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My Keanu List

As I'm sure has been duly noted by any and all with active social calendars, the topic of Keanu Reeves has lately been burning hot the tips of the town's tongues... though Keanu never really does wander too far from any conversation on any given day, does he? This is the idea:

It's your own mini-festival; five screenings, run in order one after the other. Which five Keanu movies do you show?

With so many beautiful permutations possible, how can one go wrong? Or, how can one pick just five? One seizes up in a stupified paralysis even considering such an agonizing culling process! It's like trying to find a diamond in a diamond-stack! Any list produced can only be seen as a reflection of that particular moment's mood and emotional state, saying much more about you than it ever could about Keanu!

That said, here is one particular morning's humble submission:


1) Dangerous Liaisons (1988)

Building up momentum, I prefer to get things started with an early accessory Keanu moment, the better to color our hindsight appreciation of the layered fullness of his career. Look at that babyface, so pristine, so naive, yet so ready, so willing. So, this: to showcase young Keanu; to savor the way his mere presence ineluctably affects even those films he appears in only briefly; to represent that most important of Keanu movie categories: Keanu Miscast, and awkwardly in a lavish period piece.

Keanu's signature moment: N/A


2) Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1991)

Timeless, seamless, without blemish, this, the movie that birthed before our mesmerized eyes the very idea of 'Keanu'. This is the Keanu the world fell in love with first: Keanu as Dude, perhaps inescapably to be judged as the quintessential Keanu. This is the unambiguously adorable Keanu, innocent and open to his core, hair flopping about, he may as well be a puppy. This Keanu can do no wrong, though he may need his nose rubbed in his innocent mistakes. There's no sex, no grit, no yearning, no "learning", only a radiating boyish charm, set at max; this is pure, uncut Keanu, to be consumed with great caution, and with your own limits well in hand.

Keanu's signature moment: "Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K"


3)The Matrix (1999)

If one seeks a truly representative list, Keanu as Action Hero must be somewhere included. Though 1994's Speed is essentially interchangeable in this slot, The Matrix gets the nod for its epochal ambition, setting its action amidst an unflinching postmodern existentialism, and giving us Keanu as Messiah with a completely straight face...alright, maybe with just a little smirk. Keanu saved the world before as Ted, but this Keanu does it as an omnipotent God, and looks good doing it. The directors famously forced him to read flamboyant French reality-philosopher Jean Baudrillard before being allowed to so much as see the script, and the ensuing creation of Keanu the Philosopher is reason alone to book this screening forever.

Keanu's signature moment: "I know Kung Fu."


4) Sweet November (2001)

The romance chick-flick has become a primary niche in Keanu's repertoire, Keanu as Object of Female Gaze, and none rise to greater heights than this gem. Nowhere else is Keanu paired with a wackiness quite like Charlize Theron's, whom we catch spastically dancing/kickboxing to music alone in her apartment because, hey, this is just how she is, by herself, everyday. Keanu, "learning" up a storm about himself, needs desperately to air out his high pressure ad-exec life, and so must embrace childish silliness and whim to rediscover personal meaning. So where and with whom would one go about doing that, the writers asked themselves? Why, on Potrero Hill, with a bunch of hippies and queers, of course! Must See TV!

Keanu's signature moment: "November's all I know."


5) A Scanner Darkly (2006)

People may rightly call me a hapless sucker for the "new stuff", whomever's it may be, but I firmly and unapologetically end my festival with Keanu's most recent offering. Director Richard Linklater's now signature wavy-line "rotoscoping" animation isn't for everybody, but the dream-state quality it lends to Keanu's already dreamy features gives us the gift of an immaculate Keanu, smooth and flowing, so similar to the way I picture him in my own dreams, everynight. Still, this is Keanu the Gritty, the down-in-it Keanu, adrift in one of life's sordid underbellies, which is a Keanu no retrospective is complete without. Hey; Keanu, Robert Downey, and Woody Harrelson sharing a house together, junkie roommates. Um, you need more?

Keanu's signature moment: watching Downey turn into a cockroach in front of him