Keanu Reeves is receiving our sympathies, whether he wants them or not
 

I know I'm a little late with this news (as I am with everything) but I'm still early enough to give the notice that tomorrow,
the 15th, is "officially", in internet mob terms, "Cheer Up Keanu Day".

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It all started with the above paparazzi image. Doesn't Keanu Reeves look so sad? Cheer up, guy! In an effort to make
Keanu feel better, some Keanu fans have designated June 15th as Keanu Reeves Day. Others insist that it's July 1st.
What do you do on Keanu Reeves Day? It depends on who you ask.

The ball continued rolling on Reddit, with this epic Keanu appreciation thread with over 2,000 comments. Then someone
posted a photoshop of Keanu eating a bird. Then came this photoshop of Keanu eating a miniature version of himself on a bench.
From there, someone suggested that there be a holiday to celebrate what a good guy Keanu Reeves is. Finally, someone suggested
a day to celebrate Keanu on July 1st, during which people would give money to cancer research.

Now Tumblr is churning out Keanu 'shops, mostly sourced from anonymous message boards.

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"On June 15th, we plan on sending letters, emails,_thumbnail.gifts,
and any other niceties and kind words to a real bro, Keanu Reeves.
Keanu has come on some tough times lately, and doesn't seem to
have the same youthful lust for life as he did even ten years ago.
Please participate in Cheer Up Keanu Day, and hopefully bring a
smile to Keanu Reeves' face."

When will he cheer up? Hopefully this week, with the help of his anonymous friends on the web.

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"Back in the late 90s and fresh out of college I got my first job
as an assistant prop designer on the set of Chain Reaction (Keanu
was a supporting actor with Morgan Freeman). EVERY DAY for
the last few weeks of filming, Keanu treated the stage hands
and "grunt workers" (including myself) by taking us out for free
breakfast and lunch. He was genuinely a very nice guy to work with."

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more inanity

-- courtesy of urlesque.

Maybe he's not sad but just having a moment of reflection. If he is really sad he should try doing some proper grown-up acting, that might cheer him up.

That's a bit harsh, Oliver. True, Keanu is not a great thespian, but somebody has to save mankind from the machines, and it might as well be Neo.

He's done a number of dramas.

Maybe he's doing "research" for one now....

This shit made me laugh out loud today, I hadn't heard of this meme till today. Awesomesauce.

“I’m sorry my existence is not very noble or sublime.”

—Keanu Reeves

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(I know I probably could've embedded the above random-but-contextually-apporopriate quote by Keanu into the image that's spreading like wildfire, but it seems right enough to stand alone.)

Also, great assist by B_G. I don't know if that was an entirely-group collaborative by the folks at knowyourmeme, (read as: the masses) or something that the editors posted themselves after much diligent research, (read as: the mods) but that is way more trivial knowledge than I knew about this - (what would you call it?) - internet phenomenon. The only thing I knew for sure is that it was only but a week old, and probably sometime over the weekend, Reddit actually changed their logo for a spell from the alien/robot thing to an encapsulated-Keanu photo, surrounded by a heart. I wonder if it will come back tomorrow?

"Nice guy? I don't give a shit. Good father? Fuck you, go home and play with your kids."

Yes I know, nice people deserve not to be sad and he does look like a nice guy and he does look sad. But I'm struggling to think of how making a picture of him eating a little bird or himself will make him happy. If he surprised himself by pulling an amazing performance out of the bag and got credit where its due for his next film he would DEFINITELY be happy.

Why doesn't Keanu have any coffee? Because coffee's for closers!

On my short list for worst actor of my generation.

Huh. Never knew any of this; seems he's a pretty good guy.

And I can't hold his acting against him when he's fairly self-aware...Then again, he can't be that dumb. He's been more successful at acting than most people who try (and are better than him). A statement like that is probably more indicative of very low self-esteem, which is all the more reason why we should cheer him up.

I'm game!

I recently read somewhere (probably in that very long survey of "facts" that went into this discussion, link provided by B_G above) that Keanu Reeves is the best portrayed actor right now that internalizes an emotes the "cool but stoic hero".


I'm not sure why this has, in part, become a criticization of his acting skills, or lack thereof, although he perhaps recognizes he's not worthy to be commended on his performances; why should he be judged, though, at this point, whether or not he's a good actor? I consider him to be a successful practioner of the craft, and I doubt you'd get any arguments from randoms on the street if you were to classify him as an "A-lister" (though, I'm guessing, the most popular response you might get from such an endeavor is a "get the hell out of my way", or something similar).

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I'm not picking on you, oliver, but somehow, your response(s, coupled) here reminded me of a few others I had read in the rottentomatoes link (which I hid somewhere above, in my nearly-took-a-half-hour-to-post-editize-and-complete.. thread).


See here the examples (and I also do note that if anyone here might be written into the TFP Yearbook as the "film buff", you might get the shiny nod above all others, so I do realize why you'd want your actors to be, at the very least, "decent") ...

infernaldude writes:
Bloody Mathias writes:
AND by far, the best comment I've read thus far into this week-long (on-and-off) realization of this meme:

Jay Sherman writes:

I'll take the dude who's honest about his abilities over the megalomaniac any day.

Oh Jetée. Now I feel mean...! It's not often I'm obliged to separate the actor from the person like this. I think I'd rather have him as a friend than someone who was a better actor but probably a worse person - say Tom Cruise. But because it's sort of a one-way thing and I can't be friends with either I'd (generally) prefer to watch Cruise acting, because he can, properly. I know that Keanu Reeves has done ok performances - I like Bill & Ted and he's ok I suppose in Something's Gotta Give. It's great that he's really altruistic and a good guy but when I think of him as an actor my mind always always ALWAYS thinks back to that horrible Dracula performance because perversely that's the one I've seen the most.

Just so this doesn't vanish after just 3 hours, a few mementos (this word always trips me up) of what has come today's of celebration.

• Cheer Up Keanu Day: Internet Tries to Make Reeves Happy - TIME
• Celebritology 2.0 - Here comes 'Cheer Up Keanu Day' | The Washington Post
• 'Cheer Up Keanu Day' mobilizes outpouring of kindness on actor's behalf - USAToday
• Keanu Reeves: an outpouring of love | Film | The Guardian

excerpt:
... And while Reeves seems to be experiencing a mini-version of what Betty White did during the Facebook campaign to get her on Saturday Night Live, fans may find him less accepting of the attention — his representatives do not want the actor associated with Cheer Up Keanu Day. They declined to let the star be interviewed and issued a statement saying simply (and somewhat humorlessly), "Keanu Reeves would like to thank all of his fans for their concerns regarding his happiness and wants to assure everyone that all is well. This situation is a result of a misinterpretation of a paparazzi shot."

"He was just eating a sandwich. Of course he isn't depressed," says Murphy. "Cheer Up Keanu Day isn't really about that. We just wanted to show him that we cared." And that is pretty excellent.

Wow. Way to miss the point, representatives of Keanu Reeves. In typical PR-speak, they have sucked the life out of what was intended to be a life-affirming and humourous event.

Now I know why Keanu is sad. His PR people are soul sucking demons.

In Keanu's defense, he isn't now and has never been a publicity hound. He probably just doesn't want his hand forced by a few thousand people on the internet.

I like Keanu Reeves just fine as a film star, and self aware person. I have to disagree that Tom Cruise can act though. Never have liked any of his roles, and trust me, I've had to sit through all of them. I won't say that he is a terrible actor, but I never lose the fact that he's Tom Cruise throughout the movie. Good actors tend to become someone else on the screen, and I rarely acknowledge them as anything but that character till the movie is done, but Tom, nope, just Tom.

Hell, even Keanu became Neo.

(For some reason I keep trying to read Keanu as Key-new, even though I know it's not...)

Thanks for mentioning that Tom Cruise bit, liftrocks; of all the roles in fims I can actually stand to watch Tom Cruise in, near 100% are of him, sub-24 years of age. After that, he never really progressed to "wow" me anymore.

And while this has now morphed into a discussion of acting merits and film criticism, (which is fine, as that's the eventual way most starting topics on actors go) I still don't see how bad the Matrix sequels were. As much press as I'm now being enlightened to as them being horrible, I never saw them that way. It was enjoyable to see the plot unravel, but I still wouldn't call watching them, at the time, a "total waste".

Best to remember the good times (and as a note, I watched for the first time Point Break yesterday; it's a wonder it took me so long to watch this film... it even has a cameo by Tom Sizemore in it, which is always a bonus).

Me neither but I don't see that as a bad thing. I don't think you're supposed to forget it's him - otherwise they wouldn't a star. I watch Cruise films because of Cruise and not much else. Cruise wouldn't have been any good in The Matrix because that was all about the concept as opposed to the star. Reeves wasn't big enough in 1999 to have his name over the title and that was right for that film at that time - and also (sorry Keanu!) he's a vacant enough performer that the audience can project themselves onto his character more easily than if the actor playing Neo had his own genuine personality, or any charisma.

Yeah, if anything we can take from this little whirlwind of a confusing me-media sensation, it's that, for the most part, Keanu can be accurately be described as a "vacant" kind of guy, both in reality, and in the majority of the roles he has come to play, and be known for. It's only when that vancany is mixed with a general cool dude attitude and willing compassion to impart upon others, which allows almost all of us to agree that Keanu is one really nice guy (if not verging on excellent, even).

Very well said Jetée

Trying to re-capture that childhood wonder:
 

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Sad Keanu - 'Saturday mornings on the stoop'

Title scene: End
 

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[really-really-unnecessary]

epilogue
 

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artwork by 9 0 0 0


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