Vance
Thu Jul 12th, 2012, 08:28 AM
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It's been a VERY long time since I've gone off on a Shakespearean epic diatribe of any form, despite many an opportunity and topic that have begged for me to unleash the proverbial krakken upon the CSC to help me cleanse my synapses of their billions upon billions of layers of frustration and angst.
This however, is actually not one of those opportunities either. This is an observation I have made recently that I believe absolutely begs to be made in a forum that offers opportunity for further discussion. I do not claim to have thought this through 100%, in fact it is a still growing research project I am conducting so I can complete this into perhaps a more full length composition. But it's been irking me for some time now and I feel I need to at least lay out the foundations to get it off my brain just a bit, to throw it all out there and step back from it and see if it really is making sense on "paper" like I think it does in my brain.
That said - here is my hypothesis:
Into every generation of cinema we MUST have a Keanu Reeves!
My case:
After a rare "date night" opportunity presented itself for the spousal unit and I we decided to go to dinner an a movie. The dinner is obviously irrelevant, however I must give mad props to the phenomenal Irish pub and grill over at Southlands. I forget the name - but OUTSTANDING food! Anyway, I digress. The movie we chose was Snow White and the Huntsman. I looked intriguing, visually perhaps stunning even, based on the previews. I carry something of a "thing" for Charlize Theron who I believe is a phenomenally talented actress and truly drop dead gorgeous in a classic, timeless, old-school Hollywood way. Plus, I wanted to see if Kristan Stewart could in fact go beyond her Twilight almost emotionless lip-biting characterizations, or if that was who she was (admittedly, I think she can be kind of hot in a strange "awkward in her own body" sort of way - I mean, have you seen those legs when she actually dresses like a woman? DAMN)
That said - MASSIVE disappointment. Yes, you could tell Charlize was having fun being the villain for a change , and she did it well. But the dialogue was crap. Visually very cool in its own way, but you could just FEEL they dumbed the movie down FOR Kristan Stewart! It was almost sad. And yes... she still bit her lip, she still looked awkward, and she still had the emotional range of a russet potato sitting on a counter-top waiting for ANYTHING creative to be done with it.
Upon exiting the movie it struck me --- she is that generation's (Gen Z is it now?) Keanu Reeves!!! And yes, even the preceeding generations to my Gen X'er had their Keanu Reeves as well!
Allow me to illustrate further:
Keanu Reeves, while able to deliver lines and such, and in some circles actually a well respected actor, has significant issues showing any emotional range whatsoever. Basically when you cast Reeves in a role - you get Keanu, playing Keanu (as said character)... not like say Robert DeNiro who BECOMES Al Capone for a role, or even say someone as now ridiculed as Val Kilmer who literally BECAME Jim Morrison for his role. So believable in their delivery you realize who the actor or actress is - but you lose yourself in their delivery.
Keanu is Keanu, and can deliver nothing more, sadly for him. It's just what lines you're asking Keanu to deliver that differentiate his movies really. Well, I guess with him then you do get "thin" Keanu (the Matrix, etc) vs "stout" Keanu (The Replacements, Point Break). But that's about all the range he has.
Now - fast forward to Gen Z's Kristin Stewart. She IS the female version of Keanu and then some. She has even LESS emotional range. At least Keanu can pull off a somewhat distressed look. She can't even do that. She ALWAYS looks distressed... even when she's supposed to be happy. Sad. In pain. Overjoyed. Kristin equates all of these on screen to biting her lip, furrowing her brow, and giving that dazed and confused look. There is zero range there - yet - she's one of the most popular, sought after actresses of that generation.
Should she be? NO!!! SO many more talented actors and actresses out there and that's even based on the limited pool of personnel from that generation I am aware of. Hell - little Dakota Fanning should be winning pools of Oscars when you compare acting skills putting those two toe-to-toe.
Anyway...
Let's take a look at some others that fit in this catagory of basically not being able to act their way out of a wet paper bag if asked to show emotional range, or range of any form, beyond basically playing themselves in every role they are / were given:
Let's go back one generation BEFORE Keanu.
I give you Tommy Lee Jones. LOVE his style, love most of his movies... but come on. Tommy Lee Jones PLAYS Tommy Lee Jones in every one of his roles he's ever had, period. Manic, somber or angry, it's always the same Tommy Lee Jones.
Let's go back one more generation.
Some may say it's too soon for this - but - I don't care. I give you Earnest Borgnine. JUST like Keanu and Tommy and Kristin --- you get exactly what you signed up for with Earnest. Earnest playing Earnest playing a role. I have seen a LOT of his movies - mind you not his entire catalog - but I have yet to find one where he shows any legitimate range.
The one that is throwing me right now that I am having to put considerable thought in still is Gen Y's Keanu / Kristan / Tommy / Earnest. That generation unfortunately produced such a massive pool of craptastic, along side a MASSIVE pool of talent, I need to somehow thin the herd by really analyzing the options in more depth. It just hurts the brain to really ponder just how bad of actors and actresses exist from that generation when there was likewise so much talent there too.
Right now I'm leaning heavily towards Ryan Phillipe or Hayden Christiansen... who are essentially almost the exact same person as far as I'm concerned... but I need to explore more bad acting before I can say for sure who the winner of that generation for the "Keanu Generational Deadpan Award" should be.
I guess I'm going to have to lay out criteria... such as: Still acting (not retired or such), acted in at least 4 movies to give an opportunity to show range and growth (not all of which could be from the same series of movies / sequels), etc, etc, etc...
SO there you have it ... the foundations of my thesis.
Discuss, dissect, diatribe as you will.
It's been a VERY long time since I've gone off on a Shakespearean epic diatribe of any form, despite many an opportunity and topic that have begged for me to unleash the proverbial krakken upon the CSC to help me cleanse my synapses of their billions upon billions of layers of frustration and angst.
This however, is actually not one of those opportunities either. This is an observation I have made recently that I believe absolutely begs to be made in a forum that offers opportunity for further discussion. I do not claim to have thought this through 100%, in fact it is a still growing research project I am conducting so I can complete this into perhaps a more full length composition. But it's been irking me for some time now and I feel I need to at least lay out the foundations to get it off my brain just a bit, to throw it all out there and step back from it and see if it really is making sense on "paper" like I think it does in my brain.
That said - here is my hypothesis:
Into every generation of cinema we MUST have a Keanu Reeves!
My case:
After a rare "date night" opportunity presented itself for the spousal unit and I we decided to go to dinner an a movie. The dinner is obviously irrelevant, however I must give mad props to the phenomenal Irish pub and grill over at Southlands. I forget the name - but OUTSTANDING food! Anyway, I digress. The movie we chose was Snow White and the Huntsman. I looked intriguing, visually perhaps stunning even, based on the previews. I carry something of a "thing" for Charlize Theron who I believe is a phenomenally talented actress and truly drop dead gorgeous in a classic, timeless, old-school Hollywood way. Plus, I wanted to see if Kristan Stewart could in fact go beyond her Twilight almost emotionless lip-biting characterizations, or if that was who she was (admittedly, I think she can be kind of hot in a strange "awkward in her own body" sort of way - I mean, have you seen those legs when she actually dresses like a woman? DAMN)
That said - MASSIVE disappointment. Yes, you could tell Charlize was having fun being the villain for a change , and she did it well. But the dialogue was crap. Visually very cool in its own way, but you could just FEEL they dumbed the movie down FOR Kristan Stewart! It was almost sad. And yes... she still bit her lip, she still looked awkward, and she still had the emotional range of a russet potato sitting on a counter-top waiting for ANYTHING creative to be done with it.
Upon exiting the movie it struck me --- she is that generation's (Gen Z is it now?) Keanu Reeves!!! And yes, even the preceeding generations to my Gen X'er had their Keanu Reeves as well!
Allow me to illustrate further:
Keanu Reeves, while able to deliver lines and such, and in some circles actually a well respected actor, has significant issues showing any emotional range whatsoever. Basically when you cast Reeves in a role - you get Keanu, playing Keanu (as said character)... not like say Robert DeNiro who BECOMES Al Capone for a role, or even say someone as now ridiculed as Val Kilmer who literally BECAME Jim Morrison for his role. So believable in their delivery you realize who the actor or actress is - but you lose yourself in their delivery.
Keanu is Keanu, and can deliver nothing more, sadly for him. It's just what lines you're asking Keanu to deliver that differentiate his movies really. Well, I guess with him then you do get "thin" Keanu (the Matrix, etc) vs "stout" Keanu (The Replacements, Point Break). But that's about all the range he has.
Now - fast forward to Gen Z's Kristin Stewart. She IS the female version of Keanu and then some. She has even LESS emotional range. At least Keanu can pull off a somewhat distressed look. She can't even do that. She ALWAYS looks distressed... even when she's supposed to be happy. Sad. In pain. Overjoyed. Kristin equates all of these on screen to biting her lip, furrowing her brow, and giving that dazed and confused look. There is zero range there - yet - she's one of the most popular, sought after actresses of that generation.
Should she be? NO!!! SO many more talented actors and actresses out there and that's even based on the limited pool of personnel from that generation I am aware of. Hell - little Dakota Fanning should be winning pools of Oscars when you compare acting skills putting those two toe-to-toe.
Anyway...
Let's take a look at some others that fit in this catagory of basically not being able to act their way out of a wet paper bag if asked to show emotional range, or range of any form, beyond basically playing themselves in every role they are / were given:
Let's go back one generation BEFORE Keanu.
I give you Tommy Lee Jones. LOVE his style, love most of his movies... but come on. Tommy Lee Jones PLAYS Tommy Lee Jones in every one of his roles he's ever had, period. Manic, somber or angry, it's always the same Tommy Lee Jones.
Let's go back one more generation.
Some may say it's too soon for this - but - I don't care. I give you Earnest Borgnine. JUST like Keanu and Tommy and Kristin --- you get exactly what you signed up for with Earnest. Earnest playing Earnest playing a role. I have seen a LOT of his movies - mind you not his entire catalog - but I have yet to find one where he shows any legitimate range.
The one that is throwing me right now that I am having to put considerable thought in still is Gen Y's Keanu / Kristan / Tommy / Earnest. That generation unfortunately produced such a massive pool of craptastic, along side a MASSIVE pool of talent, I need to somehow thin the herd by really analyzing the options in more depth. It just hurts the brain to really ponder just how bad of actors and actresses exist from that generation when there was likewise so much talent there too.
Right now I'm leaning heavily towards Ryan Phillipe or Hayden Christiansen... who are essentially almost the exact same person as far as I'm concerned... but I need to explore more bad acting before I can say for sure who the winner of that generation for the "Keanu Generational Deadpan Award" should be.
I guess I'm going to have to lay out criteria... such as: Still acting (not retired or such), acted in at least 4 movies to give an opportunity to show range and growth (not all of which could be from the same series of movies / sequels), etc, etc, etc...
SO there you have it ... the foundations of my thesis.
Discuss, dissect, diatribe as you will.