That would be a shame, as I hope Norm has seen Ed Wood or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I've learned a few things since watching Midnight in Paris.
Anyway, I bring that up about Keanu Reeves because I was thinking about him after seeing reviews for the third John Wick film and his appearance in the new Netflix movie with Ali Wong and Randall Park. I do not hold the same feelings about Keanu.
Dad brought me to see Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure in the theaters in 1989, and I wrote about it a while back, about how it seemed to me to be a '90s movie despite it's release year, about how the special effects looked and how the absurdity fit a later psyche.
Point Break remained one of Dan and my summer favorites for years after we obtained the VHS, Speed was one of the movies we saw while theater hopping in 1994, and The Matrix helped alter the way I engaged with philosophy.
And while I find this discussion on the blankness of Keanu's face being the reason he's the perfect action star funny and interesting, I tend to think he has at least some acting chops. I mean, he's pretty decent in his few scenes in Parenthood.
And Point Break brings me back to the point I'm getting at today.
"Point Break" was released on July 12th, 1991. Keanu plays Johnny Utah, former Ohio State QB who blew his knee out and eventually joined the FBI, goes undercover and pretends to be a lawyer with adrenaline issues. Okay, that is pretty ridiculous, but still, we loved it:
One week later, on July 19th, 1991, saw thew release of "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey," the sequel to the aforementioned 1989 entry:
Keanu again plays clueless Ted Logan, only this time he and his buddy/fellow Wyld Stallions founding band-member Bill Preston, are killed by evil robot copies of themselves, battle with Death itself, enslave Death, and use alien intelligence to best the badguys after reincarnating themselves. The movie is even more absurd than the original, very original in its own right, and has grown quite a cult following.
A few months later, on September 29th, 1991, saw the release of Gus Van Sant's "My Own Private Idaho:"
More of a starring vehicle for River Phoenix, Keanu plays a street hustling/gigolo/son of the Mayor of Portland, Oregon. River's character, being gay, falls for Keanu's but is rebuffed, as Keanu reminds him that he only sleeps with men for money. Today it is hailed by the queer community as an early classic. It's also loosely based on parts of three Shakespeare royal plays.
In three months of the summer of 1991, Keanu Reeves played an undercover FBI agent who learns to surf for the work, a clueless teenager killed and resurrected by his own victory over capital-d-Death, and a male prostitute running away from his birthright as the son of a mayor of a large Pacific Northwest town.
How many actors have played such diverse roles in movies that came out essentially within the same season of a year?
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