Keanu sounds like a genuinely nice person... DUUUUUUUUUUDDDE!!!Necron 99 wrote: ↑December 13th, 2021, 11:02 am Keanu Reeves is a cool dude.
On one of my FB groups, someone posted a message about Keanu Reeves which spoke about how great he was. I like the guy and his movies, at least the ones I've seen, but this seemed more like a string of rumors and internet chatter cobbled together, so I did some digging on the interwebs to see how much of it was actually true. Turns, out, just about all of it.
Reeves has been met with some pretty hard struggles in life, it just goes to show that no matter how successful you are in life, how much money you have, how amazing your life appears to be to others, you can still have demons you have to fight through.
And even through all of that he's done some pretty damn amazing things:His father was a largely neglectful drug addict, he struggled with dyslexia as a child, and his close friend, River Phoenix, died a very public death outside Johnny Depp’s Hollywood Club, the Viper Room. Later in life, he had a stillborn baby with his long-term girlfriend, Jennifer Syme. The traumatizing loss put a strain on their relationship and they separated, though remained friends, until her tragic death from a car accident at age 29. His sister, Kim Reeves, was diagnosed with leukemia, which devastated the actor. He took on the role of her primary caretaker for the duration of her decade-long battle with the illness and set up a charity in her honor — without attaching his name to it. Before he considered acting, Keanu was interested in becoming a hockey player. He’d apparently always been passionate about the sport and had enough talent as a goalkeeper to potentially make a career out of it. This soon faded after the star injured his knee, though. The damage was so bad that he had to reconsider his career opportunities, which is when he began thinking seriously about acting.
- On the set of Chain Reaction, every day for the last few weeks of filming, Keanu treated the stage hands and “grunt workers” by taking them out for free breakfast and lunch.
- After spending some time talking to a set builder backstage of the Matrix, he discovered that the gentleman was having a very difficult time with finances at home. He never once asked Keanu for money, nor did he have to. Reeves personally handed him a Christmas bonus of $20,000 to help him get back on his feet again. He also was one of the only people on the set that genuinely wanted to know people’s names, would say hello and mean it, and would talk to people as they were his peers and not below him just because they were practically making nothing to build a set.
- Reeves stopped to help a lady stranded on the side of the road, tried to jump the car off, when that didn't work, called AAA for her. After the tow truck took the car to the repair shop, he then drove 50 miles out of his way to take her home and drop her off.
- One of the most famous stories surrounding Keanu Reeves took place back in 1997, when he was spotted hanging out with a homeless person. Apparently, he was just minding his own business on the streets of Hollywood and chanced upon this man. He then shared some drinks, snacks, and listened to the man’s stories, even lying down on his back, clearly interested in what the man had to say. All of this might have gone unrecorded had some paparazzis not stopped by and noticed the two deep in conversation.
- Reeves has gone down in history for generously giving up some of his salary on the Matrix movies so that the special effects team could continue as needed. That wasn’t the only time he’d taken a pay cut; both Al Pacino (The Devil's Advocate) and Gene Hackman (The Replacements) were hired on in some of his movies because he gave up millions to pay for their salaries. He literally created (and saved) jobs. Nobody asked or even suggested that he take a pay cut, these were voluntary financial sacrifices he made for the greater good of the films.
- Once while riding on the NYC subway, he was literally just sitting down, saw a woman standing, and offered her his seat.
- Reeves once stood in line outside of his own wrap party for “Daughter of God” for 20 minutes because he didn’t want to cause a scene. There had been a mix-up, but instead of going to the front of the line to complain to the bouncer, he just patiently waited his turn. In the rain. Even though, again, it was his own party. “I didn’t know he was kept waiting, and he didn’t say anything to me! He’s a very relaxed person,” the horrified owner of the club told the Daily Mail.
- When he was on set filming The Matrix Reloaded, Reeves worked very closely with his stunt crew on a daily basis, and got to know the group of men that worked alongside him, perfecting his stage presence by lending their skills to his bike stunts. When they wrapped filming, Reeves personally selected a specific Harley Davidson for each and every stunt man and gifted it to them as a thank you for their efforts.
TV and Movie Chat
- Ancalagon
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“Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” - Carl Sagan
- Captain_Blood
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As stated in another thread these books were a BIG part of my adolesence. My wife has never read them. We've been watching the show together. She likes it a lot, and I mostly find it tolerable.Necron 99 wrote: ↑November 30th, 2021, 9:11 am Jen and I started watching the Amazon Prime series for The Wheel of Time last night. So far, the first two episodes have been pretty good. I've never read Jordan's series, but I'm picking up on some subtle similarities to LotR. The fact that women have access to and use magic and men are more or less trained to be badass warriors is a cool premise.
The trollocs look like beastmen from the chaos armies in Warhammer Fantasy, but remind me of orcs from LotR in the way that they are used as fodder and troops by the Fade, who are also referred to as Eyeless. The Fade, remind me of the Nazgul from LotR, I mean, they are literally a cloaked, weird looking humanoid riding a horse, and they appear to be a leader type, under the command of the "Dark One", who of course, reminds me of Sauron in LotR.
Still, there are enough differences that I'm not worried about it being an LotR clone. There is a group known as White Cloaks, who appear to be a zealot faction/group, hunting down and burning women (those that use magic) at the stake, literally. I'm sure anyone who has read the series already knows all this, but it's new to me. The story is interesting enough, we'll probably watch the next two episodes tonight or tomorrow; there are only 4 episodes currently available to watch right now.
I don't know how quickly the books jump the reader into what's going on, but I will say the first episode felt a slight bit rushed. You meet the main characters and then BOOM you're off and running into a main story arch. I feel like there should have been more time to get to know the characters and learn more about them before the chaos started. If the books familiarize the reader more with character backgrounds and such, then I think the show would have benefited from it also. Otherwise, that would be my only complaint so far.
My biggest gripes are around some big changes to the source material, but they mostly seem to work. Casting choices aside the characters are introduced as world weary cynics when they are supposed to be naieve country bumpkins entering the wider world for the first time. Several important characters are missing so far (I've seen 6 episodes), but it's possible they could show up in later seasons without too much issue.
Making the Mat character and outright criminal from a horrible family is maddening, and creating a wife for Perrin out of whole cloth solely form him to kill her in an accident just seems off. Though Perrin was incredibly emo in the books and I guess they needed a 'fast' way to make him that way. I was happy to see Loial the Ogier was included, but the changes to The Ways make him superflouous.
So far they haven't gone overboard on the SJW BS, and the biggest changes are mostly ok. Still I think the show would have benefited from more episodes and character deveopment versus actions sequences. 8 episodes for a 900 page book isn't enough, even when you cut out over half of the most important characters and an entire country.
“May have been the losing side. Still not convinced it was the wrong one.” -Malcom Reynolds
- Ancalagon
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I enjoyed The Matrix. The 2nd and 3rd movies did nothing for me. I think I'd get more out of Spongebob than the 2nd and 3rd films. Which leads me to The Matrix Resurrections. Haven't seen it. Have zero desire to see it. But The Critical Drinker did that for us. So here is Drinker's review: The Matrix Resurrections Should Never Have Been Made
Bloody fookin' hell that film sounds wretched!
Bloody fookin' hell that film sounds wretched!
“Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” - Carl Sagan
- Necron 99
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Hehe, totally called it.
Neo "yadda yadda yadda", AGAIN.
Neo "yadda yadda yadda", AGAIN.
Neo "yadda yadda yadda", AGAIN.
I liked that bit, that and the constant reference to "fake" Morphius and blue-haired "gender studies graduate".
Neo "yadda yadda yadda", AGAIN.
Neo "yadda yadda yadda", AGAIN.
Neo "yadda yadda yadda", AGAIN.
I liked that bit, that and the constant reference to "fake" Morphius and blue-haired "gender studies graduate".
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
- Necron 99
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Jen and I watched Ghostbusters: Afterlife last night, imo, it was awesome. The storyline was well written, there were lots of easter eggs, nods, and throwbacks to the original movie; overall, it was a great way to wrap up and bring the movie series to a close.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
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I have heard good things about him, and his charitable works, too.
Glad to hear that they’re real and nit urban legends!
Allan.
grodog
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Allan Grohe
Editor and Project Manager
https://www.facebook.com/BlackBladePublishing/
grodog@gmail.com
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html for my Greyhawk site
https://grodog.blogspot.com/ for my blog, From Kuroth's Quill
----
Allan Grohe
Editor and Project Manager
https://www.facebook.com/BlackBladePublishing/
grodog@gmail.com
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html for my Greyhawk site
https://grodog.blogspot.com/ for my blog, From Kuroth's Quill
- Necron 99
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I actually just read another article the other day about him.
According to The New York Post, Reeves made a total of $45 million USD for the global blockbuster, but decided to give away $31.5 million USD of that sum to fund leukemia research. At the time, the actor’s younger sister was fighting the disease and so the issue was close to his heart, but even after her recovery, Reeves continued his philanthropic work in the field, establishing a private fund back in the early 2000s for cancer research.
“I have a private foundation that’s been running for five or six years, and it helps aid a couple of children’s hospitals and cancer research,” Reeves told the Ladies Home Journal back in 2009. “I don’t like to attach my name to it, I just let the foundation do what it does.”
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien
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Heather and I enjoyed Matrix: Resurrections last night. In a first watch, it wasn’t as mind-bending as the original but there were definitely interesting layers of narrative going on.
Our boys didn’t see it last night, and I’m looking forward to seeing it a second time with them.
There was only a little political pandering going on in the film—far less than Disney’s offerings over the past few years.
Allan.
Our boys didn’t see it last night, and I’m looking forward to seeing it a second time with them.
There was only a little political pandering going on in the film—far less than Disney’s offerings over the past few years.
Allan.
grodog
----
Allan Grohe
Editor and Project Manager
https://www.facebook.com/BlackBladePublishing/
grodog@gmail.com
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html for my Greyhawk site
https://grodog.blogspot.com/ for my blog, From Kuroth's Quill
----
Allan Grohe
Editor and Project Manager
https://www.facebook.com/BlackBladePublishing/
grodog@gmail.com
http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html for my Greyhawk site
https://grodog.blogspot.com/ for my blog, From Kuroth's Quill
- Necron 99
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Good to know Allan, thanks for the feedback. I trust your judgement, may have to give it a go when it hits one of the streaming channels.grodog wrote: ↑January 10th, 2022, 9:18 am Heather and I enjoyed Matrix: Resurrections last night. In a first watch, it wasn’t as mind-bending as the original but there were definitely interesting layers of narrative going on.
Our boys didn’t see it last night, and I’m looking forward to seeing it a second time with them.
There was only a little political pandering going on in the film—far less than Disney’s offerings over the past few years.
Allan.
“He found himself wondering at times, especially in the autumn, about the wild lands, and strange visions of mountains that he had never seen came into his dreams.” - Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien