little does she know, we have all already learned this little Buddhist lesson when we watched “Little Buddha.”

Three movies in a row with car theft. What is our little Keanu turning into if not the hoodlum he has always been?

Hmm, now it seems more like Ackroyd plays a cop of some kind. He must be a pimp on the side.

Keanu plays a mastermind thief in this tale. So far he has borrowed one car, held up a gas station to buy his brother a wedding gift, stolen another car, stolen a dog, stolen a bag of dog food to feed the dog, oh, and screwed his brother’s new wife twice. I guess that last thing isn’t an act of crime, but it certainly is an act of passion.

10:24pm – Musical montage moment, Jeff

Twitchy (Vincent D’onofrio from “Law & Order: CI”) is being extra twichty right now, but for some reason it works somehow.

Cameron just pulled a “mnemonic”: she gave a monologue that included trite desires such as all of the towels smelling like Downy fabric softener. Matt has now accused me of being Johnny-obsessed.

Twitchy just gave us a gratuitous neck slap. Life is one big emergency, so fuckoff.

Aykroyd is having a cop/pimp conversation. He is acting like a cop, but if you listen to the words (and you don’t have to even listen very closely) he is sounding more and more like a pimp. He just reminded Twitchy he was a “cop” – which seem to reinforce the fact he is a pimp. Or a CoPimp. Just drove off ‘cause he had “important things” to do – sounds like pimp work to me.

A good blowjob can feel like love every time.

We actually not only saw this in the theaters, we loathed it in the theaters. And I mean loathed. Regrettfully, as we are watching, we find this movie (and mainly Keanu’s very fine performance) is not heinous (and actually somewhat enjoyable at times).

This movie started with Johnny Cash singing “Ring of Fire” and ended with Bob Dylan singing “Ring of Fire.” If that doesn’t make for spectacular soundtrack bookends, flip me on my stomach and spank me while calling me Sally.

Aykroyd on the phone at the cop station. Clearly pimping it up.

Turns out he’s a police officer: badge-carrying and everything.

8:06pm – “Chain Reaction,” 1996

8:40 – We are finally done (it took us 40 minutes??) eating our dinner, yummy Thai food that Jeff and I sacrificed watching “The Last Time I Committed Suicide” to go and get.

Chain Reaction has lots of big names in it—Morgan Freeman, Mr. Cusack (John and Joan’s dad), Rachel Weisz, Brian Cox, and Fred Ward! who was in Prince of Pennsylvania with him and is an all-around Keanuthon hero. But even with all these big-league Keanuthon folks, it never really got much publicity when it came out.

My hands are just so wet. So wet.

CKPL: “And for dinner we have a choice of sardines… or sardines.” CKPL: “Only physicists with hypothermia who are accused of being terrorists.”

“Look! It’s Johnny Mnemonic!” “All Mnemonic, all the time.”

FBI guy just called Keanu’s character, Kasalivich, Kasalibitch. How funny is that? Really funny. OK, not all that funny.

“People want to live in their split-level homes, eat microwave dinners, and watch color TV.” – Morgan Freeman’s speech at the end defending his actions. Reminds me a whole lot of Keanu’s speech at the end of Mnemonic. Not as good. And not delivered by Keanu, but close. Sort of. As if that counts. Ah, it does. The ‘Thon is all about drawing random similarities between random Keanu-events.

Ah, Rachel Weisz. She is a cuty, isn’t she? Why yes, in fact she is. And because of her hotness, she has been taken hostage. Is that fair? No. Why can’t they take someone else hostage? Now Keanu is going to have to shoot her in the leg and take her out of the equation. The last thing the world needs now is a Rachel Weisz with a bum leg. We need all the good leg she has.

Brian Cox runs like Patrick McGoohan.

It really is amazing how Keanu always gets the girl in the end, and like we learned in “Speed” relationships that start during intense experiences never work out well. But I guess that is why we call him Keanu.

6:28pm – “The Last Time I Committed Suicide,” 1997

6:41pm – Keanu’s first appearance.

This is no Johnny Mnemonic.

We’re admittedly watching this out of order (only one movie), not sure why, perhaps just to show that we can. Exerting the power of the ‘Thon schedulizationizers.

Thomas Jane. Mickey Mantle? Not sure, but I do think he was good in 61* – just never has sold me in this, but what to I know? (rhettorical question) Cassady may have been exactly like this. Think Keanu (his character, not him) might be the great beat poet of the history of the world, but that is just my gut talking (much like I think “Just Johnny” has a first-name-basis type relationship with his gut). The Keanu character doesn’t even have a last name (just “Harry”) and doesn’t even seem to be a poet, whereas Neal Cassady was an actual guy – who wrote actual poetry – so I may be really, really wrong. Ok, I am really, really wrong, but I may have to stand by my statement anyway, based on idiot principle (is there any other kind?).

Pretty sure Adrien Brody’s best (although good in this & received praise for some Polanski film, was it “The Two Jakes?”) role (well, his favorite of mine) was in “Angels in the Outfield”, which I (admittedly) have only ever seen in Spanish. Maybe i’m not the best judge of this, but he was really good in it (and in “King of the Hill” too) – and he is pretty cute (in that, this and everything else).

This would qualify as a Keanu “Troubled Teen” roles, if only he weren’t past 30. But I’m not sure age is really important in the “Troubled Teen” roles, as he was in his 20’s for some of those – but he was playing a teen in those movies, which he does not seem to be in this, so maybe we’re not in “Troubled Teen” area. Perhaps just an echo. Or an echo of an echo of a “Troubled Teen.” If not “TT” one might even be able to say “Bad News” (Bad News Bear?) when describing Keanu here.

Having a “Private Idaho” moment, out in the middle of whoknowswhere (a very beautiful whoknowswhere, thusly the comparison), but fornicating in a highly unartistic way (and B/G and no houses falling from the sky, despite forthcoming forthcoming) – so I guess the scenery is really the only comparison.

Back to back black and white Keanuness.

Brody sporting it up. Further evoking his great performance in “Angels.”

One ball hits one of two. This’ll only take a minute of your time, you won’t feel a thing.

Keanu seems to be getting all the best lines in this. And he is the best thing about this film. Life just must seem unfair sometimes to everyone else in this movie business.

Keanu could so play the priest role. Kinda weird since he is playing the “Grown Up Troubled Teen” role (I like to think of him as Neal’s “anti Jiminy Cricket”) too, but I think it could work. What is a priest, really, but a troubled teen, grown up, responsible (with reponsibilities), and in a suit?

I’m getting all, you know.

This is still no Johnny Mnemonic.

4:47pm – “A Walk in the Clouds”, 1995

There’s Keanu, in black & white. And there he stands in Oklahoma. Without Will. Or is that Grace?

So he finds Grace (or Will?) but she’s gone all ditzy on him. I’ll bet if he finds some cutie from south of the border she’ll be a little more serious.

Oh wow, we had all forgotten about his flashbacks. He’s having black and white flashbacks. Now he’s running after a bus, just like he does in Speed. This time he has more success catching it.

I think the first time I saw “A Walk in the Clouds” was in Spanish. “Un Paseo por las Nubes.” I thought it was funny that all of the Spanish-speaking actors had to speak English for the movie and then have it dubbed back into Spanish. Keanu, of course, doesn’t speak any Spanish that we know of besides “vaya con Dios.”

I think we decided that we like the wacky, wacky emotional train ride that we’ve taken with the order of today’s movies. We went from Little Buddha (sweet movie with a message) to Speed (movie with only one message: stay away from movies that have Dennis Hopper in them) to Children Remember the Holocaust (tragic documentary with a big message) to Johnny Mnemonic (movie with no discernible message) to Walk in the Clouds (sweet movie with a message—yeah, a message of LOVE).

Keanu is sure hot in this…he has the period-piece-clean-cut-suspenders-look going on. Plus he’s playing the sweetest person in the WHOLE WORLD. (Umm, besides Buddha, that is.) He looks especially hot in those big butterfly wings.

“I believe there’s a perfect someone for everyone. Someone who will love you no matter what.”

5:59 – perfect musical montage moment. Perfect!

Everyone seems really contented with this one. With good reason.

2:57pm – “Johnny Mnemonic”, 1995

Holy crap!

Second decade of the 21st century. Corporations rule. The world is threatened by a new plague: NAS Nerve Attenuation Syndrome, fatal, epidemic, its cause and cure unknown. The corporations are opposed by the LoTeks, a resistance movement risen from the streets: hackers, data-pirates, guerilla-fighters in the info-wars. The corporations defend themselves. They hire the Yakuza, the most powerful of all crime syndicates. They sheath their data in black ice, lethal viruses waiting to burn the brains of intruders. But the LoTeks wait in their strongholds, in the old city cores, like rats in the walls of the world.

The most valuable information must sometimes be entrusted to mnemonic couriers, elite agents who smuggle data in wet-wired brain implants.

The setting: the internet – 2021. The internet is vastly different from anything we know today in the year 2004. And I have been working in the internet industry for the last five years. But believe me, I never would have predicted that in a scant 17 years from now that the internet would be so vastly different. I can hardly wait.

His hooch just picked up her Keanuthong off the floor. Someone had a good night last night. A real good night.

Ralphie was in “Cowgirls.”

It is possible that with the amount of rewinding, pausing, slow-mo, etc. we have already set as a precedent just a mere 11 minutes in, we will stretch this movie out for hours, possible making it the last movie of the night. But no, the ‘Thon must go on.

Keanu has two iPods worth of storage capacity in his brain, but he had to buy a capacity doubler in order to pull off this next (and what he wants to be final) job. The scary thing about the doubler is that he absolutely cannot fill over capacity. If he does, the data will leak into his brain: synaptic seapage can kill a mnemonic courier in two or three days, and worse, the data could become corrupted.

The big thumb guy reminds Matt of Richard Mulligan’s big scary thumb in “Babes.” His thumb spat green animated gas — might need to watch out for that. Yes, that is right, the guy from “Empty Nest” and “Soap” has a big scary thumb that spits green animated gas. Yikes, I’m scared. Watch, I’m shaking in my boots.

Yet another in a long line of Keanu-with-short-professional-looking-hair-cut movies.

We see Keanu perform some kind of Buddhist-style concentration exercise after he uploads 320 gigabytes of data (twice his already doubled capacity) in order to calm down. Is this a foreshadowing to “The Matrix” movies, or is this a throw back to “Little Buddha” and “Life Under Water” (“muggers, rapists, mimes”)?

Keanu has to take the data to Newark, which when we first see it, is called “Free City of Newark” on the screen. My guess is that no one wanted to take control of the state of New Jersey and so all of the cities there are just free.

“Scanning dyslexia…” amazing, because Keanu actually has dyslexia.

It is comforting to see that in the future, AT&T will still be running the telephone system across America.

Henry Rollins siting. He’s such a bad ass.

Oh the 2×4, Keanu’s weapon of choice.

I-Tea is playing a guy named J-Bone, he runs Heaven.

Why do bad guys always conduct their business out of techno-rave night clubs?

To keep Keanu from yelling when the bad guys rip his head off, they stuffed a Nerf ball in his mouth. You wouldn’t really have thought that Nerf balls would be around in the future, but then again, who could have predicted a future as crazy as this one?

Spelunk

Dolph Lungren plays a bad guy whose cover is as a priest of the Church of Retransformation.

Henry Rollins goes on a short tyrade about technology and information overload. Henry’s character is named Spyder. He is a flesh mechanic.

We just spent a few moments reflecting (rewinding and writing down) the monumental speech that Keanu makes atop a mound of garbage at the landfill. This speech is part of what changed Matt and me as adolescents (granted we were 17 at the time that we originally saw the movie, so that is not so much adolescent, but we were pretty immature, not that anything has changed in that regard). This speech put Keanu on the map in terms of dramatic acting. This speech changed my life. I wish I could have used it as a monologue for an audition back in high school, but it had not been written when I was doing auditions (and I probably would have gotten kicked out of high school, what with the hooker/club sandwich/beer/fucking requests). What a shame; what a shame.

Jones. Is a fish. Make that a mammal. One thing Spyder wasn’t was stupid. Guess that was why he made that “fucking your mother comment” to Dolph. Still a fish – no matter how much “can opening” and “frontal lobe turning to mush” we are threatened with.

Think Ice-T (SVU) just requested tennis to be broadcast – wonder if Martina Navratalova will be still playing 15 years in the future, I’m guessing yes (doubles at least).

“The only way left is to HACK YOUR OWN BRAIN.” If only they would have read the t-shirt they would have known from the start. And the fish let us down. Not in the head.

All that is saving Richard Mulligan now is that gas spewing thumb of his. And he lost his head. Should have just calmed down and taken a couple of deep breaths. And closed that door. Lots of safety hazards around here. Must file a workman’s comp claim.

Jesus remains bad. Is this our message? Kinda like “Point Break”‘s message was that Reagan was the best president (although we might be reading a little into that). Dolph is in a toga, which (rather understandably) pissed off the fish. Use the fish, Johnny! Use the fish!

The only way is, still, to hack your brain.

This movie had to have been the main movie the Matrix ripped off. (for example, remember the the “I want a $10,000 a night hooker speech” in the Matrix 1, 2, & 3?)

The impact of this movie on our lives can never be adequately conveyed. Simple words (or even an interpretive dance) could never express the importance this film has had (and will continue to have) on our lives. Although “Just Johnny” is impacting Carla later in life, I have no doubt she will be greatly influenced by this fabulous feature film in countless ways. Ways she will never be able to explain or understand (much less acknowledge or know about). I know what you are thinking, “No way!” But I insist, “Yes way.”

“They’re still in Newark?”

1:44pm – “Children of the Holocaust,” 1995

Keanu narrates this. We’re just in the credits, but already it is very, very sad. Oh! We see Keanu. I thought it would just be his voice. He’s doing a great job so far. But already it is very, very sad. Powerful stuff.

11:47am – “Speed”, 1994

Immediate to check to make sure there is no KeeanuCommentary (AKA KeanuCom) on this, as we suspected, we only have producers and director (who said Keanu was unimportant or had nothing to offer to the sequel – what a bunch of tripe) options, as we remembered, there is not any KeanuCom (yet another dream deferred). Felt kind of unnatural to have a pause (if only for 15 seconds) in the ‘Thon to look at DVD menus, but it did seem important.

This is one long elevator shaft.

I think our FAQ section on the website should be titled “Pop Quiz, Hot Shot.”

Matt points out the cultural cross-section that is the people in the elevator as it falls. It is much like the cultural cross-section of the bus, but with fewer people.

The totally gratuitous car jump shot when Jack and Harry arrive at the highrise is a metaphor for how committed and insane Jack Traven actually is. I think we know this is going to be an eXtreme movie!

“Dennis Hopper is probably one of the most assholy actors in any Keanu movie” – scratch the probably, it is official. He is the most assholy actor.

The classic “Shoot the hostage; take her out of the equation” quote appears. It is gems like that that make this movie so great?

“Two years” (spoken in that odd Polish Saturday Night Live accent)

The bus driver’s name is Ortiz. As we all know, since we all watched “Freaked” Keanu’s role in it is named Ortiz. He just happens to be the dog boy, whereas the bus driver is decidedly NOT a dog boy.

Cans. Cans.

12:46 – Keanu in the interview about the movie calls Jack Traven “aggressive,” which is true, but Jack also has (as all of Keanu’s characters do) a sense of helping and caring and sharing, which in this case he uses to help and care for and share with the passengers of the bus.

Wildcat!

His hair here is buzzed, making us realize how far we’ve come from the first twenty movies or so where he’s being a goofy teenage punk who likes to wear his hair in his face.

We have a little mid-Speed snack of ollalieberry cobbler, quite tasty and just in time to give us energy to go over the jump of our lives! Keanu seems unfazed. This really is a good Keanu movie, partly because it’s just all Keanu all the time. We see Keanu get aggressive, we see him get pissed off, we see him get tender, we see him acting on his gut feelings… the only terrible parts are when we have to see him talking to the ever-creepy, ever-assholy Dennis Hopper, the same fuckhole who had the gall to say he was in Keanu’s first ever movie. I don’t know where he was (maybe off spelunking somewhere), but we watched six movies before we even got to “River’s Edge”! Maybe if someone like, say, Crispin Glover, or Andy Griffith, or Billy Zane was the bad guy… we all agree that just about anybody would be better than Dennis Hopper.

Sandra Bullock decides that, oh my God, he IS insane.

This is a crazy movie to watch after the beautifulaciousness of Little Buddha, because Speed is very fast and crazy—although it definitely appears that Keanu has learned that the middle way is the best way to go. Finding the middle way, of course, means that when you go under a bus you go right in the middle, neither towards one wheel nor towards the other. He’s also learned compassion, or least compassion towards hostage-type people with whom you’re trapped on a bus which Dennis Hopper has rigged with a bomb.

Wildcat! (again)

Dennis Hopper is really pissing Keanu off, perhaps as much as he is pissing us off. This doesn’t stop him from looking really hot, though, and we find a nice potential still of him standing at the front of the bus looking really sexy in his cargo pants. Matt comments, that, like the people on the bus who are being held at the whim of a madman, we, too, are in peril because of Dennis Hopper. Dennis, it turns out, thinks by moving his fingers in front of his face (while touching his upper lip).

We all appreciate Keanu doing most of his own stunts, especially in hot hot cargo pants (before cargo pants were “hot”). Lest we forget he is doing his stunts in his hot hot hotness also.

Here is comes. Here we are. End of the movie #4. On the train. Time for Dennis Hopper to be even assholier & even crappier than ever. Killing indiscriminately, delivering lines poorly and whatnot. At least in “River’s Edge” he had some inadvertant comedic value. In this, with the exception of the purple paint on the face, he has little value (comedic or otherwise) to us. And why does Hopper only have problems with the thumb when he is talking on the phone, not when doing anything else (like shooting the gun).

CKPL: “Let’s take this off, shall we?”

Reminder to self, nothing in LA (this movie) is ever finished. The freeway. The airport. The train tracks. The storyline.

Spelunking. Two years.

11:25am – “Interview with Keanu Reeves” (Speed)

Keanu shows a really cute smile after Sandra Bullock attacks him with hugs during the interview.

11:33am – “Extended Scenes of Speed”

The amazing thing about this is the intro to the deleted scenes. It says something like “due to a tight script, scrict production plan, and deft direction, there are almost no deleted scenes. All of the scenes shot are in the film, and these are just extensions of the scenes.” What a crock o’ bull.

Dance scene for the musical montage at the bar when they celebrate.

“I tire of this scene.”