Supernatural Keanu

05/05/19 • 71 min

In this episode, we discuss Keanu Reeves’ other worldliness in Constantine (2005) and The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008). Both of these stories are adaptations of earlier content, and, in choosing these films, Keanu repeats his status as reluctant savior, continues to problematize the concept of free will, and embraces the jadedness that he has been “dress rehearsing” for decades. We talk about the philosophy of Keanu Reeves and the tricky business of auteur theory in these critically panned films.

Previous Episode

Teammate Keanu

In this episode, we talk about Keanu Reeves’ venture into sports comedies between Matrix movies, including The Replacements (2000) and Hardball (2001). Both movies are loosely based on true events, establishing characters that are both dynamic and cliché. We talk about how Keanu talks back to the sports comedy genre, the use of specific songs in both films, and his ever present reluctant hero, which manifests in a complicated representation of the White Savior.

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Lorraine Branham, Dean of the Newhouse School at Syracuse University who passed on April 2. She was a wonderful captain who led our team over the past decade through some very trying times for the media industry.

It’s been an honor sharing the field of battle with you.

Next Episode

Kao Keanu

In this episode, we discuss Keanu’s embrace of East Asian legends and the free will of warriors in Man of Tai Chi (2013) and 47 Ronin (2013). Despite geographic similarities, the two films are wildly different in their storytelling and authenticity: whereas the former features Keanu taking a back seat to the world of Tiger Chen in his directorial debut filmed mostly in Chinese, the latter features Keanu artificially inserted into Japanese history. However, he plays characters in both films that are narratively marked as mixed, thus engaging with his own multiracial roots, and inspiring the title of the episode: kao, or warrior in Hawaiian.