This week has been nine years and it’s only Wednesday. I am TIRED, I am OVER IT, I am mentally on my COUCH under a BLANKET, do not call me, I have thrown my phone into the SEA. And just when I think I cannot TAKE any MORE, lo, it is Keanu, with short hair, and a cozy hoodie. Keanu always knows! He knows when we need him most!
Really, he’s just working on that new movie with Jonah Hill, and was on set yesterday, sporting short hair and, yes, a cozy hoodie, though the effect is somewhat ruined by the jacket. I suppose cool guys don’t just wear hoodies, they must also have a cool jacket, to show that they’re cool guys. Cool guys can never be too cozy.
This movie is called Outcome, it’s directed by Hill and co-written by Hill and Ezra Woods. Keanu plays an actor named Reef Hawk who is a few years sober and forced to delve into his past to find a blackmailer. Hill plays his lawyer, called Ira Slitz. I actually think this premise is great and the names “Reef Hawk” and “Ira Slitz” are wrecking it. “Reef Hawk” and “Ira Slitz” belong in a Tim Robinson sketch. I’ve known too many writers who think coming up with a name like “Reef Hawk” makes them geniuses, when really, coming up with distractingly dumb sh-t names is so basic it’s something I do to procrastinate. Here’s a few from one of my garbage files I tinker with when I’m procrastinating:
Budgie Wooderson
Dallas Skymall
Tazer Hoot
Daisy LaFleur
Tivoli Tarantulla
McMaster MacMaster
Quinn Phinn
Obviously, this a gang of high-stakes international jewel thieves, and Tivoli Tarantulla is constantly correcting the pronunciation of his name (it’s TaranTOOLhah).
Anyway, coming up with a name like “Reef Hawk” is the sort of thing you do as a laugh when you’re killing time, you don’t actually use it because it’s too cute, the audience/reader will hear it and instantly think, That’s too cute. Unless the point is to solicit that reaction, and then, well. We have an entirely different problem, because now we’re wading into insufferable waters. Which means—I will watch Outcome for Keanu Reeves, but now I’m suspicious of Jonah Hill and Ezra Woods’s writing.
