MY FAVORTIE PLACE

December 20, 2003 -- Keanu Reeves
The Financial District - Downtown Manhattan

Neo fans, listen up! If you want to catch a glimpse of the "Matrix" star, Reeves says you should hang around "the streets of Wall Street at 4 in the morning - because that's the best time to ride my motorcycle." Reeves has a scar on his stomach from a bike wreck several years ago, but he still likes to tear up the city streets. "I can go really fast and my bike can be very loud because the place is deserted," he says. "I love driving around those empty, narrow streets through the canyons of the financial district, which only a few hours later will be jam-packed with people."

Neo or Aragorn as Superman?

And that's the Truth.

December 18, 2003 - IGN FilmForce has learned the latest on Truth, Justice & the American Way, Focus Features' long-planned biopic of the late Superman star George Reeves. The Allen Coulter-directed project is aiming to begin filming in Los Angeles this March or April. Location scouting, production design work, and casting are currently underway.

The oft-mentioned Benicio Del Toro is awaiting further script revisions before committing to play Lamar Moglio, the fictionalized private eye hired by Reeves' mother to investigate her son's curious death. If Del Toro passes then the role might go to Coulter's Sopranos star James Gandolfini.

Oscar-nominees Sharon Stone and Annette Benning are said to be in the running to portray Reeves' spurned lover Toni Mannix with The Ring's Naomi Watts as Lenore Lemmon, the thesp's younger squeeze ('scuse the pun).

And who might portray George Reeves? Hugh Jackman, Ben Affleck, and Dennis Quaid have all been approached for the part at different times. Now Keanu Reeves has met with Coulter about the lead. Should the Matrix star pass then Viggo Mortensen (Lord of the Rings) might be offered the role.

Keanu Digs Older Women

Tue, Dec 16, 2003, 12:12 PM PT

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Keanu Reeves apparently has a thing for older women named Diane/Dianne. Reeves, one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors, has yet to marry. He says, however, that he would have walked down the aisle if Dianne Wiest had accepted his proposal on the set of their 1989 film "Parenthood."

Reeves admits he fell hard for Wiest, 16 years his senior, in a big way when she was playing his mother-in-law in the comedy movie, according to London's Channel4.

"I got on my knees and proposed to Dianne Wiest. I was a kid. She was very nice. She laughed and she was very charming and she said, 'You can get off your knee,'" says Reeves.

Tippett Studios keeps effects special

Award-winning visual effects designer started early

By Alan Zibel, BUSINESS WRITER

BERKELEY -- As a kid, Craig Hayes was a big fan of monster movies. He also liked playing with Legos and Tinkertoys, took apart stereos and TV sets and monkeyed around with some of the earliest home computers on the market.

To Hayes, 40, his career designing visual effects for such films as "RoboCop," "Jurrasic Park," "Starship Troopers" and this fall's "The Matrix Revolutions" has been a logical outgrowth of those early interests.

"When you mix the Legos and the monster movies, you end up with this career," Hayes said in the offices of Tippett Studios, the Berkeley company where he is a co-founder and special effects supervisor.

Hayes got into the field of animation and special effects long before it was the full-blown industry it is today. He grew up in San Mateo but was more interested in work than formal education.

He began his career building miniatures and models and working on music videos. That was during the late 1970s, an era before the advent of MTV, when videos for local acts such as Jefferson Starship were aired on Bay Area television stations.

"You really learned a lot about how production worked," Hayes said. "You learned how to do a lot with no money."

Hayes enjoyed the pace of video production, in which crews would be assembled, work for several weeks, finish the job and then disband. He liked having periods of intense work as well as some time off.

"To me it was always analogous to putting a tent up ... doing a show,

then tearing the tent down and hitting the road," he said.

After a stint as a motorcycle messenger, Hayes worked in San Rafael as an industrial designer. Through a co-worker, he was hired in 1985 to design one of the principal robots in the 1987 film "RoboCop" and wound up joining a new animation and effects studio in Berkeley called Tippett Studio.

Phil Tippett, an animation guru who worked on the three "Star Wars" movies and won an Academy Award for "Return of the Jedi," had been hired to create the animated robot sequences in "RoboCop." In 1983, Tippett had left George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic to create a 10-minute experimental film about dinosaurs. That led to a dinosaur-themed television special on CBS two years later.

"RoboCop" was a low-budget movie, and the director, Paul Verhoeven, was unknown at the time in the United States. Verhoeven was "really sharp," Hayes said, an excellent but exacting teacher.

"If you mess up, he will absolutely whip you," Hayes said. "He puts so much effort in his pictures and has so much energy that you just really feel inspired to keep up the pace ... (and) be critical of yourself."

Hayes admits that, particularly in the science fiction, fantasy and horror genres that require lots of special effects, Hollywood produces a lot of "lousy" movies. But he says he has been fortunate to work on many films that turned out well.

A turning point in Hayes' career came when the Tippett Studios worked on 1993's Steven Spielberg film "Jurrasic Park." Originally, all of the dinosaur shots were supposed to be done with traditional stop-motion animation. But halfway through the production, Spielberg decided to do the animation digitally -- a novel process at the time.

Hayes was able to bridge the gap between the worlds of traditional and computer-generated animation by designing a device that used a computer to memorize motions made by puppets or models. For that, Hayes won a technical Academy Award.

Back when Jurassic Park was being made, the hardware and software needed to produce film-quality computer animation cost $80,000 per person -- equipment that now costs a few thousand dollars, Hayes said.

On this fall's third installment of the "Matrix" series, Hayes led a crew of 100 people that designed 149 digitally produced shots, mainly at the film's end. Those included entirely digital shots as well as shots with stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Ann Moss in the foreground. Another local company, Esc Entertainment of Alameda, designed computer graphics for both the second and third "Matrix" installments.

The work that Tippett Studios did for the Matrix was so complicated, it took 11/2 years to produce the elaborate set of tunnels and vast landscapes with hundreds or thousands of moving parts.

Jim Bloom, who is in charge of business development for Tippett Studio, calls Hayes "a brilliant, brilliant guy" and credits him with leading the studio into the digital era.

"The 'Matrix' stuff is pretty mind-blowing," Bloom said, saying that the level of complexity that Hayes produced for that movie "has never been done before or seen before. It's pretty stunning work."

While Hayes enjoys the creative aspects of his job and being able to visit places like Los Angeles, Spain, England and Australia, working on a movie does make it difficult to enjoy watching it, he said.

"You've seen the shots thousands of times," he said. "All the major twists and turns are already known to you ... You give up a certain amount of enjoyment of the picture."

He also says that many people don't understand the commitment and vast amount of time that goes into creating computer graphics for a major motion picture.

"The fact of the matter is, it is fun; but it's a different kind of fun," he said. "It's very hard work. It takes a lot of discipline and a lot of commitment to get that stuff up on the screen there."

Her Keaton heart

By Glenn Whipp
Film Writer

There's a great sequence in the new romantic comedy "Something's Gotta Give" where Diane Keaton weeps in one short scene after another. Keaton is playing a woman who, against her better judgment, has fallen in love with the cad (Jack Nicholson) who, only a few weeks earlier, had been dating her daughter. Things take a rough turn, which leads to the aforementioned sobbing, which, thanks to Keaton's deft touch, manages to be at once hilarious and poignant.

Although the trailers make it look like Nicholson's movie, "Something's Gotta Give" is really a showcase for the 57-year-old Keaton, one of the finest comic actors of our time. She was named best actress of the year Wednesday by the National Board of Review. What makes us want to start weeping is that Keaton so rarely gets to use those talents. Director Nancy Meyers even had to convince the folks over at Sony that Keaton was right for the role, giving them a crash course in a comic career that includes "Manhattan," "The First Wives Club" and an Oscar-winning turn in "Annie Hall."

"They just needed to be reminded of her brilliance," says Meyers, whose last film was the hit comedy "What Women Want." "Hopefully, after our film, everyone will be up to speed for a while."

We spoke to Keaton recently and found ourselves agreeing with co-star Nicholson's assessment that she is indeed "fascinating." Here she holds forth on hopping into bed with Jack, swapping spit with Keanu Reeves and the joys of being in a movie that shows you can be middle-age and still love life.

Q: You and Jack spend an awful lot of time in bed in this movie.

A: And it was spec-tac-u-lar.

Q: How long did you spend filming all those scenes?

A: Oh, a week, maybe two. Someone asked: What's it like being in bed with Jack Nicholson? I mean, are you kidding? Don't you want to be in bed with Jack? C'mon!

Q: I always thought more along the lines of sitting courtside at a Lakers game with him.

A: Yeah, well, that would be fun, too. But, I tell you, the best way to get to know someone is to spend a week or two with them in bed. We talked about everything - people we knew, former love affairs, you name it. Because the whole thing is so humiliating. It's embarrassing to sit there half-naked, kissing and, in the case of my character, confessing your love.

Q: And the whole time, you've got that - what did you call it? - "apparatus" covering your breasts ...

A: (Laughs) I love the apparatus idea because when you said that I immediately thought of something metal. (More laughter) No, thank God for the apparatus. I was glad to have it. But my breasts ... those things? Big deal, right?

Q: For a woman who wears turtlenecks all the time, you seem pretty cool with the movie's love scenes, not to mention that full-frontal nude shot.

A: I wanted to do that. There wasn't a question. I felt like I had to do it to be honorable to the movie. Look, the film is about middle-age love and this is a woman's body naked and this is a man's bottom just flailing about. Jack's making fun of himself. Why shouldn't I make fun of myself?

And it's just a joke. I mean the day of shooting, it was embarrassing, but it was very brief. Big deal, right? I feel very differently about my body these days. I'm just happy it functions. This whole cult of the perfect body stuff is insane.

Diane Keaton at the Westwood premiere of Paramount's What Women Want. (WireImage.com)

Q: What about the idea of a movie about a 50-something woman falling in love? I heard you had some doubts about doing that.

A: No, no, no. I was suuuuure about doing it. I knew that it was a fantastic, incredible opportunity to have fun and to do something in this genre - the romantic comedy - that I've been out of for a while. BUT there's always a conflict you have: Can I do it? I've been given this responsibility. Can I pull it off?

Q: Nancy Meyers said your first question after reading the script was: Who wants to see a movie about me falling in love? Do you have that much self-doubt?

A: I !ital!do!off! have that much self-doubt about myself, but you have to look beyond yourself and see that it's also a great opportunity to be vital and exciting and have a great time and fall in love in your mid-50s in a way that is wonderful and not a freak show.

This whole fear of age is just terrible. To have actually been chosen to play a part where you stress the fact that just because you're older, you're not dour and morbid and hideously lost in the repetition and the cycle of living your life without change ... it's fantastic. And it's rare, too. Best of all is the fact that the movie is funny. That makes it all the more fantastic for people to know (Keaton sighs) that you're still funny when you're old. You live and you continue on and you have the same feelings and life is just as exciting, if not more exciting.

Q: Did playing this woman who was so transformed by love inspire you to give the whole idea another spin?

A: Well, the great part about being in this movie is that the whole experience is so out of keeping with my life. And that made it all the more perfect. I got to play at being in love.

Q: You don't see any parallels then between yourself and the character you play?

A: She's different. In her life, she has never opened up at all. Her expectations were very different.

Q: And you've opened up?

A: Babe ... oh, babe! I've been there.

Q: Now I know where you found the inspiration for all those crying scenes.

A: Boy, I remember doing that. My god. That was a long haul and much more. There was a lot of it. More more more. There was never enough.

Q: A lot, huh?

A: (Laughs) Nancy likes to do a lot of takes. It was exhausting because I really had to cry. It's not just something where you could do the fake thing. Well ... you could. But I couldn't.

Q: So how did you cry that river?

A: I was just jamming music as loud as I could. I was really in love with Macy Gray and the "8 Mile" soundtrack. The music was just so pounding, but sad. It would get me crying every time. I played it over and over again, and it drove everybody insane. But I was the one who had to cry so they just had to put up with it.

Q: Jack isn't the only one you make out with in the movie. You also have some pretty passionate scenes with Keanu Reeves ...

A: Stop. (Laughs) Just stop. That was embarrassing. I mean, it was fun in the moment, but when you're done you just think, "This is absurd."

Q: He was very convincing in conveying his character's love for you.

A: He's a good actor, see? People underestimate Keanu.

Q: But maybe it wasn't all that hard for him to act that way ...

A: Oh shut up, man! (Laughing) You're making fun of me now and I know it!

Q: Not at all. Not at all. So, the lesson we've learned today is that love makes the world go around, and if it involves hopping into bed with Jack Nicholson or swapping spit with Keanu Reeves, so much the better.

A: Absolutely. I think love can be like that. Why not? Why can't it be? It's really all about a point of view, you know.

Keanu Reloaded

Six journalists are sitting in a hotel room in Sydney - waiting for The One. We wonder whether Keanu Reeves is going to be as elusive and elliptical with his answers as he has proven to be in the past. Like Neo, the Messianic character he plays in the Matrix trilogy, he is an enigmatic presence, even before he walks into the room.

And then the man appears, three-day stubble on his face, wearing a brown silk shirt and black jacket and pants. He is a living, walking vision in 3D, even if he says he is suffering from "transcontinental jet lag".

He has aged visibly since the first Matrix, but not in a negative way. In fact, age seems to become him, giving his once too-cute-to-be- true features a hewn elegance and his brown doe eyes a soulful, intelligent depth.

Indeed, there is a palpable centredness to him which is almost disarming. There is none of that infamous deflecting of questions, no defensive non-answers. One gets the sense that he is finally growing into his own skin, becoming more stable and wise. The awareness of time and mortality seems to hover over him. 'Will you ever do anything as physically ex- hausting as The Matrix again?" someone asks. "I don't know if you can," he replies wryly, before adding: "I don't know if I can." He continues: "I love gungfu And fake fights, so if there was a piece, I'd certainly go back and train again for it. But I'm getting up there. I might not be as agile a fighter, he says, acknowledging the march of time.

"I'm usually on the couch at parties. I'm not even standing, just sitting down and chilling out," he adds.

About turning 40 next year, he is suitably philosophical, even as he tries to make light of the thought. "If anything, it's an excuse for a party - I'm turning 40, I'm halfway there if I'm lucky, let's go dance! But it's weird growing old. I like getting older and mature and growing up. I like it a lot," he says, looking down momentarily. He has certainly done more than his fair share of growing up during the filming of the Matrix sequels The man wno once lived his entire life out of hotel rooms, has finally bought a house in the Hollywood Hills.

This signifies a laying down of roots, a nascent consent to stop running and be still, even though he is still ready to move at the drop of a hat for a worthy film project.

"I missed not being home for a year," he says of spending 270 days in Sydney to shoot Reloaded and Revolutions. "But at the same time, I got to be in an incredible city doing a job I love." He adds: "If there's a great project and they say, "We're gonna be in Sudan for 17 months", you go. When you get to do something that asks you to do those things, to be away from home or to do Take 87, it's cool that it asks more of you.

"It's not just leaving your house and going down the street. You get to see parts of the world, you learn about yourself and or other people or go on these journeys. Hopefully, I'll be able to take some more."

Up next are very different cinematic journeys for Reeves. His new film is a romantic comedy with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton called Something's Gotta Give. And characteristic of his willingness to take chances with young unproven directors, he has also done a supporting role in a small independent film, Thumbsucker, by video director Mike Mills. He has also just started shooting a supernatural drama called Constantine.

These films will, no doubt, be lapped up by fans and treated with scepticism by critics who have never quite accepted Reeves as a legitimate actor despite his brave choices and his marquee appeal.. But Reeves only wants to focus on the work. Does he ever think of his legacy? "It's certainly something I wasn't thinking about when I was 27. But some people do do that. Orson Welles seemed to have that consciousness. I think it's a beneficial thing to think about how you ultimately want to lead your life." he says.

Perhaps his legacy will be his integrity, his almost spiritual work ethic and his telling penchant for playing characters in search of truth -characters like Siddhartha in Little Buddha, Neo in the Matrix trilogy and, yes, even Ted "Theodore" Logan in the Bill And Ted series.

"Those were characters who were trying to realise the better parts of themselves," he says.

At the mention of Ted, he perks up visibly: "Ted 'Theodore' Logan had such a wonderful take on the world. To play someone who had that exuberance and love of life was really im- pactful," he says. It is certainly one of his most indelible roles, one that stereotyped him for ages as a vacantly photogenic uber-dude, a reputation that was only encouraged by critically panned turns in movies like Bram Stoker's Dracula and Much Ado About Nothing.

"It can be painful watching yourself again," he admits candidly.

"You get into shouldas and what-you-coul- das. Or maybe the editor or director made a choice you weren't happy with. You, wish that you were better in it.

"So you get a certain bit of that. But I'm also finding that as I get older, I can't do anything about it. So the way I feel about it now is kind of like an acceptance. And with that acceptance, you go, 'I wasn't so bad'."

Then, with a shrug, he sums up pithily what could be his motto, distilled to its purest essence. "What the f***. Hopefully it's still good - I tried."

'Something's Gotta Give' Tops U.S. Box Office

Dec. 14 — By Gail Fitzer-Schiller

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Love conquered all at the North American box office at the weekend as a middle-aged romance between Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton stole the hearts of moviegoers and lopped "The Last Samurai" from the top spot.

"Something's Gotta Give" earned a modest $17 million in its first three days since opening on Dec. 12, but it was a better-than-expected debut for the film, which co-stars Keanu Reeves, Frances McDormand and Amanda Peet.

"This opening is above expectations and a surprise number one," said Jeff Blake, president of worldwide marketing and distribution and vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a unit of Sony Corp. .

"I think most people believed the picture is terrific but they questioned whether an adult audience could open a picture right away," Blake said.

With its appeal to more mature moviegoers who might be preoccupied with holiday shopping, the film had been expected to take in $12 million to $16 million in its opening weekend.

Two other new releases made it into the top 10 at the box office this weekend. "Stuck on You," starring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear as conjoined twins who move to Hollywood, debuted at No. 3 with $10 million.

The film was released in North America by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group Inc. .

"It was a decent start for pre-Christmas. Our audience gets out of school in the next week or so, so it all bodes well," said Bruce Snyder, president of domestic distribution for Fox. He said Fox expected the film, targeted at moviegoers under 25, to fare much better during the upcoming Christmas break.

"Love Don't Cost a Thing," an urban remake of the popular 1987 movie "Can't Buy Me Love" starring Nick Cannon, came in at No. 4 with $6.5 million. It was released by Warner Bros. Pictures, a unit of Time Warner Inc .

"Something's Gotta Give" was the ninth film from Sony Pictures to open at number one this year, beating the previous record of eight number one films set by Warner Bros. in 2001, Blake said.

In the film, Nicholson stars as a perennial playboy who falls for Diane Keaton, the mother of his latest youthful infatuation.

Tom Cruise's "The Last Samurai," also released by Warner Bros. Pictures, dropped to No. 2 at the box office with $14 million. "The Haunted Mansion" starring Eddie Murphy and released by Walt Disney Pictures, a unit of Walt Disney Co ., dropped to No. 5 with $6.3 million in sales from No. 3 last week.

"Bad Santa," released by Miramax Films, also a unit of Walt Disney Co., maintained its No. 6 spot with $6.2 million. The hit comedy "Elf," released by New Line Cinema, a unit of Time Warner Inc ., dropped to No. 7 from No. 4 last week with $6.2 million.

"Elf" held the total top-grossing spot among the top 10 films with $147.7 million.

Ticket sales for the top 12 films totaled $83 million, a 7 percent decline from last weekend and an 8 percent drop from the year-ago period, according to box office tracking firm Exhibitor Relations.

But ticket sales are expected to get a boost this week with the Wednesday opening of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," the final installment of Peter Jackson's trilogy.

Nicholson romance proves US hit

The film stars Keaton as a woman involved in a love triangle
A film about middle-aged love starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton has topped the box office in North America.
Something's Gotta Give earned $17m (£9.74m) during its debut weekend and displaced Tom Cruise epic The Last Samurai from the top spot.

Stuck On You, a film about conjoined twins which stars Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear, opened at number three.

US box office returns are likely to be boosted with the Wednesday opening of the final Lord of the Rings movie.

Something's Gotta Give stars Keaton as a 55-year-old playwright involved with a 63-year-old womaniser (Nicholson) and a younger doctor (Keanu Reeves).

The Last Samurai, an epic drama set in 19th-Century Japan, took $14.5m (£9.06m) after taking more than $24m (£15m) in its first three days to top the chart, according to analysts Exhibitor Relations.

Top five North American films

1. Something's Gotta Give - $17m (£9.74m)
2. The Last Samurai - $14.5m (£9.06m)
3. Stuck On You - $10m (£6.25m)
4. Love Don't Cost a Thing - $6.5m (£4.06m)
5. The Haunted Mansion - $6.3m (£3.9m)

The box office figures were down by some 8% compared with the same time last year, but the release of the Lord of the Rings finale The Return of the King is expected to boost ticket sales.

"This past weekend was the calm before the storm," Exhibitor Relations president Paul Dergarabedian said. "Everybody's waiting for Return of the King and the onslaught of all the holiday movies coming after that."

A re-release of the second Lord of the Rings film, The Two Towers, took $700,000 (£437,000) last week to take its overall total to $340m (£212m).

FURNITURE FUSS FOR KEANU

KEANU REEVES has made a fortune from the MATRIX movies - but he still won't be conned into spending it badly.

The canny actor has recently invested in his first ever home, and was searching for furniture when he cam,e across a piece he liked. But despite his millions, Keanu refused to shell out on the exorbitant object.

The 39-year-old says, "I rented the furniture because I don't know what to put in it yet. I like modern stuff.

"I was working on (new film) SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE and we were filming in Paris and so I went looking for furniture to see what I liked.

"They have great places to look at modern furniture so I went into this one place and there was a book and I go, 'I like that.' It was a two seat little outside chair and I said, 'Do you have one of those? How much is it?'

"It was 240,000 Euros, which is about $280,000 (GBP164,000) - for a chair. It was a damn fine chair but it won't be in my house."