If you live in the US, The Lake House is playing at a theater near you!

V. and I have a date tonight to go see it.

Roger Ebert gave it a pretty good review. And here's some nice things said about Keanu's performance by Stephanie Zacharek over at Salon.com (daypass or subscription required).

" And if "The Lake House" has nothing else, at least it has Keanu Reeves. Bullock is perfectly serviceable here: Her performance has some gravity; she doesn't throw off the aura of desperate cuteness that sometimes dogs her. But Reeves is the soul of the movie -- he's not so much playing a character here as simply being a presence.

Reeves has the kind of casualness that people often confuse with "doing nothing." He's not an aggressive actor; what makes him so charming to watch, and so moving, is the way he keeps his emotions in check -- as if displaying them too baldly would be a way of disrespecting them. Reeves has some lovely moments here, many of them seemingly tossed off: When Kate (in one of the few scenes where the two characters speak to each other directly) explains why she so dearly loves Jane Austen's "Persuasion," he listens carefully, attentively, and then politely challenges Kate's devotion to a work in which a happy ending isn't guaranteed: "Why do you like that?" he asks, in a way that suggests he really wants to know the answer.

And in one of the picture's most beautifully shaped scenes, Alex looks at an old family picture and can't help breaking down. We live in an era when it's supposed to be OK for men to cry, but we feel uncomfortable when they actually do it. We want men to be open about their feelings -- but not too open. Reeves plays this particular moment as if Alex has revealed something of himself involuntarily. We feel as if we've intruded upon something private, a moment we weren't intended to see. Reeves isn't a splashy actor by nature; he thrives in negative space. But his slight reserve makes him more alive rather than less. Even when he's playing a dreamy romantic lead, he's never anything less than flesh and blood. "

I really like the aspect that the film is basically about a fantastic long-distance romance and am looking forward to vicariously reliving some of the feelings through Kate and Alex, with V. sitting beside me.

I expect he'll be getting some tonight.

Tell It To The Future.com is the long name for a nifty Lake House tie-in website that lets you send email to yourself - or someone else - IN THE FUTURE *insert theramin music here*...

You can make your message private or public, and you can browse through other people's public messages as well. It's pretty interesting to see what people are saying to themselves.

I've sent one, maybe you'll come across it.

Now, if there was only a way to send messages to THE PAST.

I'd like to tell a much younger me:

"Hey, how you think getting a tattoo there is gonna look in your wedding photos?"

Super Hi-Res version here at movieweb.com

It's a little bit romance, a little bit time-warp mystery.

The Lake House is set to open on June 16. Here's the synopsis from the Official Site:

Feeling that it's time for a change in her life, Dr. Kate Forester (SANDRA BULLOCK) leaves her suburban Illinois practice for a job at a busy Chicago hospital. One thing she is reluctant to leave behind, though, is the uniquely beautiful house she has been renting - a spacious and artfully designed refuge with large windows that overlook a placid lake. It's a place in which she felt her true self.

It is a winter morning in 2006.

On her way to the city, Kate leaves a note in the mailbox for lake house's next tenant, asking him to forward her mail and noting that the inexplicable painted paw prints he might notice by the front door were there when she moved in.

But when the next tenant arrives, he sees a much different picture. Alex Wyler (KEANU REEVES), a talented but frustrated architect working at a nearby construction site, finds the lake house badly neglected: dusty, dirty, overgrown with weeds. And no sign of paw prints anywhere.

The house has special meaning for Alex. In a happier time it was built by his estranged father (CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER), a renowned architect who let his professional acclaim grow at the expense of his family life. Alex feels a sense of peace here now and commits to restoring the property to its original beauty. He disregards Kate's note until, days later, while painting the weather-beaten jetty he sees a stray dog run across the fresh paint and then towards the entrance of the house, leaving paw prints exactly where she said they'd be.

Baffled, Alex writes back, saying that the house had no occupant before him and wondering how she could have known about the dog; while Kate, who just left it a week ago imagines he is playing some kind of joke on her and fires back a reply.

Just for argument's sake, what day is it there?

April 14, 2004.

No, she says. It's April 14, 2006.

The same day, two years apart.

Can this be happening?

As Kate and Alex continue to correspond through the lake house's mailbox they confirm that they are, incredibly, impossibly, living two years apart, and each at a time in their lives when they are struggling with past disappointments and trying to make a new start. Sharing this unusual bond, they reveal more of themselves to one another with each passing week - their secrets, their doubts and dreams, until they find themselves falling in love.

Determined to bridge the distance between them at last and unravel the mystery behind their extraordinary connection, they tempt fate by arranging to meet. But, by trying to join their two separate worlds, they could risk losing each other forever.

I'm taking that April 14th thing - which happens to be my birthday - as a personal shout-out, thankyouverymuch.

Here's the trailer if you haven't seen it yet...

I actually like the look of it a lot. It's lovely with just a little magicness.

Thanks to Jena for this scan from a recent In Touch mag. Seeing the two of them together really does make for the warm fuzzies....

As much as I adore Sandy Bullock, I've been pretty meh about the upcoming Lake House film. But I've finally taken a peek at some of the stills over at Club-Keanu and I have to say that visually it looks lovely. Here's hoping the story does well with americanization (the original Korean version was exquisite). The "solve a mystery" blurb in the clipping does not instill confidence.

Thanks to Ale for translating this interview with Il Mare director Alejandro Agresti:

INTERVIEW WITH ALEJANDRO AGRESTI
"I'm living a dream"

In Hollywood, the argentinean director confirmed that will start to film "Il Mare", with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock

-Pablo O. Scholz.

70 million dollars, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in the main roles, music composed especially by Prince, Warner Bros production. What more could Alejandro Agresti ask for?

"I'm living a dream", said in Los Angeles the director of Valentin, in a rest from the rehearsing he was having with The Matrix star. "We are in pre-production for "Il Mare" for two weeks now, and we are going to film it in Chicago", reason why he is traveling from a city to another, rehearsing with Reeves and Bullock in Hollywood and supervising the design production in Chicago. "The movie is based on a Korean production, Siworae, and deals with scheme of time and space. I changed some things, and now we are working together with David Auburn, Pulitzer Prize Winner, who co-signed the script.

Reeves will be an architect and Bullock a doctor when "in the original movie she worked making voices in movies and he in another thing, so now it's different", says Agresti. The ambient is different, it's so much more worked, being him (Reeves) a very famous architect, around Frank Lloyd Wright. "Visually it has much to do with Chicago, that it is a wonderful city."

The plot indicates that the characters lived in the same house with two years of difference, and for a strange reason "they share the mailbox of the house." In the beginning, she leaves the house "a very peculiar one, that we constructed on a lake. Suddenly he finds the letter, dated of 2005, when he is in 2003. First they think that it is a game, every day leaving a letter to each other, and they are approaching day after day, and what it seems illogical has it's own logic: you discover that they met once."

The idea to reunite Speed stars eleven years later was not deliberate. "No. I was meeting different actors. Bullock wanted to know me two months ago in New York, and accepted. And once I had Sandy, I met many actors until the day I met Keanu. He is such a fan of "Valentin", saw "Un mundo menos peor", both like the way I direct, and then I said to the studio: "I have both". "That they were both in Speed was a coincidence. In the beginning Warner worried if it was a good step or no." "It is not a comedy - he clarifies -, it's a romantic drama. One gives a touch of life and humor, but they are not comedy roles."

The rest of the cast is determined?
The only ones that are confirmed are they both (Sandra and Keanu). Another role goes to Jeremy Irons, the father of Keanu, and there are other three actors, who we are deciding.

The technical crew is a must. We have the director of photography David Tattersal (worked on the three episodes of Star Wars), the production designer is Nathan Crowley (from Batman Begins), the producer of the film is Doug Davison (the same one of Dark Water, the new Walter Salles movie). There would not be Argentineans in films. "it will be filmed in twelve weeks, beginning in march 14 in Maple Lake, 25 minutes of the center of Chicago. The predicted date of opening is the first trimester of 2006. I am finishing in 10 or 11 of June, and the edition I will do with Kevin Tent, the same one that works with Alexander Payne (Sideways) in Chicago edition offices while I film, and when we finish the running we will be transferred to a farm near San Francisco, property of George Lucas", he confesses.

The work rhythm, he says, is "maddening, by the tools we have. It is a very original film, you can say to everybody. It is very rare that a big studio turns it in one of its super productions. I have an enormous privilege, the power to work with so much freedom, that's what the studio is giving to me. This is industrial cinema, but a very good cinema is being made here ", trusts him. Agresti comments that he has a great contract "with Warner Bros. to produce and to direct my own films, that is like Alfonso Cuaron (last Harry Potter) signed with Warner". Agresti already had commented to Clarin that he was a friends with Alexander Payne. "I really like him very much, but he does not work for Warner. One that have his own producer within Warner, and I have the emotion of being able to relate to him, is Clint Eastwood. And a month ago I had the luck to seat to see with him the first copy of Million Dollar Baby ", says on the possible Oscar candidate.

He continues dreaming wide-awake. "After so many films, I believe that in the last years Hollywood offered things to me and I took them as I could. Here many directors were immigrants, from William Wyler to Billy Wilder. It is not easy to come and to make anything, the dream is that one, to be able to count with the tools and to make good cinema, good stories. I hope to be able to do it."

Agresti says that he does not have time "to feel strange". "Yes sometimes I think how beautiful would be to be able to share all this with my friends, but I always have my friends in mind and imagine them seeing the movie. Your work is not made only for you, you do it for the ones you love. "

Bullock back with Reeves for 'Il Mare'

By Liza Foreman for The Hollywood Reporter

Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves have signed on to star in "Il Mare" for Warner Bros. Pictures. The project will mark the first reteaming of the actors since their 1994 action thriller "Speed." A remake of the Korean feature "Siworae," which also has been known by the title "Il Mare," the romantic drama follows a lonely doctor (Bullock) who begins exchanging love letters with a frustrated architect (Reeves), but they then discover they are separated in time by two years. Based on a screenplay by David Auburn ("Proof"), "Il Mare" will be directed by Argentinean helmer Alejandro Agresti ("Valentin") and produced by Roy Lee and Doug Davison of Vertigo Entertainment. Erwin Stoff also will receive a production credit. The executive producer is Mary McLaglen. "Il Mare" is set to begin production in March in Chicago and will be released worldwide by Warner Bros. Pictures. Reeves has appeared in Warners' "The Matrix" trilogy and will be seen in the upcoming Warners release "Constantine." Bullock, another Warners mainstay, stars in the upcoming "Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous." Both actors are repped by CAA.

-thanks to M&POTD

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I love the idea of him working with Sandy B. again, I adore her.