Critical and Curious

Our final episode discusses Aleta Chappelle’s Romeo and Juliet in Harlem (2017). Crowdsourced and shot on site, it is the first and only version to feature a cast composed entirely of people of color. As our only female director this season, Chappelle brings an innovative approach to the story by featuring Harlem as a character to create some of the best scenes in the film, and embracing the feminine by casting Benvolio as a woman and showcasing the relationship between Lady Capulet, Juliet, and the Nurse.

The final chapter in the Fast and Furious story has begun. Fast X, directed by Justin Lin, features the return of family members from the past, new family members like Lil B and Abuelita, and a new villain that mirrors Dom in a myriad of ways. We talk about what Jason Momoa brings to the franchise, the dramaturgical integrity across nearly a dozen films, and the increasing absurdity of stunts and dialogue that has become a hallmark of Fast and Furious.

In the final episode, we discuss Reeves’ newest long-term project, John Wick with three films to date, John Wick (2014), John Wick Chapter 2 (2017), John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum (2019). We explore the fetishization of violence, the complexity of forgiveness and vengeance, and the march toward absurdity that inevitably accompanies franchise films. With John Wick, Keanu proves that he is the hardest working man in show business, laying bare his kinesthetic acting methodology and his commitment to the craft.

In this episode, we discuss Generation Um... (2012) and Knock Knock (2015), two films from wildly different genres with common themes. In both films, Keanu plays an aging man eager to reclaim his youth opposite two younger women eager to offer themselves as solutions to his midlife crisis. Charisse L’Pree and Lani Diane Rich of Chipperish Media discuss the goals of film, gendered roles, and the deployment of rape fantasies in pop storytelling.

Trigger Warning: Discussion of rape.

In the second installment of Season 2 Episode 13, we discuss Keanu’s reprisal of Neo in Matrix Resurrections (2021). We debate the goals of the film, both from the perspective of the audience as well as from the perspective of Lana Wachowski and Keanu Reeves. Although the film was widely considered the “worst” in , and what it means for the discussion of Keanu’s agency. We talk about the new Thomas Anderson, the dichotomy of joy vs. profundity in the franchise, and connect the story to our other seasons.